New Pictures

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day and she said that Pearl looked scared and sad in the first pictures we had of her on the blog. So, I endeavored to take some new pictures of Pearl in a less sad state. She is definitely settling in quite well and is given to some spotaneous frolicking with Boogalu and her bone. However, she HATES the camera. As soon as it comes out, she goes into hiding. I have to turn off the flash and use natural lighting to get any pictures of her. If the light is low, the pictures tend to be a bit blurry because either she is moving or I'm moving. Here she is hiding behind Jim who is standing at the front door.



Her favorite spots are the chairs in the living room. No particular chair, just any vacant chair.


Pearl is doing better now that we're getting the worms under control. She's also on Prednisone for the itching. We all now can get a decent nights sleep!

Isn't she cute!

Hooked!

Yesterday I took a stool sample from Pearl to the vet. Yep, she has hookworms. So Pearl and Boogalu are being treated with Drontal Plus. Evidently hookworms are difficult to elminate and you need to treat the lawn to prevent re-infection. Fun.

Hopefully by getting rid of the hookworms we'll solve Pearl's colitis issue. We'll have to wait and see. I gave them the de-worming medicine yesterday, and today Pearl is a bit droopy. She's all happy to go out or be fed, but otherwise she's just sleeping. If this keeps up for another day or so, I'll be calling the vet again.

Spoke too Soon

Well, I got home yesterday afternoon and there was a bloody pile on the carpet by the downstairs door. So, it's back in the cage, and back on the bland diet for Pearl. I called the vet and asked how long should Pearl be on the bland diet or should I try another type of food. The vet said three weeks on the bland diet to let her colon completely heal and rest. Then we try again. Boogalu's foster mom said one of her beagles has colitis and is on a special diet. I'm going to ask her what food that is and maybe try that after the three week rest period.

While cleaning up poop is frustrating for me, I'm sure it hasn't been a picnic for Pearl either. I could tell yesterday that her tummy wasn't doing as well. That is, until we went for a walk and she started trying to hunt the bunnies in the neighborhood. She has a sharp bark! It was so funny!

More about Poop

Pearl pooped this morning before I had to leave for work! Yeah! Which meant I could leave her in the house and not cage her. It also meant I didn't have to walk through wet grass one more time to get her to poop. Hopefully this is the start of a trend.

Pearlie is doing well on her bland diet and is almost finished with her meds. I swear she is a different dog. She's more active and nosey and gets into everything you're doing. She's still submissive when Boogalu wants to play rough, so we try to make him behave himself (ha!). I started the slow process of re-introducing regular dog food a couple of days ago, and so far, so good. We're keeping a watchful eye on her!

Just when you think .....

More about poop, of course.

Pearl had a great day yesterday. I caged her in order to avoid any presents and she did what appeared to be a normal poop when we walked that afternoon. I was happy. Pearl was relieved. Then the other shoe dropped. About an hour later, I was standing out back when Pearl pooped again. Only it wasn't poop, but blood. An alarming amount of it. I almost freaked. Then, being a good dog owner, I grabbed a sample and called the vet. I love my vet. She's great. We got right in.

Pearl, it turns out, has colitis. Most likely caused by the abrupt switch in dog food. So the poor thing is on a bland prescription diet for a few days, as well as medication. She's doing great and you can't even tell she has any tummy (or butt) issues. She's active and hungry.

We'll try the dog food switch again when we return from our weekend trip. Slowly this time. Really slowly.

Feeding time at the zoo

This is feeding time at the zoo. Boogalu is in his cage and Pearl is still eating. This arrangement has been working extraordinarily well. Boogalu went into his cage Saturday morning, sat down and waited for breakfast. It was so cute! Who can resist? So we fed him and he was happy.

Pearl is much more comfortable eating with this arrangement and cleans her bowl pretty quickly. It appears that her tummy is beginning to settle down some. We actually slept in on Sunday morning and made it the alarm on Tuesday morning. Yea!

Food and Poop

What else do you talk about when discussing dogs?

I called Boogalu's foster mom about feeding more than one beagle at a time and found out some surprising information about our little Boogalu. Whenever he stays at his foster mom's he is fed in his cage, and ... get this ... he will go inside the cage and WAIT for the for food! So, out came the cage and in went Boogalu's food bowl. Now when we feed the "kids", Booglau gets his bowl in his cage, close the cage door, and viola! we can now feed Pearl stress free. It has worked amazingly well. Thanks foster mom!

Now we have to work on Pearl's pooping schedule. I haven't been too worried about it yet because her tummy is still a little unsettled from switching dog food. We got her Science Diet because that was what her foster mom was feeding her. We thought that after she had settled in a bit, we would gradually switch her over to Boogalu's food. Well, she wasn't interested in HER food, she wanted Boogalu's food. Yesterday was a good day with three poops taking place outside. Today so far so good. I'm going to try a shift in the human's schedule to see if we can't get her to poop before we leave for work. We'll see how it goes.

Pearl is settling in really well. She still jumpy about new sounds and new objects, but she wanders the house, tail-wagging and sniffing. She seems to be a happy beagle.

Pearl's First Day

Pearl did real well yesterday. We had no accidents in the house, but she is a bit slow about doing her business. I'm not certain what to do about that, because Friday Jim will have to go work in the morning and so will I. If she hasn't done her thing before we leave, do we crate her? Do we leave her free in the house? We have to think on this.

Meanwhile our procrastination on getting a fence put in has put us in the position of having to do it ourselves. We were going to hire a fence company, but when Jim was calling to set up appointments for estimates, there is a wait. Weeks long wait. So, if we want a fence, we're going to have to do it ourselves. We have a temporary fence stretched between the two 10-ft starter fence sections, giving the dogs about a 10 x 20 ft area in which to sniff and hopefully poop.

Boogalu and Pearl seem to be getting along fairly well. So well that in the evening we were able to capture this little scene:











Aren't they cute!?

However, this morning was a different issue. Pearl woke up at 3:30 am with an upset tummy. We ended up with a present on the bedroom floor, but I was able to get her outside for the rest of the tummy upset (more presents). There was no way I was going to get her outside fast enough, poor thing. Then Jim tried feeding them (about an hour or so later) and Boogalu was a complete butt-head over Pearl's food. Snarling and yipping ensued resulting in Pearl not being too sure about Boogalu again. We definitely have to work out this food thing.

Meet Pearl

Meet Pearl, the latest addition to our pack. I apologize for the demon eyes. She's a very sweet beagle girl and very curious about her new home. She slept with the pack on the bed last night and seems to be a very happy beagle this morning. Little does she know, she's got a trip to the vet later this morning.

Boogalu has been very good thus far. There hasn't been any real fur-flying encounters. Pearl defended herself from some overly agressive butt-sniffing by Boogalu. Boogalu defended his treat-filled Kong. No blood, no foul.

We do have to learn her potty behaviour. We missed the cues last night and ended up with a present by the door. Oh well, I'm sure we'll get more over the next several weeks as we both adjust to the new routine.