Pooka 1, Car Safety 0

I've toyed with the idea of  buying Pooka some sort of car/seatbelt harness for a while now. Especially after the accident, I'm thinking, an ounce of prevention could save me the next $7,000 in vet bills. 

So, after poking around online for reviews, I measured Miss P.'s girth and ordered one, $25, free shipping. It arrived. I slipped it over Pooka's head, then pulled her paws through one by one. So far, so good. When I buckled her in, she glared at me, but stayed still en route to the lake, standing and staring out the window. 

When it came time to get back into the harness after a long walk around the lake, she turned her head, clearly a cool "no thank you" gesture. I had to work a little harder to get her into it -- and even harder still to convince her to hop back into the car. When she did, she immediately cowered on the far side of the back seat. I had to climb in and wrestle around to get seat belt looped through strap and buckled again. 

Not half a mile from the parking lot, I hear a whole lot of scuffling coming from the back seat. Little Pooka "Houdini" M. had wriggled out of the darn thing. And what's more, a terrible, terrible smell begins to emanate from the back seat, too. Appears her contortions prompted a little glandular expression. I'm interpreting that as a pup's equivalent of flipping me off.

Now what?

Short: Discovery Park's allure

Pooka could spend an entire hour sniff sniff sniffing through the grassy field of Discovery Park's south bluff. She hounds along until she finds an interesting scent, then:

Pause.

Sniff.

SNIFFSNIFFSNIFF.

(Ears up, pounces nose first into tuft of tall grass.)

Pause. Sniff.

(Pulls head up dramatically. Sniffs. Repeat.)

Must be the bunnies.

Ew.

So Pooka and I just wandered down to the schoolyard with the hope that she'd find someone other than me to wrestle with.

The field was emtpy. But wait! A nice-looking man in nice-looking clothes with his nice-looking black lab waltzed in. Hello, Maestro.

It went downhill fast. He is one of those "show your dominance" dads, and I bet you can guess how well that goes over with Pooka. She barked, growled, threw her hackles up, and dodged his overly stern efforts. At first I was scared she'd attack him or something equally horrific, but when I realized he wasn't provoking violence, I had a hard time not laughing as he tried to impose his weird macho mean will on Pooka, and she persisted in ignoring his loud sit and drop-it commands.

Unfortunately, she was also ignoring me, so I didn't have much opportunity to show him how generally well-behaved she is. Could be because she was too focused on keeping 8 feet between her and machoman, or because she hasn't eaten in 24 hours (the post-diarrhea fast we're about to break). Half felt like I should explain her bratty behavior, half wanted to get as far away from him as quickly as possible. Just: ew.

Rewarded behavior is repeated

With the big madness of Pooka's accident behind us, what is left for me to do but sweat the small stuff? Such as, why is this dog so itchy? How am I going to keep her from breaking another (yes, another) window? Is she ever going to ditch the little twist in her left hind knee when she walks?  Is she going to hurt herself dragging my sharp knives out of the kitchen sink? Is the landlord-barking getting worse? And why is this dog so itchy?

I've been most irritated by a new walking habit of hers -- slipping behind me as we walk so she can sniff the hedges and grasses on my other side, then outpacing me so the leash is wrapped around my back. I don't know why exactly, but it's been driving me absolutely bonkers.

Time spent working on clicker training with the pups at the Seattle Humane Society reminded me how magical it seems. Click, treat: the dogs get it. Ace the springing terrier, whose default behavior is to endlessly jump head high in his kennel, gets it when he sits, I click and treat. (When he's overly excited, which is often, he still dissolves into jumping fits -- but you can tell he's thinking about sitting.)

So tonight I brought the clicker on our late-evening walk. When Pooka zipped around to my left side, I stopped and maneuvered so that she was headed back into position. Click. Treat. Bingo. Helps that she hadn't had dinner yet, of course. But within a few blocks she was responding to "right side!" when I called it out. When I didn't, but she ducked behind, she was quick to return to the right spot and looked at me, expectant, every time.

One other tidbit for the record. Tonight when I came home and was puttering around, I called out to Pooka, "where's your ball?" She got her ball, but when she lost interest in it, I switched to "Pooka where's your squeaky?" Referring, of course, to the ever-rattier tail-less squeaky squirrel. Girl went and got it first try.

Hydro-Pooka and more

Hydro-Pooka
Originally uploaded by Jessica Jessica

It's been a few weeks since Pooka's hydrotherapy sessions ended. I was away for one of those weeks, but from what I hear, she was still pretty active.

This week, we're stepping things up a bit, and went on our longest walk yet last night. She was freaked out by the traffic, so noisy on these wet winter roads, but still performed like a trooper and had energy to spare for a Maka-Pooka smackdown in the back yard after dinner.

She's getting used to our nightly stretching ritual and has stopped protesting as much on her sore side (the one they didn't operate on). She had been doing the "downward dog" stretch on her own, but in the last few days I've noticed she's working on "upward facing dog" too, a sign that the hip extension stretches are a little less challenging for her now. She's still walking funny, stiff-legged with a turned-in knee, but I'm starting to realize this isn't going to magically fix itself. I'm going to start upping her chase/run/play time and just see what happens.

What the. ?

What the. ?
Originally uploaded by Jessica Jessica

Speaks for itself, really. Alert!

Project

Pooka's coat (1)
Originally uploaded by Jessica Jessica

In a burst of creativity, I used Pooka's store-bought raincoat as a pattern for a very homemade wintry coat, courderoy outside and warm fuzzy fleece inside. I have to rejigger the tummy-straps, for the velcro doesn't quite line up right, but it's otherwise adorable. At least, I think so. Pooka is not quite so sure.