Renee Stelle: Minga Update

I haven't mentioned this before, but when Minga eats in the morning she gets some food in her mouth and chews it while walking around the kitchen island. She walks counter clockwise every time. She does this after every bite for awhile and then leaves the rest for later. So funny! When she finishes her food later (sometimes right before bedtime) she usually just stands at her bowl and chows down without moving. Minga weighs 80 lbs now.

Minga has mellowed out some in her second year of life. She is really good with letting Alisa pat her, pull at her ears & flesh and even climb over her. When Alisa was starting to scoot on her belly over a month ago, she'd reach for Minga's paw and Minga would move her paw away. Alisa would reach again and Minga would move it away again. This went on and on and was fun to watch. It gave Alisa a reason to scoot and later crawl! Since Minga is a large dog who doesn't know her own strength, we have to keep a close watch when Alisa is sitting by her legs because if Minga starts rolling around on her back, her legs go flying and often she comes close to kicking Alisa across the room. She has been good about not touching Alisa's toys. The only time recently that she has touched a forbidden toy has been when Alisa offered it to her by holding it up to her mouth. Minga will usually just nuzzle it with her nose but sometimes she nibbles at it. She stops nibbling when I say "No" so that is great. Minga is very funny and exciting to Alisa. She loves having Minga nearby. Sometimes she tries to get Minga's attention when she is across the room by letting out a couple of high pitch "aah!" sounds. So cute!

Comparing hand to paw:

In August, Craig cooked spaghetti while Minga stood nearby hoping to catch any food that fell. Unexpectedly, the garlic Craig was pressing shot out of the press, over the counter and into Minga's eye. Her eye watered a lot and swelled up. Craig rinsed it out with water and Minga ran to another room of the house to recover. She was fine by the next day and from then on whenever she smells garlic, she doesn't go near or stay in the kitchen.

Minga's right eye wouldn't open very far until hours after the garlic was rinsed out of it:

In October, Minga went into heat for the second time. She bled for 3 weeks her first time (last December) and this time she bled for 2 weeks. Most dogs bleed for less than a week so maybe next time she will drop to just 1 week (one can hope). The diaper we bought her last time was too messed up to use again. It was a little too big anyway (even though it was supposed to be her size) and kept falling down--ew! We bought her a smaller one and it worked great...didn't fall down at all. Because she urinates frequently when in heat, it's too gross and troublesome to put her diaper off and on for potty breaks if we were to let her inside all day. Therefore, we ended up keeping Minga outside in the fenced yard during the day and put her diaper on and let her inside during the night. We made the mistake of leaving her diaper outside (not on the ground, but still within reach) one morning after removing it and she chewed it while we were out for a few hours. That happened the second day after we bought it so it was quite upsetting (after all, she ruined her fancy new denim diaper). We ended up duct taping it and it still worked because we put the sanitary pads in it like normal, but on top of the taped part. Ha!

Here is the duct tape repair job on the diaper:

Minga has skin problems that flare up here and there. During the worst of it, she is itchy, gets red sores on her belly and loses lots of hair (mostly from her belly, but also other scattered patches on her legs where she has been biting a lot. We've tried a few tests (as suggested by the vet and others) to see what the issue might be but we still don't know (no, it's not fleas). It would cost hundreds to have the vet do an official allergy test. For now, we give her medications which help (they aren't cheap though).