What is it about thunder...

What is it about thunder that makes Brandy growl and bark? I read somewhere that dogs think it is some sort of threat to them or to their house or to their family (I forget) but come on.....we live in an area where thunder and lightning are common place, so she has been hearing it on and off for all of her 9 years. If its newish to her, I can understand the fear but she should be an old hand at it by now. Also I don't remember any of our other dogs barking at thunder, strangers yes, thunder no. Oh, I remember our old Pekingnese, Shandy, a darling dog who died a month or so before we got Brandy, she used to bark at night at strange new objects in the house. If we bought say an over toaster and left it at night in the dark in the living room in its boxed state, when Shandy was walking from the bedrooms to the living room and saw the dark shape of the box, she would bark until we came out to investigate. I remembered having to show her new big stuff that we left lying around the house and that seemed to work with preventing her from barking at them in the dark.

Back to Brandy and thunder, if I am home, I usually call her to my room and tell her to stop being silly, its only thunder. Its like she knows what I am saying, truly! She proceeds to curl up on her bed and ignores both me and the thunder. BUT sometimes, she comes in and forgets what frightened her a minute or so ago and goes out and barks again when it thunders more.

I love all my dogs and their quirks.

Brandy is fat

Yes, Brandy is officially fat. She's an Australian Silky Terrier and quite small. The vet has told me that she should be around 5.5kg max but on her latest trip to the vet for her yearly booster, she staggered in at an astounding 6.2kg. It does not sound like a lot for a person, but it's quite a lot for a little dog. She has got to lose some weight to lessen the load on her legs as well as on her heart. I want her to have a long healthy life.

I've read on the internet that nowadays, obesity is a growing problem amongst man's best friends especially in the developed nations. Ok, now its my problem to try and manage.

It's not easy putting the dog on a diet. She eats once a day, rice with pork or beef or liver and she also gets bits of dog biscuits throughout the day. It's not a lot that she is eating in the first place. We are trying to reduce the amount of rice she gets. We have also started buying low fat dog biscuits. Exercise is also what she needs but the only time she runs around is when someone rings the doorbell and there she goes barking and running to the main door. Otherwise, she slowly trots everywhere, well it is either a slow trot or a fast walk.

I hope she loses a little bit of weight, I am not hoping for too much. Just a reduction in the podge around her middle.

Long time no post - bath day for Brandy

Just realised that it has been a long long time since my last post here. Brandy is fine, just great. She had a bath yesterday. Everytime I bathe her, she gets all nice and clean smelling whilst I stink. It is like she transfers all the yukky smell over to me.....hmmm.

A bath is like such a traumatic event for her, when actually she does nothing. I carry her into the shower, spray her, shampoo her, spray her, re-shampoo her, spray her, quick towel dry her, carry her out, slow towel dry her, hair dry her, then clean her ears with ear cleaner and cotton wool. What does she have to do for herself? Yet on bath days, she falls asleep earlier and sleeps longer. Maybe it is because of the body massage I give her when I shampoo her....heheh, a dog's life isn't tooooooooooooo bad is it.

Before I bathe her, I normally trim her nails. Why do dog's nails have to be different from human's. I always have to be careful not to cut too short as there is a vein (called the 'quick') running close to the tip of the nail. I would really like to cut her nails as short as mine. Suppose it has something to do with the ancestry of dogs but it is sure a nuisance. It grows fast and I have to make sure I trim it every week. Brandy hates nail cutting and always tries to push my hand away from her paws, pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that in her entire life I have cut too deeply three times (yes only three times considering how many times I have cut her nails and the fact that she is now nine) and made her nails bleed for all of five seconds. (Hint: if you hold a piece of tissue to the nail for a while, the bleeding will stop). This dog has a memory of an elephant for such things but takes a whole year (this was when she was a brand new pup) to be toilet-trained.

I now leave you with a recent pic of Brandy. You have to understand that this was taken in a room with the air-con blowing and it was pretty late at night. And no, that was not bath day.