Four Months with Hannah

Hannah's most notable accomplishment of the month is that she passed her Canine Good Citizenship test.  She was actually kind of stubborn and naughty during the testing, but the evaluator gave us a pity pass and since I knew she could do everything on the list when she wasn't in a bad mood, I took that pity pass with glee.

I spent the extra $10 to get a nice certificate and I'm going to get it framed and we're going to put it up somewhere in the house because that's how I roll.

Hannah has also started to experience the changing seasons.  She was super happy with the few weeks of autumn. We were going on hikes in our favorite county park, chasing tennis balls in the field, and frolicking through crunchy fallen leaves.  She enjoyed the cooler weather and would happily walk with me for hours.

She's happy here, I promise. She's with her person  in the county park!

But then, earlier this week, it snowed a teeny tiny bit.  Poor Hannah was underwhelmed by the snow, to say the least. She walked on exactly one patch of grass with snow and immediately ran off it. She mostly stayed under trees where there wasn't much snow to do her business. We've been working with her to wear winter boots and I am glad we started doing this in early October. I thought we'd need them because of people using salt on sidewalks, but I think she might need them to keep her paws dry and warm.

She's very much NOT happy here. She wanted to get in the car and LEAVE and I was making her STAY on the cold ground.

The other thing that has been going on in Hannah's world is that we've been trying to figure out exactly what she can and should eat.  

When we first got her, her gastrointestinal tract was a disaster. Her skin was itchy and she scratched everywhere. There was a rash on her belly and little red blisters all over her back.  The vet quickly put her on a bland diet, but it became clear that it wasn't enough. The hypothesis is that she's allergic to something, but that something is not entirely obvious.

So we've had her on an elimination diet since late July.  She's eating this absolutely repulsive dry food. It smells like buttered popcorn and most dogs hate it (at her training class one person ran out of treats for her dog and I handed her a few of these kibbles - her dog spit it out).  Hannah eats it because it's essentially all we'll give her.  She's allowed sweet potato, pumpkin, carrots, and marshmallows, too.  

Her GI issues calmed down almost immediately after this diet started.

Her skin...was not so easily dealt with.

In the meantime, her weight was a big problem. We couldn't figure out how much to give her and she was so skinny that random people were stopping me to ask if she was okay (answer: well, we're working on it).  This has settled a bit once we realized that this tiny dog (only 45 pounds!) should be getting 3 cups of food a day and all the sweet potato she'll take!

She started to get a rash on her chest and she had to go to the vet to get shaved and put on a super duper antihistamine named Apoquel.  So now Hannah is on 3/4 of a tablet of Apoquel a day, her prescription dog food, and a probiotic.  Her skin is mostly cleared up (!), but I feel like I should knock on wood about that because her groomer always finds something new. Her winter coat is starting to come in and she looks shiny and beautiful.

Earlier this week we reintroduced chicken. She had the equivalent of about 3/4 of a chicken breast for four days in a row. She LOVED getting meat, even if it was just plain chicken with no spices.  Now we're going to wait for a few weeks and see if everything holds steady. So far so good.  If all goes well for a few weeks, then we can introduce eggs.  Someday we hope to be able to transition her to a high quality food that's available in pet stores!