Zeke's Service Dog Fundraiser

08/21/2025

Our dog walker gave us new, used dog toys.

08/21/2025

An exhausted Brie exploring her new toy
Video (visual and audio) description: a medium white dog with a purple collar plays with a toy Oreo that makes clown horn squeaking noises. As the dog loses interest, the human, mostly off camera and in a wheelchair, uses their foot to squeak the toy, move it closer to the dog, and then roll it into the other room. The dog chases the toy and returns with it.

08/19/2025

Brie is enjoying her Likimat this morning. She ate all the kibble and the little bit of meat already and is going in for the frozen plain yogurt and peanut butter.

08/19/2025

I made Brie a "Kong" (off-brand, easier-than-a- enrichment toy) and a super fancy and stuck them in the freezer just now. The had 2 gizzards at the very core, a big spoonful of plain, Greek yogurt, and a whole sardines (or anchovies?) as the top layer. The likimat has a section of peanut butter, a section of plain, Greek yogurt, and a tiny bowl section with a whole sardines/anchovy, fish oil, part of a giblet, and blood frozen. The enrichment toy will probably be given for crate training, and the likimat will be covered in 1/2 a cup of kibble, which is half her usual meal amount, and fed for a meal probably tomorrow.

08/19/2025

Brie and I had our first session with a new trainer who is also named Bri today. She came highly recommended by my previous trainer but is more affordable and lives closer to me. Today, we talked about where Brie and I are at, and we did a potty break/short walk, so she could observe and give pointers. One thing she noticed is that I was using the phrase "all done" to signal the end of activities and transitions within activities, and I need 2 different words for these things, so that's something my brain latched onto. Processing talking and taking out key points is hard for me, so I've asked if I future, she can record me doing new tasks and maybe text me one or two takeaways or the homework, so it's easier for me to retain important material.

08/18/2025

I'm enjoying some ice water, and Brie is crunching up and ice cube here in the AC now that we've gotten in from our potty break.
My POTS and heat intolerance have been really bad lately, and I've only been able to take her out for short walks before I start feeling really unwell (except some early mornings when I'm up early enough to do a pre-heat long walk), but I'm doing a lot of enrichment and have reached out to my dog walker to make up the difference.
I actually fainted on a walk a few days ago, which is exactly why I'm only comfortable walking her with leashes that are attached to my body as a back-up if I get distracted/dissociated/have a meltdown/have a seizure/faint and drop the leash from my hand.

08/17/2025

I don't have my phone to take a picture, but I have pup tethered next to me indoors for the first time. we've done it with her leash out at the picnic table. She's currently choosing to stay on "place" because she gets treats there, but she has a little leeway if she were to choose to walk a few steps away. Just experimenting. I won't leave her tethered for more than like 5 minutes here, since I'm not directly engaging with her, other than to drop treats on "place" every 30ish seconds.

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08/16/2025

I did have to hype her up for 30 seconds before this to get her in "tasking mode" but with sufficient praise motivation, she opens every handicap button on the way to/from the potty spot now.

08/09/2025

I tethered Brie via her multi-function leash to a picnic table next to me while she was off-duty for a mid-walk break in the shade today. She went to the end of the tether a couple of times, especially when people were around, but she didn't pull hard ot seem stressed, and when I moved around the area, she chose to follow me and come check in. I'm having trouble finding a treat she'll work for consistently, though. I need something medium-value and maybe to cut out the high value treats for the most part because she tastes a high value treats in a challenging moment and refuses her lower value treats the rest of the outing, letting them fall out of her mouth. Open to affordable, healthyish commercial treat recs.

08/08/2025

I'm trying to figure out my most affordable, semi-healthy, high-value treat option. I'd like to be able to rotate a few of different value or just to keep novelty. Brie is super picky. She won't work for any flavor of kibble for very long and refused to eat (even for free ) beef lung, freeze-dried beef liver, or freeze dried chicken. She loved some of the treats that a friend sent us that we can't afford to keep replacing like a freeze dried complete puppy food and dried venison. What I just found out is that I can get a pound of dried anchovies pretty affordably if I get them intended for humans (still single ingredient), instead of intended for dogs, so I'm trying that next as hopefully one of the high value treats in rotation. She likes fishy kibbles and treats really well so far. Im hoping there are other hacks like this, so let me know if you know any! She's also turned down every fruit and vegetable I've tried so far and apple sauce but likes yogurt, sweet potato chews, and peanut butter. I cannot cook due to disability factors.

08/07/2025

Our trainer has recommended a trainer to us who has less experience but uses the same training methods, is also local to us and LGBT-friendly, and is much more in our price range.
We love our trainer so, so much, but we also really trust their guidance, so we're going to meet with this other trainer and see if it might be a good fit to be able to train longer on what we've fundraised so far. If you donated directly to our trainer, don't worry, the money will be transferred to the new trainer if we switch because our trainer is amazingly ethical like that.
In the meantime, visit our website to donate towards our dog training and expenses, including puppy's first vet trip, which we have about 2/3 of what we need to pay for, and pet insurance will partially reimburse for, but we still need the up-front costs. That trip is happening in October, after our cat is seen in September, as that is when we will run out of flea and heartworm meds. Website link:

Zeke's Service Dog Fundraiser supports Zeke getting a professionally-trained cardiac alert, autism/PTSD, and mobility multi-purpose service dog

08/07/2025

Speck! Video description: Video has no audio other than background noise I don't think. Video visual is close up of a white cat with gray markings being pet by a yellow and orange, hand-held brush. His collar is off, and he keeps rubbing his face and neck on the brush. Sometimes, the view is too close up to tell what you are seeing. The cat's name is Speck.