Many, many thanks to all of you who contributed to our charity walk!

Linus and I walked the 1-mile Bay to Barkers walk today in Albany. We had a great time, and raised $250 to help homeless pets. The walk was a blast. Earl came to cheer us on (he’s still on crutches, so no walking for him for a few more months- uck), and we even met some fellow corgi owners during the walk.

As my computer is still broken (I’ve actually bit the bullet and decided to just get a new Mac in a few weeks once school starts), I am hogging Earl’s laptop right now to write a quick update while he takes a snooze. Here’s a quick Race Report:

We got a little lost on the way there, so were running late. We arrived and it was right to registration and the walk was starting right away!
Also, my phone was somehow set on “black and white” mode for a bit without me noticing… hope you don’t mind the lack of color:
OFF WE GO!

The walk went along the Bay and was a really gorgeous route. It was at Golden Gate Fields, which was a pretty cool park! Would be fun to come back and check it out solo. There were lots of people just enjoying the park not affiliated with the Humane Society walk. Runners, people walking dogs, hikers…

About a half mile in, lo and behold Linus met a new corgi friend. I swear, corgis flock to one another!

This little guy was Max. He is 2 years old. His momma and I walked together for the rest of the walk and chatted.

When we were done with the walk, they had lots of fun games and activities for Dogs and Humans. There were various stations set up where you could play games with your dogs. One of them was “nose hunting.” Basically, they would hide hot dogs under various boxes after the dog had a chance to get a good sniff in, and then gave him a “FIND IT” command and let him go to to work. Linus surprised me and displayed a really natural affinity for this! I never knew he was much of a scent hound. He found the hotdogs in three progressively harder set ups, all on his first try. The lady running the booth was so impressed she was trying to recruit him into a tracking class. I might try and look one up near us- seems like a fun, relatively low impact activity that he might really enjoy.

They also had a Rally setup where you could try out an obstacle course with your dog, although we skipped that one because it seemed a bit high-impact for our fragile woof. Linus, did, however, thoroughly enjoy playing “Bobbing for Hotdogs.” He hunted for a submerged hot dog bit a bunch of different depths of dog dishes. He loved it! He made it all the way to the deepest dish and got his whole head underwater to get the hotdog.

Finally, we did PAINTING!!!! This was super fun! Basically, you put your dog’s paws in the different colors of paint, and let him walk through a “canvas” poster to make a work of art. So cute

Linus wasn’t very excited about putting his paws in the paint (as soon as a sniff revealed the paint not to be edible, he wasn’t interested anymore), although with some treat utilization, we were able to create the following, which is now proudly hanging up on our fridge (so dorky, ha ha):

Check out those painted paws:

Some other dogs really got messy with the paint! A few of them we completely covered in paint head to toe. Some had it over their entire rear ends from sitting down in the paint trays. heh heh When we got home, I gave Linus a full bath and got most of the paint out, although one paw is still slightly pink.

Here’s Larry. He won the Dog/Owner Look-a-Like Contest. We’ll just say his owner… had hair like Larry. Hopefully she styled it specifically for the occasion

All in all, it was a wonderful event for a great cause. A very big, sincere thanks to our wonderful and generous donors who chipped in to sponsor our walk! The dogs and cats of the Berkeley Humane Society- as well as Linus and I- give you our deep gratitude and many tail wags of appreciation.

Cheers,
Courtney and Linus the Corgi

In a few weeks, Linus and I are walking to support the Humane Society. I was wondering if any of you fellow animal lovers and readers of this blog would like to sponsor our walk?

Last year in March, the Berkeley Humane Society suffered a pretty devastating fire. A large percentage of the main building burned to the ground overnight, and sadly- many pets perished. They’ve been working to rebuild and never missed a day of caring for lots of unwanted and needy pets. But there’s still a lot of work to do.

This walk also marks a really significant victory for my pooch, Linus. Last fall he had a spinal cord and neurological emergency. We either had to operate or put him down. He had surgery- 7 months, lotsa rehab, acupuncture, physical therapy and hydro-therapy later Linus can be a (kinda) normal dog again! He’s still pretty wobbly on his rear legs- he doesn’t have the best control of his rear feet- no feeling in his toes and lacks awareness of where his feet are exactly in space. But he gets around okay. And if he can’t make the whole mile, I’ll gladly carry him (or put him in a wagon). After all, he aint heavy, he’s my corgi.

I set a rather humble fundraising goal of $50. Maybe you could find it in your heart to kick in $5 or so for the Humane Society? That would be stupendous! Linus and I- and many, many homeless and needy pets- would be deeply appreciative. Donations of any amount are tax deductible. Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society is a registered 501(c)3 organization. The tax id # is: 94-1347069

Thank you for the consideration!
Love,
Courtney and Linus the corgi

Here’s the link to the website where you can donate to support our walk.

Last week, I had the privilege of teaching Bystander CPR with other instructors and volunteers from the San Francisco Paramedic Association. We split up and covered a wide area all over the city. There were demos out on the streets, inside City Hall, in firehouses, and classrooms. I spent the day at SFFD Station 51 teaching CPR to the Visitacion Valley Boys and Girls Club.

It was a great day- we taught about 25 middle schoolers Bystander CPR.

I have to say, it was harder than you’d think! Teaching how to give compressions to kids… not as straight forward as you’d imagine, but everyone gave it a shot and got the hang of it.

Funniest quote of the day:
Me: “Okay guys, this is an AED. [holds up AED] Can anyone tell me what AED stands for?”
Kid: “ANTIBIOTICS!!”

The firehouse itself was the biggest hit. Everyone wanted to see the trucks, the PA and dispatch system, and of course the poles!
There was a Q&A session which mostly consisted of “How do you become a firefighter?” and “What’s the biggest fire you’ve ever put out?” Note: no one was really interested in how to work on an ambulance haha….

Everyone watched in awe as two firefighters did a pole demo:

Here’s all the kids at the end of the day. What a fantastic group!

Before Linus had back surgery, we used to love to throw the ball for him for games of fetch at the park. Now, he can still run and play, although his neurosurgeon told us that we have to find a balance between “letting him be a dog” (ie- having fun) and being cautious that he won’t re injure himself or exacerbate his old spinal cord problems. His orthopedic surgeon told us “My lab has the most boring life of any dog in San Francisco,” mainly because he repairs torn cruciate ligaments all day. He never lets his dog play with other dogs and he only stays on leash! That’s rough… I think we’re aiming for a balance.

It’s tough, because I want to let Linus run and play and romp and chase with other dogs, but I stand there watching and inwardly cringe each time he jumps up or takes a tumble. I guess we’re just destined to live out the rest of his life in fear that he’ll have another back problem! It’s hard to strike a balance between letting him have fun playing and get some exercise while still being conservative and taking it easy on his back.

One adjustment I thought of this morning was to replace our tennis ball thrower with a small Linus-sized soccer ball. I figured it wouldn’t bounce as much as a tennis ball, so less chance of him jumping up to catch it. I was happy to kick it around for him and let him chase it (herd it… heh heh). He seemed to really like it. Also, he stayed parallel to the ground a lot more and didn’t take any real tumbles, which was the goal.

He did bark a lot, I guess it’s from the excitement of “herding” the ball. He would bark when I kicked it and he would bark when he chased it. We’ll have to work on that, although I don’t really know how to train him not to bark.

Some photos:
The soccer ball. Picked it up at a soccer store on Mission Street. It’s a nice tough leather, so I don’t think he can chew through it. He has been carrying it around in his mouth sometimes.

OH BOY IMMA GONNA GO GET IT!! COME BACK HERE BALL I’M GONNA GET YA!!!!

Just a quick post with a few photos from the Giants game on Tuesday with my coworkers. My first Giants game ever! We had a blast. What a gorgeous stadium:

Kind of bad lighting, but here are a bunch of us at the bar afterwards:

GO GIANTS!

I thoroughly enjoyed my hot dog and a beer!

This is how my bruises are looking these days:

Here’s Linus waiting patiently outside of our favorite little neighborhood cafe. I thought he looked cute with the flowers framing the window.

The theme of our lives lately is waiting. I’m waiting to find out if I get into the graduate program I’m applying to, waiting for all my transcripts to get in for my application (why does this process seem to take so long?! aggh!), we are waiting for Earl’s ankle to get better, waiting to see if our lease is extended or if we’ll be moving again soon, I’m waiting for Ricky to tell me what powerlifting competition is coming up this summer (and subsequently HE’S waiting to tell me what one I should train for based on how far along my training comes!… Cartesian Circle here… shesh).

I do have a few fun things coming up: on Tuesday my company is all going to a Giants game- my first one ever! I’m really excited as I got into it last season having huge baseball fans as my partners on the ambulance. We have enough people that we’ll get shout-outs on the Jumbotron- totally cheesy but I am really excited regardless

Also in just over three weeks my friend Andrea and I are going away on a long “girls weekend” of… wine tasting and spa treatments! We’ll also be bike riding, hiking and doing other touristy stuff. Feels frivolous, but I’ve never done something like that and I hope we’ll have a great time. Linus is coming, too. Apparently Carmel Valley is extremely dog friendly. I might borrow a trailer and tow Linus so that he can come on our long bike ride. Of course photos shall follow!

Hope you all are well.

Today we had our first outing to the beach since Linus’ underwent the knife for back surgery AND ACL surgery. So first time out at the beach since… August 2010. He was PSYCHED!!! He was so happy to be out there again, and honestly we were very happy to see him happy

Even though he mostly stayed on leash and we walked very slowly doing rehab exercises, I could just tell how excited and overjoyed he was to be out there on the sand, hearing the ocean, and seeing other dogs running around and playing!

All in all, we have been *very* happy with his progress from back surgery, although the rehab has been painful, arduous, slow and expensive. Linus walks well now with his rear-support sling, and walks poorly without it. It’s been cool watching him progress! Even little things- seeing him re-learn how to wag his tail (nub), or when he regained the ability to scratch with his back feet- are huge celebrations around these parts.

We don’t know 100% if he’ll walk without assistance ever again, and he could plateau at any time. Although at this point I think while we hope for continued improvement, whatever point he makes it to we will be happy with.

The rehab process, which effective, is both a huge pain in the ass and astronomically pricey. Honestly one of the reasons I haven’t been updating on here is the huge time-sink that it’s been to get Linus back and up on his feet! Every six hours, every day, we give him about 20 minutes worth of physical therapy sessions. Once a week I also take him to acupuncture treatment, with Holly who is wonderful. Also once a week I drive him up to a session with the Dog Physical Therapist, who is an hour and a half outside the city!! So that takes almost the entire day, with three hours of driving and 1 hour of appointment. Then in the meantime he’s been having regular interval checkups with both his orthopedic surgeon (who treated him for a bladder crystals/UTI- a cool $390 we weren’t expecting) and his neurosurgeon.

The exciting news is we saw his neurosurgeon on Wednesday and Linus has been cleared off of “bed rest” (crate rest) which he’s been on for the past two months. So he can now walk around the house! This is happy news for us, because mentally we don’t feel like we’re “trapping” him in his kennel all the time, and also we get to enjoy his company around the house while we get stuff done. It’s a very small thing, but it really makes me happy to hear the pitter patter of little paws underfoot zooming in to vacuum up crumbs in the kitchen while I cook! So funny how you miss those silly little things.

We are also cleared to start walking him longer and longer distances on our 3x daily rehab walks. We get to add one minute per day. This is GREAT because it means we can bring him to the coffee shop again! One of our biggest weekend or weekday routines was to walk over with Linus to Que Tal and sit outside with him on the benches while we enjoyed our morning. I really missed that with him! We would still go over to Que Tal, of course, but it was sad with no friendly faced corgi eagerly accepting pets, treats and attention from everyone who walked by.

Part of the reason I stopped posting for a bit was that I think I was suffering from caregiver fatigue. For the past two months, prettymuch my entire existence has been devoted to getting Linus back up and walking on his feet. We had to carry him everywhere, even in our apartment, up and down stairs constantly all while being terrified we would break his back again by holding him wrong! For the first month, every SINGLE time we walked him 3x a day it took the two of us- one steering the front leash and one supporting him with the back harness. Kind of served as a crash course in intensive relationship counseling “Go left, no go right, you’re going to fast, wait why are you letting him go over there? hey my head is hitting these branches woah watch out wait speed up you’re lagging” etc…

The other reason is that I have been extremely busy. We’ve been heading up to Tahoe to ski almost every single weekend, and then I also am doing school FULL TIME this semester! Yay I love it, but it’s certainly been an adjustment. I’m taking medical terminology, a basic entry level bio, a basic entry level math (to get me up to speed to test into a higher math so I can take physics, chem and whatnot) and yoga. Yes, yoga is a college course around these parts! It’s awesome- 2x a week and I even get 1 credit for it. Next semester Earl and I might take swing dancing together.

So that’s the update! Lots of dog stuff, lots of skiing, lots of studying. I hope you’ve all been well.

I’ll try and post time photos of the rocker therapy balance board Earl and I made for Linus last weekend- it’s a wobble board that he stands on and you coach him to balance while you rock it back and forth. It strengthens his core (which is a lot of what we’ve been working on). Also, I took some great photos of him in the hydrotherapy tank underwater treadmill which he’s been doing once a week, so I’ll get those up soon too. Miss you all Thanks for reading! Cheers.

Well, we are officially into the new place but far from settled. The new pad has a lot less storage so I’ve been going through and organizing stuff and making a big pile to bring to Goodwill.

Been really enjoying checking out the new hood- Linus and I have been doing hour-long walks each morning exploring. It’s only a 9 minute walk to Dolores Park and also- get this- about an 8 minute walk to an outdoor swimming pool where a masters team practices! So I am thinking of joining them… we’ll see… still in the contemplation phase of that.

One reason for this update (while I down coffees at an internet cafe) is that we will have no internet at home until JULY 9th when it gets installed!!! So I’m not going to be able to get online much- but that means I will be really productive when it comes to unpacking and getting stuff installed, hung up and whatnot.

Have a good couple of weeks!
Court

Came home yesterday after work and then the gym to find this note:

How spoiled are we? TWO WALKS? A FOUR HOUR HANG AROUND AT HER HOUSE? Plus she hangs out and plays with our cat? !!!

Linus has a very plush life. He’s with me most of the time, however the two or three days a week I go to work, he gets the royal treatment from Robin.

Our dogwalker, Robin, is the greatest. She’s such a caring and loving woman to the pets. She works with my oddball schedule that changes all the time and is extremely reliable. Linus ADORES her and they have so much fun together. A lot of the time she brings him back completely covered in mud or sand, because they play in the dirt pit at the dog park. But we don’t mind because we know he had so much fun.

If anyone’s looking for a dog walker in the Haight Ashbury area, Robin has our highest recommendations. We’ve been using her for a year now and she is stupendous. If you would like her contact info, please contact me here and I will be happy to send it to you! She doesn’t really advertise and most of her clients are found via word of mouth.

Woke up this morning to the following email blast from my SF Corgi listserve:

Some of you may have seen the news about an early morning fire at the
Berkeley Humane Society shelter. They fire destroyed a significant
portion of their facility including their cat shelter and all of their
offices.

They are heartbroken to have lost a number of cats during the fire,
but about a dozen cats and all of the dogs were saved.

They are in need of emergency assistance both in the form of
individuals who can temporarily foster animals, as well as immediate
financial donations. Once the situation is further stabilized they
will need volunteers for cleanup and recovery.

As their offices were destroyed and their utilities cut, their phones
are out and they are coordinating all efforts from their website.

www.berkeleyhumane.org

Thank you!

So sad! Heartwrenching to think of the cats that perished in the fire

I just emailed them to help volunteer with the cleanup and we may also temporarily foster (if they have a dog or cat who would get along with another dog and cat!). Perhaps you would like to help out as well? They are looking for people to help clean, temporarily foster animals and also monetary donations. I’m sure spreading the news of their situation on your website, twitter or facebook would help too. Find out more updates and how you can help here on their website: www.berkeleyhumane.org

Here is hoping they get back on their feet quickly and back to helping animals in need!