adventures at slac-a-lac

Buster made an appearance at SLAC today. Here's a picture of her after she got her badge...

Buster, after GERT training



KayCee, enjoying SLAC's finely manicured lawn

KayCee didn't get to stay long, but Buster came down and got to see where Mommy works all day when she's at daycare. Buster met El Jefe (aka Matthew) and Pete. She went right up and sniffed Matthew, but started crying when Pete stood in the doorway. Pete didn't seem to take it personally.

Buster's surgery went well yesterday. She was pretty groggy when we picked her up, but actually had a bit of an appetite and no vomiting from the anesthesia and painkillers. Today she's pretty much back to normal!

Dr. Ikezawa called after the surgery to say Buster wasn't spayed at all. Coincidentally,
the LA shelter finally got back to me to say that we should have received something saying that Buster was probably spayed, to the best of the vet's knwoledge. It was a clerical error that we got an actual spay certificate. In my book, that means that we have grounds to ask them to cover the cost of the surgery! Yay!

the misadventures of a dog named buster

Buster's having surgery right now to get spayed. She was supposed to have been spayed by the Los Angeles shelter that found her in January, but either they never did it or they did a crappy job because Buster went into heat last week -- yikes!

We noticed her hooha was looking a little weird and swollen and then realized that she was bleeding. At first we thought there was something really wrong because going into heat never even occurred to us...But, Buster proved once again that she is truly one in a million!

Poor Dr. Ikezawa looked so frustrated when we came in -- she easily could have taken care of this one of the other times she had operated on Buster, but now we have to do another surgery. The positive thing in all of this is that this could potentially cause the little lump on her mammary gland to clear up on its own!

I talked to Sarah at Boxers and Buddies and she sounded really frustrated, too -- she says everytime she hears from me, she just waits to hear what's wrong with Buster. :( Poor Buster. But it made me feel better because she said that she is so happy that Richie and I adopted Buster because anyone else would have returned her by now.

At least I don't think that all of poor Buster's issues have soured Richie on adopting...He just e-mailed and said he thinks we should adopt this poor guy! I really wish we could, but I think we're already on the verge of being evicted -- once our landlords see the blinds that Buster's chewed up, we'll be out on the streets!

go to the head of the class, buster!

Buster and KayCee started obedience class last week. When we adopted Buster, one of the requirements was that we had to complete a training class within 4 months of the adoption. We're running a little bit behind since it's already been about 4 months since we adopted her, but we wanted to wait until she was fully recovered from her surgeries before we started a class!

Last week, Mom, Dad, Richie, Buster, KayCee, and I went to Petco for the class, and Buster started getting all crazy and aggressive when she saw the other dogs. An owner of a Maltipoo pointed at us and told the instructor that she didn't want us anywhere near her dog, so we were banished outside of the class area. Poor Buster -- already an outcast on her first day of school.

The instructor went through introductions and talked generally about her philosophy about training dogs. All the while, the Maltipoo and its Beagle friend barked incessantly. The instructor kept having to stop talking to try to get them to be quiet. Buster watched them with utter disdain -- "Don't they know it's rude to bark while someone else is talking?"

After awhile, we went over the "sit" command. Buster is already a pro at this -- "The stupid Maltipoo doesn't even know how to sit!" Buster thinks the Maltipoo would be better off in remedial classes.

After class, the instructor apologized for making us sit outside of the class, and then she spent several minutes suggesting different things we can try to work on with Buster to help her get over her leash aggressiveness -- a halter lead instead of using her collar and some de-sensitization exercises. We bought a halter this week and Buster already seems to be making progress -- way to go, Buster!

Today we went to our second class and the instructor set up the classroom so that Buster and KayCee were on one side of the partition and everyone else was on the other side. Buster was so much better this week -- she only tensed up a few times and never really got into the red zone. At the end of class, we got her to lay down and roll over onto her back while she watched the other dogs playing a few feet away. Hopefully, she keeps getting a little bit better each week!

Here are some random pictures of Buster!

Daddy's being a bad influence!


Gimmegimmegimmegimme!!!!


No, KayCee, it's MINE!