Kitto is 12 weeks old. After being indoors for all this time, his world is suddenly BIG.
Kitto’s vet checkup yesterday (All Stars Veterinary Clinic) went great. Kitto’s heart, ears and joints are sound and maturing normally. His musculature is filling out well. He weighs about 4.3 lbs. He eats well, self-feeding on three different high-end kibbles, with 1/3 to 1/2 calories coming from rare-cooked Allprovide in the form of training bait.
Kitto loves meat. He’s eaten a pound each of the Chicken, Puppy, and Beef Allprovide recipes, his digestion a tuned engine. Turkey is this week, plus we also have cooked organ meat from a chicken to share that we are t0o lame to eat ourselves. We learned from keeping ferrets to feed the best varied diet we can afford, treating it like an installment plan vs future medical bills. As fancy as it is, Kitto’s food is not expensive.
Reality TV called. They want their drama back.
Kitto suffered vaccination #3 yesterday. The next 20 hours played like a tragic comedy as we all tried at once to distract and protect him from being touched, sitting on his left side, or thinking about his left side, moving, eating, potty, play, and breathing and drinking.
Kitto woke up this morning as if nothing had happened. Medical procedures hurt sometimes. You can’t tell your baby dog to walk it off like a man. Nature follows its reasonable course, and you will treasure the learning experience that brought your family together. Probably.
We brought training treats with us to the vet appointment so that everyone could feed him after the shot (Alaskan Klee Kai are HIGHLY food-motivated), and we were extra gentle with him for the rest of the day. We’ll talk with the vet about this at the next appointment. He didn’t have a bad reaction to the medicine, just the muscle pain. Sometimes there are ways to make these things easier and it’s worth asking.
Watch out, World! Here comes Kitto Katsu!
Kitto’s first walk could be the subject of a Wonderful World Of Disney documentary.
- Kitto pooped outside the house. First time, in the right spot, on cue. We’d inadvertently trained him by the similar feel of a throw carpet we didn’t realize would dual purpose so well when we got it for him to play on three weeks ago.
- We met a dozen neighbors out doing things. “Is that a husky?”
- We saw mail lady come by, and invited her to say hello, and she did. Kitto likes her. She pets gently and says things like Goooood dog. Kitto unabashedly acknowledges his goodness. He likes mail ladies now and is not afraid of the stinky diesel truck.
- We saw people cut grass.
- Men were working on landscaping. Large men who looked different and were tanned from sun, and sweaty and dirty from effort, and wore grass-stained uniforms. They carried noisy weedwhackers. We went closer to see them because they were “Good Men. See the Good Men? Kitto? Kitto? Drop that. Drop. Good. See the Good Men?” And they smiled and waved. It is hard to train perfectly with these distractions.
- We met more neighbors. Cars stopped. People got out to say hello. We met Willow “Houdini”, a foster dog tired from puppy class who was given up for being less than a great fit, who found a new forever home with her foster family. How cool is that?
- We met some children. Good Children. Gooood. Gentle, Kitto. Good Gentle, Kitto.
- We saw big trucks with equipment on them, and trailers. Kitto ate grass.
- One man smiled and stopped putting in a tree so he could come over to visit. “Is it a husky?” He had a husky-chow mix, and was reeeeeeeally interested. Kitto got his picture taken. This man wore a different uniform than we’ve seen. Good Man, Kitto.
- We practiced “Let’s walk” and I was a tree. Over and over, every time the leash went taught, I was a tree. We didn’t care so much about the walking, because we were learning to walk together, like we practiced inside, but it is MUCH HARDER outside because there are leaves to eat. And sticks. And mulch. Dried worm-jerky. Bugs.
- Kitto ate at least one tiny rock, the size of a pea, crunching it up before I could get it out. This is nature’s way of reminding us that our pets need us for more than food and comfort. The Internets tell me not to panic. This, too, shall pass. (Don’t freak out. Dogs do this. There are signs of trouble to watch for afterwards, when it happens. We will watch for them. He is eating and drinking and eliminating.)
- We met a dog with a man. One of them was tied out, and barked at us. MINE, he said. Loudly, and Kitto’s ears went half-back and he shrank away. And then he perked up, because the dog wasn’t mad. Just declarative. We walked right by within ten feet, and Kitto didn’t say anything back as he pranced by like a horse on parade. Alaskan Klee Kai are awesome.
- Some nice people were watering their sidewalk with a back-and-forth sprinkler. We liked watching the water sprinkle towards us, and the sparkles it made, and the sound of the water hitting the concrete. We went back and forth in that a couple of times, because Kitto did not want to leave.
- Kitto is already fun to take out on a leash. He doesn’t strain or pull to gasping.
- When we got home, on our own grass, without being asked, Kitto peed.
- Later, we went out again, and the schoolbus stopped and the driver (Carol) and the kids all waved and called out to Kitto. (Carol has a lot of fans in our neighborhood, so Kitto does too.)
Yay, Outdoors! Let’s walk!
