Wordless Wednesday

Recent Happenings

Things have been pretty busy as of late. As always, the later part of the semester is always the busiest, which is why I missed several post days recently. Luckily, most of my major assignments have been completed and turned in and I can turn to less exhausting ways of keeping myself busy.

Anyway, on to some pictures of the fuzzy creatures in my life.

Ebon at the vet before getting his yearly vaccinations early this month. He knows the place well, and really doesn't like being there. He gets extremely anxious and basically forgets all of his training. He jumps and whines and trots in circles and pulls at the leash. I've been trying to work with him on that. At least he's not fear-aggressive at all!

This is Jen, one of my brother's cats, who has been introduced previously. Jen is the perpetually-happy, bigger, older brother. I believe he is fifteen years old. When I say perpetually happy, I mean perpetually happy. He is nearly constantly purring and trying to rub his face all over you. He loves belly rubs and if you touch him he'll attack you with love. His meow is a bit odd, since he really more screams than anything else. His purr is also quite loud. He usually has this odd wide-eyed look on his face, which I call "The Jen Face." He's a very unusual cat, and honestly one of the best words to describe him is "simple."

For contrast, here is Ash, who has also been mentioned before. Ash is the more mellow, smaller, younger brother. I believe he is fourteen years old. He's a petite, quiet little fireball who chirps like a bird when he meows. His favorite place is in your lap (which is where he is in this picture). He's very kitten-like in appearance but not in temperament, and probably has some sort of condition that made him so small and finely boned. He's the problem-child when it comes to relations with Ebon. Usually, they're fine with each other now, but when we first introduced them he was the one to swat at the dog.

Ebon being good and waiting for his dinner today. I make him do a little "work" for every meal. Usually it's tricks, sometimes it's waiting for thirty seconds or more, other times I give him a food puzzle.

And, of course, I did change my banner image. It's from a nice walk Ebon and I took a while ago now.

Ebon loves his backpack! Here's it's only weighted with two liters of water (about four and a half pounds of weight). I would like it to be a bit heavier, probably eight to ten pounds. This is actually part of the same trail I mentioned before.

Overflow

Ebon doesn't fit well in this bed, and it's even worse when he's got a chewie. The bed was Charlie's.

Bath Day

I meant to post this earlier, but I've honestly been too lazy to upload the images until now.

Clean puppy, still damp

The bathtub drain

On Wednesday, I gave Ebon a bath. Nothing special about that. It does amuse me, however, the sheer amount of fur that I get off of that dog every time I bathe him. It tends to look like I murdered a small animal. When balled up, I got a full handful out of the drain (so that's not counting the other handful or so that came out later when he dried out). I realize that Labradors often have more coat than you would expect, but Ebon's coat is very sleek for a Lab.

After the dog gets a bath I always try to go and wash all of the beds and blankets. We actually have quite a lot. There are four dog beds: a lot for one dog, but we had two not so long ago. There's also the blankets that always reside in Ebon's kennel. So, it's a lot to wash. I gathered everything up, piling the uncovered beds on top of the dog kennel to keep them from getting dirty. The covers went in the washing machine and when I turned around I saw something rather predictable in my house:

Albus had hopped onto the pile. That cat gets into everything. As with him drowning his toy mouse, it's more of Albus being Albus. He's very predictable, honestly. He has to hop onto everything, and especially into any box or bag that happens to be on the floor. In doing so, he once managed to get himself caught in a television box. He hopped into it from the back of a chair not realizing the sides were taller than his "jump maximum." He has a very distinctive desperate meow in situations like that.

By the way, that's his "you caught me" face.

I do occasionally subject Ebon to wearing things, though it's usually just a bandana. He looks good in red, so he has his very own red bandana.

All of This for Cheese Crackers

Three attentive little creatures: Ebon, Albus, and Ginny

I mentioned a little bit ago about Albus' love of cheese crackers. Well, he's not alone. At one time or another, all of the pets (the mammals at least) have managed to get their paws on one and they've gone crazy for them. I decided to have a little snack of Goldfish crackers today, and within a minute this happened. That's my foot, and they are all in fact staring directly at me. Well, Ginny was, but she glanced down right before the flash went off. Isn't that always how it happens?

Albus is the worst offender. He knows what the packages sound like when you open them and he will come running, meowing and purring and pawing at the counter in the hope that he will get one. He's always done this, but he's been spoiled a bit lately because he lost weight during his hospital stay and he's become especially bratty. It's funny because Albus goes gaga over cheese crackers, but he won't touch real meat. They get some occasionally as a treat, and though the others chow down he'll just sniff it and walk away. He's a very odd cat.

Ebon, being a dog, is nearly always at hand in case someone drops something. He especially likes crunchy things because they have nearly the same texture as the treats I use when training him, and he always gets excited about the prospect of training. I suspect he associates anything crunchy with this, and thus crackers = crunchy = treats = fun times. With a simple word he'll stop begging, but this was just too funny.

Ginny was a bit of a surprise. She's not very fond of Ebon because he's so much larger than her and his playfulness doesn't mesh well with her skittish nature (due to the fact that she's rather feral). However, they're on fairly good terms and she does love cheese crackers nearly as much as the other two. I think she's also learning what the package sounds like.

And yes, I gave in and they each got one. Except Ginny. She managed to put on weight while Albus lost it, so I'm being hard-hearted and abstaining from giving her any treats.

Fun in the Sun

Who's a happy dog?

I took Ebon out to play this morning and I though I would do a sort of diary entry about it.

For those who haven't read the first post on this blog,  Ebon is a Labrador Retriever from field stock, also sometimes called an "American" lab (I don't like that terminology because dogs from America come in both the "English" show type and the "American" field type). He is nearly 27 inches at the withers and weighs about 85 pounds.

Ebon will do anything for a tennis ball. It's absolutely his favorite toy by far, and we have a ball chucker to help fling them further. He loves it, and if you have a dog that is a lover of tennis balls like Ebon, I highly recommend it. The special balls you can get for them are pretty nifty. Ebon seems to really like The Whistler, but a regular tennis ball does just fine.

We have a long expanse of yard next to the house, and that is the perfect place to play fetch with him. It's just long enough for me to miss the treeline with the chucker, and there's a handy shade tree that he can rest under. We used to have a kiddy pool for him, but it cracked over the winter and we haven't had a chance to replace it yet.

Throw it, throw it!

And he's off!

We don't have a fence, but Ebon's recall is great. The only times that he won't come when called are when he has to potty, to say hello if a person actually enters our yard, or he runs off to chase a small mammal (usually rabbits). He's never caught one, but it seems that he just can't stop himself. If someone walks or drives by, he doesn't really seem to care, especially if I have a ball in my hand!

Glug, glug, slurp, splash...

Unfortunately, it was exceptionally hot today, so we only played for about five or ten minutes before he was panting awfully hard and I took him inside to cool of. He went through his usual cooling down sequence: drink water, dribble it onto the floor, lay in own drool on cool tile floor, pant for a minute. Repeat until cool. I'll be taking him out again later when it's not so hot.

By the way, if you're curious, Ebon's collar is a nylon no-slip collar modeled after the martingale collars used on sighthounds.  It's, frankly, the best collar I've ever used on a dog and is necessary because he has a small head for a Labrador, a common sight in field lines. It is not a choker collar and in fact when fully closed has the recommended two-finger gap, but when loose it fits him more comfortably than any other collar I have tried on him (which were either too snug or would basically fall off him).

Guess The Genotype #1

This is something that I find rather fun. Take a dog (or cat) with an interesting color and guess the genotype. This is especially fun when looking at mixed breeds because it can often lead to guesses as to what the dog's ancestry may be. To begin this, I will be looking at Charlie. He was my family's loving companion for fifteen years. We had to put him down in March of 2010 after it was discovered that he had a very aggressive form of cancer. I played guess the genotype and guess the breeds many times over the years, and this is what I concluded: he was a recessive red piebald with liver pigmentation and ticking. What breeds? I'm still a bit unsure, but from his appearance, plus where we adopted him (rural Mississippi where nearly all of the dogs are hunting/sporting types or pit bulls) my best guess is Labrador, Brittany, and beagle with possibly a little bit of something else thrown in. Here's the breakdown:

Charlie's nose, eye rims, lips, and paw pads were definitely not black, instead being distinctly brown in color. This led me to conclude that he was recessive bb liver. Liver (also called "brown"/chocolate/red depending on the breed is found on the "B" locus) will dilute all black on a dog's body to brown.

Charlie had only red and white hairs with no hint of brown hairs, this led me to conclude he was ee recessive red. Recessive red (also called "extension" is found on the "E" locus) prevents black or the dilutions there of from being expressed in the coat, turning it a solid red color, though the red can vary greatly in shade from deep mahogany red to nearly white in color. Charlie is on the dark end of red, but since there is a lot of question as to what genes affect the intensity of red, I won't go into that. Sable red, though it can often be nearly all red in color, usually has at least some hint of black or its dilutes in the coat.

Charlie had a significant amount on white on his coat. It did break his topline and covered over 50% of his body, making it clear he was recessive spsp piebald spotting. Piebald (found on the "S" or "spotting" locus) affects all other colors on a coat, leaving patches of white. Piebald is recessive to the solid (S) gene, as well as the Irish white gene (si) and is dominant to the extreme white piebald gene (sw). Though it is possible he carried a gene for extreme white piebald, I doubt it. Usually the recessives a dog carries on the S locus will in fact effect the overall amount of white. The most famous example of this is in Boxers, which have two genes on this locus: S and sw, yet show three distinct phenotypes: SS solid, swsw white, and Ssw which appears Irish white. Since Charlie showed such classic mid-grade piebald spotting, he was most likely spsp.

Charlie also had small spots of color randomly distributed throughout his coat. This made me conclude he was homozygous Tt ticked. Ticking (found on the "T" locus) is a dominant gene, with the recessive being no ticking. Since his ticking was not very dense, I suspected that he only had one copy of the dominant gene. When a dog has heavy ticking, I would suspect it to be TT, and thus Charlie probably was not.

So, Charlie was most likely bb ee spsp Tt or recessive red piebald with liver pigmentation and ticking.

It is interesting to note that a mixed breed showed so many recessive genes, but, depending on ancestry, this is very possible. I suspect that he was Labrador/Brittany/beagle partly because of his color and also partly because of his looks. He had a mostly Labrador head, size, and coat, though less oily and maybe a bit longer. Labradors also come in both liver (chocolate) and recessive red (yellow). His tail set, which was nearly always held perfectly upright, is very beagle, and beagles come in recessive red, piebald, ticked, and liver (though ticking and liver are most often seen in working lines, but because of where he came from this is not unlikely). He also had roughly the body type of a Brittany, and Brittanys come in recessive red, liver, piebald, and ticked.

No matter what, we loved him and miss him.

For the next Guess the Genotype, I'll be posting a picture and have you guys guess, then I'll post my opinions.

About a Dog

Ebon specifically. Ebon is a black Labrador Retriever from field stock who had his sixth birthday earlier this year. I knew him nearly from birth, and I am glad I was able to go through such an experience. His breeder was the mother of a good friend of mine. Ebon's mother, Hellon, was a sixty pound chocolate working duck retriever and was getting older. She was good at what she did, and the breeder hoped they could get a puppy just as good. I never met the father, but Rebel was also a duck dog, yellow this time and nearly one hundred pounds. Unfortunately, when Hellon was pregnant their home was robbed and the dogs were drugged and thrown into the bathroom. They were concerned about the puppies, and had reason to be. 

The litter was born in mid January 2005: five boys, all black. It came as quite a surprise to the breeder. With a chocolate mother and yellow father, they were expecting a colorful litter. I met the pups for the first time when they were two weeks old. They were five perfect little creatures, active and vocal as can be. Their puppy names came quickly: partly from their behavior and partly from the ribbons placed around their necks. Red was Reddy, yellow Sunshine, dark blue Grunt, light blue Little Boy Blue, and green was Crapper. They grew so quickly into active little things, and their mother would hop the baby gate to be away from them when they got especially rowdy.

Before long, they were two months old and it was time for them to go to their new homes. One by one, they left, and eventually little Grunt, then called Calvin was the only one left. The person who was supposed to take him had changed their mind. The breeder didn't want to keep him, as she had wanted to keep a female, so she went on the hunt to find him a new home. Time passed, and he got older, and now few people wanted to adopt a puppy that old. After he turned five months old, the breeder approached me. If I fixed him he would be mine free of charge. I was a junior in high school, and after some coaxing my parents let it happen.

Ebon became my dog, joining a household that already included a ten-year-old Lab mutt (Charlie) and two cats (four-year-old Albus and three-year-old Ginny). He has been my pride and joy ever since. He matured to be a handsome, eighty-five pounds of lean muscle. He's no duck dog, but he probably could have been if that was the path I had wanted to go down. Instead, he's a much-loved pet and will be mine until the day he dies. He's been quite a lesson to me, and we grew up together in a lot of ways. I teach him tricks for fun, and hope to one day certify him as a therapy dog. I might also get him into dock jumping, flyball, or agility. Right now we do aspects of each in play. I plan to post the list of commands he knows. It's fairly extensive.

Last year we discovered Ebon has epilepsy. It's mild, and he only has a seizure every four to six months or so. Each episode had been brief and minor, though it clearly frightens him. He does not require medication. I wonder if the incident while his mother was pregnant could have caused it, because there isn't a family history and all the puppies in the litter have it. No matter what, I still love him to bits and I always will.