If It's Not The Couch, It's The Bed!!

If she's not on the couch, I find her on the bed.

Sometimes I envy her. Boy wouldn't it be nice to be able to lounge around all day long!!

Dasha At The Agility Competition

We took Dasha earlier this month to Westworld for the agility competition. We had a nice time. It was good to get Dasha out to do something out of the ordinary. It could have been a little cooler, I think it was 90 degrees that day. You gotta love November in Phoenix.

We got to watch the fly-ball competition. It was amazing. I've seen them on TV before, but to be there in person to see the excitement that is going on is pretty crazy. We work day and night to Dasha to calm down and not be so hyper, but these people were doing everything they could to get their dogs all riled up. It was fun to watch.

Here are some pictures from the day. It looks like she was sticking her tongue out at me.






She didn't really want to jump the bar, but finally did it!!

And here are a couple of videos from the day as well. I was pretty sure that the tubes were out of the question. And the weave poles could use some work as well. I don't think she's going to be winning any competitions with this performance.

My First YouTube Video Experience

So I want to apologize for the quality of this video, it's really bad. I took it with my phone while at the dog park mostly as an experiment on uplaoding video to YouTube and then embedding the video into a blog post. It's pretty darn easy. I'll have to do it more often.

This is Shelby & Dasha goofing around at the park this afternoon. Enjoy!!

Winston

I found out on Tuesday that Winston the Great Dane had passed away. His owner came to the park to let a couple of othe Great Dane owners know that he had passed away from bloat on Sunday after being at the park Saturday evening. I wasn't there on Saturday, but Shelby and her owner were there and apparently had a conversation about bloat, and that she didn't know what it was. So Winston's owner wanted to stop by and let us know, and to also give a bit of a description of what happened and what the telltale signs are of bloat.

For those of you who don't know, bloat is similar to colic in horses, where the stomach gets blocked and distended and then twists to the point where the bloodflow to certain areas of the tissue is cut off causing those areas to rapidly deteriorate.

Great Danes are very suseptible to bloat due to the deep narrow chest cavity that is normally a a prerequisite for bloat. We had a bloat scare several months ago with Dasha. She appeared to be really uncomfortable, drooling profusely, and had dry-heaved a couple of times, but her stomach wasn't distended, which is one of the symptoms that we found on the internet somewhere. She finally laid down and fell asleep, and woke up the next morning feeling much better. We think she might have eaten a big piece of one of her rawhide bones that she loves so much and gave her a severe upset stomach. But after talking with Winston's owner, he said that his stomach wasn't all that swollen or distended. Yikes!!! I guess I'll have to keep that in mind in case Dasha has another bloat scare.

While reading about bloat on Wikipedia.org today, it mentioned that they've seen some correlation between bloat in dogs with so called "happy" personalities versus dogs with "fearful" personalities. Winston had been abused by his original owners when he was a puppy and was still dealing with it at 4 yrs of age, after being with his current owner for about 3 of those years. He had just started to feel comfortable at the park and was starting to appear to enjoy the interaction with the other dogs. It looks like this may have playing a role in his development of bloat.

His owner went into great detail while telling us all about it. It almost made me start crying. A little embarrassing, but what am I gonna do? I feel so bad for him.

The Latest Dog Park Adventures

Here are a few pictures that I've taked over the past couple of weeks. Ever since she was a puppy we've been pretty loyal to the dog park. It's our way of getting her some excercise and expending some energy so that she'll sleep at night. When it's 110 degrees outside, I'd much rather just stand at the park and try and find some shade than walk around the block. Not to mention that the sidewalks are so darn hot on her feet. I feel bad. The weather has been really nice lately, so it's not so bad to be outside with her.



Dasha's on the right with her friend Bella. They seem to be the two staples at the dog park. Everybody know these two clowns.



Dasha's trying to get the upper hand, or shall I say upper neck on Bella.





Bella's dad was nice enough to try and wipe some of the slobber off of Dasha's face, and what does she do to repay him, she tries to steal his towl. What a clown!!

A Hike Up North Mountain

The three of us hiked up North Mountain on Sunday. The weather is finally getting bearable here in Phoenix. I think it only got up to about 80 degrees that day. It's supposed to get hot again this week, but I don't think it's going to be too long lived. It is the middle of October for cryin' out loud!!

Dasha likes to do anything outside. Hiking the mountain is one of her favorites. It a little bit of variety from the daily dog park outing.

Psssstt! I've Got Something To Tell You

I think she was trying to tell me a secret.

A Day At The Dog Park

This is Dasha and her friend Shelby playing tug-a-war with some rubbery ball they found.

She Knows Not To Get On The Couch

This is what I found when I came downstairs a couple of weeks ago after being in my office upstairs for a few hours. Maybe she's thinking that she's blending into the color of the couch and I can't see her. "NEWS FLASH.....You're not as sly as you think!!!!"

Daily Activities

I wanted to show you a little bit of what Dasha does on a daily basis. She'd much rather be on the couch, but she look spretty darn comfy in her bean bag.

Apparently she was pretty tired and didn't care to get up on my account.

She wasn't sure exactly what the heck I was doing with the camera in her face.

It's All About "The Dasha"!

Hello Everyone!! This is Dasha. She is our first Great Dane and we have absolutely fallen in love with her. The longer we are with her the more we realize that Great Danes are the dogs for us. We would like to get another one at some point, but it will have to wait until we move into a larger home.

The purpose of this blog is to publish all of our adventures with "Dasha". We have taken pictures of her in the past, but need to start taking more. She makes us laugh almost daily and we would love to share a little bit of her with you all.

I hope you enjoy her as much as we do.

-Steve Nicks