House Dog Life & A Swollen Face

Mostly Rizzo and Mahzi are getting along ok in the house. I’m happy with polite indifference.  Occasionally Rizzo goes after Mahzi when there’s any confusion over toys, food, or attention. They did get in a fight yesterday because Owen tried to pet them both and say they were both good dogs…. Rizzo was having none of that and lunged at Mahzi. 

Keep in mind Rizzo is 4 years old and 37 lbs, and Mahzi is almost 9 years old and 75 lbs. Mahzi  truly doesn’t care if she’s on the bottom of the pack order, but please, Rizzo, don’t beleaguer the point by constantly putting her down.  She’ll not tolerate that kind of bullying.

Rizzo, who understands both levers and door knobs, also opened the back door and ran to the barn to see Pascal yesterday morning while I was putting my shoes on.  She’s not supposed to be running hard on that knee, but she hadn’t talked to Pascal for a few days and needed to fill him in about her lifestyle changes.

Rizzo came back when she was done discussing with Pascal, and now all the back does are locked.  I did catch Rizzo trying to turn the handle of the deadbolt when she realized the back door was locked, but I called her and distracted her before she completed her task.  Those doors are a little tricky since you have to lift the door lever way up and then turn the deadbolt to get it to lock or unlock, so we’ll see how long it takes Rizzo to figure that out.

In other news, Note somehow clobbered his head.  On Tuesday evening he was a little tender to the touch on the right side of his forehead, and despite getting pain meds by Thursday afternoon his face was quite swollen from the base of his right ear through his upper right eyelid. 

I called the vet and made an appointment for him to get checked out, and ended up driving to their clinic this morning since none of the large animal vets were out my way.  She thought he probably had been kicked or clocked himself in the head on a fence post or something, and fortunately there doesn’t seem to be any infection or damage to the eyeball itself.  So we loaded up and headed home, with a word of caution about not aggravating Highboy, his roommate, more than is tolerable.