Pax is doing great. My office moved to a new building April 1st. We have 5000 sq. ft. all on one floor with a huge long wide hallway. The lease says no animals, but when I mentioned Pax to Casey, the building manager, he said they are all dog people and to go ahead and bring Pax to work. If it becomes a problem he will let me know. Of course now that Pax has met everyone he has become "the building mascot". While he lives in our office on the second floor everyone we run into is happy to see him. The nice thing is with the elevator and single floor office Pax has no stairs to worry about and free roaming access to 17 people who are always happy to pet him until he gets bored with them. Then he lures them into the hallway to throw his tennis ball.



When the recent dogfood scare happened I started reading about homemade dogfood and ended up fascinated by the raw diet data, including Mazie's improved allergies. I got a couple great books and about a month ago started feeding Pax raw meaty bones and "glop", a mixture of eggs, yogurt, greens, veggies, garlic, ginger, fish oil, molasses and apples that I whip up in the blender once a week and freeze in small containers. The first night we gave Pax a lamb leg bone (out in the yard!) he sniffed it, backed up, looked all around the yard for competition and looked back at us tentatively as if to say "can I really have it?" When I said "Okay Pax!" he lept straight up in the air and twirled around twice in pure joy and then dove in to his bone. Both Tim and I were there and it was such an amazing sight we talked about it all evening and have related the experience to any! one willing to listen. I have never seen such pure happines in an animal. While Pax has always been happy to be fed, dinner lasted less than 2 minutes. Now he spends 1/2 hour to 1 hour happily dining away. He also really loves his "glop" which he eats with great relish, sometimes even before he attacks his meat/bone entre. He has slimmed down a bit, his eyes are bright, his coat is soft and glossy, his teeth are gorgeous, his stools are hard, compact and regular and he has no dog breath or dog farts. He has a spring in his step, good energy and maybe a little less joint stiffness which was probably helped by the warmer weather and lack of stairs as well. But, if all these factors were not reason enough to continue a raw diet, watching his pure joy eating dinner an hour a day is well worth it. The only downside is that when he decides he has had enough, he hops ! into my garden to bury the rest of the bone. If I see him and kick him out of my garden he finds some other great place to dig. You can tell his dinner serving was too big when he comes in with his nose caked with dirt and mud.



Lately I have been giving Pax the run of the house when I go out. He has not bothered anything and is completely trustworthy. Last week I was gone a couple hours longer than I expected and when I got home I found he had gotten into a bag of clothes I had put aside for Goodwill, pulled out an old courduroy skirt of mine and dropped it in heap on the kitchen floor. It warmed my heart that he missed me and wanted to be close to my clothing, so I decided to let him keep the skirt and that maybe I would make it into a pillow or dog toy for him. A little later I looked over and there he was on my kitchen floor humping my skirt. So much for warm, fuzzy feelings.

That's my latest Pax story.



Enjoy your weekend. Hope it is finally spring where you are.

Laura

We are doing great here. Pax is now the official office dog and comes to work with me every day.
He is far more popular than I will ever be.
Everyone loves him and he showers all with cuddly devotion.

We started attending a beginner obedience class as a prerequisite to the therapy “Pet Partners” training I want to do with him in April so he and I can visit hospitals and nursing homes.

Needless to say, he outshines everyone in the beginners class, but it is helping me learn more about what he knows.

I suspect he is very well trained, although I do not know the cues and commands to bring that out.

For one thing I found that if he is on leash and the leash drops to the floor, he will stop dead in his tracks as soon as he realizes nobody is holding the other end!

I tested this by calling him and trying to entice him to come with a treat, but so long as the leash is lying on the floor he will look at the leash then look at me as if to say – “I’m confused, what do you want me to do?”, but he will not move.

This comes in very handy when I am loading and unloading his stairway to get him into the car. Yes, I have a stairway!

It is an accordion folding contraption of 4 carpeted steps the folds and unfolds to reach the back seat of the car.

I got it for me because I was hurting my back lifting him into the car.
But it turns out those calcifications on his front legs have fused those joints and the vet said Pax could be in serious trouble if he re-injures those joints jumping down (probably how he injured them in the first place, probably by repeatedly jumping out of the back of a pickup truck).

So now the stairway gets unfolded coming and going.
Fully opened it is about 7 feet wide and Pax does look like “His Lordship” getting in and out of the car.

The good news though is he seems far less bothered by his back or joint issues.
We walk 20-30 minutes every day after lunch and lately we jog for the first half (downhill) and walk our way back.

He has a real spring to his step and can definitely out run and out last my energy.
He does that cute little twirly thing a lot
.