The Dogs of Our Lives

Saturday Dog Fun

First thing Saturday morning we packed everyone into the van and headed to the Vet where Pont received his last puppy shot. He is all set now for a while.

We had a different Vet than last time and he was not concerned about Pont’s rear legs. If you’ll recall, on his first visit, there had been concern from another Vet about his rear legs being bow-legged and one leg showed some resistance. On this visit, the Vet commented on how muscular his rear legs were. And while he noticed some resistance when stretching out Pont’s rear legs, he attributed that to Pont not knowing what was going on and being a little scared.

Jackie asked the Vet about Pont experiencing some carsickness. Pont seems to not relish the thought of being in a moving vehicle. He drools. Often soaking the person holding him and has some gas attacks that has his human family rolling down their windows and sticking out their heads. I thought it was the dogs that were suppose to do that!

The Vet thought it could just be some puppiness and to keep an eye on it. He suggested meclizine for the meantime. Meclizine is the active ingredient in motion-sickness medications. Being a licenses drug dealer (pharmacist), I happen to have a good supply of the stuff at home. The Vet also asked if Pont had ever thrown up, which he hasn’t. More on that later.

Pont weighed in at 27-lbs so he is growing like a weed. Glynis, on the other hand, weighed in at 40-lbs which is not that unusual for her winter weight. Nonetheless, we are going to begin restricting her meals and treat intake for a bit.

Coming back, Pont of course began drooling and passing wind as if he had eaten a couple of cans of beans. I was just approaching the driveway when Jackie yelled, “He’s going to throw up!”

So I stopped the van halfway up the driveway and Pont proceeded to toss his cookies in the middle of the driveway. He must have been listening to the Vet.

In the afternoon, I gave Pont a ½ dose of meclizine and about 1-hour later we again piled into the van and headed to the Frisbee park. The Frisbee parked, as coined by our son Graham, has enclosed softball diamonds in which we can let the dogs loose and chase Frisbees until they can’t move any more. Which is saying something for a whippet. And since it was in the mid-50s we couldn’t resist being outside.

Glynis is a fantastic Frisbee dog. I have yet to be able to out-throw her. Sort of hard to out-throw a dog that can run nearly 40-mph. But this was Pont’s first time. Pont became excited when he saw Glynis chase the Frisbee and was soon aping his older sister. While Pont didn’t leave all fours and leap high into the air to snatch a Frisbee, he nonetheless enjoyed picking up a Frisbee and running to and fro.

Both dogs enjoyed their time out. Glynis seemed to have extra stamina, perhaps wanting to show-off to Pont. Both dogs became filthy as the ground was thawing and you could see them throw water trails from their feet as they sped along. Both dogs got immediate baths upon returning home.

When you watch Glynis run you get the impression of a powerful, dominating force coming straight at you. Sort of like a fullback in a football game. She has the whippet look with low forward reach and the strength of the rear movement in profile. Sometimes with Glynis, I can lose the shape of her outline as she has good reach and drive on the move, but flattens out from wither to croup, and consequently doesn’t hold the classic whippet shape. Glynis also has unrelenting will and would keep running on one leg during a lure-coursing event if she needed to. Which is another reason why I retired her early. She once came up lame during an event and still kept running despite the one bad wheel and was mad as hell when the lure operated stopped the winch. She loves to run.

The excursion also let me see Pont run near top speed for the first time. With Pont, I got a sense that he has yet to show me his top speed. At times, he went into a whippet form and during those times his body parts were truly harmonious and balanced. Like a finely trained sprinter. I thought he had better form than Glynis. The only thing that concerned me was that he appears to tremendous driving power from his rear legs. So much so that he “bounced” from his rear legs as he sprinted along. Almost like he hasn’t got sprinting all figured out just quite yet. But you could see he will be a very fast dog once he figures out how to use his God-gifted ability.

Posted by maasx003 at February 13, 2005 09:22 AM | TrackBack