Growing Before Our Eyes

Well, CODY has been eating and growing.

It is impossible to teach him to stand still in a 12 inch square for long enough to get the scale to register, so I weighed Cody the old-fashioned way. I picked him up and weighed myself with and then without him and did the math.

Cody is up to 49 pounds and Jim is down to ... well, less than before. In 5 weeks, Cody has gone up 15 pounds.

I walk Cody daily and he is constantly getting better at walking beside me and not unduly pulling or being pulled. This is an important effort. He needs to be able to walk near me with minimal commands. His leash has two handles, one at 2 feet and one at 6 feet. I need him to walk directly beside me when on the 2 foot leash.

Also, when I stop, Cody does stop and sit without command almost every time. He sometimes needs a reminder nudge, but not often at all.

As for distractions, I have been working hard for him to focus on my voice and presence in the face of traffic, other dogs (especially barking ones), humans, and random events like birds. He is definitely improving, but he is 'not there yet' - as they say.

When we go for a walk, Cody sees me pick up the fanny pack with treats, waste bags, trail cup for his water, etc. He starts getting antsy and eager. This is so much fun to see - and he almost goes into a duty mode where he knows he is expected to be on duty.

He still has not wakened us up at night but one time, sometimes when I wake up , he may be quietly watching me, other times, he is asleep and I wake him up.

The biting/nibbling issue is vastly improved. He still is a puppy and wants to use his mouth, but I am getting better at being prepared and preventing his mouthing attempts.

As I get better at my skills, I will try to deliver better pictures.

Reunion - etc.

Hi, I owe you an update, much has happened and you have had radio silence. Apologies.

Our church denomination has a long tradition of summer camping - for kids, mostly, but also one camp style for families. The family camp is called "Reunion", and we went as we do most years.

We attend what is called Reunion #2 and took our grand kids, Hannah (12) and Lane (10). Oh, and Cody (6 months). 5 of us in a fairly rustic cabin for a week. How was this going to work?

Right off, the week went pretty well, over all. But there were challenges and I (and we) learned a great deal. Here are some bullet points of the observations.

• It rained for the first two days. Rain in Texas often comes as a lesson - to teach us how rarely it happens, and what it can mean to get rained on. One of my favorite hymns is "Rain Down", but this rain was different. You can hear what I love here Rain Down or at Rain Down but I need to tell you that that the 2 day rain we had was different.
• Starting Tuesday (day 3) a company was installing a cellular antenna on a cell tower and I was amazed that Cody actually observed the antenna activity. He took in the work around the 2 cranes that offloaded and then lifted the 3 antenna elements up to the 150 foot tower.
• When we returned to the site after the offloading, Cody recognized that the action was now 15 stories high and watched the attachment process.
• I would take Cody to the classes and services and sit on the periphery at the back so I could participate and keep him in the 'shadows'. I found that Cody did much better if people ignored him (this was particularly true of children!) 
• Cody ate well, and seemed to adjust to a regular schedule, but he really preferred to eat in 'private' so to speak.
• Cody never woke us up. He was in his crate (his 'den') every night and even if I had an event of addressing a 'hypo' or low glucose event, he kept his cool.
• Honestly, he did fine with the event over all, but it was a stressor and it took about a week to get him 'back to normal'.
• It was great to see that the grand kids bonded so well with Cody. They were a GREAT help in caring for him. Oh, and they are great grand kids in any event!

So, the question is ... in balance, how was his trip to Reunion? I feel that we learned much. It is important, even critical, to keep some measure of a structured schedule. As much as possible, avoiding change is a great thing.

I presided at one service and I spoke at another. Some day, I hope to have Cody with me when doing these actions, but we are clearly not at that point yet. There is a great advantage to understand that this is where we are heading and a relief to know where we fall short on this so we can work on it.

This is looking back on the period, but I will shortly have an installment on the most recent week.

I also will start finding a way to monitor Cody's growth by reporting his weight. He was listed as 35 pounds when we received him and we'll see what is happening.

Trials and Tribulations. version 1.0 (There Will Be More)

When we signed up for this adventure, we knew that there were trade-offs between a puppy and a mature dog. One trade-off is the puppy would require more work and be with me longer while the mature dog would require somewhat less work, but probably not be with me as long.

In fact, getting a six or seven month old puppy seemed like a decent compromise. So, we found Cody.

Today is just the first day of week 2 of Cody's career and he has made huge advances. 

At this point, the sharpest thorn of the day is mouth behavior. Nibbling, chewing, and biting.

Right off, Cody has not bitten anyone with a bite. Cody does like to play and the phase he is in finds him sometimes doing the dominance play that puppies and dogs do in a routine day. I have never seen him act at all aggressive toward any human, but he has acted aggressive to passing dogs and I am specifically working on that in his socialization.

Back to the current habit. Cody likes to nibble at shoes and it doesn't seem to matter if they are occupied. He likes to joust with people when they have their hands, well, handy. He has sharp teeth and sometimes they break my skin, but seldom.

Now as a man in my (very) late 60s, in fact as late as I can be, my skin does the thing that many older folks experience. When a dark shadow crosses my arm, I may get a bruise. I sometimes even think that loud sounds will raise bruises. Cody's nibbles and bites certainly raise bruises. I have a picture of my right forearm below, and you will see that it looks almost like one enormous, continuous bruise. My left arm is pretty much the same.

Keep in mind, that there are tooth marks and they are all 'horizontal' bites not penetrating bites. The bruises are from tooth encounters as well as tugging of the leash or bumps against objects.

I don't want folks to think poor me, or oh, what a horrible dog. This is just a fact of life for raising a pup and is unavoidable to some extent.

So, I tried battling the issue for several days. Since this is day 8, it probably started day 3 or 4.

My first attempt was to do like we often do with tiny puppies and say a hearty "OUCH!" when he would nibble, and tiny guys almost always immediately stop and lick your hand. They soon learn that the urge to bite needs to channel to the desire to lick your hand.

This was not very successful with Cody, at all. The first step I took to address the issue was to wear a leather glove when doing the things I knew were most likely to end up with biting. This helped a great deal, but it is summer and I felt like a bum handling this loving guy with gloves. On to step 2.

The second thing I did was get a little squirt bottle. With just normal water in it, the squirt bottle makes a reliable stream when it is aimed right at the point of juncture. I began with the chewing on my shoes. This seemed to shut down the behavior in about 10 seconds. Then I had to do things like his service vest, collar, and leash. These actions usually get the teeth heavily involved. But when the squirt bottle helped, there was another 10 second training period and then I put on his service dog vest, collar, and leash with no teeth action whatsoever.

Cody does not like the squirt bottle, but now even the visual of it tends to calm him down.

By the way, my hand is actually getting better very nicely. Even pre-Cody I always had bruises, so they only need to partly clear up to be back to normal.

Other things we are working on include crate training, travel, sidewalk safety, and night time.

Just a tease ... Cody has never had a night time accident. Also, except for one bad night we don't understand, Cody has never made a peep at night, he is in his crate quietly until I get up and sometimes I actually have to wake him up!

How To 'Follow' This Blog

Well not every post about Cody is necessarily ABOUT Cody. And such is this post

If you are interested in following Cody's adventure it is really easy to start getting new posts emailed to you automatically. If you will look at the right hand side of the blog home page, you will find an area that looks like this, but under the main title banner. All you need to do is enter your email address and press submit to register for the blog.

 That said, it may be different on phones and tablets and as I learn more, I will share with you

And if you may have use for a service dog, or have family or friends that do, please share this with them. And if you have family or friends with Diabetes, please share with them.

A Lucky Puppy - And Bright, As Well

When we first told the grand kids that live here in Texas that we were likely to get a service dog, one of their first questions was 'What are you going to name him?'

I had actually been thinking about it and said that I was thinking of the name Pilot. They thought that that was a cool name, so I had a green light.

When we heard of the actual opportunity to adopt Cody, we we found that he already had a name and that left family members wondering how to teach a dog a new name. But I was fine with Cody and found it consistent with Pilot. In the forever long ago, there was a singing group called Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen. Well Lost Planet Airmen need a pilot, and our Cody was just perfect for the job. So Cody remained Cody and Peace will win in the long run.

I promised mention of Cody's first command, and this might be a bit surprising.

When I was researching service dogs, I had never thought of the problem of dogs needing to go to the bathroom 'on command'. Turns out that they do. I mulled this over and thought of various strategies, since I was going to have to teach Cody to go to the bathroom, well, on command. I decided that I would use the command "Cody, Business"  and in the normal course of house breaking, teach Cody not to use the indoors and actually to use the outdoors on my prompt.

When we arrived at the house, I had Cody on leash, got him out of the car, and led him directly to grass and gave the command. I was totally shocked that Cody did exactly what I wanted him to do.

So all times when he is done eating, I immediately take Cody out of doors and there is no doubt whatsoever, that 'Business' is booming. So to speak.

Thank you for reading this and you are welcome to follow along in our adventure.

Someday soon, I will post a report on that 100% puppy issue mouthing or biting.

Sunday Training

Just some quick humor.

I spent a huge amount of time today, in the afternoon after church, teaching Cody how to take a Sunday afternoon nap.

Background and "Why"

We are a retired couple living in greater San Antonio. (I will not bother with the state, you can figure that one out yourself.)

We have mentioned pets before, but we always said. 'no, they tie you down, and ...' there are a list of 'ands'. But I am a diabetic and had a scary event the night of April 19 - actually April 20 as it was after midnight. It started quite ordinarily, but escalated quickly.

As a diabetic, the problem at hand is managing blood glucose (sugar). I'll probably discuss that deeper later. Anyway, it is damaging for blood glucose to go TOO high, just as it is to go TOO low. Carbohydrates in food drive glucose high and insulin drives glucose low. I am not a doctor, but in my understanding, if glucose goes too high, you could end up in diabetic coma, and if glucose goes too low you could end up in insulin shock. Any event of high glucose I will call a hyper-glucose event and any event of low glucose I will call a hypo-glucose event. Either of these can happen day or night, but those at night present special evils and can more easily lead to death.

On the night I mentioned I had a hypo-glucose event. Over the years, I have often had hypo events and they tend to wake me up when I notice certain signs - sweating, confusion, shakes, etc. That Thursday, I awakened to those symptoms. I usually go in the kitchen, use my glucose monitoring device to obtain a reading (I am used to 70s, 60s, or even 50s) and then end up eating sweets, sugar, honey, fruit juice, or similar to up my glucose - then I go back to bed and live to fight another day.

That night. however, I went in to read my glucose. The next thing I recall was eight (that is 8, 1 more than 7 and 1 less than 9) EMS working on me. I had an IV in the back of my hand and they had nicely placed an afghan blanket, not a human, across my naked lap. I don't recall being able to speak while they were there, but I do recall some things said.

The bottom line is that Carol, my wife, realized I was out of bed and went to find me. On the SECOND trip to the kitchen, she found me passed out in my chair in convulsions and unresponsive. She called 911. I make no jokes about this, because it was a life-death crisis to her and remains such in her memories.

Carol told the EMS team (all EIGHT of them) that I am diabetic and they immediately saw that it looked like I had a severe glucose problem, either very high or very low. They did the glucose check I got up to do and I was at 18! Below, I am blatantly stealing from Healthline.com and Google to summarize...

Can you die if you have low blood sugar?

If your blood sugar drops below 70 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) , you may have symptoms, such as feeling tired, weak, or shaky. If your blood sugar drops very low(usually below 20 mg/dL) and you do not get help, you could become confused or drowsy or even lose consciousness and possibly die.

SO, I was in real trouble. EMS come with preloaded doses of glucose and they started an IV and administered two doses of their magic mix. I began to come to and they got me to a very normal range. The mind and body do not normalize so fast, but I was going to recover nicely.

That is a lot of nitty-gritty and brutal honesty. I was too unconscious to show the fear, but I knew that this was even worse than my previous worse diabetic episode and I knew I had had a very very close call with death. I very easily could have died or ended up in a persistent coma (worse!). I also knew that Carol had gone through a Hell that nobody has the right to put someone else through.

I am going to make exactly one political statement or observation in this entire post. Diabetes makes me un-insurable because it is a pre-existing condition. The fact that an Emergency Room must treat me, does not cut it for diabetics. If I was uninsured I would have died. I would not have had lifesaving treatment for my chronic condition. I am on Medicare, but if Were younger and not insured, I would not be typing right now.

Back to non-political. The next morning we began doing things that would mitigate the danger we faced that night. And over the course of the next week or two, several plans fell into place to drive us to a safer life. Here are the major steps we took.

1. First, we got a notebook and placed it permanently on the kitchen table. In it, every day, I enter my blood glucose readings for morning, noon, evening, and bedtime, and under each, I enter the amounts of any insulin I took. If EMS has to come again, this will enlighten them and help them communicate with the doctor they call to help treat me better. Carol and I regularly look at the book and the entries and discuss them so she can communicate them to EMS.
2. I very kind friend, that will remain anonymous for reasons you will see in a minute, has a diabetic family member and mentioned to us that they use a DEXCOM device for their child. I am inherently opposed to implanted and attached devices, but I was intrigued and when we were offered the chance to use a Dexcom device, I snapped at it. The log book would help a lot, but this could help even more and I truly was/am driven to make life better for Carol. After 2 weeks on Dexcom, we began the process to become 'legal' and obtain a prescription for our own Dexcom. (I will write about Dexcom later, because it becomes involved in Coby's training.)
3. Lastly, of the major steps, we heard about diabetic service dogs. In fact we know a family that has one and we were pleased to hear their story. When we heard about the capabilities, we decided, together, to give it thought in spite of our common hesitation to consider pets. And that brings us to (eventually) Cody.

Those steps were not listed in 3 days. Rather, we went through processes and paths to arrive where we are and I will mention the other steps, but this blog is about step 3, our service dog. Cody.

Please follow along. Comment. Ask questions. Criticize (respectfully). Join in and enjoy this journey. I have no idea where all it will lead, but I hope to enrich your imagination and since I like a positve outlook and a bright image of life, you should receive that as readers.

(By the way, I may, that is MAY, periodically go back and edit existing posts, but for the most part, what you see is what you get. The next post will be about Cody and I promise to tell about how he got his name, or how he got to keep it - and I will talk about the most important command he learrned within seconds of arriving at his new home!