Feb 10
Gone Fishing...
When we first picked up Monty from the shelter we had no clue how challenging it would be to find the right foods for him. I had assumed that any bag of dog food from Costco or Walmart would work. We answered and researched almost everything else - where should he sleep? How do we get him in the crate? How do u walk him? Etc. Little did we know that finding the right pet food would be so critical. First we started with Royal Canin for ...medium...breed. Why medium breed for our small dog? Yeah, we had the same question but bought it anyway because the lady at the shelter sounded so confident when she told us.
We noticed right away that he didn't like his food but we thought he was being picky until i started research more and found out bichons have problems with Royal Canin. We thought our problems were solved when the vet gave us Iams to try and Monty actually ate a handful. A few days later, our happiness turned into despair when it was finally time to take off Monty's cone. First thing he did was scratch his face with vigor. It was so funny! We even took videos. He was scratching so hard, you could hear his paw hitting his face but we let him be. Ten minutes later, *poof* swollen face from over scratching - a trait very common to bichons I soon found out.
If they get a hot spot, they will scratch until they break skin. Monty went from scratching his face to paws legs belly chest all over and it was constant. We just couldn't take it anymore and topical remedies were just not working. Believe me when I say I've read everything I could online. After a while I finally concluded that the Iams diet was to blame and our Veterinarian was wrong. Iams contained by products (beaks, brains, & nails not suitable for human consumption from diseased and dead animals) wheat, soy, beets, and common allergens.
When I finally found a website educating me on these ingredients I felt absolutely terrible. We did the best we could to supplement his diet. With so many options out there, I chose the lost obvious one - fish oil. First, I was going to buy regular fish oil from the vitamins aisle for humans but the ingredients were too full of preservatives. Second, I tried to find oily mackerel in a can but didn't have any luck with that. Finally, I walked over to the pet aisle. Don't ask me why I didn't look there first. Maybe I thought human grade supplements were better.
I eventually found a bottle of oil for skin and coat. After a week of adding it to his food we saw a little improvement! He was still scratching but it wasn't as often. IT's such a relief. The best news of this adventure was flying all the way to Seattle and finding a giant wall of food samples at Mudbay. Score! The lady there introduced us to Avoderm and Premium Edge. Monty loved all the samples and we couldn't be happier. In the end we chose premium edge with salmon and veggies for him. It had all the oils that he needed and no fillers that could irritate his skin.
Currently he's been on it for a week and were slowly seeing improvement. Now if we can only get him to stop walking in front of us...
(Jade's Writing - Steve posting until Jade figures out how to use Posterous)
Jan 19
New Weekday "Big Boy" Schedule
Monty needs to get on a new schedule -- one that will require less attention from us throughout the day. We call it the "Big Boy" schedule. Currently, since Steve is available to walk him in the afternoon, Monty gets one additional walk around 1-2pm. But, we will need transition him so that it will require us to walk/feed him in the mornings and in the evening when we get home. That means he'll need to get used to his crate quickly and enjoy it. We don't quite him enough to wander around the home.
Weekday "Big Boy" Schedule
- 7:45am: Quick Walk - 5 minutes (Potty)
- 7:50am: Food - 20 minutes
- 8:30am: Walk - 15 minutes (Potty)
- 8:45am: Crate- 4.5 hours
- 1:15pm: Freedom around the house - 30-45 minutes
- 2:00pm: Crate - 4 hours
- 6:00pm: Quick Walk - 10 minutes (Potty)
- 6:15pm: Food - 20 minutes
- 7:00pm: Long Walk (30-45 minutes)
- 10:30pm: Short Walk - 15 minutes (Potty)
As Monty gets accustom to this schedule, we'll remove the middle-of-the-day 30-45 minute freedom around the house period.
Jan 18
Daycare
We'll have to backtrack to fill in the details of the events prior to today, but I didn't want to delay this blog anymore.
Today was Monty's first day at Doggy Daycare. We chose Downtown Dogs, Inc. service since we have some familiarity with their staff and location. We needed to put Monty in daycare because it's a prerequisite to putting him for Doggy Hotel later on the week while we head up to Seattle & Vancouver for a quick weekend trip.
We were a little concerned about Monty this morning -- Monty didn't poop for the past 24 hours despite having his regular meals. But, we were confident enough that DDI staff would take care of our little Monty. So we dropped him off at 7:06am.
More later...
Filed under //
daycare
