Levi's Big Surgery

Today Levi had his neuter surgery.  I dropped him off this morning at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital (or the VMTH as we students call it).  The surgery went great and he was ready to pick up later in the afternoon.  The 4th year student said he did great and that lots of people fell in love with him while he was there - always the charmer.  On our way home we stopped at Petco to buy some post-surgery presents :-).

When we got home I gave him his presents which he was happy about but much subdued from what his normal reaction would have been to new toys. 

 

 He seems pretty uncomfortable and painful, whimpering and laying down and getting up a lot.  He really wants to be close to me and tries to lay on my lap or up against me.  I've been sitting with him and watching to make sure he doesn't try to lick the incision so that way he doesn't have to wear the cone for now.

 

I have to keep him mellow for 7 days to allow for his incision to heal.  That could be an interesting challenge.  It's so sad to see him painful and whining and I can't really do anything for him but sit here and pet him.  I gave him his evening's dose of pain killers so hopefully that will help him feel a little better.

Here are a couple videos I took, one of him playing with one of his new toys and the other of his sad whimpering.

Levi's Last Day of "Manhood"

Tomorrow Levi has an appointment for the big "N" (neuter that is).  Poor boy doesn't know what's about to hit him.  I wanted to take him out for a fun adventure before the big day and I only had one class today, so a friend and I took our dogs to this trail along the American River in Sacramento that I had read about online.

Levi first got to do some swimming and fetching his bumper in the river.  He loves the water, and this was such an easy access point so I'll definitely be taking him back a lot this summer to swim. I only had my phone with my for picture taking so sorry this is all I got for the trip.

 

It was a really nice walk, partly on a paved trail and part on a gravel levy road.  The only downside to the whole trip was that it was raining the entire time.  Just our luck! The whole trail was supposed to go for 12 miles (6 each way), but we stopped short of that when we were soaked and the dogs looked like they had had sufficient fun for the day.  I'd love to try it again in the sun sometime.

(Sorry for not having any good pictures to share, I wasn't going to risk taking my camera with me while it was raining.)

Puppy Party!

Last Saturday we went to a party to celebrate the 1-year birthday of Levi's litter along with the 3-year-old birthday of his half-siblings.  All of Levi's litter were there along with two of his half brothers from Sport's first litter.  It was at Tony La Russa's Animal Rescue Foundation in Walnut Creek in a big grassy outdoor training field complete with agility equipment and a little wading pool.  The dogs had a blast playing and chasing each other.  Levi was obsessed with his sisters and hardly played with the boys at all, he just wanted to chase the girls around. 

Chelsea and Levi

A pool full of puppies

Me and Levi

We played a bunch of fun games, some of which Levi was really bad at (bobbing for hot dogs) and some he was really good at (ring around the puppy).  It was nice getting to see all of the other puppy owners again and to meet a few that I hadn't met yet.  I wish we could all get together more often but I can't imagine how hard that would be to try to organize every time.

Corina and Jackson (Levi's half-brother) demonstrating canine freestyle dance.

Ring-around-the-puppies

Kevin w/Jamie and Don w/Thistle going head to head in the egg-race championship

We got to play with some of the agility equipment too and watch the seasoned pros like Sport, Jackson, and River show the younger guys how it is done.

Momma Sport and Christine demonstrating the A-frame

Thistle showing everyone that he can do everything the older dogs can do.

Levi going over a couple jumps to the tunnel.

Levi

Half-brother River

Half-brother Jackson strutting his stuff on the dog walk

It was such a fun day, and I loved watching how much fun all the dogs had while playing. 

Happy Birthday to the Artisan Beer Litter and the Famous Jingles Litter!

Welcome Home ChaCha!!!

Some of you may remember ChaCha, the dog that my roommate Alicia takes care, from previous blog posts. 

Well Alicia decided she loved ChaCha too much to let her go when she went up for adoption at the end of the school-year and she decided to adopt her!  Today was ChaCha's last "working" day at school so when we were done using her in lab at 5pm she became officially "retired" and got to come home with us for good.  No more having to live in the stressful dog kennel at school anymore.  Now it's on to a life of comfort with plenty of spoiling and love.

While they are owned by the school they have a very strict food/treat protocol and are only allowed to eat two specific types of treats (neither of which is very exciting/high value for a dog).  It supposedly started after the pet food recalls a few years when they became more worried that if the dogs' walkers were giving them all sorts of different foods they wouldn't know what they had ingested if they became ill for some reason.  Well it's pretty impossible to do much training with the two boring treats they were allowed to use so Alicia and many of the other dog's walkers would give their dogs "contraband" and feed them yummy unapproved treats.  Alicia made sure to do it rarely and only with trusted human foods like hot dogs or cheese.  Now that ChaCha is a free dog she can have all the contraband she wants!  In fact, next Friday she is even having a welcome home/contraband party where guests can all bring her some of their pet's favorite treats for her to try.  Levi has already given her a little sampler pack from his large variety of tasty treats.  He's so excited that his girlfriend has moved in for good and can't wait for all the fun play time they will have together.