Snow Pictures & A Catch-Up Post

I seem to be sticking to a pattern of posting about once a month, so here’s the latest catch-up post, and some pictures of Duke playing in the snow.

We had a major snow storm (along with pretty much the entire east coast) on January 22^nd. Our total snow accumulation was just under a foot. We also had extremely low temperatures, and crazy high winds. Nick and Duke loved it. Emma and I didn’t venture off of the screened in porch. I actually ended up not going outside for five days straight. I really don’t like snow! So of course I’m hoping that’s it for us for snow this winter. Come on spring!

I’ve changed the comment settings on the blog to require approval for comments on anything that’s more than 14 days old. The spam on the older posts was just getting out of control. Have any of you run into that problem? Any suggestions for solving it?

If you haven’t seen the movie Inside Out yet, I highly recommend watching it. We rented it from Redbox a few weeks ago and both absolutely loved it. There was a lot more to it than either one of us were expecting, but it still leaves you with the nice happy feeling that you expect from a cartoon.

Emma is still holding her own. She has been eating fairly well over the weekend, and has been a little more active and playful. There are definitely some bad days, but for now the good days seem to outnumber the bad ones.

So what about you? Have you had any snow? How are things going for you?

Happy Hump Day - The Dressed Up Dogs Edition

Yes, I’m one of those people. The ones who dress their dogs up for just about any reason. Or no reason at all.

In my defense, I’ve been dressing Emma for so long she probably thinks dogs are really supposed to wear clothes. And I think she enjoys wearing pretty little outfits. She has had a lot of them over the 12 years I’ve had her. Duke associates being dressed up with getting a treat, so I’m pretty sure he’d dress himself if he could. And I’ve only dressed up foster dogs who seemed like they were into it. Playing dress-up is voluntary.

I don’t think it gets much cuter than dressed up dogs, so for today’s edition of Happy Hump Day, I give you dressed up dogs.

The Month of May

I planned to take a little blogging break after finishing the A to Z Challenge in April, I just didn’t plan to take a break for almost the entire month of May. I’m still not sure how it went by so quickly.

We did some projects around the house and yard. I uprooted two bushes in the front yard that I didn’t like. Have you ever uprooted an entire bush? If you haven’t I can’t say that I recommend trying it. If you have, why didn’t you tell me not to?!? Nick took down blinds that needed to be replaced and put up a curtain rod and curtains. It looks nice. We planted quite a few more things in the yard. Nothing terribly exciting, but all things that needed to be done.

She seems to like it here.

On the pet front, we foster failed and adopted Cookie. Dot never warmed up to us, and seemed very happy to leave us once the renovations at the shelter were finished. Cookie, on the other hand, seemed to like our particular brand of craziness.

We thought long and hard about adding a fifth cat to our household. We decided to foster her for a while longer to make sure she did alright with the other cats before adopting her. She fits in well enough, and seems happy here, so we made it official and adopted her last week. 

On paper, adding a fifth cat to our household, and a senior cat at that, probably isn’t considered a great decision, but it’s one we felt very good about. With kitten season upon us, we were really afraid that Cookie would be overlooked at the shelter. She’s gorgeous, sweet, and has a great personality, but the truth of the matter is that older cats seem to be practically invisible next to all of the kittens. We couldn’t let that happen, especially when Cookie seemed like such a great fit at our house.

I feel like I spent a huge part of May at various vet’s offices. Emma had some recurring health issues that popped back up. She had blood work that was way off, and just wasn’t acting quite right. Repeated blood tests showed that the problem was only getting worse, so our regular vet referred us to the specialist group.

Patiently waiting in between blood draws.

We went to the specialist group last year with similar issues and didn’t really get any results. I didn’t care for the vet we saw then, so I was a little nervous about going back there. We ended up with a different vet this time; one that one of my co-workers credits with saving her dog’s life, and who our regular vet says has a good reputation.

I immediately liked her better! She was better with Emma, spent more time with her, and seemed to listen more to what we had to say about Emma’s symptoms. She suggested pursuing advanced testing for Cushing’s Disease, which we did, and it turns out that Emma does have Cushing’s Disease.

You can read more about it here, but the short version is basically that Emma has the pituitary dependent kind, meaning that she has a tiny benign tumor in her pituitary gland that causes her body to basically overdose itself on steroids. Left untreated it can cause liver damage and other issues. The treatment for it is medication to regulate the production.

You can read more about the medication here, but the short version is that it takes a while to get the right dose. Too little doesn’t adequately treat it. Too much causes other, potentially very serious, problems. There’s a fair amount of blood tests involved in the beginning to help determine the right dose. We go on Wednesday for her first round of blood tests since starting the medication. My gut feeling is that her dose will have to be raised a little bit; there’s some definite improvement in her symptoms, but still room for a lot more improvement. We’ll see.

If I let myself think about it too much I get totally freaked out over the fact that Emma technically has a very small brain tumor. She’s been a huge part of my life for the past 12 years, and I hate to think about anything being seriously wrong with her. When reason returns, I’m grateful for the fact that it wasn’t some of the other, much worse things it could have been. And I’m glad it’s a problem with a medical, not surgical, treatment, since that seems like a better choice at her age. She seems happy and seems to be feeling better, which is wonderful.

So what about you? How has the month of May been for you?

There’s No Predicting Dogs

I like to think that we know Emma and Duke pretty well.  I’ve had Emma for eleven years, we spent a lot of time together when I took real estate pictures for work (she rode with me nearly everywhere I went), and I’m generally pretty tuned it to what’s going on with her.  We’ve had Duke for a little over a year now.  A lot of that time (about the first six months or so) was spent cuddling on the couch with him while he went through heart worm treatment and a leg amputation.  Again, I feel like we’re pretty tuned in to what’s going on with him.

Most of the time we’re very good at predicting how and Emma and Duke will react to situations, what they’ll like, what they won’t like, when to break out the thundershirts, etc.  But, every now and then, they like to surprise us.

We took Emma (it was about a month before Duke entered our lives) on vacation to the beach for the first time last year.  We didn’t expect Emma to go in the water.  She assures us every time it rains that she will most definitely melt if she gets wet.  She has no interest in streams or rivers whenever we take her hiking, and let’s not even talk about bath time. 

So we really didn’t expect Emma to go into the water.  At all.  But it turned out that she loved it.  She didn’t go in very deep, but she waded and had a great time running through the waves.  Surprise, surprise! 

When this year’s vacation finally rolled around last week, we just knew that Duke was going to love the ocean.  He frolics in the rain, and drags us into any stream or river he finds while hiking.  He’ll even just flop down into the water and lay there to cool off. 

We thought he’d love the ocean.  Once again, we were wrong.  Duke wanted no part of the ocean.  He didn’t like the waves coming at him.  He loved the sand, loved running on the beach, loved chasing birds and crabs, and unfortunately loved trying to eat any trash he found on the beach.  He just wasn’t having the water.  Surprise, surprise!  Again. 

I guess we can’t always predict dogs, no matter how well we may know them.  Has your dog, or any other fur kid, surprised you lately?

When “Failure” Makes You Happy

Do you remember Duke, the dog we picked up from the shelter to foster almost a year ago?  We “foster failed” during the summer.

When Duke came to us, he was heartworm positive, and had a damaged paw.  He made it through the heartworm treatment (which took almost six months before we got the negative test) and into our hearts while he was going through that.

He just fit in perfectly from the beginning.  We love him, Emma loves him, and he does well with the cats.  We had to keep him! 

Duke’s front right paw was damaged when he came to us.  It was initially thought that he’d had a broken leg that didn’t heal properly, but when they did more testing they determined that it was nerve damage (no one has any idea how it happened, and unfortunately he can’t tell us) and that the leg couldn’t be saved. 

His leg was amputated about a month after his negative heartworm test. He went in for the surgery on a Wednesday morning and came home on a Thursday afternoon.  The first few days were rough.  He was uncomfortable, he didn’t like the bandage, we had a lot of trouble keeping the bandage on, he kept messing with the IV site, and we had a terrible time dealing with that once he licked it to the point of having a sore.  But we got through it!  My friend Crystal came and stayed that weekend to help with him.  Nick is an EMT, so is really good at changing bandages, and I became fairly decent at it myself by the time it was over.

During the process of his leg amputation and recovery Duke managed to become a little bit of a local celebrity (or at least had a “15 minutes of fame” thing going on) when the shelter started a chip-in to try and raise some of the money for all of his treatment.  He was very popular at the vet’s office, I tracked his progress on Facebook, people we barely knew were asking us about Duke’s recovery, and I ended up bringing him to work to meet some people.  That grew, and he ended up visiting a few different departments.  Duke loves people and attention, so he basked in his fame. 

Things have calmed down, and we’re happily a six fur kid family.  We have noticed that Duke seems to get some extra attention whenever we take the dogs out.  There’s just something about a three-legged animal that seems to make people want to pet them and meet them.  Duke is fine with that because he loves people.  And food.  And people have food! 

So we totally “failed” as foster parents with Duke, but we couldn’t be happier to have failed.  He just fits in and completes our furry family. 

Still Here

I’m still here, even though I seem to have dropped out of the A to Z Challenge.  I’m thinking about trying to finish it out, even if it’s unofficially, just to get back in.  Good idea or waste of time?

Last week just got really crazy.  First of all, the weather went insane; one day we were wearing shorts and sunscreen and the next day we were wearing coats and gloves.  I don’t think my squash and zucchini plants survived the cold.  I planted them way too early I suppose.  My flowers seem to have made it.  They were still in pots, so we were able to move them on to the screened in porch and cover them up with old towels.  I’m hoping the weather will stay warm enough for me to plant them this weekend. 

I totally blame the weather, but I also got knocked on my butt with some sort of cold/sinus/allergy thing.  It pretty much felt like a herd of angry cats took up residence in my throat and then tried to claw their way out.  Not fun.  I just had no energy and felt terrible. I’ve been going to bed early and drinking lots of tea, water, and orange juice, and have finally started to feel a little better.  Early bed time and chicken noodle soup are still on tonight’s agenda, however.  Aren’t I exciting?

We also had three sick fur kids last week.  Frankie started vomiting excessively and had to go to the vet.  Lots of expensive tests later, it was determined that he seems to have acid reflux. He’s currently on Pepcid, and seems to be feeling much better.  The first few doses went fairly well, but now he seems to think he’s had enough.  He bit the HELL out of me last night when I gave him his pill!!!  I think it’s going to be Nick’s turn today. 

Emma went back to the specialist on Friday, and they repeated several tests.  We’re still waiting on the results of one more test, but they’re leaning toward a behavioral issue.  I’m still deciding if I think that’s accurate or not, and we’re currently researching a few different things to try for her.  We will also talk to her regular vet before beginning any new medications; he’s a really good vet and has more of a history with her than the specialist. 

We were hit in the parking lot as we were leaving.  All three of us are fine, and the car is fine. The woman who backed into us just seemed like a total idiot, and tried to pet Emma without asking first (which is a very sore subject with me).  Between feeling terrible and being worried about Emma, let’s just say that I definitely was not at my most charming.  At least everyone was fine. 

Duke has developed the very bad habit of eating anything he can possibly scavenge when we go out for walks.  I promise we’re not starving him, in fact the vet wasn’t terribly pleased with the amount of weight he has gained since we’ve had him.  But he still scavenges for anything even remotely edible when we walk him.  Unsurprisingly, this causes him severe gastrointestinal problems sometimes.  He needed to go out about every hour and a half Saturday night.  Nick and I took turns taking him out, but I’m a light sleeper and it takes Nick a while to go back to sleep, so neither of us got much sleep Saturday night.  Duke has some medicine now, and seems to be feeling much better.  I just hope he stops his scavenging.

We rented The Book Thief from Redbox and watched it over the weekend.  It was excellent!  I loved the book, and thought they did a really good job with the movie.  It has been a while, so I want to re-read the book now, but from what I remember, it seemed like the movie stayed pretty true to the book.  Have you read the book or watched the movie? What did you think?

I’m looking forward to catching up on all of your posts that I missed last week, and hope everyone in blogger land is doing well.

Emma’s Eleventh Birthday

The birthday girl

Emma turned eleven on February 15^th, and we decided to celebrate with doggie cupcakes and new toys for her and Duke.   

Cupcakes

I made the cupcakes from this recipe, using whole wheat flour.  The recipe says to make six cupcakes with the batter, but I did seven, and will probably do eight the next time.  The cupcakes are fairly dense and solid.  They smell incredibly good!

Enjoying Cupcakes

Waiting for cupcakes!

After the cupcakes cooled completely I frosted them with a mixture of plain Greek yogurt and peanut butter.  I didn’t measure.  I just stirred the two together until the consistency seemed good.  It took a little over half of an individual sized Greek yogurt, and about that much peanut butter.

We turned the afternoon into a little party with hats for Emma and Duke.  I also tried to put hats on the cats, but they prefer to celebrate without hats.  Frankie was the only cat I managed to get a hat on, and he wore it for about three seconds.  Such is life with cats.

Getting RID of his hat!

Emma and Duke seemed to really enjoy the cupcakes, and I think Emma had a happy eleventh birthday.  They certainly looked cute.

AT&T, A to Z Blogging Challenge, and Catching Up

First of all, I’m back from a forced blogging hiatus.  Our internet wasn’t working for over two weeks.  We currently have AT&T, but are likely going to be changing providers within the next month or two.  I realize I haven’t responded to any comments this month, and for that I apologize.  Thank you very much for taking the time to read, and comment on, what I write.  It is always appreciated. 

Apparently something happened with the DSL lines, which I totally understand, especially given the bad weather and crazy wind we’ve had.  Mother Nature gets mad, stuff happens.  I get it.  But, the reason we are planning to change providers is their rotten attitude about the whole thing. 

Nick called them and explained the problem, and they basically treated him like a blithering idiot who was just too stupid to realize that the internet was working.  Now, I understand that they get a lot of calls from a lot of people who aren’t very technologically savvy.  I’m sure it’s frustrating, and I’m sure there are questions they have to ask to make sure they’re not dealing with someone who has accidentally unplugged something before they send out a technician.  I’m one of those people.  I admit that.  Nick isn’t.  He called and tried to explain what the problem was and what he had tried to fix it (which by the way, if they’d listened, would have told them it was a DSL line problem), but they treated him like an idiot and decided to send a new modem to solve the problem after several days of phone calls.

They sent the new modem (which wasn’t the problem) to the wrong address.  About ten years ago, the county re-numbered our street, and we went from 737 to 718.  This was done long before we moved in, and long before we signed up for AT&T.  All of the other utilities have been able to grasp this change, but not AT&T.  When Nick talked to them, he reminded him of the address issue.  Once again, they didn’t listen, so they sent the modem to 737, which doesn’t exist.  UPS left a notice that they couldn’t deliver the package because it had the wrong address, so we’d have to pick it up from their distribution center.

Nick picked the modem up the following Monday, and (surprise, surprise) it didn’t solve the problem.  He called AT&T on Tuesday and, once again, tried to explain the problem.  They finally said they’d send a technician out on Wednesday afternoon before 4:00.  When no one had arrived by 4:30, Nick called them back and was told that the technician had probably been tied up on another call and would be there by 8:15 Thursday morning. 

Thursday morning turned into Thursday afternoon, with no technician, so Nick called AT&T back and was told that they couldn’t dispatch a technician to 737 on our street.  He explained, once again, about the address change, and they said they’d send someone “soon”. 

That was the point at which I saw red.  I logged into Facebook from work and posted our issue on their wall.  I had a response within an hour asking me to email them with the details, which I did.  They finally forwarded our issues up to the next level, and three technicians later, our internet service was restored on Friday evening.  They’ve said they will credit us for the time we didn’t have service, but given their history, I’m not sure that will happen without a fight. 

On the bright side, we have a lot of other options for internet, and they did get our service restored in time for the A to Z BloggingChallenge. 

I’ve signed up for the A to Z Challenge this year.  I waited until a few weeks ago, but I really, really need and want to get back into a regular blogging schedule, and this seems like a great way to do it.  If you’re not familiar, basically you blog every day, except Sunday, during the month of April following the alphabet (the 1^st is A, the 2^nd is B, etc). 

I completed the challenge in 2012, and really enjoyed it.  I planned to participate in 2013, but life got a little scary and crazy, so I backed out.  But I’m back for 2014.  I’m not doing a theme, but I have written some posts already, though I haven’t done that in any logical order; my W post is written, my A post is not, and I’m super excited about my J post.  Are you participating this year?  Are you going with a theme or more freestyle?

In other catching up news, Emma had some less than great blood work results, and we’re still trying to figure out what’s going on.  I took her to the vet about a week and a half ago because we thought she might have a UTI.  She’d had a few accidents in the house, which is NOT at all normal for her, so I took her for what we thought would be a urine sample and antibiotics, but the urine sample revealed no signs of infection.

She looks great, and seems to feel fine.

Our regular vet was out of town, so we saw the other vet in the practice.  She’s a good vet, and she’s nice, but she’s just not our regular vet.  I know my fellow pet parents will understand this!  She mentioned possibly returning to potty training since Emma is an older dog and there was no infection.  I know Emma, and I knew it wasn’t a potty training issue.  She’s old, but she’s not senile.  The vet then suggested blood work since Emma is a senior dog. 

The blood work showed really high liver enzymes, and slightly high cholesterol.  The vet suspected Cushing’s Disease based on the blood work and Emma’s other symptoms, so we had more blood work done to check for that.  That test ruled out Cushing’s Disease, which is good and bad.  Our next step is an ultrasound of her liver, etc to look for any masses or anything abnormal.  We have that appointment on Tuesday. 

Unfortunately, they don’t do ultrasounds in our vet’s office, so we’ve been referred to an internist for it.  Emma doesn’t always do well seeing a new vet, so I’m a little nervous about that.  I’m also trying really hard not to dwell on the bad things an ultrasound might show.  Emma doesn’t seem to be in any pain; she’s eating and playing normally, and is acting like her usual happy self.  She’s not worried at all, but I would definitely appreciate any good thoughts for her. 

I hope life, pets, the internet, and everything else is well in everyone’s little corner of the blogging world. 

Pet Food Recall

I just read about this pet food recall thanks to the lovely blog Fetch Me My Fainting Couch, so I’m passing the information on to fellow fur parents. 

 

This is so disappointing.  Emma is a boxer mix, so we’ve been feeding her the Eukanuba Boxer food for a while now.  It looks like a trip to PetSmart for different food is on this evening’s agenda now. 

 

What are your thoughts on a pet food recall?  I’ve typically adhered to a one strike and you’re out policy.  The fur kids are our babies and I just can’t justify taking chances with their wellbeing.  We’ve promised to take care of them to the best of our ability.  That being said, it’s becoming harder and harder to find a brand that hasn’t had some problems.  I’d love to hear what any of you feed your fur kids.    

Another Rainy Day

We are getting drenched here in our little piece of the world.  It has been raining off and on (more on than off) since Thursday night, and really picked up yesterday.  Rain is definitely not one of my favorite things.  I prefer sunny skies with puffy white clouds. However, I am working on keeping a more positive outlook, so I’ve tried to come up with some things that I do like about rainy days.  I managed to think of five, so here they are:

1.  I don’t have to water the garden.  Mother Nature is taking care of that for me today, so no need to drag out the hose and watering can.  That’s one thing off of my to do list for today.  I’m also told that lettuce likes the cooler, rainy weather.  I’m hoping that my pots of lettuce will begin to thrive since we’ve had so much rain. 

2.  My husband enjoys overcast days, and really likes the rain, so he has been very happy with the weather

lately. 

3.  The cats are always incredibly snuggly when it’s rainy.  There’s nothing quite like cuddling up with a purring cat (or four) on a rainy night.

4.  Soup!  Rainy days are perfect for homemade soup.  Tonight it’s chicken noodle soup from the slow cooker. 

5.  Emma looks really cute walking around in her Thundershirt, and it seems to make a huge difference for her to wear it. 

So what about you?  Do you like or dislike the rain?  Are there things you like about rainy days?

Aural Hematoma, Unfashionable Hat, and Hardboiled Eggs

Emma in her "hat"

Emma had to go to the vet for an aural hematoma yesterday.  You can read more about what that is here, if you’re so inclined, but the very short version is that it’s kind of like a blood blister.  She had one on her left ear about seven weeks ago and we took her to have it drained, but it has reappeared. 

We took her back to the vet yesterday and he drained it again and put a small hole in as well, in hopes of allowing more drainage.  The goal is to get rid of it without surgery.  We have to drain it three times a day and put Neosporin on it.  Fortunately, my husband is going to be handling all, or at least most, of the draining (stuff like that really gets to me).  

Emma has to wear this odd little hat contraption to keep her ear pressed close to her head, so it doesn’t flop around and bleed all over the place.  She managed to take the hat off shortly after we got home yesterday and it wasn’t a pretty sight. 

Emma in the hated no-bite collar

Emma is very good at removing contraptions meant to keep her from hurting a surgical site.  We can’t use a regular E-Collar on her because she knows how to take them off.  Fortunately we held onto the no-bite collar we acquired when we first learned that E-Collars don’t work.  It has come in very handy over the years.  She managed to remove the hat about every five minutes last night, which the cats found very interesting.  So in addition to Emma being able to scratch her ear and it flopping around, the cats were trying to play with her ears.  Who knew that dog ears were fun cat toys?

So we opted to add the no-bite collar to her get up.  It keeps the new hat in place and prevents her, and the cats, from getting to her ear.  She hates the no-bite collar.  It looks pretty uncomfortable and it’s the one thing she can’t finagle her way out of.  I think it also offends her sense of style.  When I took her out this morning she seemed to be in a hurry to go back inside once she realized the neighbor’s dog was out.  Poor thing, I think she didn’t want the other dogs to see what her parents were making her wear. 

 Emma is also on antibiotics, since she has an open wound.  For most dogs this doesn’t present much of a challenge, you just put the pills in some Velveeta cheese and they scarf it down, or with some dogs you just hand them the pill.  It doesn’t work that way with Emma.  She isn’t very food motivated.  She only eats things she likes, and only when she’s hungry.  She also doesn’t trust Velveeta cheese.  Not at all.  She understands that humans are devious and like to hide things dogs don’t like in it.  She also doesn’t trust soft dog treats, peanut butter, or hot dogs.  I (the pills are my job, since my husband is doing the draining) am currently hiding the pills in hardboiled eggs.  I’m not sure why they work, maybe it’s because the smell is so strong, but they work, at least for the time being.  I think getting a hard boiled egg also offers some small consolation for her unfashionable hat. 

I think she looks cute, in a kind of pitiful can you believe my mom made me wear this sort of way, but she doesn’t seem to agree with me.  With any luck, her unfashionable hat will pay off and she won’t have to have surgery.  That is the ultimate goal of our current aural hematoma regimen of hard boiled eggs and an unfashionable hat

Wear Purple for Peace Day

Today is Wear Purple for Peace Day.  Emma didn’t want to be left out, so here she is all dressed up in her purple butterfly wings, which I must say she seems to like much more than her raincoat.  She has also promised to be good and not get into anything while we’re at work today, so we can have a peaceful evening, since she wants to contribute to a peaceful world as well. 

So that brings me to contributing to a peaceful world, since wearing purple (which I think is a great color) isn’t going to suddenly make the world a peaceful place.  Very few of us are in the position to do something like end a war, stop child abuse, or reduce the general crime rate, but we can all contribute to making the world a more peaceful place.

Wikipedia defines peace as “a state of harmony characterized by the lack of violent conflict.”  It also goes on to mention that peace is characterized by justice, goodwill, and respect, or an absence of disturbance or agitation.  Those are things that we can all contribute to in our daily lives, though it may not always be our natural inclination.

We can all treat others with respect and goodwill; whether this means saying “please” and “thank you”, treating the person at the McDonald’s drive-thru like a real, important human being, not trying to bully our way into a better parking space, or not breaking in line.  Sure, it sounds really simple, but imagine how great your day would be if everyone you came into contact with treated you with respect. 

Here’s hoping everyone has a very peaceful day. 

Another Rainy Day

We woke up to another rainy, drizzly day this morning.  It has been raining off and on since Saturday evening here.  Fortunately, it looks like our chance of rain starts to go down tomorrow, and it does seem to be tapering off. 

Emma doesn’t like the rain, not at all; apparently boxer mixes are made of sugar, so there’s a chance she’ll melt in the rain, or even just a light mist.  Because Emma hates going out in the rain so much we always put a raincoat on her to help keep her dry, so here are some pictures of Emma ready to brave the rain.  I think she’s definitely hoping for sunny days ahead.