Weekend walks

 

Saturday I took Bailey and Elvis out for a hike. The ground was frozen solid so conditions were good. After about two miles my fingers finally warm up in my gloves. Bailey sets a good pace, she really likes to move. Elvis wanted to stop, sniff, and pee more often than I like, but he's small enough that I can pull him along and keep him moving. If they really need to poop or pee, I'll stop and wait, but most of Elvis' stops are just scent marking. That's fine, but he needs to learn to just give it a quick squirt and move on, it's too cold to stop moving for long. He did stop to poop and I saw what I believed to be tape worms in his stool. That made me realize that in addition to treating him for tapes, I still needed to do heartworm prevention on everyone.

3.37 miles on Saturday's walk

After feeding everyone on Sunday morning I remembered the worms from the day before. I got a few cans of dog food from the shed and proceeded to give everyone their monthly dose of ivermetin as heartworm preventative. Then I found my bottle of praziquantel and dosed Elvis and his hunting party (Maya and Bailey), assuming that it's likely that they had them too. I think next weekend I may treat everyone with panacure for three days, just on general principles. 

After the morning feed and deworming, I took Bailey out alone for a hike. It was cold but the sun was shining and the temperature was trying to rise. I used a rope harness on her today, a first, but it was a good choice because she could pull as much as she wanted and I wasn't pulling on her head and neck. She's not interested in the stop and sniff style of walking so we moved right along. I took her across the stream and up the bluff along the river, which was new territory for her and she really enjoyed it. Once we crossed the stream I only saw tracks of one person and one biker who had been on the trails over there since the snow. We went over 3.5 miles and on the more hilly parts of the trail system so it was good exercise for both of us. 

Sunday: 3.56 miles

p.s. If anyone's wondering, Saturday night Della did not sleep in bed, so it was just had Elvis and Bailey. I was up at 5:30 Sunday morning with Bailey, however, and swore that she was going back to being crated at night in the office. We'll see.