An inch an hour. Two feet a day.

OK. so I stole a line from a song by the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip to sum up the way things have been going for Felix over the last couple of days.

An inch an hour
Two feet a day

He seems to be making some progress. I believe his respiratory symptoms are on the wane. His eyes seem a half-sparkle brighter and he even made a super-slow-motion lap around the back yard with my shoe in his mouth playing "keep away" today.

An inch an hour
Two feet a day

But this disease is an evil monkey. Our emotions are its toys. For every glimmer of hope there seems to be a distant rumble of trouble...getting closer.

His legs are weak
His joints ache
He is dizzy, sometimes far away
If this damned thing reaches his brain..

No.

Tomorrow WILL be a better day.

Right?

No frothing dog no cool insanity
no "rock n' roll" no christianity
makes me feel the same way
an inch an hour two feet a day
to move through night
with very little else to say
but i'm helpless less with the people
than the space

Not Good. Not good at all.

Felix the freight train is fighting for his life tonight. He is battling Blastomycosis, a nasty fungal infection transmitted by spores in the soil. Where he contracted it is a mystery but with all the field, forest and water work we do with our dogs, it is not surprising that he came into contact with it somewhere along the way.

All three of our dogs spent time at a local kennel recently while we were away in Quebec. When we dropped them off, they seemed to be in good health. When we picked them up ten days later the girls were fine. Felix on the other hand could barely walk. His eyes were glassy and he had a green discharge leaking from his nostrils and tear ducts. I had to help him into the truck, and once at home, up the stairs to his bed. The next day, when his temperature shot up to over 40 degrees I took him to the emergency vet clinic. Tests there and the next day at our regular vet indicated Blastomycosis. If you've never heard of the disease before, just google it.

It's not good. Not good at all.

The fellow at the kennel claimed that they had not noticed any symptoms during Felix's stay with them. While I do not believe that Felix contracted the Blasto at the kennel (it usually takes from 5 to 12 weeks to develop), I do believe that he would have been showing some signs of distress prior to the day we picked him up. How this could have gone un-noticed by the staff at the kennel is something I intend to find out in due course.

For now, we are nursing a critically ill dog. His temperature has been hovering around 40 degrees for over a week. He is as wobbly as a new-born lamb and obviously in considerable pain. I don't know if we've caught this thing in time. Although the medication he is on now has a fair chance at saving his life, at 10.5 years old he is no spring chicken. Right now it is "wait-n-worry" time.

Over the next week or so we need to be with him 24/7. So Lisa and I will be taking some time off from work. That means we will probably need to put in some serious over-time later this year when this thing has run its course. Not only to make up for time lost, but to pay for his medications! The pills he needs to take for this damned infection are super expensive....really, really expensive...as in made-of-gold-covered-diamonds expensive! He will need to take them for up to six months.

We are not rich folks by any stretch, but we can certainly tighten the belt a bit to pay for whatever treatment he needs. He's our dog. That's the deal. I know he would put his life on the line for us in a heartbeat. In return we stand ready to sacrifice the credit card for him.

Any mojo, prayers or songs to the Great Manitou you can send our way will be very much appreciated.

Merci!

Thank you to everyone for the kind words following the passing of Calou. The handsome white cat with the operatic voice and suspected “alternative lifestyle” is now at peace in our private pet cemetery, otherwise known as the flowerbed in the front yard. We would like to thank Dr. Colleen Skavinsky and the staff at Anderson Animal Hospital for the wonderful care they provided Calou, and all our pets over the years. And we would especially like to thank Jer and Jude for their thoughtful donation, in Calou’s name, to the Pet Trust Fund at the Ontario Veterinary College*. Your kind gesture has touched us deeply. Merci beaucoup!

*"The Pet Trust Fund promotes the health, health care and quality of life of companion animals. We support studies and special projects that improve the quality of care pets receive and lead to advances in veterinary medicine. Our donors say that supporting Pet Trust is a loving way to cherish the memory of a beloved pet, or to celebrate a special animal or animal lover." For more information click the "Merci" link above.

Calou Trottier 12/08/88 - 2/8/06

Peacefully, in his sleep, our beautiful white cat Calou passed away today.


Calou's 9 lives were spent prancing and preening around the house. His hobbies included taking naps, dozing off, getting some shut-eye and rousing games of 40- winks. During the several minutes each day that he was awake, he enjoyed playing with his brother and fellow feline Happy (1986-2003) but did his best to avoid his canine siblings Felix, Souris and Uma. To him, dogs were far beneath cats in the grand scheme of things and were to be soundly scolded or swatted upside the head with a sharp-clawed left hook if they dared get too close.



Always a house-cat, Calou very occasionally ventured outside, once going as far as the front lawn. But only for a minute, he didn’t want to get dirt on his silky white fur. He was known for an operatic voice and a surprisingly large vocabulary. Nearly every evening, at bed-time he would sing for a minute or two just to let everyone know that all was well with the world.

In the end, after losing lives 1 through 8 in an apartment fire, tragic hair cut, close calls with the dogs, car rides to the vet and some dodgy canned tuna, Father Time finally claimed life #9. Calou died this morning 10 days short of his 18th birthday.



He was a good cat. He will be missed.

Different? In what way?

Warning! A bit of a rant coming up. I mean no insult to anyone or to anyone's dog. What follows are my personal observations and opinions on the Weimaraner breed in general, not a reflection of any individual dog.

There is a scenario repeated regularly on Weimaraner forums and e-mail lists. It goes like this: Someone announces that they will soon be entering a Weim in a trial or test or training class. A round of encouragement from others on the board follows, everyone wishing the handler and dog well. A few weeks go by and then a long winded post appears that details just what "went wrong". All the usual excuses are trotted out: "poor judging", "difficult conditions" "bad luck" etc. etc. However the one that sticks in my craw is the old saw about how Weimaraners are sooooo different from the other breeds and soooo misunderstood by judges and trainers. "Oh, they are so very different from all other breeds and should not be judged in the same way", "they work in a completely different way" "They are quirky".

Are Weimaraners really that different? And if the answer is yes, then why?

Let's remember that the majority of weim breeders outside of Germany and Austria do not base their selection on performance. Rather, they breed dogs mainly for the show ring or companion animal market. If they do any field work at all with their dogs the goal is usually a dog that can perform just well enough to get through a low level hunt test. Furthermore, most Weimaraner owners are not hunters and do not really know what a hunting dog should be able to do. Is it any wonder that weims are "different" from other breeds bred to actually hunt?

The "other breeds run further and faster" line is often used to explain why Weims do not win trials. I have also seen people state that "Weimaraners hunt in a completely different way than German Shorthairs etc."

I believe that there is very little justification for these attitudes. Range and speed are important factors in trials but they are not the only factors. Just because a dog runs far and fast does not automatically guarantee a win. It is my opinion that there are very few Weimaraners in the winner's circle because most Weimaraners are mediocre hunters at best. It is not that they hunt or run differently, it is because they do not hunt or run very well.

A good working weimaraner may not be quite as fast or far ranging as some other breeds, but the difference should be rather small. If a GSP runs at a full sprint out to 150 metres then a Weimaraner should run nearly as fast and almost as far ( I know some that run just as fast and far). The difference at most would be in the 10 -20% range.

What usually happens though is that most dogs in a trial are out there really hunting hard, with passion, drive and intensity at whatever the normal range for that type of trial is.

And then a Weimaraner is presented. A good one will look a lot like the other dogs, RUNNING hard with the same determination and drive as the others. Maybe it will cover (a little) less ground in each cast, and maybe the head will be somewhat lower while running, but there should be no mistake that this dog is out to find game and NEEDS to find it NOW.

More often than not however, a Weim is presented and what we see is a pale reflection of what should be happening. The dog trots here and there, pausing occasionally to piss on a plant or sniff at a mouse hole. If it stumbles across game, it may or may not point and if it does, there is little intensity. Range is never more than 20 or 30 yards despite the handler's urging the dog on. I hate to admit it ( I am after all a weim lover) but some of the worst dogs I have ever seen in the field were Weimaraners. Watching them "hunt" was painful. They were absolutely terrible. Yet in their owner's eyes, they were hunting in the "Weimaraner style" which is sooooo different and challenging.

Bullshit! They were hunting no better than my sister's tea-cup poodle. In fact, they were not hunting, they were out for a stroll wondering when they were going home so they could get back to that nap they were having.

It is no wonder that these types of dogs do not win trials. It is not because "weims don't run as far". The good ones certainly do. It is not because the weim is a "slower worker". Again, the good ones work with speed and drive...maybe not as quickly as a brittany or gsp but certainly at an intense gallop....not a lazy trot.

Maybe it is hard for the owner of such a dog to see just how poorly the dog does compared to other dogs. Maybe justifying the performance on the old "Weims are different" attitude helps the unease. But to an experienced hunter or field trial judge there is no illusion. The dog is crap (excuse my French) and should not be considered for the winners' circle. On the other hand, a good dog is a good dog no matter what colour it is. So if a grey dog enters a trial and runs with speed and style and points with intensity and stays steady etc. etc. then it deserves the top prize.

Most Weimaraners do not win trials because they are competing against dogs that have been selected for athletic performance in keeping with the original purpose of the breed. Those dogs have been selected by hunters and field trialers for just this purpose. Weims on the other hand are typically selected for their appearance by people that do not hunt and do not realize what a hunting dog should be able to do. The few Wemaraners that are selected for performance can compete with any other breed. They run and hunt and point and swim and retrieve very well. But they are the exception.

I am sorry what I have written sounds harsh. I believe that we should be honest. If the Weimaraner is ever to improve as a hunting breed we need to move beyond the attitude of "weims are so different" and get to work on selecting dogs that can compete honestly with the best of the best. We do not need to lose those endearing traits of the breed that we love so much, nor should we lose all traces of the weimaraner style. But we need to realize that a hunting dog, no matter what the breed, is like a high performance sports car ....not a minivan with bald tires and an empty gas tank.

Of course, that is just my opinion....I could be drunk.

The big ONE-OH

I meant to publish this post a few weeks ago but in the rush to prepare for a trip to France, I did not have the time. So, here it is...a bit late, but from the heart.

Ten years ago today Felix the Freight-train, the Evil Genius, the hard-headed, hard-charging Weimaraner was born in a small town in Miinnesota. Since then he has given my wife and me roughly equal amounts of sheer joy and utter consternation. And by all indications it looks like he will be giving us many more years of smiles and headaches, chewed up slippers and thrills in the field. At the big One-Oh he is still going strong.

Among his favorite people, and to whom we would like to extend our thanks for helping raise him are:
Grampa and Gramma Koshyk,
"Uncle" Rob Wheeldon
"Auntie" Shelly Shorrock
Don and Bonny Grabowski
and especially Dr. Skavinsky for stitching and stapling Felix together after more than a dozen "mishaps" including broken toes and teeth, run-ins with barbed wire (almost lost an ear), and encounters with plate glass windows (he actually jumped through one!)

Thank you all...here's to another 10 years (Lord help us!)