Kyra, part of the pack :)

Kyra is already part of our pack! Once she got settled in, she fit right in with the family. She knows that as the oldest dog, she's lowest rank and she doesn't question it. She'll sleep on the floor while the rest of us are up on the bed (the top dog gets the highest, most comfortable place to sleep. Even when I help her up on the bed she just gets back down), she'll let Briar and Breeze sniff her first and put their heads above hers, she eats last, and we have to go out of our way to give her affection because if we're giving her affection and Briar or Breeze come over, we have to give them the affection. Because she's the new dog and she's old and frail, I want to give her the most attention but we have to let the dogs figure out rank amongst themselves and we have to abide by it. If we don't, if for example we feed the lowest rank first, it causes disrest in the pack, sometimes to the point of dogfights. If Kyra has food and a higher ranked pack member takes it away, it's their right - higher ranks get the most and best food. And if Kyra protests, it'll be seen as a challenge. So, though I'd rather give poor Kyra more attention, we have to follow pack law too, even as the leaders, and especially since Breeze is so dominating. Breeze and Kyra actually did get into a scuffle over food. Breeze got a little too interested, Kyra gave her a small warning growl, and Breeze swiftly silenced that protest. Neither was hurt, Chris was in the room and he quickly broke it up. But I like to give Kyra her twice-daily pain meds while the other two are locked in the bedroom, so Breeze doesn't think it's food and demand it. It's just the law of the pack, and me and Chris follow it too, for the good of our pack.

I also have a hunch about something, though I haven't read it in any of my dog behavior books. I've noticed old Checkers at my mom's house will follow the rest of the pack in the living room or wherever, and get comfortable so that his back is towards the pack and he's looking out the door. Well Kyra does the same thing. And because every dog in a pack has its purpose and the lowest member's is to watch the back and sound the alarm in case of danger, I can't help but wonder if yhat's what Checkers and Kyra are doing. They're so old that they wouldn't be much help if there was danger, but by God they can at least sound the alarm! So if this is the case, Kyra is already looking out for her new pack. She certainly settled in quickly :)

Breeze watching over her newest pack member

Kyra can't get on the bed without help, so she usually stays on the floor. Breeze and Briar were actually playing right before I took this picture and Kyra started play-growling and joining in on the fun!

Heavy Kyra!

(By the way, in my last post I forgot to mention that if Kyra isn't completely deaf, she's extremely close. Which isn't much of a problem, we just have to be careful not to startle her when we come up to her from behind)

Because Kyra's arthritis is so bad, she can't do stairs at all. Chris has to carry her up and down our apartment stairs every time she has to go outside. But when Chris is at work, I'm in trouble because I do NOT feel comfortable carrying her up and down stairs. I may be able to pick her up, she's 40-50 lbs, but there's no way I'm carrying her for any length of time, much less on stairs. Chris takes her out right before he leaves for work and again right after he gets home, but she's old and doesn't have as much control as she used to, so she ends up going on the carpet. The brand new carpet management put in just before we moved here :/

We have a porch in our apartment now. Every time she gives me the tell-tale signs (she makes it very obvious. She starts panting and pacing and coming up to me every 10 seconds. She doesn't want to go in the house, she's a very good girl about it :) I open the back door and let all the dogs out on the porch, but she doesn't seem to get the message. I even put the gate up so she couldn't come in until she did her business, but then she just started barking at me. So she ends up going on the carpet. And she's been having diarrhea too because of the sudden change in diet, and probably a little bit of stress too, so we have a couple brown/orange stains on our new carpet. Which I don't especially care about, but she doesn't want to go in the house and I don't want her to go in the house. But until she gets the hint that she CAN go on the back porch, I'll be cleaning up messes. Maybe if I lay down a square of sod on the porch...? I tried the puppy pads with Briar and Breeze, but they were a pain in the butt because they would just blow everywhere. When Chris comes home today, I'm doing to go down to Lowes and see if they have anything to help.

Old Arthritic Kyra

Well, Kristen never really got back to me on the fostering, so yesterday Chris and I went to the Nevada Humane Society. Nikole didn't have anyone either. We heard about their new Angel Pet program where they adopt out animals, but pay for their vet bills for the rest of the pet's life.

What I wanted to do was find an older or sick dog who should spend what little time they have in a loving home instead of a shelter. This way we can just spend a little bit of time making a big difference to a dog, letting him know before he dies that someone cares instead of leaving him to die in a shelter. The only problem with this is old and sick dogs have lots of expensive vet bills that we can't afford. Which is why we either wanted to foster or adopt an Angel Pet dog. When I explained what I wanted to Art, the NHS dog manager, he suggested Helena.

Helena is a 13-year old akita mix who is severely arthritic. She's also the sweetest girl ever :) We met with her and Chris immediately got attached. We went home and came back with Briar and Breeze and everyone got along ok, but Art had gone home. So today we went back, worked it out with Art, and took Helena (Chris renamed her Kyra) home in foster care :)

Kyra has a few problems. She's severely arthritic, she takes meds twice a day and needed help getting in the car and needed to be carried up our stairs (We recently moved to a new second-story apartment, but luckily she's not very big and Chris can carry her no problem). She waddles when she walks and her tail flaps uselessly. She's also taking some thyroid meds and has a few small patches of hair loss, possibly from sleeping on a hard floor (NHS has beds of course, but they were slightly raised and I doubt Kyra could get on them. So she probably slept on the tile floor). So hopefully those will go away after a while as almost our entire apartment is carpeted and she has 2 beds and 2 couches to choose from. She just needs a little help to get up there :)

So we have a new foster and we'll probably have her for the rest of her life, which may be 2 years if she's very lucky. And we'll give her a loving home until then :)