It has been a while since we were on the Agility scene, and man am I excited to get back into it! Harmony is now a year old and we are getting to start working on equipment training! I plan to train running contacts with her. She has SUCH an awesome drive response (which by the way is a two sided coin) that I have high hopes of her having really nice speed in the ring! I started her on flat work when she was just a puppy, so she already knows her front crosses and shadow heeling. 


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Here is Bentley! We had been boxer-less for about 5 months, and decided that it was time =) Bentley came to us from West Coast Boxer Rescue, he was being held in a kennel in southern CA. Bentley came to us with a little bit of a rap sheet, he had been in a foster home previously, but had been returned to the kennel because he was fighting with their boxer female alpha dog. We weren't sure whose fault those fights were, we just knew that they were bloody. He had been back in the kennel fo...
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Well, now that Riley is doing so much better, he has been getting into more and more things. Pulling dishes out of the sink, pans off the back of the stove, etc. Unfortunately it also causes me to get a little lax in giving him his supplement treats. I had forgotten like 5 days in a row when I left a carton of eggs on the counter while I ran over to my Mom's to have a cup of coffee. Well of course, I came home to egg juice all over the house. Lovely. Riley ate 12 raw eggs. I really didnt thin...
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Kenzie did great at her first trial! We did have a little fallback from the stress to deal with afterward (jumping at every sound), so we went back to the thundershirt/music regime for a few days, and then she was fine. On the way to the trial I gave a speech about how relaxed I was, and how it did not matter how we did, we were just there to have fun, etc. Once we got there and went to get measured etc, there were dogs milling around everywhere. She was stressed, but not aggressive, so tha...

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SOOOO, it has been a while since I updated you all on our agility progress. We have now been to 3 fun trials, where Kenzie learned what the whole trialing thing was. At the first two fun trials she was what I call "loopy", which just means that she ran with only 5% of her brain focused on me, the rest of it was focused on everything else = /  So she just ran very wide, though she did stay with me, which is more than it could have been. Then, a couple weeks ago we went to her third fun trial, ...
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So we have just started our agility group classes with a trainer in Stockton. It is SO funny to watch Kenzie "show off" to the other dogs. I am shocked at how fast she is when we are in a group setting. Of course this could just be that she is a little "on edge", so her adrenaline is pumping, making her run faster, but either way, I am very happy with it. Now that we have the performance of the individual obstacles down, we are now on the very fun process of fine tuning our team performance. ...
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SOOOO, Kenzie is rocking 12 weaves!!!! It is so exciting to now be working on speed, more difficult entries, and independent performance. Kenzie is also making great progress on the Dog Walk running contact. We are now able to go jump, tunnel, full dog walk, toy. We are working up to full speed, not quite there yet, but I am very happy with our progress. We start A-frame training in 2 days, as well as introducing the chute. Her teeter performance still is not as quick as I would like...I will...
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Ok, so I have been working on weaves and contacts for about a month now, if you take out my traveling for the conference for a week, and now recovering from surgery. I am finally starting to be able to work outside with Kenzie again, albeit slightly dizzy, and moving very little, and slowly at that. =(

We are making great headway in both areas. Kenzie has been running the full height dogwalk starting from the middle of the top plank for about a week.  

We are just about to 6 straight poles, wi...
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The tricks are going well, Kenzie is finally "sitting pretty" on her own, it took her quite a while to have the confidence to try to balance herself. I am still working on a really strong paw swiping over the eyes/nose, I call it "shy?". She does it great while lying on her side, but we are working on it while sitting or standing now. She has "say your prayers" down! I think that is her favorite trick as of now, it is really cute.

Oh, so new news, I had to go pick Max up from his adopt...
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Here is my recipe for dog treats, I finally wrote it down as I was making them! Unfortunately for anyone who is trying to repeat one of my "creations", I am a throw-it-together, we-dont-need-no-stinking-measuring devices, kind of person. But I did finally buckle down and write things out as I did them.

Things you need:
Ground Turkey Meat: 5.25lbs
Oats: 4 Cups
Bone Meal (optional): 1.25 cups
Powdered or Minced Garlic: 2 Tbsp
Freezer baggies

You want a ratio of 1 cup of flour to 1lb of ground meat. ...
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So, I have been pulling my hair out trying to make the trkman method of Running Contacts work for us. It has been 6 months, 3 of which I worked on it very diligently. I did not know what I was going to do, when a completely new method came to me (as far as I know its new, anyway). It seems so obvious, but simple in regards to training theory. While I was excited to try this new method, a part of me thought that it was pointless, because who am I? How could I come up with my own method that is...
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So, I just got Susan Garrets DVD 2x2 weaves, and I am ready to get started! She says that you can  teach a dog to weave 12 poles in 12 days, so I am ready to put it to the test! I actually am not surprised by this, if you and your dog are shaping savvy. So I am very excited to get started and see how it goes.

Kenzie did great at our group class last week. I was thrilled that by the end of class, she was actually calm enough to be able to demonstrate how to be shaped for new behaviors.

Her tee...
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Update on Kenzie's reactivity training post-vacation...she is fine! A little more reactive to the sound of dogs barking than she was before, but that I can handle =)  We are still able to go to the dog park and be social...HUGE. I have a new dog training class starting tomorrow that I intend to use Kenzie in as a demo dog, we will see how it goes! I have never been able to use her in any of my classes before because she was way too reactive and required 100% of my attention any time there wer...
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So, after the last post, we had about one week before going on our 2 week vacation in Hawaii...a vacation that we were not able to take the dogs on. During that last week of training we were able to take Kenzie into the dog park to run around with other dogs one other time, and that went wonderfully! There were five dogs in the park when we first went in (after the initial warm-up/meet and greet through the dog park fence of course), but two dogs were in the process of leaving, so that left u...
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So after 10 days of being on the program, we had to travel otu of town, then I ended up getting really sick, so it was a total of a month that the training was put on hold...and boy were we sorry! It was like the first 10 days of training never happened. I had not realized how much she had regressed, so the first time I took her out for a training session she went way over threshold 3 times, and we had one miserable dog on our hands: now afraid of all sounds slightly out of the ordinary, and ...
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So, it has been a little over a month since I was out of my mind with frustration over Kenzie's reactivity to other dogs. Once we got to our house in Oregon (shortly after the last post) we had a very hard time getting her to sleep through the night. It took 7 days of loud music playing all night and all day to get our first "stress session" free night. I was so excited, I woke up thinking "I slept through the WHOLE NIGHT!!!!". Since then we still sleep with a fan running for some background ...
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So, yesterday after the huge affair in the middle of the night when we had to turn the musical back on, etc, Kenzie only barked one time all day, and that was at 9am. It was not a full throttle bark, instead of the usual "oh my gosh! I just geard something that is going to eat me, I just know it!!!!!!" bark, it was more of a "I think I just heard something, but I'm not sure, so I'm just going to bark to be on the safe side". From when I got up at 6am, she was on a new program...since we had n...
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So, I took Kenzie out for a walk in a neighborhood in the nearest town last week. I was planning on walking her there since there was very very little chance of a dog being free to come into the road (since it is a subdivision they all have fenced in yards, as opposed to the country roads around us, where dogs run free). Unfortunately I underestimated how big a deal it was that in the past 3 months (since I started working 80hrs a week), the only Reactivity training I had done was to do an oc...
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Yay! We have made quite a few leaps forward since my last post 9 days ago (and I was out of town for 5 of them!). Kenzie did her first purposeful (I think, hope, pray) stride extension on the down plank to hit the contact zone. I have been running her down the down board only for about a week now, starting her in the one spot that I found made her naturally hit the contact zone most of the time. This made it so that she was constantly getting marked for the right behavior, and the few times s...
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So it has been a month since I last gave an update on here, and lots has transpired! I am now up to 24" on the dog walk, and she very consistently runs without jumping at the end, BUT, her stride is such that she lands halfway down the last board and then stretches her next stride to land on the ground, effectively missing the end of the board completely. So I wrote and asked Silvia about it, and she thought that if I played around with start points, as well as did some just one plank work, t...
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So, it has been quite a while since i posted, but I have been taking videos, so I just need to post those so that you can see how we have been progressing. We hit a bit of a snag when I tried to raise the height last week and the middle extension part started to feel a bit unstable, causing her to lose her balance and not make it all the way to the bottom of the board. So I just took the extension part out, and just did not worry about the board being too short for her to get the two strides ...
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So we were doing wonderfully with kenzie running through the tunnel and then down the board, but then when I reversed the tunnel so that I would run down the other side of the board, she started jumping and doing something weird with her gait. So I lowered the board down to flat on the ground again and then had a shaping session to the end of the board once more. Since I had lowered it back down to flat on the ground, I decided that it was the perfect time to switch to the skinnier board (the...
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I have given up on trying to watch her feet at all, I now just watch her top line. If she is running the way I want, it will be perfectly flat all of the way through the board. This is guaranteed not jumping, and therefore what I want. When I see this I mark it and reward. When I see a lump in her top line (ie she jumped), I just do not mark it and either throw the toy but not very far, or I do not throw it at all. I think I should still be throwing it, since I do not want her to lose speed/m...
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So, as I was telling my Agility instructor Mary Van Wormer, I can now see why they say that Running Contact training is not for everyone...after I decided that I needed to start at square one after three weeks of hard training...I almost gave up. I actually thought about it, but then I went to church and felt that the sermon was written just for me, telling me not to give up on God, but to keep up the good work, trusting that He would bring a harvest. SO...if it were up to me I would have giv...
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We are having so much fun! Now that Kenzie is running through tunnels, I am teaching her how to run with me, but still have obsticle focus...and she is catching on very well! It is so rewarding to see her lock her eyes on the obstacle and go to it with confidence, as opposed to running watching me and always missing the jump, tunnel, etc. I got this by teaching lateral disctace with the curve drill:


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So, yesterday's practices went great! Basically I had to decide to train my dog the way that makes sense to me, as opposed to the way that others have trained their dogs. So I just focused on shaping the correct end behavior, and then back-chained it, the same way you do a teeter. She did GREAT! Since it was really slow in the beginning when I first started shaping, it was very clear that the click came when she got to the end of the board, not the middle, and not the beginning. Then she got ...
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Ok, so I started her back on the board last Sunday, but she started jumping again on tuesday and wednesday. I decided that the difference between running her on the ground (which I did before running her on the board each time) was just too different from running on the board. The board was a good 4" off the ground, so I decided to stop practicing until I could get what I wanted to run her on. So I got a 1/2 in plywood board. I am now teaching her to put her feet on the last portion of the bo...
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So I found out that if I ran along side of kenzie, she would jump due to added drive. Also, if I were on her right side, she would almost always jump. If I were on her left, she would give the perfect running behavior. So I decided to: change the dirction of the board, we were running east to west, so now we run north to south, and then also take away the board, so that she is just running between the gates (still 10' apart) on the grass. She has absolutely no reason to jump now! So I ran her...
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So yesterday we had a good, horrible, and great practice...weird. The only thing that was different about the last practice was that it was later in the evening when it was cooler, and she seemed to have more engergy than in the afternoon practice when she was really really hot. She had a 70% in the am, less than a 50% success rate in the afternoon with lots and lots of jumps, and  100% perfect runs in the evening. This afternoon she did the less than 50% again, but it was also pretty hot, so...
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So as you can probably guess by the title, our training has not continued in a positive manner completely. I take fully responsibility for this. I am just having a hard time marking only what I really want. Well, I guess it is more a case of clicking before I have fully comprehended what she just did, and therefore mark it if it is correct, or not mark it if it is not. I have a tendency to guess whether it is going to be a good one or not. Yesterday morning I clicked twice when I should not h...
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So, I am so excited, I finally feel like we are really doing Running Contact training. Up until this point, I was really just doing prep work; getting her confident in running quickly down the board. I knew that in order for me to be able to withhold reward when she misses the target spot, she would need to be confident enough in the behavior for her to be willing to try again. Now, in the last two days, I have added some height, and changed my criteria...this is where the REAL challenge come...

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March 28th
So it has been a full week of running Kenzie over the 10' board with slats...unfortunately, every session has been different, as I am still trying to dial-in how she best learns, and how to set her up for success while still going at the speed I want, and still being able to learn, which is a lot harder than it sounds. If I use a toy, she has a hard time thinking. I teach very very few new things with just the toy, as she cannot think while the toy is around. I have to teach it with...
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So, I did go back and try the gates on all four corners of the board, and it worked GREAT! I was very happy with it. BUT, after doing a lot of reading on Silvia Trkman's website, I decided that we have not done enough speed training. The way I see it is; if you cannot describe your dog as a bullet ready to be steered, then you have not done enough speed training! So this is what I am going to be focusing on for the next week or so. I know that she has it in her...after just one 4 min session ...
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So yesterday was our second and third running contacts training sessions. I pretty much spent the whole time trying to figure out how to get her to run FAST across the board, while also staying on it the whole way. I figured out that I can put her in a stay on the board, then throw the ball straight and she will stay on it, but if my throw is off a tiny bit (which it usually is), she does not make it to the end. I have to figure out how to make her successful. Whether that is preliminary work...
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So after much much much thought/consideration/research/nail chewing =)  I have decided to take the plunge and train Silvia Trkman's running contacts! Since it is a lot of work in the beginning, but less later on, this is the perfect time to start training. From what I have heard, I can always train a 2o2o if this does not work out, so what the hey? Why not? I love the idea of it, plus it would be easier on her in the long run (since I am not planning on running her over contact equip all that...
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Warning, this is long, so if you want to just read the first and last paragraph you can =) 

 

So, Kenzie has been way too reactive for me to take to any of my regular dog training classes (I am a trainer), so instead, I have been taking her a private lesson I do with a friend, which we do next to a very big field. I work with her way out in the field as the client is getting set up and warming up her dog. Each week for 3 weeks now I have been working my way closer and closer, but Kenzie ha...

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Last week we focused on getting her obstacle focused: walking up perpendicular to the ladder and swinging hips and all four feet into ladder. Bringing a jump into the house and shaping her to jump it. Starting out very low, then making it higher and higher. I did this for two days, then moved it outside and did the same thing. Putting her in a sit right in front of a jump bump, which was right in front of a low jump, then putting the toy a dog's length from the jump on the other side, then re...
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In the second month of Kenzie's agility foundation training, I focused on shaping games: Shaping her to put her feet on things (great first shaping exercise). To put her front feet on a perch box. To swing her hips toward me while her front feet are on a perch box. To put all four feet on a platform. To slam down a wobble board. To put all four feet on the wobble board. I used a toy with training the wobble board, but I have to be careful because when I mark it, she tends to release herself. ...
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For my beginning foundation training, I stuck with Moe Strenfel's methods most of the time. The first week: Tug, Look, Touch, Break (paws on stomach), Name Game, Side (start line position). Side took the longest, a good two weeks to get her to where she was doing it 90% of the time, with physical cue and verbal cue. I originally taught it by turning her head with the treat away from my body, which turned her rear end in to me, but I ended up re-teaching it using a clicker and shaping the beha...
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I started Kenzie's agility foundation training when I had had her for one month. The first 2 weeks was spent building the relationship/trust, before any real training could begin. Because had been a stray before she went to the shelter, then came to us, she was very distrustful of us while she was outside and "free" (not on leash, but in our fenced in yard). But she was very loving when inside. So she was put "on the leash" while outside, so that she would stay in her "pet dog" mindset, rathe...
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We had a bit of a set back yesterday; I left Kenzie outside with Riley for a few hours, and she actually reverted back to her previous way of living: disconnected to her owners, not a part of their lives, and living outdoors.

Here’s the story:
It was a beautiful Monday, and when I went home for lunch to let the dogs out to play, I decide to let them stay outside for the rest of the afternoon while I finished up work for the day. I went back to check on them a few times, as this had been t...

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After day 6 I got the flu, but fortunately my wonderful husband stepped up to the plate and took her to the dog park to throw the ball for her once a day for the remaining 4 days. On day 11 I took her to the pet store to see if there was a change in her behavior... and there was! Whereas before this challenge, when we saw a dog, she always barked or growled at it, but then was able to be redirected, this time she did not react verbally at all! She was very interested in the other dogs, but sh...

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I have found that our new dog Kenzie is quite dog reactive. This means that she has a strong reaction when she sees other dogs, and in my opinion, it is not a favorable one. She usually gets very stiff, her tail goes straight up, and she barks ferociously. Without any of my secret weapons, she ignores me completely, and I have to pretty much drag her away from the dog to get her to calm down. Now, what about these secret weapons, you may be asking: well, if we are far enough from the dog, and...
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We have had Max for a Month now, and he has come quite a way. In regards to house training/ spraying in the house:
At two weeks max had stopped sniffing to mark as we walked through the house, so we gave him a little more space, walking more slowly, letting him off of his bed, while still on the leash in the house. He sprayed the couch that night. So back onto the bed he went for another week. At week two he got a little more space again, and that night he marked a bed post. Now keep in mind ...

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Max has been here for a week and a half, and we have definitely turned a corner!

Max has learned to go potty as soon as he goes outside, and to run and play while out there, rather than just run around marking. He is still on leash or on his line while outside, but he has learned that fun things happen on it, so he likes it.

Using the line has also helped in teaching Max to be more tolerant. He is learning not to bark every time he does not get what he wants. At first I thought that Max was b...

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Kenzie, on the first day in our home, started coughing, and showing signs of getting Kennel Caugh. I straight away put her on echinacea (1cc, 2 times a day). She kept coughing/wheezing for a couple more days, but now she has been caugh free for three days! Kenzie has also started itching quite a bit on her back/rump, and I have found quite a few scabs under her collar. I am going to try bathing her in the oatmeal, tea tree oil, papaya oil and aloe vera. A good webpage about natural itch relef...
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Our new foster dog is such a sweetie, but we figured out very quickly that there was a little problem that needed immediate attention: he was peeing on EVERYTHING. He literally did not want to play with Riley, he just wanted to walk around and find more things to mark. I was nervous to bring him in the house, but I knew I had to do it sometime. I waited until I thought that surely he had gotten everything out, and then took him inside on leash. I followed him around like a hawk, waiting for h...
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Ok, so her real name is McKenzie, but we call her Kenzie, Kenz, and Miss Kenzington already, and we have only had her for three days! She has quickly stolen both Steve and My hearts, and we cannot imagine a more perfect dog for our family. She is gorgeous red merle Border Collie, and I am trying to figure out if she has Aussie in her as well, which would explain the unusual color. She moves as a border collie, and has the right shape and coat texture to be a full border collie, the coloring i...

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It has been a very long time since I have had an "only dog". Basically Riley is back to how he was when he was a puppy: play with me, play with me, play with me, play with me, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored, I'm bored. Needless to say that it is driving me crazy! I exercise him and play with him multiple times a day, but he just is not getting what he needs, even if he goes to the dog park. He would need to go multiple times a day, every day to be fully happy. So we have been on the lookout ...
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So Riley has been doing so well, after a 2yr break due to cancer, hip dysplasia and spondylosis, WE ARE BACK IN THE GAME!!!! I pulled out the jumps a couple weeks ago just for fun, to see how much Riley remembered of all of the drills and handling we used to practice. I set the jumps at 12 inches, and was astonished at how much he remembered! Front cross, rear cross, deceleration cues, acceleration cues, send ahead, reverse flow pivot, sperpentine, ALL OF IT! So then I pulled out the weaves, ...
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When Riley started throwing up his "green mix", I had to figure out a way to make it so that he was still able to ingest all of those great live enzymes, nutrients, etc. without upsetting his stomach. I tried using pancreatin, aloe vera juice, lowering the fat content, mixing it with pumpkin and while each would help for a couple of days, none of it seemed to make a big enough difference for him to actually be able to keep it down long term. So what did I do? I got online of course! I decided...
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I noticed that while I used to discribe how Riley was doing by saying "wonderfully! he is playing with Sarah more than ever! I realized that I could no longer say that. He had gotten grumpy with her, he could no longer climb up on the couch, and moved slowly all around. So I immediately put him back on his "green mix", and four days later? He was practically jumping out of his skin when it came to training time. He was hopping and jumping around me like he was a pup! Steve also noticed it whe...
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Oh, I was so relieved and thankful that Tristan was returned to me about a week after I had to turn him back over to the shelter. I bleached the entire yard and everything else I could, and canceled all of my classes for 6 weeks. Tristan gained weight steadily and found a wonderful home with a family who adores him. I love happy endings!
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We got Tristan on Saturday, and had to take him to get tested for the Parvo Virus 3 days later, and he tested positive. Dont you know that that little fella really wormed his way into my heart in those three days, as well ran all over my house/yard. So now I am learning all I can about the virus- treatment, prevention, disinfecting etc.
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