Twins

Do you remember the movie Twins with Arnold  Schwarzenegger and Danny Divito? Well, we have a retake of that show right in our back yard. Twins separated at birth, ultimately finding each other later in life. One raised in Kingston Ontario and the other on a tropical island somewhere in Quebec. Reunited in sunny Ottawa after a harrowing cross country trek. 

   As in the movie there is no doubt that these are not identical twins although the resemblance is uncanny. Strength of character as opposed to physical strength; it is difficult to tell the two appart. Inséparable since their reunion both are an ever present cataclysm in our lives. Unless they are asleep, which thank goodness is often there is a constant whirlwind of activity in whatever space they are occupying. 

  Watching from afar it appears the two have been best friends forever. Close up their friendship becomes clearly obvious. 

   Luna Kaldaun’s Bellatrix and LittleStar’s Molly Dream our very own dynamic duo. 

Whiney Crying Wolfhounds

    When i first saw a wolfhound i had visions of the show "Game of Thrones". Those monster dogs inspired fear in the toughest of men. Burning red eyes, steam coming from their mouths, savage teeth designed for rending flesh. This was a dog that could stand up to anything and force it to back down. The dog that makes you feel secure at night knowing it is downstairs guarding the house while you sleep.

    Well that couldn’t be farther from the truth. In the event of a break-in I suspect Luna would meet a stranger at the door and demand a belly rub before she let them proceed. These somewhat large fierce looking dogs are actually big babies in disguise. The greatest danger posed by our Luna is being stepped on and if you are short of stature there is a possibility of being crushed when she affectionately leans on you.

    To compound this extreme friendliness, for the last two weeks Luna has decided to add spontaneous whining to her daily ritual. Any time Luna was not the centre of attention she would quietly start baying, incrementally increasing the volume until a human came and gave her a belly rub or any attention at all. We  became concerned to the point that we called our breeder to make sure that this behaviour was not a sign of some odd wolfhound illness. To our relief we were informed it was likely due to heightened hormone levels from her last heat. Whooo, what a relief. 

    A odd side effect of the whining has been the Luna hunger strike. Luna has decided that eating is optional. We have now tried her on every thing a dog my like (Beef, liver, chicken even her original kibble). Each meal is a struggle to get her to consume enough to keep her healthy. She did seem to like a turkey neck but the second time we gave her one she looked at it like poison. 

   Luckily this weekend we went back to normal, eating, no more whining our regular old Luna is back.

   

Luna's Back

    After a long hiatus I am continuing Luna’s blog. I’m sure that her injury strongly influenced my desire to write (or rather not write). More bad news to go with Luna’s injury was the recent passing of our long time furry friend Pixie. She was with us for almost twelve years and succumbed to old age this summer. Like for most people the loss of a beloved pet was hard on us. Luna was also affected, regularly passing through the living room and checking all of Pixie’s favourite places. 

    At the end of August Luna received a new pack mate in the form of a Yorkshire Terrier named “Littlestar's Molly Dream” or Molly for short. As per wolfhound doctrine Luna has shed her puppy craziness and settled down to a life of quiet solitude. Typical Wolfhound behaviour consists of hanging around wherever the humans are in a totally relaxed manner. Enter twelve week old Molly. There is only one speed for an absolutely fearless Terrier. The Flash would have difficulty keeping up! To date Molly has demonstrated the ability to fly, disappear and seemingly levitate. 

    Luna has stoically accepted the new member of the family. Regardless of harassment, biting, barking and apparent boundless energy Luna remains calm. Every once in a while the inner play comes out in her and humans have to intervene to ensure Molly isn’t accidentally flattened.

    Now with her newly healed foreleg Luna is back on track for show training. On Tuesday evenings she participates at the dog ranch and by all accounts is improving weekly. In April we will put it to the test at the Champlain Dog Club in Petawawa. We finally received Molly’s papers so now she too has started show training. Although everything is completely new to her and she can be distracted by a blowing leaf, she is also showing signs of greatness.

Well thats my update for now more to follow next week.

    

    

Writing And Why

Not a lot of change with our Luna. Still on her restricted exercise and the sore on her leg hasn't changed. I keep thinking its looking better but i think I'm deceiving myself. 

Last week I took the A+ Eritting course at thé University of Ottawa. The professor is a brilliant woman, Melanie Sexton. 

To make up for the lack of Luna activity I will upload my storie from the class. Luna gets an honourable mention. The short story was titled "Where I Sit".

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The couch: the last stop of the day before we go to bed. The signal that everything is finished and we can put up our feet. IPad, laptop, headphones and tea cup are close at hand. Now, cherished time for ourselves.  Up go the feet, thankfully the old recliner is still working. All our worries temporarily slip away. 

  This old somewhat faded and lumpy couch that has seen the bottom everyone in the family is now mine alone. Or I thought it would be mine. Until, yes the dog has decided that this couch should now be hers. One hundred and thirty pounds of Wolfhound that slowly wiggles its way onto my couch. Is it me she wants to be close to or is it just the couch? Something tells me, to her, the soft lumps we are sitting on are more appealing than my undivided attention. 

   This couch has seen it all. Spills, stains, a lifetime of living and its threadbare upholstery continues to provide good service. This is where I sit.

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And some Luna and Pixie pictures. One antler and two sets of teeth.

Luna really wants her antler back.

Cone of Shame

Have you ever seen the pet protective collar for a wolfhound? No! Well if you closed off the small end and added a stick in the middle you would be able to use it as an umbrella. 
   Now that Luna has a sore on her leg we have to put it on her when she is alone in her enclosure. Actually, the collar is so big that Luna doesn't fit through the door of her pen with it on. At first she resisted us so strenuously when putting it on that we thought it would do her more harm than good. Now it still takes both of us to get it on her, but she has settled down enough so that it doesn't feel like a rodeo event.
   Luna has quickly learned a new word "cone". When hearing it she either heads for the couch or tries to make herself as small as possible

in her pen. This is ridiculous of course as there is no such thing as a small wolfhound.

Disaster plus four

It has been four weeks now since Luna's accident. With the exception of a limp that she just started showing she is back to her old self. The girl has to stay on her leash all the time or she would probably break both legs. We get her a new set of toys weekly so that she is distracted and has a bit of fun. The new snake we got her has actually managed to survive an entire day. Maybe this is a sign that the wallet drain will finally stop. Somehow though I doubt it. 

  This weekend we celebrated a birthday, Sue gained another year. Both Luna and Sue were completely surprised when Tiffany joined the pack for the weekend. A surprise visit and a surprise diner. Fun was had by all.

   Luna has now developed a sore on her leg that is resisting all our efforts to heal it. After great stress and what felt like a MMA fight we got the cone of shame on Luna so she couldn't get at her leg any longer. This seems to be helping but it is a slow process.

The Excercise Yard

After the first week of convalescence Luna is starting to get cabin fever. Being restricted to the back yard on a leash has her looking at me with a lopsided grin. Whenever I prepare her to go out in the yard I can actually hear her thinking “REALLY”. We have beaten down a circular path around the yard that restricts her over-exuberant activity level to a slow walk. Safety does not enter the mind of the typical wolfhound to the chagrin of Sue and I. She is completely oblivious to her recent injury. It looks like a part in the movie "Shawshank Redemption” myself or Sue as one of the bulls (guard) and Luna at the end of her tether pacing the yard.

   On a brighter note the girl had her stitches out today. (you may notice my jump into the future). All is well, no sign of infection and her temperature was normal. Of course she was the centre of attention again, even though there was a two legged dog at the vet. One gentleman came up and asked who was breading Dire Hounds in the area. Fans of “Game of Thrones” may recognize this reference to the giant hounds of that series.

 Tethered Luna in her exercise yard. Based on the online picture of a DireHound (which looks more like a wolf then a Wolf Hound) there is no chance that Luna can look like that.
I have never seen her with that shade of red nn her eyes.  

Convalescing Wolfhounds

It seems that the veterinary technicians think that we can do magic. For some reason they think we can put this around this. Something tells me she doesn't know Luna well enough. The purpose of this magic was to keep said wolfhound from self extracting her sutures. Poor Luna has already forgotten about the tragedy of Monday. If it wasn’t for the medication she would be running and jumping around the house like normal. Leash walking in the back yard is not an acceptable method of exercise as far as Luna is concerned. We have also tried various methods to keep Luna from pulling out her stitches or lick her scar. 

    There is a great deal of sleeping going on (thank goodness). Maybe the extra rest will help heal that leg a little faster. Finally Luna is back to eating like normal. Since she came back we restricted her to a lighter diet. Luna’s stomach was not up to a full meal after the surgery. And we had several late night visits to her pen to change her bedding. No need to ask why. The laundry machine has been working overtime.

Disaster Strikes in the Park

Last Monday in our local park while on her daily after work walk Luna fell on the ice  and broke her right front leg. Although I was in panic mode, through a combination of limping on her part and carrying on mine we managed to make it back to the road. I was able to flag down a passing car and the wonderful good samaritan on seeing the damage to Luna drove us directly to the Orlean’s Veterinary Hospital. He was actually a friend of one of the vets and was able to call ahead to the hospital so that they were prepared for our arrival. The staff immediately noticed I was in distress and they took charge and got Luna under control. In no time Luna was stable and no linger in pain. I can’t thank everyone involved enough. 

Luna was transferred to the AltaVista Animal Hospital for emergency surgery. There again the staff treated us like gold and we are extremely grateful. Luna came back home to us on Wednesday and has been convalescing ever since. Her appetite is good and she walks around the backyard without any apparent discomfort. We have are fingers crossed that everything proceeds as planned and Luna gets back to being the puppy she was.

Thanks everyone involved.

Toys Trees etc

Our furniture is thankful for the many stuffed animals we have (had). Also our furniture appreciates the bushes, shrubs and trees in the back yard. As these other obvious targets for Luna's teeth have managed the keep said furniture more or less intact. Now that Luna has grown to a respectable 116 lbs it seems that most of that weight has materialized as muscles in her neck and jaws. From the looks of our family room these muscles need frequent regular exercise. Sue and I are also getting extra exercise; the required two times a day vacuuming is keeping us in great shape. We look forward to the day that the little girl out grows this phase.

 As anyone can tell, big head, big teeth result in many stuffed toys reduced to confetti.

Snow dog or goat??????

  

 I recently mentioned that Luna and wolfhounds in general may have had some arctic dog breeds mixed in without anyone being aware. Now it is starting to look like goats may also be a strong possibility. This occurs to me because I recently heard that someone was looking for recycled Christmas trees to feed their goats. Although our backyard is under a meter of snow it hasn't stopped Luna from trimming down every bush, plant or tree she can find. Literally if anything is sticking up out of the snow Luna will pull it out the rest of the way or dig it up. If anyone has a Christmas tree left over just throw it over our fence. 

   We had an interesting snow shoe event with Luna last week. It was her first time out with us on snow shoes. It took her several hundred meters to realize that snow shoes were not edible. And for us the humour didn't stop because for some reason a 40 lbs paw regularly seemed to be on the back of one or the other snow shoe. Looking forward to our

the next snowy outing. 

What happens when you take a Wolfhound snowshoeing!

Christmas with Luna and the Start of a new year

Elora Gorge Kennel Club Show

      Let’s start before Christmas. Luna looking like a million bucks went to Kitchener to compete in the Elora Gorge Kennel Club show at Bingeman's Convention Centreon the 27^th and 28^th of December. She was outstanding. On the first day there was no competition for here so she received the usual show up ribbons.  On the second day however she got the “Winners Bitch” ribbon. She should have gone farther (my opinion) but the judges selected the large males for breed and small breeds for group. Several knowledgeable people at the show commented on her outstanding bearing and mentioned that only her obvious juvenile appearance held her back. This inspires us to double our efforts with her. I am sure there are great things ahead for her. Mostly I am happy by how calm she is and how she appears to really enjoy the attention she receives at the shows.

While in Kitchener we dropped by Ren’s again and bought Luna new toys. Toy's are becoming somewhat of an expense nowadays. All soft toys are now destroyed within minutes of being seen for the first time. Making this more expensive id Luna's complete lack of interest in hard toys.