Tangled Thoughts

Someone turns five this month. That seemed like a good enough excuse to write about her.

Yoshi is…simply put, a nut.  With all the nutty shells that encompass nuts…and then some.

She is our special nut.  With all the problems that special nuts bring.

She is scared of people, dogs and anything that moves suddenly.  I have taken her to doggy school, hired a dog therapist (seriously, I know), and done more research on shy dogs than I care to admit.  She has guarding issues -which turns up in the tune of biting any dog that gets too close to whatever she deems important.

Oh yea, and she always has allergies.  To just about anything and everything and nothing all at once.

I have narrowed down a lot of her issues and tried to work out some solutions for the others -but there are only so many hours in a day and when it comes down to it, she sometimes has to take the back seat on things.

I’ve been able to narrow down her guarding issues to a few main triggers: Her space, her bed, her food and her toys.  While this may sound simple enough -that pretty much means anything she calls her own, at any given moment.  Whenever a new dog comes over we have to be careful to make sure that her toys are picked up and there isn’t any food laying around.  Also the pig?  Still around.  Still causing problems.

Her being terrified of people is a work in progress -and something that I need to work with her on more.  She spends the day with us at the shop in the office so she sees a lot of people each day -her therapist said that she shouldn’t be allowed to hide and that I should make her stand beside me when customers are in the office -but when it comes down to it -I can’t try and handle and customer and wrangle a dog at the same time.

Every so often though, she gets a teachable moment with the right customer.  Slowly.

…and her allergies?  Are still an unknown mystery.  After spending a lot of last year chasing them around and around I thought I finally had them under control with a change of food (from chicken to salmon) and wiping her down every week.

While I was gone, mom decided to change her diet to a more natural diet -which involved cooking for her.  I wasn’t game at  first, but she had appeared to have lost some weight (because yes, she is also overweight) so continued with it.

This past week she has been REALLY itchy -and by itchy I mean she gets uncontrollable.  She NEEDS to be scratched.  She rubs herself on chairs, desks, the floor.  She runs, she whines, and when all else fails -she lays there with the saddest puppy dog eyes.  She breaks out in red bumps that look so painful.  Sometimes the benadryl helps, and sometimes it does nothing.

The last time we had her in the vet they said she had flea bites -but no fleas.  They recommended treating her with a $50 flea product, bombing the house and spraying all the furniture as well as treating the cats.  I almost went for it -but mom suggested we wait, considering how we had just given her some flea medication.

Last night it hit me -the past week I had been feeding her chicken all week long.  Her rice had chicken stock, her protein was chicken.  The past few nights she hasn’t had  chicken -and guess who hasn’t been itchy?

I told Amanda that every time I yell EUREKA! with her allergies -she breaks out in itchy bumps again, so here is to hoping she doesn’t break out tonight or tomorrow.

Either way, despite all her special issues -we love her and her nutty ways.