Chuki's Life in Illinois

Oh The Chukester Bear! We haven't really updated how Chuki has been adjusting to life in Illinois. I don't know what other way to describe it besides HE LOVES IT! Chuki is in heaven here. First of all, we have a yard which is AMAZING for both us and him. Second of all, everything is new for him. New smells, new sounds, new people, new food. EVERYTHING IS NEW! Plus, it's HOT here and HUMID here and that tires him out so quickly. And lastly, he's spoiled rotten and loves having all of the attention. You thought we spoiled him, you should see my Dad! (I know you're reading this Dad =) One pathetic look from Chuki and their in the gym or outside or playing rope in the kitchen! Chuki's already had a couple of ham bones, a pigs ear and gobs of cheese!

In short, Chuki loves life in Illinois. We love having a yard where he can run around. Plus all of the new people he meets everyday really helps him learn how to greet people. Long gone are the days of jumping on everyone!

I'll have to post some photos soon, but for now, just take my word... He's in heaven!

Crate Training

So we figured Chuki would never like his crate BUT last night he slept in his crate all night without whining until breakfast this morning. We want him to at least be used to sleeping in there before we fly! This is major success! The longest time that he's been in there with the door closed is maybe 3 hours.

Our Psychic Dog (and his skin)

So Chuki had another psychic experience on Friday. We were on our way back from the bank and we were stopped on the median waiting for a green light. Ryan was walking him and all of a sudden he started doing that low bark again at this group of people across the street. We're teaching him not to stare, because it's impolite but also because it's usually accompanied by some serious pulling. So Ryan stands in front of him to break his view but Chuki was having none of that. He just kept staring at this group of people. Ryan and I just assumed it was some lady selling fritada or something on the street with her customers around her. So Chuki is staring and doing this low bark, which isn't an intimidating bark at all. It's more of an alert.  There's nothing aggressive about it. It almost sounds worried, if that's possible. Anyways, when we crossed the street and walked past the group of people there was a lady laying on the ground having a seizure. CRAZY!

Is this normal for dogs to do?

On another note, it appears that what we've been doing the last couple of days has been working. He's not itching as much, I think largely due to the medicine. But also his 'wounds' aren't open sores anymore, they're all scabbing over. That's about it. Other than that, he's doing great.

MULUB,
Taylor

Chuki's Dry Skin - Revisited

No longer do we think that he just has dry skin. We're pretty sure he's allergic to something. So after reading and reading and reading on forums, and vet's websites and news articles we've come up with a treatment plan.

Remember when he cut his leg about a month ago and he wasn't going out for walks because he couldn't? Well the itching started shortly after we took him back to Metropoliatno for the first time post-accident. I'm thinking he's allergic to one of the flowers, grasses, trees, or something up there. Metropolitano isn't just a park like Central Park, it's more of a forest preserve, like a prairie. And of course his favorite thing to do is to run around like a crazy person in all of the tall grass. But I think that's the problem.

Anyways, treatment plan is going something like this...
1. Switching food to beef and quinoa, instead of rice. Switching food has helped lots of dogs with all sorts of allergies, not only food allergies.

2. Omega 369 daily. This is supposed to help reduce inflammation in his skin and rebuild healthy skin and hair growth.

3. Increased yogurt and oil in diet. The yogurt has probiotics in it that is supposed to help relieve itching.

4. Benadryl when needed.

5. Wiping him down completely after he comes in from a walk.

6. Limiting the amount of time in Metropolitano. We were taking him like every day because he loves it so much but we're going to have to reign that in.

7. Continual cleaning of his ears, his paws and his red scratches with the solution from the vet.

That's the plan.
MULUB,
Taylor

Dog's Intuition?!

At around 2:00 am last night Chuki ran into our room doing this low bark. It's the bark he does when we pretend to be dogs and he runs from room to room trying to find the other dogs. I like to think of it as his alerting bark. It's not an aggressive bark, it's a 'something isn't right' bark. He was running from the window in our bedroom to the window in the 'spare bedroom' doing the bark. Both windows face the same intersection. At first Ryan and I were alarmed, I thought someone was in the apartment or there was something climbing the outside of the building superman style. But we checked and everything was fine in the apartment. We looked out the window and there was a cab (we think it was a cab) stopped in the street. There were 3 guys that we're apparently in the cab out in the street kind of racing around frantically. And a couple of minutes later an ambulance pulled up. The paramedic got a guy out from the back seat of the cab on a stretcher. Put him in the ambulance and, what we can only imagine, worked on him in the ambulance. All the while, the friends, or at least we think they were his friends?!, pacing around in the street.

At one point the lights went on in another apartment with a crazy black lab and they (owner and dog) came out onto their terrace to check everything out. I can only assume that their dog had woken everyone up as well.

About an hour went by (at least that's what it felt like) and finally the ambulance was gone, the cab had left and everything was back to normal. Chuki stayed on alert the whole time. At one point a guard from one of the buildings nearby came out to look at what was going on and Chuki did the same low bark thing.

It is just really crazy to me that even before the ambulance was there Chuki was up and alerting us. How do they know that? And what did he know? Did he just think why is this car stopped in the middle of the street and why are these people walking around it? Had another dog barked in the same way and he heard it? Or could he sense their fear from all the way up here? Who knows! All that I do know is that he was very concerned. Hopefully because he was up for a good 2 hours during the middle of the night, he'll sleep extra long this morning!

I've heard of women's intuition, but dog's intuition? So crazy!!

Chuki's Dry Skin Remedy

So we got a lot of suggestions to try adding olive oil to Chuki's food in order to help with his dry skin. I did some research on my own and found that there are a lot of home remedies out there. Like I said, we've tried the oatmeal bath and it helps but only for the day that we give it to him. Plus it's not good to bathe a dog too frequently because it dries out their skin. So we can't continue to do that as a permanent fix.

My hesitation with olive oil is two fold. A) It's expensive. We don't even buy it for ourselves. When my parents were here they bought us a jar of olive oil and that's the only time we've ever had it in the house. We use sunflower oil instead because it's much cheaper. B) Because we cook for Chuki he gets a lot of oil already in the beef that he eats. We add sunflower oil to the beef when we cook it and it has a high fat content (16-17%). So he's getting a lot of natural oil from the beef.

So what we're trying now is a combination of sunflower oil and cod liver oil drizzled over his food. The cod liver oil was one of the home remedies that I read about. We started the treatment on Friday night, so hopefully in a week we'll have at least some results! We'll let you know!

MULUB,
Taylor

Chuki's Dry Skin

Chuki has really really dry skin. We all do actually because there's just about no moisture here in the air in the Andes. In the past we've given him oatmeal baths to help but this time he's just itching himself raw. We've checked with the vet and it's not fleas or ticks or anything, it's just dry skin. So my mission today is to find a remedy that we can do here at home, that's cheap and that's safe! I'll let you know what I find out!

MULUB,
Taylor

To the park

We went to the park today for the first time since Chuki's accident. Needless to say, he didn't come off of the leash except for a couple of minutes. Because of his lack of exercise lately this hour at the park really wore him out.

He's been here most of the day... Fine by us!

Also, a big congrats to Elliott, my brother, for a great hockey season this year! His first with The Rockford Icemen. Everyone is at my parents' house right now celebrating the season and we wish we were there too! To celebrate of course, well and to eat and drink for free like kings!

MULUB,
Taylor


MULUB,
Taylor

Sunny IL = Chuki sleeping all day?!

Chuki is so tired today because it's finally hot out again. I'm hoping that this is a glimpse of things to come in IL. Lots of sleeping in the sun (for both dogs and humans). We went back to the vet today, for like the 100th time in the last couple of weeks. He has some inflamation in his paws from walking in all of the rain. Or something like that, I really couldn't understand. Just when we could stop cleaning his ears twice a day and then applying cream, we have to start cleaning his paws twice a day. It's one thing after another with this dog!

But he's cute, so we'll keep him.

Cone of Shame and other updates

At the vet with the cone and the bandage...

Bandage off and getting a look at the cut

Cone only and no bandage

Happily napping in his crate, cone and bandage free. 

Oh the Chukester bear... He's no longer wearing the cone of shame. His stitches are out and the cut is finally almost all healed. WOO HOO! His ears are also seeming less red which can only mean the double ear infection is going away. Another WOO HOO! We're taking him tonight to get the ears checked and the rabies vaccine. MAJOR WOO HOO! But the biggest WOO HOO of all goes to this. He's sleeping in his crate! WHAT?! He goes in there all on his own now. It's like his little house. We really thought this day would never come, ever. But ever since the cone came off, he'd go in there to see if there were treats. Then one day he just laid down and took a nap. We didn't close the door or anything and we let him come out whenever he wanted. But then last night he slept, almost all night, in there. It's pretty amazing! And we're pretty thrilled. That makes me so much calmer about traveling with him. His crate really calms him down. We put him in there after walks with a nice snack and he falls asleep! I can't believe this day has come! YAY!

We still need to go and buy pee pads and a water dispenser for his crate. Plus we need to find extra big and extra strong zip ties to secure his crate door shut. And decorate the outside of the crate. But after tonight, he should be all ready to fly! YAY! YAY! YAY!

MULUB,
Taylor

Chuki's Boo Boo

Yesterday we had quite the adventure with Chuki. We decided to go to the park yesterday morning, all three of us. I have found this new entrance into Metropolitano but instead of being forestlike, it's all prairie. Chuki loves prairie type fields, so whenever I have extra time I try to incorporate this part of the forest into our walk. Anyways, Ryan has taken him up there once or twice but I wanted to show Ryan what Chuki and I do. So we walk up there and Chuki's off the leash running in the prairie and LOVING it. I love it too because it's like a mini-hike and Chuki seriously is so happy up there. Usually it's a great way to start the day. There is this small ravine in the park that I've never let Chuki go down into before but for some reason when he went over there yesterday I didn't call him back. He jumped down into the ravine a couple of times and then loved climbing his way out until... bah bah bah. He came out the last time and Ryan and I were a bit behind him when I thought I saw blood on his paw. We called him and he wouldn't really come all of the way, which isn't like him. That's when I realized he was gushing blood from somewhere on his front right leg.

Ryan took off his shirt (he had a sweatshirt on too) and wrapped it around Chuki's paw then we put a plastic bag over it. But that was covered in blood in seconds. We panicked and after getting ourselves together we decided we had to get to the vet and fast. We knew that no taxi driver would drive us so we started the run down the hill to the vet. Luckily, we were pretty close. About 10 minutes away. Chuki bled and bled the whole way there. People were stopping on the street and staring. Ryan tried to carry him part of the way but he's just too heavy. We finally get to the vet and Chuki just collapsed. That was probably the scariest part. Luckily (again), we have extreme confidence in our vets ability whenever we take him there. So we get there and bring him into the back. They immediately put one of those things on the upper part of his leg to stop the blood flow so that they can see what happened. And then they told us to wait in the waiting room. We waited and about 20 minutes later they came out and told us he had cut a vein above his paw with a large piece of glass. They were able to remove the glass and control the bleeding but he would have to stay over night to have fluids and antibiotics administered. So away we went, shaken but not scared.

We just got home from the vet with Chuki! He has a big old bandage on his foot but no cone. He just walked into the bedroom and he's eaten the bandage off almost. So I'm on my way back to the vet to get a new bandage, some more tape and a cone! Plus some sandwiches from Mega.

We'll post picture hopefully today when our friend Ross lends us his camera charger! Cross your fingers its the correct one!

MULUB,
Taylor

PS. We were able to get a cone for Chuki yesterday. He hates it, but it does its job!

Chuki's Pretty Amazing Routine

Chuki in Banos!

It's been a while since we've posted any updates on Chuki. I think the last time was when we majorly overhauled our training techniques. Well I'm very happy to report that he's doing SO SO SO well. We started with NILIF towards the middle to the end of January and that has been the single biggest help. If he doesn't have toys laying around, he doesn't wine to be played with. Don't get me wrong, we still play with him! But now, it's on our schedule, when we want and for how long we want.

His walks are 100 times better. He still doesn't like to walk in the rain and will go a little crazy when he's had enough. But really, who likes to walk in the rain? Also, he's doing a million times better running with me. The trick is to only go for a short run because he gets really hot (if it's sunny) or really wet (if it's raining) and he doesn't like either one. So I usually only take him when I'm going to do a quick 5k and he does great!

The thing I'm most happy about is the jumping. He's slowly but surely learning that jumping is NEVER allowed on people. I think this is a pretty common problem with boxers. Here's what we've done to train him... Whenever we're coming home (whether it's just one or both of us) we open the door and stay outside of it and tell him to sit, lie down and stay. It's pretty cute because he does this crazy wiggle but he's still lying down. Then we come in the door, put down our stuff and go pet him for like 1 second. He can't get up until we've pet him first. If he does, we go back outside and start the whole thing over again. We tell him sit, lie down, stay. Then we come in put our stuff down and pet him. The key is to not pet him for a long time and give him lots of praise. It's just for him to associate our touch with when he can get up and greet us.

When there are guests coming over the method is slightly different. We put his leash on. The doorbell rings. Our guests wait for a minute outside the door while we tell Chuki to sit, lie down and stay. We tell the guests to not pay attention to him. When we tell him he can get up one of us holds the leash. As soon as he jumps on one of the guests we put him into the bedroom and close the door. He stays in the bedroom for a couple of minutes and then we let him out. And the process continues for as long as there are guests over. Every time he jumps he goes into the bedroom.

Now this may sound a bit exhausting for the guests and for you as the host(ess). It was in the beginning. Either Ryan or I had to be with Chuki for at least the first hour of people being there and Chuki spent most of the night in the bedroom because he would jump so frequently. But we had people over this past Friday and he only was in the bedroom 3 times in the very beginning. Then he calmed down and just wanted to sniff and check out our guests. Eventually he fell asleep on the couch while we were all eating dinner. MAJOR PROGRESS!

Plus he's learning new tricks, which is keeping his mind stimulated. He can kind of roll over now! And we're working on touch still. Actually we're working more on no touch.

His pretty awesome routine looks something like this:
6am breakfast
sleep
10am walk
sleep
12pm lunch
sleep
3pm walk
sleep
6pm dinner
sleep

Now maybe this is what most dogs do all of their lives... But Chuki has NEVER had a routine like this. It's more like 6am breakfast, play/whine/bark until you play with him, 10am walk, play/whine/bark until you play with him, etc. So this is a big and welcome adjustment for us!

Last but not least, the crate training is going. It's not going well and it's not going poorly... it's just going. He eats in the crate. He gets in the crate on his own to see if there's any food left over. When we put him in the crate he sits patiently and even lies down. He doesn't really whine in there or try to escape. But he's certainly not going in the crate to take a nap on his own accord. So we're happy with the progress. It's not important to us that he loves it, but just that he's comfortable in there and that he's able to stay in there for at least 6 hours.

That's about all we're learning right now, well at least when it comes to Chuki. Can't wait for everyone to meet him someday!

MULUB,
Taylor

Chuki Updates

Just a few things we're working on with the Chuki bear... Thought you all might want to know.

1st and foremost, we've started NILIF (Nothing In Life Is Free). You can google it if you're really curious but basically the premise is that dogs recieve nothing unless they do something for it. So before we pet Chuki, he has to sit. Long gone are the days of toys all over the house, now we keep them all in the closet and we control when and for how long we plays with them. The reason we started it is because he needs to understand that we're the boss, the pack leaders if you will. Anyways, we've already seen improvements! Wa Hoo!

2nd, we're crate training and he hates it. Absolutely hates it. But we're being persistent. Any advice would be helpful!

3rd, we're really working on the jumping. It's no fun for us and its especially no fun for guests. We're seeing big improvements with us, but we need some willing volunteers who don't mind being jumped on to have him practice with guests... any takers?

Lastly, we've joined Boxerworld. It's a forum type place where boxer owners post questions and such. We've already had some great answers to some of the questions that have been plaguing us.

Thats about all with Chuki. Actually, it's quite a lot! We're trying to get him ready for the big move!

MULUB,
Taylor

PS. Also Chuki is learning the 'off' command and the 'touch' command. The fruits of our labor - he no longer sleeps in the bed with us!!! WAAA HOOO!! And we're hoping that the 'touch' command will make it easier to train him to ring a bell on the door when he has to go out at my parents' house!

Happy Birthday Chuki Bear!

Chuki is 1 years old today! We've got lots of fun things planned for him and, of course, lots of fun meals! We've already had pancakes and eggs for breakfast and now we're heading to the dog park. His birthday cake is in the oven and we're going to grill out this afternoon, so that he can play in the yard at our apartment building.

MULUB,

Coming home from the breeder!

Curled up on a pillow

Enjoying the parc

Waiting patiently for someone to play with him

Celebrating his first Christmas

Finally home from Sebas's

Updates on Chuki

After worrying and trying to figure out what to do with Chuki while we were gone, I'm happy to report that he had just as much fun on his vacation from us, as we had on our vacation home! I can't wait definitely what it is, but Sebas and his family have a way with dogs. Chuki came home to us much more calm and much more happy. Knock on wood.

As this is our first dog, ever, we're learning what works and what doesn't and we're not afraid to ask for help. Sebas is still on vacation, so I haven't had a chance to ask him exactly what it is that he did with Chuki while we were gone. But all of a sudden, Chuki is playing by himself, sleeping more, not going 100% crazy when we walk in the door. All of these things are SERIOUSLY amazing!

The best part about it is that Sebas and his family really enjoy having Chuki at their house. It's seriously win win. Which makes me really feel blessed, especially as there are lots of little trips we want to take before we leave Ecuador for good!

In other news, Chuki loved all of the Christmas presents that we bought for him at home. Actually, we haven't given all of them to him yet, but he's loved the ones he's received so far. Ryan took him for a walk with his backpack on (yes, we bought Chuki a backpack). It made him REALLY hot, so we'll have to plan for that next time we want to take a hike with the pups. He's also LOVING the real bone we bought for him. He will seriously sit and chew the thing for an hour and then fall asleep. It's amazing! Plus for the price of the real bone and the huge amount of time it will take him to finish it, they're quite a deal. I think the best thing so far has been the $5 stocking we bought at one of the pet chain stores in the States. He freaking loves those little toys with the squeaky things in them. Ryan didn't think he'd play with them because so far his favorite toys have been water bottles, but he does play with them BY HIMSELF! AMAZING!

We're saving some of the presents we bought because his birthday is coming up on January 16. We're thinking we'll have a BBQ outside and grill him a big steak! But we'll see!

All in all, we're happy to be home and reunited with Chuki. I just can't wait for him to be in IL this summer. He's going to have so much fun swimming in the river and running around in all of the parks. Plus he has so many fun people to meet.

MULUB,
Taylor

PS. He's also thrilled to be back to home cooking instead of ProCan! Every time we feed him he gets so excited I think his little nub is going to wag right off of him!

What we feed that dog...

Chuki is HUGE, almost 50 lbs! If he were a small child, people would ask 'what are you feeding him?' But because he's a dog, people don't ask that. I'm not sure why.

There are a lot of ways you can go about Home Cooking. You can cook everyday, once a week, once a month, once a year (if you have a REALLY big freezer). Or you can cook when said dog happens to run out of food. We tend to fall in the later category. We cook, he eats, when food runs out, we cook again. You have to decide what works best for you.

Do's and Don'ts of Home Cooking

About a week ago I told you how we came to the decision of home cooking for Chuki. Today is about more practical matters. What can the dog eat and what can't the dog eat? Now, just like cooking for humans there are infinite possibilities of what a puppers can eat. You can get really fancy or you can be super simple. Either way, the dog will (mostly) love everything.

Also just like humans, dogs don't like to eat somethings and shouldn't eat other things. For example, we've learned that Chuki doesn't like raw spinach. Cooked, he has no problem with but don't even try to give him the stuff raw. He really doesn't like any leafy green that is raw, but will eat all of them if cooked. Chuki, like his momma, doesn't like beets... IN ANY FORM. And then there are things that he LOVES! Also, like his momma, the Chukinator LOVES cheese and peanut butter. (bunny trail) The only way that you can determine what he likes and doesn't like is by trying.

We're trying out a new feature. This way you only see part of the post (YES! There's more!), and can click on Read More to see the whole thing.

Home Cooking

I haven't really blogged about home cooking for Chuki yet. So here goes -

When we first got the pup we were feeding him Purina Puppy Chow because, well, because it was a brand we knew from home and it was moderately priced. It wasn't the cheapest but it wasn't the most expensive. We had taken him to the vet for his first round of shots but at about 6 weeks I found a worm in his poop (gross, I know) and we took him back to the vet for a more detailed exam.

There's More...

Transitional Plan

If you don't have a transitional plan you run lots of risks with Home Cooking for your dog. First of all the pup may not actually like home cooking so you have to ween him on. I've never actually heard of that happening, but I suppose it's a possibility. 

More importantly is the pup needs time to adapt to new foods. Believe me, Chuki has enough stomach issues as it is, I wouldn't want to add one to your pup! So go slow and be aware. You're looking for anything out of the ordinary. Keep your eyes open for vomiting, diarrhea, dullness of coat or glassy eyes. Warning this is kind of gross: You will probably see a change in his poop for the first couple of days, maybe even a week. It will probably be softer and not pellet like. What you don't want is pure liquid coming from his bottom end. Just be mindful of it.  

The Tale of the Missing Cheese

Right after pay day we were feeling pretty low and so on our weekly Wednesday night trip to the grocery store, I decided to splurge and buy some cheese. Real cheese that is. None of this Queso Fresco bologna. It was $7 for a teeny, tiny round. The round was divided into four quarters of four different cheeses. One quarter was a mild cheddar, one was a herbed cheese, one was a gouda, and the other one I can't remember.

Now you may wonder why I can't remember what it was seeing that I, clearly, love cheese and remember the others. Well... let me tell you.

We had just opened said quarter of cheese in the kitchen. We were going to snack on it while watching a movie (or probably more accurately Big Bang Theory on DVD). Said cheese was on the counter in the kitchen, on a cutting board. We each cut ourselves a piece and then I gave a tiny piece to Chuki and we went into the living room to proceed with the movie. When I came back to the kitchen for my second piece (I had every intention of eating the whole quarter that night) it was gone. GONE! What's $7 divided by 4? Because whatever that is, just went down the drain. Or to be more exact down Chuki's little mouth, into his very happy tummy.

Needless to say, I was more than astonished and very, very mad! That was the first time I'd ever known him to jump up on the counter. Oh what a bad, bad dog! But even Chuki will do whatever it takes for some decent cheese in this country.

Now whenever we get the 'good cheese' out I guard it. It goes at the VERY back of the counter with a towel over it and something very noisy in front of it, like a pan with a medal spoon in it. That way the alarm will sound if he even tries to get to MY CHEESE!

MULUB,

Taylor