Raynor's Allergies and Puppy Problems

I am seriously missing my baby girl, Raynor. Jason has her in Florida right now, and I have been thinking about all of the great times I have had with her. I wanted to share with you the story of my first pup and offer some things I learned.

My first dog is a mix of two of the most stubborn breeds out there. Mix the determination and speed of a beagle with the stubborn weight of a basset, and voila, meet the princess bagle hound. Going into adopting her, I realized she would be an adventure. The past few years have been quite the craziness, but not at all in the way I thought they would be.

Here are the top things I have learned from Raynor.

one. dogs can be allergic to things like grass.

Puppy Raynor in her coat. You can see her lips are really pink and a large rash on the inside of her lower legs. That's the allergies.

When we got Raynor, she had just been spayed, so we believed the red rashy area on her underside to be part of an infection (which she did have) but as time went on, the red rash never went. It burst into red bumps at times, and she would bleed from it. Incredibly pathetic. Three months and way too much money spent on pills and medicines to keep her from itching, we finally told our vet to just give her the allergy test because this whole waiting thing was dumb. Poor pup is allergic to grass, dust, and birch. She receives shots every week from us. So just a warning. Pups can be allergic to anything, just like humans.

two. socializing and training are important at a young age

Raynor was strange, not agressive, but overly excitable as a pup. We took her to training, even speciality training, and got her introduced into puppy daycare. An awesome trainer, Eric at the Pet Spot, helped Raynor learn her place. Still, she does hang with the big dogs, like 80+ pounds, and she weighs in at 50. It is much better now with her around any other dogs, and it was so important we did what we did.

three. toys are never, ever, tough

"Indestructible" means "able to be chewed through in a matter of weeks." Or, later, in my corgi's case, about 2 hours.

four. pups are a girl's best friend, not diamonds.

Raynor started posing with me in photos at a really young age, and she completely understands what the camera is. She sits and stares at me when I get it out. She is incredibly well trained for the camera and behaves perfectly. She is a great asset to outfit photos, photos for projects, and life in general. She's a lot more interesting than if I were wearing, diamonds, right? Oh, and she cuddles. Beats diamonds right there.

five. personality trumps breed

People ask all the time "how do you get your basset to wear outfits?" I think people imagine this is torture for her. It's not. She likes wearing coats when it gets cold because she has a thin coat of fur that is even thinner due to allergies. She won't go in snow. And she loves the attention she gets from people in these things. Anyhow, breeds may give you a hint to how a dog may act, but just like humans, it's all about the personality. A basset/beagle should howl? She doesn't. She is also supposed to take a lot to train, but because she is so driven by loyalty and love, she learns incredibly quickly. She owns the corgi (supposed to be easy to train) in trainability. So just remember, just because a book or a website says your dog may be intelligent, easy to train, and run a lot, doesn't mean it will. At all.