Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Monty Update and Food

Monty is settling into the household. He has a new nickname courtesy of John. John feels dogs with short names should have longer nicknames and dogs with long names need shorter nicknames. Without further ado, I present Monty’s current nickname…. Montgomery Clift.

In my house, Monty is called Montgomery Clift on a decidedly regular basis by John. For those who lack a complete internalized pop culture lexicon (like me….Montgomery who?) check out his biography on IMDB.

The in-laws are also luvin’ themselves some Monty. They keep saying that Monty is “as good as gold.” This is because Evil-Joey is quite a jerk to Monty and Monty just ignores him! When Joey becomes too obnoxious Monty aroos at him!

I was a bit worried about the birds, because Monty does have a pretty high prey drive. I didn’t take them out until Sunday (I think) and it was very successful. Monty was a bit over-interested, but when I told him to leave it he went back to chewing a nylabone. The birds still view him as a threat, or at least the Deej does. She spreads her wings and hisses "I’m a vicious snake. Beware!!" I have tried explaining to her that doing that just makes most normal dogs MORE interested, but she doesn’t believe me! None-the-less even with DJ’s snake impersonation, Monty has been great about them (KNOCK ON WOOD!). I have been able to have them hang out on me for scritches and are keeping them closely monitored.

Ike can take or leave Monty. He is much more comfortable with Monty than any other houseguest. I think this is because Monty is not an in-your-face dog. The other night at the park he was willing to chase after toys with Monty, which is huge.

Today we went to the Bradley Estate in Canton (over by Rt 93 and Blue Hills). I dropped the dogs leashes and let the boys run through the woods. They had a blast and I was really pleased to see Ike running to catch up with Mont, and the two of them galloping along more-or-less together. They also checked in with me a lot. Good doggies!

I have been working on down with Monty. Carmen does not have a solid down either, so this is a good skill to work on while we are on break from classes for ALL the dogs. (Ike needs to get comfortable downing on the table.) I think I screwed Ike’s down up when I was teaching him “front.” I would use a down-sweeping motion to indicate closer, so now when I ask Ike to down his immediate response is to sit and get as close as possible to me. I think I need to work on using only the verbal cue with Ike because he is confident about that and then teach him a new hand signal.

I am happy to say between the step-stool work, walks, and chiropractor that Ike’s hind end has muscle tone once again. Phew!

I almost forgot to mention that I switched Carmen and Evil-Joey to Pinnacle Trout and Sweet Potato kibble, made by Breeder's Choice, last Wednesday (they have three options, two have NO chicken). The kibble eating dogs were almost out of the Nature’s Variety Lamb Meal and that is the only NV kibble that doesn't have chicken in it. DRAT!! I had to make an on-the-fly decision at Coolen's about food! My other top contender was Orijen, which is grain free. Since Ike has done so well with a little bit of grain re-introduced into his diet I did not want to go grain-free right now. I wish I could just convince the in-laws to go raw. : (

I have fed Pinnacle before and was happy with it. It does not have a giant ingredient list, and it is lower calorie than the NV. This is good for Evil-Joey because he is a pet and for Carmen because I would still like her to lose a pound.

The unexpected benefit of the food change is that Evil-Joey's gooky eyes are remarkably clearer. He used to be fed some crap food and his eyes were in AWFUL shape, weeping all the time and he had chronic ear infections. When I switched him to NV he stopped having ear infections and his eyes got somewhat better. I was resigned to the fact that Yorkies just have icky eyes when about 4 days after the switch to Pinnacle I noticed that his eyes were much cleaner. Hooray!! He obviously was allergic to something in the crap food and the NV. No idea what since both have such extensive lists of ingredients, but I am happy with the results!

5 comments:

Cat, Tessie, & Strata said...

Hooray! :)

I bet Monty says you should get on the corgi breeder's waitlist for "older Corgis with performance potential". ;)

Jules said...

Hee, hee...I think you are right! I know Ike is thinking, well, if one of these house guests have got to stay a corgi wouldn't be bad.

Shelly said...

MONTY IS A GOOD BOY!!

ann-and-partner said...

"Evil-Joey's gooky eyes" "ear infections"....wouldn't everyone want a pet like this???

Jules said...

hee, hee...I know I make him sound truly awful! It is amazing what a change in food can do though!