8 State Hurricane Kate

It’s Mother’s Day and I’ve been doing a lot of dog mothering today—cleaning dog teeth and ears, clipping toenails, and applying Frontline Plus. It’s the first time I’ve clipped Cayenne’s toenails myself. The vet has done them for me before. I elected to put her up on the grooming table and use the clipper (not the dremel because she isn’t comfortable with that kind of noise yet). She did fairly well, although she didn’t like it sometimes. Once or twice she fidgeted and I clipped a nail too short, but didn’t draw blood. This girl really does not know where her back end is. A couple of times one of her back feet slipped off the end of the table and she didn’t automatically put it back on the table, but let it hang there in mid-air. I had to rush to hold her upright and get her foot back on the table. Honestly, I wonder if this has something to do with her docked tail. Whoever cut it off cut it way too short. One vet tech told me that sometimes they see incontinence problems in dogs whose tails have been cut too short. This could be the case with Cay. Plus she never seems to know where her back end is. You can hear her legs and feet crashing all over as she goes up the stairs, and she doesn’t seem to have much spatial perception about where her back legs and feet are. I’m planning to have some TTouch work done on her. She would benefit from the labyrinth work that teaches dogs awareness of their back legs and feet. Although she’s clumsy, she’s a very sweet girl! She’s looking me in the eye more and more and responding to physical touch and cuddling without flinching now. That’s a step in the right direction! Some day she’ll lose her nervousness enough to start learning more things (as my rescue dog Rusty did after about 6 months with me).

Posted on May 11th, 2008 Filed under: General