Meet "Zephan" :)

They do exist, but are not prominent here like down south.

Zephan seems to be responding to the meds, but his RBC is still low, so the vet is having me add iron to his diet, and she said we could start weaning him off the Prednisone (Yay!!).

I took him out to a local Schutzund club this past weekend, and I will be joining the club soon!
Well, I will be a candidate for a year, then after that they vote on me becoming a permanent member.

We will focus on tracking with him.
The owner did a little bit of an eval on him, and is certain that a male did not treat him well.
We will be focusing on building his confidence, and see how he does from there.

Zephan is still responding to the meds, but his RBC is still low, so we are adding an iron supplement to his diet.
The vet said we could start weaning him off the Prednisone, and see how he does. (Yay!!)

She also said I could start training, as long as his energy levels stayed up.
I took him to a local Schutzhund club this past weekend, and we will be applying to join the club.
The club members were wonderful! The owners clearly have a passion for dogs! Both of the owners took time to work with Z a little, to see how he'd do.
They are certain that Z was mishandled by a male, by the way he acts.
We will focus on building his confidence, and will be focusing on tracking.

Since he cannot do the bitework part (at least for now, there is a possibility, depending on how he does but it will take a lot of time and work), and since it is required to learn all aspects, I will be talking to them about using one of their dogs to train in bitework.

I am super excited about this club!
I will post his progress here.

We had a small amount of snow recently. Not as much as I would like, but I wanted to see how he would do with snow, and he didn't seem to mind it.
Hopefully, before the end of winter, we will get more snow, and he can play in it.

I love tracking. Have you done it before? It's like magic!!

I love that picture. He's awesome. Glad he is responding to the meds!

Nanci said:

I love tracking. Have you done it before? It's like magic!!

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Not yet. I have played with nosework a bit, but not tracking.

DollysMom said:

I love that picture. He's awesome. Glad he is responding to the meds!

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Thank you
He's not out of the woods yet, we have to make sure that his body can maintain after the course of meds is over.
There is a good chance I will need to do some maintenance for him, to keep him healthy.
I have ordered Carao fruit juice to give to him.
My closest friends' husband has a blood disorder and has been taking it with good results.
It is used for dogs as well.
I should get it this week.

I haven't updated this in a while.
Zephan is doing great! He had four consecutive normal blood tests,and is now off both meds,and have discontinued blood tests for now.
The next test will be to recheck the tick panel, in a few weeks.
He gained a bit of weight while on the pred,and we're working on getting him back down to a normal weight. We're getting pretty close.

He's doing amazing at the Schutzhund Club! He's really coming out of his shell, and is more comfortable around other people, even the men there.
I didn't think he'd be able to do bitework, because of his lack of confidence, but he's progressing very well, and the head trainer said he's close to moving onto the sleeve.
I am so excited about that!

Tracking ison Sundays, And I haven't been able to go to many of them due to work. I have a field a couple miles from me that I have taken him to, for practice, but it's been a little while since I have been able to go.

He will be getting a baby sister in a few weeks.
The gal who is pretty much responsible for me getting Z has been breeding Malinois for 20 years. She not only does OFA testing on her dogs, but also does DNA genetic health testing. She starts the puppies on training and socializing, as well as crate training. She imprints them on sheep and ducks when they're 7 weeks old.

She will be picking out the right female for me at 8 weeks old, based on the structure and temperament that will be perfect for me and Z.
I have her registered name picked out, I just need to figure out her call name.
The theme is natural disasters/forces of nature.
I've chosen to go with wildfire, so her registered name will be "Hotshot Du Clos Des Valor". I'm working on her call name.

I'll post pics when I get her.

I cannot add pics from my phone because the format is too big. I will add pics when I can.

Zephan's baby sister is here! She's been here a few weeks, but I forgot to update this.

I settled on "Incendies (French for wildfire) Du Clos Des Valor" for her registered name, and "Neci" (Latin for fiery, intense) for her call name.

I have decided that Neci won't be doing Schutzhund, she will be doing French Ring. I have to travel farther for that training, and won't be able to go every week because of work, but it will be fun.
Neci's breeder gave me a ton of useful info to start imprinting her for FR training.

This past week has been busy with putting in a new fence for my front yard, so the pups can be in the front yard with me when I am gardening, or just hanging out, and to hopefully keep the neighbors cats out of my yard.

Oh my...she's adorable.

Awwww! She's all ears!

Joba said:

Oh my...she's adorable.

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Thank you! She's a lot of fun! She's pretty spicy too. She's going to be a lot of fun learning French Ring with!

Tavia said:

Awwww! She's all ears!

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She gets her ears from her sire.
I'll find some pics to post.

I have some pics on my phone, but it is charging. Here is a photo of her sire, Tourbillion. You cannot really see his ears.

Going through pics on the breeders page, I found a baby pic of Neci, when she was a couple weeks old.

Neci is growing up!