Back to School

Princess and I are back in showmanship classes, preparing for the spring and summer show season. Our first show this year will be the Siberian Specialty in Cleveland in April. Keeping to one show a month, the next will be Kingsport Tennessee in May. She so loves the attention!

I've also decided to go for my AKC certs to show Siberians, and may do that for other folks on weekends I'm not showing Princess. We'll have to see how that pans out. I'll be talking to some other professional handlers to see how they normally operate.

Princess is sleeping in her crate, as Freya was whelping pups and she just had to be in the room with me. One more week and she'll be out of heat, and our home will return to a slight semblance of peace if not normality. With 4 pups just opening their eyes and beginning to walk unsteadily on all fours, it will be anything but normal. I'll probably be moving them to the kitchen by the end of the week.

They are growing so fast! This litter seems to be growing even faster than the last one. They are already developing distinct personalities, and I can tell at least two of them are going to be a bit headstrong. It will be interesting to see which becomes dominant.

Bandit has been doing well, and even though the meds have not had enough time to build up to a theraputic level in his bloodstream, he has not had a seizure since Monday morning. It is still a bit early to get our hopes up though. I think we are fortunate that our pack is so well adjusted and taught non-aggression. None of the dogs have been aggressive towards him when he's gone into seizure, in fact just the opposite, they were trying to lick him even though I had to shoo them away. Reading about other people's seizure dogs, I think we've been very fortunate in this respect. It could have been very terrible otherwise.

The only side effect so far has been that Bandit has gone into libido overdrive. With two girls in heat (Ace finally went in to full heat at 16 months, which is a relief to us that she was simply a late bloomer), he has become nearly frenzied in his attempts to mate them. Fortunately the new door-gate has stood up to his 70 lbs of muscle and determination. Yay for rennovations. He's normally such a good boy, very gentle and loving. He still is, but his mating frenzy is rough on all of us. He's not so bad when I'm in the room with him, but I can't stay there all day, and he has to go out as well.

Change-over from girls to boys confinement is a challenge as he attempts to grab and mount (no more courtship for him!) as soon as a girl is in reach. Poor Ace had to be rescued from his grip twice. He's a big boy and very determined. Good thing I'm more hard headed and twice as big as he is. In a couple more weeks we will take him to the vet to have his pb level checked, and I'll ask them about detox herbs that others have used to help keep the liver and kidneys from toxic buildup from pb.