Nala goes under the knife

WARNING: This blog entry was not written by Norma. The comments expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the views of Norma Angelica Vazquez and should not be used as such...

Now that we got that out of the way, this is Adan checking in because Norma didn't feel like updating the blog so I gave it a shot. So here goes:

Nala had her spay this past week, a great way to celebrate her 6-month birthday (which occurred on Dec. 6th).   Norma became increasingly nervous as the spay date approached and I could tell that she was genuinely anxious about the prospect of Nala going under the knife.  I wasn't too nervous, although my veterinary colleagues have told me that a spay is not a straight forward procedure and if done improperly can lead to a series of serious life-threatening complications.  That being said, hysterectomies are a procedure performed routinely in veterinary hospitals across the world so I was completely confident that our vet, Dr. DeRemer, would perform a successful spay on our baby girl, Nala.  The day of the spay it was pretty cold here in Portland and we spent the morning pouring water all over Norma's Yaris in order to get the ice off the car windows.  Once that was done, we drove to the veterinary clinic and dropped Nala off for her procedure at 7:30 A.M. The staff quickly got our paperwork done and assured us that Nala would be well taken care of.  I then gave Norma a hug and kiss and hopped onto the MAX train to head to work while she took the car back to our apartment.  

Two hours into work, I got a phone call from a distressed fiancee. Norma told me that she had received a somewhat confusing phone call from the veterinarian in which he expressed two key thoughts - Nala's spay went well and that he documented an unrelated health issue. I was happy to hear that her spay went well but I could tell the second issue was worrying Norma.  Apparently, Nala had some dental problems, a health issue she must have inherited from her mom =) While under anesthesia, the veterinarian performed a routine health check-up including an thorough examination of Nala's teeth and gum tissue. He noticed several problems that he documented both in Nala's health records and through X-ray imaging:

1) Nala had a mal-aligned mandible

2) A small laceration on her upper palate had occured due to the mal-aligned canine tooth

3) A small, deciduous tooth had not fallen out yet and may need to be extracted

4) An adult malformed tooth may also need to be filed down or perhaps extracted

The news hit Norma hard because she hates the thought of Nala being in pain, but I assured her that everything would be OK and we would immediately set-up an appointment with a Veterinary Oral Surgeon. But when we picked Nala up from the clinic, the veterinary technician assured us that the although the laceration was deep and the mal-alignment was uncommon, Nala was not suffering at all. Although this news was not great to receive so close to Christmas, I am happy that we have some extra money to spend on Nala's healthcare. That being said, I'm optimistic that the surgeon can determine the etiology of her condition and provide us with several options to decide on.

Nala's hysterectomy scar. The veterinarian made a 2-cm incision starting at the belly button. 

Nala went back to her old self approximately 24-hours post-op.

 The obligatory mommy and daughter selfie. Please ignore Norma's emo disposition.

Nala sniffing the 'fresh' tracks in the snow.

 Nala practicing her pointing.

 Norma's Yaris in Rip City's version of a Winter Wonderland.

 Mom and dad couldn't stand seeing our puppy struggle and pout in her E-collar so they took it off =)

 Nala can't sit still even for a great photo-op in the woods.

Nala's doppleganger.

Our puppy Nala and her food

I think for this post I'm going to talk about how we raise our Vizsla puppy and in general how it feels to be a first-time puppy "owner".  I say owner in quotations because I feel more like she is part of the family, not a material thing I own.  She has definitely met all my expectation in terms of the happiness I knew she would bring me and hopefully she is a happy dog too.  Of course she comes with frustrations because she is still a puppy and learning her boundaries.  I feel she is a completely different dog in the house with me and at the dog park.  At home, she can't stand being out of my sight for long.  If I go to the bathroom, or leave the room, she immediately leaves whatever she is doing and goes to look for me.  So since having her, I've learned to always have company in the bathroom even when i'm showering, lol.  As I sit and type this, she is laying next to me with her head on my legs.  However, at the dog park, it's a different story.  She forgets who we are and immediately runs off to greet and meet every single dog until she finds one that wants to play with her.  I see most dogs follow their humans at the park, so wherever the human walks to the dogs follow.  It's the opposite with Nala and me, wherever she runs off to, I'm following.  Mostly to make sure she doesn't get into trouble or plays too rough with a smaller dog.  Sometimes I wish she would like to stay close to my side at the dog park while still playing and running around.


Never having a dog as a pet before, I had no idea what to feed her, how much to feed her, or how often.  There are so many choices at grocery stores and pet stores it's almost overwhelming.  But my fiance and I did our research and asked around and we found that Orijen Puppy Dry Food was by far the best dry food we could give our growing puppy, even if it's not the cheapest of dog foods.  It has a high calorie content, which puppies need as they grow, so essentially we have to feed smaller amounts because it fulfills her energy requirements faster.  One can find the calorie content of any dog food brand at Pet Food Calories and for the most part, Orijen had the highest for puppy at 480cal/cup.  Other general brands that you find at grocery stores like purina or imes have somewhere in the 300 range, meaning you have to feed more but even though they are cheaper brands, in the long run it ends up costing more.  And besides being cheaper, they have less protein.  Orijen has about 80% protein while these other brands have about 30-50%.  You only have to look at the first four ingredients to know what is a good food choice for your pet.  We make sure never to feed her grains even though they are not an enemy, they are a biological food source for dogs in the wild.  So to Calculate Feeding Amount for our puppy, we use the link to enter her "ideal weight", her energy amount, and calories per cup for her food.  Her ideal weight is based mostly on visuals, such that we can still feel her ribs and from above, we can see a waistline.  At almost 6 months, she weighs 35lbs and she looks about right.

In about a week, she has her appointment for a spay.  It will be a tough day for me, knowing my little girl is going under the knife and I can't be there during the process.  The veterinary clinic will keep her for about 8 hours, and that's the longest I've ever been away from her so that will be tough.  But to finish off this post, I'll leave you with some short videos.

She loves Fall leaves

Going on a test run while on our hike.  We seem a little wobbly in the beginning but it's because it's muddy and slippery.  She will be a great running buddy when she's older

For Halloween, I decorated her collar with some ribbons and she's going crazy over it.

Going back almost 6 months

On December 3rd, she will be 6 months old and it's crazy to think we have had her for more than half her life.  I don't think I mentioned the details of how we "picked" her out from a litter of 11 on my first post so I will talk about it now.  "Picking" our little puppy was far from what I thought it was going to be, meaning it was stressful, anxious, and even heartbreaking.  We had the 4th pick of the 5 females available so when it came our turn to pick between the last two, we weren't expecting the breeder to tell us that the last two girls had some form of defects for lack of a better word.  One little girl, called Red because she had a red collar, was apparently the runt of the litter and she looked as cute as can be.  However, the breeder told us she was born with a dislocated bone in one of her front feet so it looked like the bone was poking out.  The breeder said she would probably not be able to run so that was devastating news for me, since the main reason I wanted a Vizsla was because they are great running partners.

Red collar girl, you can't see in this pic, but the foot that is in the front is the one with the dislocated bone.

The last girl, Purple, was apparently a rambunctious puppy.  At only 4 weeks old, she tried to steal the bone from her mom and her mom ended up biting her right below her left eye.  In the process of getting bit, Purple bit down on her own tongue and essentially cut off a piece of it.  The pictures the breeder sent us showed Purple with an inflamed snout and half closed eye so our fear was that she was going to be partially blind or get an infection.  So now you can see why I was heartbroken with this news.  Thankfully, the breeder allowed extra time to make such an important decision and promised us updates from the vet to see how Purple healed.

At 4 weeks old, Purple had such an inflamed snout she could barely open her eye

This is Purple collar girl, at 6 weeks the inflammation had already gone down :)

So at about 6 weeks after being born, we asked the breeder to show us an updated picture of Purple, and she looked significantly better.  The vet had given her antibiotics and stitched her tongue.  The breeder had Purple feed separately from her siblings and she said she had a normal appetite and was still her rambunctious self again.  So with no more apprehension, we told the breeder we wanted Purple and from that day she became Nala.  And for more good news, Red was given to a friend of the breeder who happened to be a vet so she would have the best care possible for her leg; she was named Ruby and lives in Indiana or Idaho, I forgot.

At almost 6 months old now, she's growing up to be a close to perfect dog (I might be a little biased, lol).  It was a coincidence that when she lived with the breeder she was given a purple collar and when she came to live with us, we chose to buy her a purple collar and purple dog bed because it's one of my favorite colors, so it's meant to be.

5.5 months!!! She's almost a teenager!

3-way puppy tug of war.  The dog on the left is a little older and teaching Nala and the 7month old in the middle how to play tug-of-war.

Daddy reads this book at night so Nala had to see what all the fuss was about, apparently she thought it was a real snoozer, lol

At 6:30 in the morning when daddy and mommy are up and getting ready, Nala has other plans: take over the bed and go back to sleep

She doesn't seem to mind her rain coat

Some of her lost baby teeth (the one's I've found at least, who knows how many more she's lost)

 

Fall is our favorite color

During our 10 hour car trip from Portland to Sacramento, Nala slept 80% of the time but she had plenty of toys to keep her occupied

At the dog park in newport, OR with no other dogs but her and one other

 She loves pumpkins

She hated her rain coat but in portland it's kinda a necessity

still my puppy that likes to cuddle on my lap

While i was sick she stayed in bed with me

her caricature 

her snake tongue close up

She looks like an ugly Chihuahua when her ears flip back

4 months old and still getting into trouble

We've met several adult vizsla's at the dog parks and the owners say they never lose their craziness. I guess we are in for an adventure, lol, but I still wouldn't trade her for any other breed.  I'm just anxiously waiting till she's one year old so I can start doing long runs with her.  The longest I've ever run by myself without stopping is 6miles and I think she's going to be my motivator to one day do a half marathon and eventually a full marathon.  But as a puppy, I can't start running with her because it will cause problems with her bones and joints since she is still growing.  So until then, the only exercise she gets is when she runs at the dog park with her own kind.

After giving her a bath, she earned the right to be on my bed and sleep with me.

She got bit by some small dog at the dog park.  I knew that little dog that bit her was a problem dog because the owner was yelling at it and picking it up by the forearms or collar (I thought she was going to dislocate something) and the little dog looked nervous and angry at the same time.  And of course here comes Nala thinking every dog wants to play with her and as she ran past her that little dog got her teeth sunk into Nala's snout.  All I heard was Nala yelping and run away, the owner of the other dog didn't even say anything to us.  I think Nala's nickname is going to be scar face since she has a bites everywhere, including under her right eye from when she was just 4 weeks old, already getting into trouble.

The last days of working on my Masters, she still wanted to be on my lap while I worked.

You can see her snake tongue, lol.  She bit it when she was 4 weeks old when her mom bit her under her right eye for trying to steal her bone.

This is from last weeks puppy training class.  We got her diploma! We are proud parents.

She's a "Good Puppy"

I've been lagging on post updates because the last two weeks of September got super busy for me, finishing up my Masters.  But now that I'm officially a Masters of Science, I have more free time for my puppy.  She is doing excellent, all caught up with her vaccinations.  We just need to take her in for rabies and spay when she's a little older.  Living in Portland, Nala has to get used to the rain, but so far she doesn't seem to mind it.  She just looks up at the sky and starts licking the air for the raindrops, lol.  I want to get her a rain coat but my bf says it's ridiculous or that I should wait till she's done growing because he doesn't want to buy more than one.  But I think I'll convince him soon that our puppy gets cold because she doesn't have a thick layer of blubber and fur like my study species, the Steller sea lions.

The picture on the left is when we went to pick her up from the breeders at 8 weeks old and the picture on the right is Nala at 14 weeks; She barely fits in my arms and is too squiggly to stay put

Her second to last training sessions.  She had a bad training day due to distractions but towards the end of the 1.5hr class, she was getting tired so she was able to focus a little better.  We were doing the "park it" and "come" command to practice the situation where a visitor came to our door and we can tell Nala to go to her bed and stay aka park it.

She took over my computer chair and I couldn't say no to that face

To show how much she's grown from 2 months to 4 months, here's a series of her collars.

Nala was bored one day, mommy was busy doing dishes and daddy was on his computer doing who knows what, so Nala found herself a toy and destroyed it. Now daddy was blind for a week until he could get new glasses.

My 4yr old niece came to visit one weekend and Nala thought she was a play thing.  My niece was a little scared but mostly happy to play with Nala but she kept saying "Nala is too crazy" because all of the wiggling she does with her but and nonstop energy, lol.  In the end, they became buddies and were watching saturday cartoons together.

ITS OFFICIAL, NALA PASSED HER 1ST LEVEL TRAINING CLASS.  NOW WE CAN REGISTER HER WITH THE AMERICAN KENNEL CLUB S.T.A.R PUPPY PROGRAM.  S.T.A.R stands for Socialization, Training, Activity, & Responsibility.  We already signed her up for her next level training and she starts in a month.  

So in a nutshell, both mommy and Nala finished their schooling in the same month!

Getting into a routine: puppy playgroups, taking her for a walk, & cuddling

 This week Nala had some diarrhea (what a great opening sentence haha).  I think it's due to her accidentally eating some people-food from the ground.  We went out to eat several times and brought her with us, so I'm assuming she found some old food on the ground while we were eating.  I know dogs have sensitive stomachs and all she's known for her short 3.5months of life is kibble.  But thankfully she is not having accidents in the apartment anymore.

I think Nala has a pretty good life, we include her in as many activities we do, basically the only place we don't take her is to the gym.  She's never alone because I work from home.  I knew that when I'd get a dog, I'd treat it like part of my family, so I don't see her as just a dog, but as a companion that I'd want to include in every aspect of my life.  So while some people might judge me for treating her almost like a human baby because I take her to puppy kindergarten class for training, puppy playgroups,etc, I just want to raise a good puppy just like some people want to raise good kids. 

She looks so calm but she's actually very interested in a bird that was walking on the road

I've never seen a dalmation in person.  Here's nala meeting one at a dog park.

She finally found a dog that will play with her.  She doesn't let him bully her, she fights back, lol

She made friends with a boxer

Self-entertained with a treat dispenser ball

After playtime, she is exhausted and falls asleep just about anywhere

Yes, I'm teaching Nala to appreciate Harry Potter movies

We went to the vet again for her third round of shots and she did so well, she deserved a kiss.  She weighs a whopping 17.5lbs!

At the latest puppy playgroup we went to, she did a lot better playing.  We didn't get put in "time-out".  

She likes to play "chase me" and a little pug was playing along with her.  Nala had to slow down to let the pug, Peanut, catch up to her, lol.

 It was a scorching day, poor baby girl couldn't stop panting.  We left immediately to find some shade and water for her, and us

 Just an ordinary day at the house, cuddling with my bestie :)

Another of her many sleeping pictures (It's hard to take pictures when she's awake because they all come out blurry, lol, being such a high energy dog)