Traveling with Shadowfax - Car Safety

We spend a lot of time in the car with Shadowfax, both on local trips around town and longer road trips. We're on the overprotective end of the dog guardian spectrum and want to make sure that everyone is safe in the event of any sort of accident. We try to harness our over-protective feelings to mitigate any possible issues before they happen, so we can have silly Shadowfax in the car pictures like this and still be safe.

 

There is no intention of shaming anyone who doesn't keep their dog restrained when they are in a vehicle, whatever works for your lifestyle, budget, or personal preference. My sibling and their spouse are first responders though and have numerous awful stories of what happens to pets in vehicles during accidents. Crates, harnesses, and seat belts are no guarantee of a safe outcome from a crash, but like people wearing their seat belts, safety measures can decrease the odds of serious injury or worse in a crash.

When we go on longer road trips or vacations, we take our slightly larger vehicle that fits Shadowfax's large wire crate. The crate is roomy enough that she has room to stand up, stretch out, and move around enough to make herself comfortable. On longer road trips we stop every few hours and take her out, let her walk and sniff and do some business, and just be out of the crate for a little bit.

 

On shorter trips into town we take our smaller vehicle. The back seat has a washable seat cover and we keep Shadowfax in her harness and attach a lead from the harness to the seat belt. She has freedom to move around the back seat, look out the window, and lay down, but is fully restrained.

Again, this isn't meant to shame anyone or make them feel like they are inadequate pet parents. This is what we do, it works for us. Nobody wants to be in an accident or think about what might happen to their pets, but life can happen at unexpected moments.

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Time Travel Back to 2014 - A Shaak Ti Video

Let's hop in our trusty time machine and travel back to 2014. This is probably the first video we ever made of Shaak Ti using our iPad. Our camera work is shaky, unrefined, and needs significant improvement. Our technology and camera skills have improved dramatically since then.

We used to feel a little self conscious about taking a ton of pictures and videos of our dogs, especially out in public. But as time passes and dogs leave us, the photos, videos and memories are all that we have. We no longer care or feel self conscious and take every effort to document our daily lives. There will come a time when photos and videos will be cherished.

Shaak Ti loved a vigorous tummy rub and butt scratch session, you can hear her grunts of approval. While this may seem a bit rough, she loved being squished and manhandled. Loved it. We greatly miss Shaak Ti and think of her often. We were so glad that to have gobs of photos and videos to remind us of what an awesome little pup she was.

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Activities Change with An Older Dog

We discussed in a previous blog post, Minor Modifications at Home to Help an Old Dog, which mostly consisted of adding more area rugs, elevated dog beds, and helping her down the stairs. We've made some changes to our activities with Shadowfax as well.

Due to her reactivity we generally only go places where there aren't many other people or dogs. We try to visit local parks in early morning before they get crowded. Shadwofax reacts badly to other dogs getting near her, so when we're out we keep our head on a swivel and won't hesitate to turn around, or get back in the car. And as she's gotten older, there are fewer long walks and more slow sniffing strolls around a parking lot or through a small park.

We also spend more time taking her on errands with us, to the post office or grocery store. One of us will go inside and the other sit in the car with Shadowfax and just let her be out of the house for a little bit. It gives her a chance to get out and watch the outside world and smell some new things without the physical demands of a long walk or hike.

Shadowfax demonstrates her zoomies. She's not a puppy anymore, but she can still bring it. We try to limit these sessions to a few minutes at a time. If she runs around too much or for too long she'll get sore or stiff the next day and we may need to augment her medication regimen with some additional pain relief (she is already on Gabapentin and Carprofen for pain management). There is a fair degree of needing to protect her from herself.

Along with managing her aches and pains, we try our best to give her all the help that we can to keep her healthy. Her Cushings Disease is well managed by the prescription medication Vetoryl, she's been on Cosequin for joint health for years now, and her diet is partially vet prescribed kibble augmented with fresh fruits and veggies. For some reason she goes seriously bonkers for zucchini.

 

In our eyes she's still an energetic puppy but she needs a little more attention now that she's older. A few changes to our routine and activities enable her to share more of each day with us.

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Captain Lowry and Lennie - Search and Rescue Dog Team

We were incredibly proud when our big sister, Captain Lowry of the San Diego Fire Department, and her search dog partner Lennie recently passed their certification with FEMA to be an official search dog.

Lennie was rescued from a shelter and was thought to be a suitable candidate to become a search dog. Numerous handlers from the Search Dog Foundation assessed and trained him daily for many months until he was "matched" with his handler. The end of the first stage of the process is an official matching ceremony between handler and dog.

After several months of intensive training the handler and dog team take the next step toward certification, a Foundational Skills Assessment, finding people pretending to be victims in various simulated (but very realistic) disaster areas. From there it's on to Virginia where they perform a full rescue of an unknown to them number of victims from a realistic disaster scene. Only after successfully completing this final test are they certified by FEMA as a search dog.

Lennie is a German Short-haired Pointer (GSP) and they are pretty common in the search and rescue world. What makes him a good search and rescue (SAR) dog? High energy, endurance, easy to train, athletic, and above all else a single minded focus on the greatest thing in the world - in Lennie's case, his favorite dog toy or a tennis ball. 

His favorite toy or a tennis ball is his reward for scampering around a huge pile of rubble and finding victims. Lennie (like all SAR dogs) has a borderline neurotic obsession with his favorite toy or tennis ball. All he wants to do is play with it, day and night, and that obsession is what is harnessed to train him to become an SAR dog. To him it's just a big game, wander through a disaster site and find the people, because if I do, I get to play with my toy.

We are incredibly proud of our big sister and the months of training she and Lennie went through to become a SAR team. It's hard work, training happens daily, and recertification happens on a regular basis.

You can follow them on Instagram - searchdoglennie or check out The Search Dog Foundation on Instagram.

A Winter Day at the Beach

We've had several weeks of mostly rainy weather here at the Oregon Coast. It happens and is expected in Winter. So when the rain clears and there are a few sunny days, we seize the opportunity to get out, explore, and get some Vitamin D.

It was a lovely day to eat at my desk and then spend my lunch hour strolling the beach. As usual after the Summer tourist season, I only saw two people in an hour walk.

The big rains that we've had turned every possible drainage into a stream. In the Summer this particular spot is usually little more than a small trickle. I didn't have my rain boots (this is cool new term for galoshes apparently) on and didn't want to get my feet all wet, so I turned around here and made my way back home.

The day ended with a lovely sunset. The Oregon Coast never fails to disappoint, even if there are some days where the rain changes our plans, it always makes up for it.

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Napping Choices

We've got so many options for a dog to nap around here. Many comfy dog beds for whatever particular napping session you're looking for.

 Look at all those available dog beds. So many to chose from.

 

Naturally then instead of using one of those beds, we're going to take our nap on this old bathroom rug that we use to put on our hiking shoes so we don't get the carpet dirty. Sure, that makes sense.

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Minor Modifications at Home to Help an Old Dog

Shadowfax is 14 years old and still gets around pretty well for her age. We've tried to do everything we could to keep her healthy for as long as possible. Even with her Cushing's Disease (which we have posted about before 1st post here and 2nd here) we have managed to be pretty lucky with her health.

As she has gotten older we have made some minor changes to our daily activities, we help her up and down the stairs and monitor her more closely when she's outside on the deck when it's raining and slippery. We're also keeping her active. Our two walks a day may be shorter and slower, but we still do them, rain or shine. Allowing her lots of time for sniffing on walks keeps her brain engaged as well as her body physically active.

In the house we've started adding more area rugs and runners so she can easily get from place to place. We've noticed her feet slipping every once in a while on the tile floor and the rugs seem to help her keep her grip on the floor. 

We have also started making it easier for Shadowfax to get in and out of bed by stacking her dog beds, raising their height. Since we have a lot of dog beds, we put the less popular ones on the bottom and they aren't missed.

When Dog Beds Attack!!!

We have a cover for the back seat of our car for Shadowfax to sit on, and for safety we always have her harness on and secured to the seat belt. But we figured an additional dog bed designed for a car on top of the car seat cover, would give her a more comfortable spot to sit.

The bed has made car rides more comfortable as we try to take Shadowfax with us when we go into town for an errand. One of us will run into the grocery store and the other will sit with her in the car. We've also started integrating stops at small parks in town to let her spend some time sniffing.

The other day I was dropping off Alycia to pick up her car from the repair shop. Sahdowfax was apparently very concerned that Alycia was going to abandon her forever so she started thrashing about in the backseat. And in 10 seconds ended up like this...

I did what any self-respecting dog parent would do, make sure she wasn't in any immediate physical danger, then take some pictures. Shadowfax realized that she'd gotten herself in a pickle and stopped thrashing and let me help her out of her predicament.

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