All About Jada Part II

Alright, back to Jada. 

Let's see...I guess my whole reason for writing about Jada in the first place was to just emphasize how different it is to be around a dog like Mattie after getting used to being around a dog like Jada. Mattie doesn't really like to play fetch with either a ball or a stuffed animal kind of toy.  It was a struggle to get her to play tug-of-war with a rope toy with me just a handful of times. Mainly, Mattie just likes to follow you around and be pet.  Sometimes I find this upsetting because I was used to such a high energy and playful dog, but then I realize that it's probably a good thing Mattie isn't so high energy because it makes it much easier to care for her.

Another positive thing about Mattie that is very different from Jada is that Mattie isn't very vocal.  She growls or barks when she sees other people walking their dogs out of our 3rd floor window, but other than that she pretty much expresses herself through panting or "sighing."  I love Jada, but I would worry about bothering the neighbors if I had a dog who barked every time someone was at the door, sometimes when cars passed by, to get my attention, etc. 

(Ahh! I really didn't do a good job of planning these 2 entries about Jada, so I'm sorry they are so sporadic. I probably should have written about this before anything else!)

When I first met Jada, she intimidated the hell out of me. (Pardon the expression). I first started hanging out with Leon in a group setting, so Jada was suddenly exposed to about 3 or 4 new faces at once. This can be difficult for dogs who are territorial.  I remember Jada sniffing everyone as we filed in through the front door to make sure we were "okay." If she smelled anything interesting, she did a great job of impeding you from entering her home until she was 100% satisfied that you would not present any immediate threat.

To be continued…(I just have so much to say and so little time! Maybe I'll put some more pictures or a video up in the next entry)

All About Jada

In my very first blog entry, I mentioned my ex-boyfriend's dog, Jada, who really had a huge impact on me.  I loved being able to play with and love on Jada so much that I decided to make a huge commitment and adopt a dog of my own.  I've recently been spending some time with my ex-boyfriend and his friends at his house so I've been around Jada again. It's amazing how different she and Mattie are. To help anyone who's keeping up with this blog to really understand what I mean by that, I'm writing an entry ALL ABOUT JADA!

So first of all, she is a brindle-colored American Staffordshire Terrier.  She loves being taken to the Quad to play fetch with her red Kong ball, and she has eyes for nothing else when that ball is around. Jada is a high energy dog, so an hour on the Quad with that ball is a good way to get her to unwind a bit. I'd say her second favorite way to play is to wrestle. She's pretty tough, and definitely stubborn, but she's incredibly obedient to her two owners, Leon and Chris (my ex-boyfriend and his roommate/good friend from home).  I think it's pretty interesting that she listens to each of them equally as well because I guess I was under the impression that dogs sort of take to one master and only fully obey that one person.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Jada, and I actually have to run now, but I'll finish talking about Jada in my next entry!

She curls up quietly and naps on the couch whenever people aren't paying attention to her.

sorry they're kinda blurry. she just wouldn't sit still for me!

Shaggy Girl

Look how shaggy Mattie is already! It’s funny to see how fast her hair grows. It seems to grow faster than human hair… but then again when I think about it, guys’ hair seems to grow faster than girls’ hair probably because it’s so short and you can see the difference in length in just a couple of weeks.

She’s starting to smell…doggish...if you know what I mean by that.  Since she sleeps in my room, my room is starting to smell like a dog.  I would really like to give her another bath, but the vet told me that the less I mess with her, the less her skin allergies will bother her.  I’m only supposed to give her 2-3 baths a year and I’m definitely not supposed to clip her hair very often.

Does anyone else happen to have a dog with similar problems who could maybe make some suggestions? I was going to buy some waterless shampoo for her, but I bet that will dry out her skin as well.  I've already been using pet wipes and baby wipes to sort of "spot clean" her but that doesn't really help to take away that doggy smell she's got going on. 

Anyway, I haven't posted many pictures on here in a while so here's a few for your viewing pleasure haha.

Real Problems

I love Mattie, but man is she having some real problems right now. The steroid injection she was given last week has caused her to have a few episodes of incontinence and I've come home to find her backside wet from her own urine. This is really bad because I'm renting this apartment and whatever damages occur as a result of Mattie, whether the be her fault or not, are my responsibility. I'm worried that if she can't regain control of her bladder soon I'm going to lose my security deposit. Luckily, my roommate has a crate that is large enough for her to sleep in, but I really hate putting her in there at night and when I go to class. She looks so depressed when she accepts that she's going to have to stay in that little space for a long time. She usually lays down and lets out a huge sigh.

On a related note, the steroid injection is also making her hungrier. I felt bad for not being able to pay much attention to her last week, so I sort of tried to appease her by giving her a little extra food. Maybe "a little" isn't exactly the right phrase... the vet's scale said she had only gained about a pound, but she looks a lot fatter to me. Maybe it's just because her hair is growing out again and getting fluffy. Now that I cut back her food again, she's been acting up when we go for walks. She darts ahead, yanking me with her, to sniff out anything she sees on the ground in hopes that it's edible. I don't like her eating things off of the ground outside because you never know what she's eating and if it's somehow toxic. 

Oh, Mattie...what are we going to do with you? Keep on keeping on, I guess, because you certainly are here to stay :-)

Trash in the Hallway

(I never know what to say in my titles for these entries, so forgive me if they are cheesy)

This morning I let the girls out (Mattie and my roommate's dog Indy) to use the bathroom. Whenever I let them out together I put Mattie on a leash but Allegrah never puts Indy on a leash since she's a tiny dog. The only problem with this is that Indy gets a Napoleon complex when she sees big dogs and other people; she runs after them and barks like crazy almost as if she's trying to scare them off or assert her dominance. It's hard to control a big dog like Mattie while you're trying to get a little dog who thinks she is big to calm down.

Anyway, after chasing Indy down and getting her to calm down again, the 3 of us headed back upstairs to my apartment. On the way, Indy saw another person and took off running up the stairs. I was distracted trying to get her under control, so I didn't realize that Mattie had gotten into a trash bag that was ripped open laying in the hallway. She ate a few chicken bones and I'm a little worried about her. I hope they don't mess up her tummy :-(

I just get so angry at people around here for leaving their trash in the hallways, throwing their cigarette butts on the ground, smashing glass bottles in the parking lots and in the grass, leaving food messes around, and NOT PICKING UP THEIR DOGS' POO! If I have to use a trash bag to pick up my dog's mess every time she does it, then I feel like everyone else should have to do the same. In our lease it says that people who do not pick up after their dogs will be fined. This rule is hard to enforce unless someone reports it, though, and I don't want to necessarily be on bad terms with my neighbors. I guess I could try saying something to them if I see it happen and if they don't change their ways I shouldn't feel so bad about reporting them.

Poor Mattie... she's still itchy and chewing at herself because of her skin allergies despite the steroid injection she got yesterday. On top of that, the steroids are making her drink more water and have to use the bathroom more often. Last night I let her sleep on top of a water resistant blanket on top of my bed as usual. I'm glad I have been taking that precaution because sure enough, she wet the bed. Luckily I caught it as soon as it happened and none of it soaked through to my actual bed. I think I must have startled her in her sleep when I got up to use the bathroom.

This picture isn't totally related, but it's a picture of Mattie chillin out in her usual spot (on top of the weather resistant blanket) with me while I do some homework in my room:

She's awfully hard to say no to...just look at that face!

Mattie's Second Vet Visit

This morning I took Mattie to the vet for the second time, thinking I was just going in to get her booster shots on the vaccines we got for her last time.  Instead, she got a steroid injection for her skin allergies and we have to go back in a week to get the booster shots. I'm pretty upset because I had no idea that skin allergies were so serious and that they would require so much to fix. If we can't figure out what exactly is causing the allergies and make the necessary changes, poor Mattie will have to get steroid injections every 3-6 weeks. This is an expense I certainly didn't anticipate upon deciding to get a dog (along with the vaccines and possible spaying operation).

The good news is, the vet could at least tell me that she is not currently going into heat. This is a huge relief, because if she were going into heat I would have a lot more to worry about than I already do. I'm going to wait to get her spayed, because the expenses are adding up and I don't want to pay the money to have them open her up just to find out that she has already been spayed.

Other than all these worries an concerns, Mattie's been the best companion :-) I still don't regret adding her to our little household here. She greets me at the door every time I come home, and she's such a goofball that she can make me smile without fail.  She makes me feel less lonely; I don't have to go to bed at night all alone and I don't have to wake up in the morning feeling alone either. She's my babygirl :-)

Uh Oh...

I just found out that Mattie probably was not spayed, and she has been acting awfully funny lately. I'm afraid she's going into heat, and I so do NOT want to deal with that.

A couple of days ago when it rained all day, my roommate and I found a puddle by the balcony door, which turned out to be dog pee. She has a dog as well, but Indy is a Dachshund Poodle mix and couldn't possibly have left a puddle as big as the one we found. So we cleaned up the puddle, and several hours later I found another puddle. I couldn't tell if Mattie peed inside the house because I didn't take her on our usual 3-4 mile-long walks a day, if she did it because she really didn't want to go outside in the rain to use the bathroom, or if she did it for some reason I'm just not thinking of. Later that night, I came home after leaving Mattie in the apartment alone for only about an hour and I found that she had gone into my bathroom trashcan and dragged the trash out into the living room. I was so upset with her! I made sure to verbally reprimand her for peeing inside the house and getting into the trash, but at the end of the night I felt like maybe I should have spanked her a little or something to get my point across.

But now I feel bad because if she misbehaved as a result of her going into heat, it's not really her fault. I tried doing a little quick search of symptoms of dogs in heat, but the information I found was so varied that it wasn't very helpful. I guess I'll just have to ask the vet when I take her in to get vaccine boosters in a week or two. Guh....

Mattie's First Vet Visit and Second Haircut

I took Mattie to the vet for the first time to get her up to date with all of her vaccinations and to get her checked out to see if there were any other health concerns. I was proud of how well behaved she was :-) I ended up having to spend $225 to get her Rabies, Distemper/Parvo, Adeno/parainfluenza/bordatella, Lepto, and Lyme's Disease vaccinations as well as tick and flea preventative and heart worm preventative.  Whew! That was a lot for one visit, but she took it well and wasn't scared or aggressive towards any of the vet technicians. I have to go back in a couple of weeks to get her booster shots for some of the vaccines, which will cost another $50 or so, but I don't mind because Mattie has been such a great companion.

Mattie is supposed to be a Cocker Spaniel Poodle mix, although, she seems a bit big for that to be true. Unfortunately, when I first got her, her hair was a matted mess. (Poodles have hair, not fur). I decided I needed to go out and buy a set of electric clippers to give her a haircut. Her first haircut was difficult and I ended up giving up because I couldn't get the clippers through all of her knots. A week later, I recruited my roommate to help me clip her. She's worked at a vet's office since she was 15, so she was the one who ended up doing the clipping while I held and soothed Mattie. (Mattie absolutely HATES to have her hair cut or clipped).

Since Mattie was such a pain, we still couldn't get her in great shape but at least she wasn't so hot all of the time and wasn't chewing at her knots anymore. Poodles are also prone to skin allergies, and she wasn't on the highest quality food before. I've been having to give her two anti-histamines a day to keep her from constantly scratching and chewing at her itchy skin. I've also started her on a new kind of dog food made especially for dogs with sensitive and dry skin. I never thought that food made that much of a difference, but the vet told me that feeding her this food was about the only thing I could do to help her.

 Mattie in my passenger seat on the way back from her first vet trip :-)

 Allegrah (my roommate) clipping away!

Here I am holding Mattie and telling her she's a good girl while my roommate shaves her legs.

A Walk in the Arboretum

Last week, my friend and I took Mattie on her first trip to the Arboretum. She was kind of a pain because she kept stopping to sniff things off of the path, but other than that I think our little outing was a success.  I would never have gone to the Arboretum for a walk by myself, but I was glad to get out of the house and get a little exercise.

Before I got her, Mattie lived in a house that had a very large yard and she was used to being outside. I feel kind of bad for taking her from a place where she had to much room to run around in to a tiny two-bedroom apartment. So to make up for it, I've been doing my best to take her on at least 3 walks a day around the entire neighborhood (Hunter's Ridge). I also take her in the car when I run errands if it's not too hot out and if I know I will only be in the store for 10 minutes or less.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from our walk in the Arboretum.

Actually, never mind for some reason it won't let me upload pictures from my computer right now. Hopefully for later posts I can figure out what's going wrong.

The Beginning of a Beautiful Thing

So you may be wondering “Who on earth is Mattie May, and why are you writing a blog about her being here to stay?”  Well, this is my last semester of my undergraduate college career and shortly after it began my boyfriend of nearly a year broke up with me.  I took it pretty hard. Most of my friends have already graduated, I don’t have a job, and I only have classes 3 days a week so I had entirely too much time to sit around and mope.  One of the things missed the most was going over to his house to play with his dog Jada, so I decided that it was about time for me to have a dog of my own!

Mattie has a somewhat complicated history. My friend’s mom and sister found her on a country road in Abingdon Virginia, where she had been hit by a car (I think?). They took her to the vet and got her the surgeries she needed and took her home. When my friend’s sister got married, she took Mattie into her new family. This change of scenery was short lived, though, because when she had her daughter and split up with her husband, she realized it was too much to take care of both a dog and a baby as a single mom. So Mattie was sent back to live with my friend’s dad (who is now single; his wife passed away from cancer). 

I mentioned to my friend that I was looking to adopt a dog. We both had plans to go to our own homes the following weekend, and while we were both at home he asked me if I'd like to try out one of the 4 dogs he had at home. I said I'd see if Mattie would be a good match, and he brought her to JMU. At first, I was pretty skeptical that I would like Mattie because she was kind of what I consider to be a "wussy" breed. (After all, I was used to being around a bully breed type of dog). However, as the first week went by and Mattie and I got to know one another better, I realized she and I were going to get along just fine.