Conquering mite

Jax went in for his one month Demodex checkup. The good news is that Jax's hair has regrown in almost all of his trouble spots. So, it was hard for the vet to find a spot to scrape for mites. In the two spots that he did scrape he found only one mite. We're not out of the woods, but the ivermectin seems to be controlling the outbreak well. Jax has returned to former cuteness, seems to have overcome the itching, and will probably only need two more skin scrapes. With a little luck the current ivermectin bottle will last for the duration of the treatment.

We also went for our third puppy class last night. The pattern continues. Jax is the most hyper-active dog in the group, but the trainers are impressed with how much he already knows and how easy he is to train. One of the trainers thinks that Jax has about 1/4 Rhodesian Ridgeback in him (awesome! he's a lion killer!), but who knows. I admit that he looks a lot like a ridgeback, and even has a bit of a dark streak on the back of is neck, but nothing like the actual ridge on a Ridgeback. He has gained another five pounds and is now almost exactly twice the weight he was when we brought him home. Two months to double his weight. Let's hope that doesn't happen again. At puppy class they continued the socialization exercises, this time by distributing an array of strange objects in the ring for the dogs to interact with, including some props from the agility classes. As it turns out, Jax loves tunnels. Back and forth, back and forth, to his heart's delight. I should get him some sort of tunnel for the yard.

Jax has a new game. I taught him last week to play "Find it". I put him in a down-stay in the front bedroom and then drag his favorite toy all over the house and hide it somewhere. Then I go back up front, release him, and say "Jax, find it!" and he goes tearing through the house looking for his toy. He's never given up prior to finding either. Good persistence. So far he seems to be relying primarily on sight, but he still finds the toy in more difficult scenarios, so I think the sniffer is going too. This is a good precursor for tracking I think. Exciting stuff.

Oh, and he's also discovered that there's a window in the front bedroom from which he can watch me come and go. So now when I leave in the mornings Jax runs to the front window and watches me leave while Hannah holds the curtains out of his way. Today I waved goodbye to him and he waved back. Sweet dog.

Anyway, that's the latest on the pooch.