Who's a Canine Good Citizen?

Athena is!

If you would have asked me a year ago, I would have told you that Athena was far from ever passing the AKC's Canine Good Citizen test.  She was simply naughty with a capital N.  But, within the last year we've trained and trained and trained some more.  Athena's training has included Basic Obedience, Beginning Canine Life and Social Skills, Intro to Flyball I & II, Canine Good Citizen Prep, and she's currently enrolled in a K9 Conditioning class.  Not to mention the countless hours of at-home training, out-and-about training, and additional flyball training that have all helped Athena to gain confidence which is something that she didn't walk out of the shelter with one year ago.

Photo via Personal Beast

On Saturday afternoon, Athena showed off her mad skills to the CGC test evaluator and passed her Canine Good Citizen test!  Almost all parts of the test went off without a hitch (check out the elements of the CGC test here if you're unfamiliar).  The one part that I was most nervous about was the part that we had an initial fumble on.  Athena was a bit too excited during the "reaction to another dog" segment.  She tried to pull towards the dog to get a sniff and struggled to keep her attention on me (really though, I had no treats so I couldn't really compete with the other dog!).  She was able to retest this section of the test at the end and was luckily much more calm and collected.  I couldn't be more proud of my girl for passing her CGC!

Congrats, Bean!  You are my rockstar!  Now we need to think about our next training goals...any suggestions?!

What's Up With Athena?

Ok, so we've been a little MIA the past few days here on the blog besides some random pictures posted on Facebook of Athena's daycare shenanigans and our warm Portland weather.  Sorry about that!  Life seems to just be busier and this heat doesn't help my motivation to write.  I decided that today should just be a catch up day to let everyone know what Athena's been up to.

1.  Who's a Canine Good Citizen?

Not Athena.  Nope, we haven't yet tested for CGC.  As many of you know, over the past couple of month's Athena has been enrolled in a CGC prep class and has been working hard to master the ten test items.  The five-session prep class was Athena's best training class by far.  Usually Athena is the class clown, always trying to rile up the other dogs and not pay attention to her parents.  However, during CGC prep, Athena was an absolute star student and our trainer used her for all of the test demonstrations.  We have REALLY been looking forward to testing Athena for CGC because we feel that she's ready now more than ever.  We were suppose to test on the last day of class which was suppose to be on June 16th.  But, June 16th has come and gone and Athena is still just a CGC in training.  Our trainer decided to postpone the test until late July or August to give the other class participants more time to practice before testing.  At this point, Athena is probably the only one ready to test from her class (I'm not saying that's she's necessarily ready to pass!) and so we will wait until our trainer schedules the test in the next month or two.

Getting yummy treats in CGC class!

2.  Our first flyball tournament is in 10 days!

I just looked at my calendar and had a mini panic attack when I saw that our first flyball tournament is in only 10 days!  We've been hard at work practicing to get Athena ready to run as a green dog (she won't actually be in he tournament, she'll just be with the team practicing as a dog in training).  Athena has had some ups and downs in flyball over the past few weeks and the ups definitely make me so excited for our first tournament, but the downs (not bringing her ball back over all jumps, running around hurdles, putting pressure on other dogs, acting like we've never practiced before...) totally frighten me.  Alas, I'm sure that our first tournament will be quite the experience and we'll have plenty of stories to share when we're back.

Flyball practicer!

3.  Athena's belly bumps are a mystery...

It's been a few weeks since we shared about Athena's most recent trip to the vet to get her bumps and scabs checked out.  She went on two weeks of antibiotics and Benadryl and things cleared up pretty well.  However, some bumps and scabs were not completely gone and a couple of new bumps appeared, so we called up the vet and Athena is now on a second round of antibiotics.  We also took her off Benadryl for the time being and put her on a steroid to help with the itching.  It's been a little over a week since the second dose of antibiotics and steroids, and things were REALLY starting to clear up until she developed a couple of new belly bumps the other day.  We have an inkling that the grass is triggering the tummy bumps, but we're not 100% sure.  Our vet has suggested seeing a dog dermatologist if we can't get things under control.

Thean loves to eat grass...

4.  We're SO hot!

Us Portlanders are milld weather people.  We look forward to the summer for 70 and 80 degree weather.  Personally, when the temperature starts to creep past 80, I am miserable.  This past week we've been having temperatures in the upper 90's (like 98!) and it has been pretty awful.  Seeing as this hot weather is rare, the majority of people here in Portland don't have air conditioning in their homes so it gets REAL hot.  It's tough to take Athena out during the day because the pavement is just too hot for her paw pads, and the sun is too bright at the park.  She doesn't seem to mind too much that she's been lacking in the exercise department though.  The mix of steroids and hot weather makes for an extra tired Bean!

This girl is jumping for joy because it's starting to cool down!

5.  Athena is a midnight muncher

On Friday night Athena did a little something that she's never done before.  She crept out of the bedroom and into the living room while we were asleep and found a bag full of dog treats and food samples.  When we woke up in the morning, we noticed four treat bags and two food samples had been ripped open and demolished.  Athena also looked like she put on a good five pounds over night.  Our little skinny Bean was a BIG fatty all of Saturday with bloat.  I of course freaked out and Googled all of the signs and symptoms of dog bloat.  Luckily Athena didn't exhibit much besides being a big lug all day. Nine poops later, Athena was back to her normal self and ready for Sunday!

I took this picture on the day of Athena's bloat.  Can you tell how bloated she is?

Well, that's about all of the major updates I have for you.  Athena wishes everyone a very happy 4th of July and hopes that you will cross your fingers that she's not too afraid of the big booms (AKA fireworks)!