We got the test results today that Louie had no crystals in his pee, so he is cleared to continue eating the same food he has been. We have started to control his portions, though, in an effort to reduce his massive girth. He is one fat little dog.

This afternoon I took my final exam for my college class. I got a 92 and I am happy with that. I could have done better by agonizing over it longer, but there was no point because I still ended up with a 95 point something in the class. Yay! Time to sign up for the next one.

We took Cody and Lou to the new veterinarian's office this afternoon, and I am happy to say it went very well. They liked Dr. Dave and he had a great "bedside manner" with them. He said that Cody looked really good for all of the issues he has (diabetes, cataract, missing eye, few teeth). Louie needs to be put on a diet, but we knew that already.

Louie had bladder stone surgery last May, and afterward our old vet, who is now retired, sent the stones for analysis. We were supposed to get a recommendation on his diet when the analysis came back. The results were delayed quite a bit (lost in the mail, or something), and then the doctor retired. In the confusion of transitioning his practice to the vet that purchased it, Lou's results got delayed even further because they must have gotten lost in the shuffle. In the meantime, I had switched him to a much higher quality diet, different from what he had been eating before he got the stones.

Finally, several months after the fact, I got a phone call from the vet saying that Louie needed to be put on a certain prescription diet. She was not open to any other options. At that point, I felt like if it was so crucial for him to be on a special diet that it was too late anyway, as months had gone by while we waited for results.

The new vet palpated Lou's abdomen and said he felt no signs of stones. He suggested we take a urine sample and check it for crystals, and then an X-ray to look for stones. He said if he passes both of those, he should be fine to continue with the food he has been eating, as it has been almost a year now. I think that sounds reasonable.

Cody had a glucose check to see how he is doing with his diabetes, and to his relief, he didn't end up getting any vaccinations. The new vet does not believe in over vaccinating, and I am all for that. Cody has enough antibodies built up that he only needs the rabies shot, and that is good for three years, so he wasn't due.

It was so nice to see friendly faces at the vet's office again, and feel comfortable with our dogs there. It may not seem like a very important thing, but having a good vet is essential for us. That is just one less thing I have to worry about now. My babies' health is in good hands again.

One little funny: When we were leaving, they had given us a little plastic tray to try to collect some urine from Lou. We decided to try to get him to go there, right out front to save us the trip of bringing the pee back to them. Lou wouldn't go with me chasing him around with the little tray; he is super suspicious. I got in the truck with Cody and told Andy to give it a try without me. In just a few moments, Lou started peeing and Andy had the tray under him. When I saw Lou going, I realized I was going to have to help Andy or he would spill the pee tray with Lou pulling him along by his leash. Of course Lou knocked the tray with his foot when he was done peeing anyway, but there was enough there to test, so I took it from Andy and ran it back in to the front desk. The things we do for our furry babies.

I have been studying for my final exam for the class I am taking and doing unfun things like chores all weekend and haven't had time to blog. Many of the chores I did had to do with dog maintenance: washing and flea treating them, using a Dremel tool to sand down their nails, trimming around their eyes so they can see where they are going, and so on.

You might remember when I wrote about being in between veterinarians for the kids when our vet suddenly retired last year. I had one prospect, but then our good friend from the poodle rescue told me she had used that vet and described some strange behaviors of the vet and staff that made me uneasy, so I never went.

Fortunately, the front desk girl from our old vet, who we really loved, and one of our favorite vet techs have now teamed up with a doctor that had been practicing a sort of "house call" type operation. He has now opened up an office and the girls give their stamp of approval. I completely trust them. The one that works the front desk- I could call her up at anytime if one of the dogs was sick and she would ask, "when can you be here?" She totally understood how urgent it was to get them in sometimes, and it still didn't cause delays with appointments. With the vet that took over for my retired one, I could call up on Monday and they might be able to fit us in on Thursday, way too late in most cases. Since the dogs never tell me when they plan to be sick, that just didn't work for us. I understand that they want everything to fall into a neat little schedule, but when you are dealing with living creatures they never do and you have to adapt. At least a good vet does, and therefore will get our business with our six fuzzy babies. Cody and Louie have their first appointment tomorrow afternoon. I am excited to have found them a new vet that should be a perfect fit.

Ramona is driving me nuts. She is the cutest thing, but she has some terrible habits. The one that is sending me over the edge is the digging.

I have never had a dog that was a digger before. Poodles aren't particularly known for it, but Ramona has discovered it and there is no stopping her. Since she has the dog door, she can go out and dig whenever the mood strikes her. Lately, she has been running out there, digging a hole up to her armpits, then running back in leaving big muddy footprints all over my floor. Then I have to wash her feet in the sink and clean the floors. She will repeat the process over and over again, gleefully.

I have read up on the internet about dogs that dig, and most of them say it is because the dog is bored, or is suffering from separation anxiety. Neither is true in Ramona's case. Bored? She has every toy under the sun, plus five doggie siblings to wrestle with and two parrots to annoy. Separation anxiety? I think not- she even digs when we are home. I think she just loves the feel of the dirt between her toes and delights in the fun of it. That is my theory, anyway.

I have tried some of the remedies I read about on the internet- I have sprinkled her "favorite holes" with red pepper flakes and black pepper to no avail. Some of the suggestions said to bury dog poop in the holes to deter them from digging. Well, that would make digging even more fun for Ramona- it would almost be like a treasure hunt at that point because she likes poop. Go figure.

It is not really an option to keep her inside, because the whole reason for having the dog door is so that the six of them will go outside to pee and poop. Any benefits gained in not having to clean up muddy dog feet and footprints would be negated by poop and pee on the floor, so the dog door needs to stay open.

Anyone have any other ideas? How do I keep my stinky Mona Jean from digging up the yard, leaving big holes for poor little blind Cody to fall in, and muddy footprints all over my house? Help!

When I sit at my desktop computer in my home "office," I am followed by an entourage of dogs. Michaela squishes herself under my desk and Annabel and Ramona lay on the floor around my chair. Sometimes Denny, Cody, and Louie come around too, but the girls are a constant. Tonight I was sitting there typing away on the puter and suddenly was overcome with rancid fumes. Dog fart fumes. I choked my way through them, and when I finally got some clean air to breathe, the stench came again. It was God awful, stifling, and pungent. I still don't know which girl was responsible, but I find it baffling that any dog's body could turn expensive, high quality dog food into such a nasty smell. That and why the putrid smells only seem to come from one dog at a time. Shouldn't the same food create similarly horrible smells from each dog? Maybe it is a blessing that it doesn't as I might have passed out from the noxious odors.

This afternoon, Andy and I volunteered our time to go to the local mall and wrap gifts for donations. Every year there are four animal rescue groups that band together and wrap gifts at the mall at Christmastime. We wrap for donations and then the four groups split the proceeds. It is a worthy cause and we have a good time there hanging out with the other volunteers, most of whom we know from other events. One of the reasons we enjoy this kind of thing so much is working with like minded people in order to help the animals.

Ironically, today there was a woman working on gift wrapping that apparently was a megabitch. She came in and parked her ass in one of the prime wrapping spots and refused to move for anyone, barked orders at other people and told them to get out of her way. One of the other volunteers was telling me about it, how the rest of them couldn't wait until she went home. It is just funny, because you would never think you would encounter that type of person in an animal rescue group, but whatever.

My favorite person from our rescue group finally told her off, inadvertently. The bitchy woman was only scheduled to work at the wrapping station until three pm. At that time my friend with the rescue group went up to her and glanced at the schedule and said to her casually, "Oh, your time is up, it is three o'clock." The woman responded that she would stay and help. My friend mentioned that we had plenty of people to wrap, that some were still in the back making bows, and hadn't even had a chance to wrap gifts. Bitchy woman snapped back at her "they could have come up here and wrapped at any time" and my friend told her "maybe they were scared of getting snapped at" because the bitch had been barking orders at people and telling them to move out of "her space" all day. Apparently my friend pissed her off enough that she left. It was actually a positive thing for all of the rest of us, as she was one of those people that sucked all of the air out of the space when she came in.

I guess some people just don't realize that when you volunteer your time to help animals, there is no diva position. There is no room for people that want glory or recognition, there is only a job to get done. You just help out wherever you can and try to have fun and enjoy the people you are working with. That is what it is all about.

Today after work I stopped by a new veterinarian's office, in order to get a feel for the place. As I have mentioned before, since our vet retired a few months ago. Another vet bought his practice, but it just hasn't been the same. We used to always be able to get worked in to the schedule on short notice when one of the dogs was sick, and now, not so much.

I found this new vet that is located very close to where our new house is being built. Her office is new and it feels very homey. There are separate waiting rooms for dogs and cats, and the rooms are furnished with comfy couches. I talked to the front office people today and they assured me that they take very good care of their best customers. There is an after hours paging service for patients that pages the doctor directly on weekends and holidays if there is an emergency, and that is a service I would really value, especially with Cody and his diabetes. We never know when he is going to need immediate medical attention.

When I was in the vet's office to talk to the receptionist, I let a woman go ahead of me that was checking out after taking her dog and cat for vaccinations there, because she had animals with her and I did not want them to have to wait. After I left the building, the woman was still there in the parking lot walking her dog. I asked her about the vet, if she was comfortable with her and how long she had been going there. She gave a glowing review of her and the facility and said that she was very happy there. I had a good feeling overall about the place, and I think for the next vet visit we will be going there to try them out.

The next vet visit could be very soon, as Louie is acting quite pitiful, as though his back hurts or something. I hope he is okay. He is a little puss so it is hard to tell if there is anything really wrong with him. He is so dramatic, and is such a fat little chunk. My poor little baby.

Well, my little dog is doing fine. He has been very sleepy and out of it, and it is just as well because he is supposed to be calm for a few days. We put him in the pen we have this morning while we went to work so that he could just rest without the other dogs bothering him. He was already sleeping by the time we were ready to leave. I am getting more used to his appearance already, as bad as he looks.

This evening, Ramona and I finished the last class of her Intro to Rally Obedience course. She has done really well for the amount of time I have worked with her outside of class, which has been NONE. We have been so busy and had so much going on that I just haven't been able to. Luckily she is a smart little chick and does pretty well for me anyway, at least for the first part of class. Then I lose her. Towards the end of class she gets distracted and chases fur tumbleweeds she finds on the floor, but hey, she's a puppy. I don't even care really if she does the commands exactly right- we are mostly there to have fun and because it is good for her socialization (and mine too). She is a little stinkin' twerp, but she is damn cute so she gets away with it.

We are back home now, with Cody after his surgery. He looks pretty rough, but is resting comfortably in the crook of my arm. Andy took him this morning and dropped him off because I knew I couldn't do it, or at least couldn't do it without being a blubbering mess. I could hardly stand to leave for work this morning, knowing that I would never see Cody with both eyes again. I know the whole ordeal is way harder on me than it is on him.

They cleaned the teeth he has left while he was under also, and trimmed his toenails, so he is in pretty good shape other than the big wound on his face. He looks really awful right now especially because he is shaved down in patches for the surgery, but he might not look too bad after his fur grows out a bit. I think maybe I'll grow his face out wooly like a sheepdog and then no one will even be able to tell that his eye is missing.

The good part is that he will be feeling a lot better soon, and his eye won't ever cause him any pain again. He has some pain meds to take, but only if needed. Right now he is still feeling the effects of the morphine they injected him with earlier. That is it, though. No other medications are needed. In ten days the stitches come out and his recovery is complete. It would not have been fair to put him through a corneal transplant with its long recovery time when in all likelihood he would probably have ended up running into something again and damaging the eye again later. Still, I can't help feeling awful about the whole thing. It just isn't fair for this to have happened to him; he is the sweetest, most loving, wonderful little dog ever.

When the vet tech brought him out to us she said, "you'll love him even more now," but I told her it was not possible, that I already loved him the most anyone could love a little dog. And that will be true no matter what he looks like. I worry more about other people's reactions to him. Will they not want to hold him or pet him because he is missing an eye? That would devastate him because he loves people so much. Hopefully he will be as charming as before once his fur grows out. My poor little teddy bear.

I wrote up a note to send with Cody tomorrow for his surgery. I know I can't take him in the morning, because I will just cry and be a wreck. Andy will take him and drop him off; I will pick him up in the afternoon when it is all over. My note to send with Cody goes like this:

Cody (the teddy bear)

5:30am
One third of a can Prescription Diet WD
Two Units Humulin N
1 half tablet Baytril

This letter will give them all of the background info they need. The doctor's names are all changed, of course, and the one I call Dr. Blankenship is one of the main vets at the clinic we are taking him to tomorrow. Please keep Cody in your prayers tomorrow. The photos in this post are of Cody when we first moved to Merritt Island, in 2000. I wish I could make him young and healthy again like he was in these pics.

Well, I finally bit the bullet and scheduled Cody's surgery for Monday. The sooner it is over and he heals, the sooner he can be free of the hated cone collar. I think Monday is going to be a tough day, but I know we are doing the right thing.

I have agonized over it, but I think that the right thing to do is to have little Cody's damaged eye removed. I talked to the president of the poodle rescue about the eye surgery. She said that the vet that the rescue uses, which is the one we took Cody to last week when his eye suddenly worsened, is very good with eye removal surgeries and that I would not have to worry. They have done several eye removals for the poodle rescue and they have had no problems. She said that the dogs adjust to it just fine and they are much happier. So that seems the right course to take for our baby. My poor little teddy bear won't look like a teddy bear anymore. It just isn't fair for one little dog to have so many problems.

I think I will schedule it for early next week.

Whew, today has been one of those whirlwind days where I have been on the go constantly. I raced home from work to pick up Cody and drive him down to Melbourne for an appointment with an opthalmologist. Melbourne is about 40 minutes away, so we had a nice little road trip. He is always great in the car, so it was no trouble at all.

The bad news we got from the doctor was that his eye is not ulcerated, it is perforated. Yes, you read that right- there is a hole in his eyeball. From what I can figure out, it must have gotten bumped or poked or something, and there was already the injury to his eye so the cornea was thin there anyway, and it perforated either late on Thanksgiving day or early the next morning, which is why it looked bad then, prompting us to take him back to the vet. This is kind of gross, too, but I found some little droplets of a strange liquid on the floor Friday that I could not identify, and now I know what it was; it was fluid from his eye. Fortunately the fluid from the eye seals the perforation over, and that is what happened shortly after. So it was sealed over and the regular vet didn't realize that it wasn't just an ulcer.

The good news is that he isn't in pain, or not much anyway. The opthalmologist says that you can tell when it is painful because the dog will squint. He did squint for a short time Firday morning, but it was only for a few hours. He's not sure exactly why it isn't hurting him, but he described a few theories he had. I am much more comfortable knowing that he isn't suffering.

More bad news is that we have to figure out what to do. We have a couple of options. One is to get him a corneal transplant, from a donated canine cornea. They would cut out a little hole in his cornea around the perforation and made a plug and sew it in place. It is extremely expensive, and there are a lot of aftercare and follow up treatments. It seems like a lot to put him through, and it seems a bit pointless for an eye that is blind anyway.

What we will probably have to do is have the eye removed, and have it sewn shut. I don't want to do it, but there is less than a 1% chance that the eye will heal enough to be stable, and even then it would be very delicate, so it could easily perforate again, so it would probably be the best thing for him. He is on some medication and eye drops and his eye is stable right now, but he has to wear a stupid cone collar and we have to be very careful of his eye. We have some strong pain meds in case his eye perforates again. We have some time to decide. We can even wait it out and try just treating it with medication and hope, but it will most likely never heal enough that he could go around without a cone collar on, because the cornea is so thin there.

As soon as I got back from the opthalmologist, I had to leave Cody with Andy and take off with Ramona to her training class. After class I talked to a vet tech from my vet's office who is also the training coordinator at the training center. I asked her for advice. She said that removing the eye would be best and offered to get me a recommendation for a surgeon. She still talks to my old vet who retired every day and she said she would call and ask him who would be the best one to do the surgery in this area. My old vet used to do the surgery, but I am not sure about the new vet. We could have the opthalmologist do the surgery, but it would cost close to $1000, and we would have to travel to Stuart, which is where that vet's office is- he only comes to Melbourne two days a week for consultations, but all of the surgery is done at the home office and it is two hours drive away from here. He suggested trying to find a local vet who could do it for less.

So, that is our current quandry. It is horrible, but there are worse things in life. I really love that poor little dog. I hope he is not miserable.

We took Cody to the vet this morning to have his eye looked at again. I called yesterday to get him an appointment after I saw that his eye was looking bad again, but our vet was closed. I called around to several other vets and was finally able to get him in at the clinic that the poodle rescue uses and the place where we have taken our dogs when they were fosters with the rescue. It is a bit farther to drive, and that is really the only reason we don't use them regularly- well that and the fact that our regular vet was close by and we LOVED him, but he retired a few months ago.

The birds and torts have their own vet that specializes in birds and reptiles, and we have to drive a little farther for them, but that isn't near as often as what the dogs require. As far as they go, we are kind of in vet limbo right now- we are regularly going to the vet that bought our old vet's practice when he retired, but it isn't the same. She is good and all, but with the old vet I used to be able to call up there at any time, they knew who I was, and they would always find a way to see my babies with little delay. We even had his home number for emergencies, and he met us at his office on a Sunday once when there was an emergency. Scheduling isn't quite as easy with the new vet. Due to Cody's diabetes, we need a vet that can work with us a little more. There is a vet I want to try out that has an office pretty close to where our new house is going to be, but I haven't talked to anyone there yet. When you have six dogs and spend thousands at a veterinarian's office every year, do you think it is too much to ask to get a little bit of scheduling priority?

Anyway, back to Cody's eye. I knew it wasn't looking good. It has been two weeks since the injury and I gave him all of the antibiotics he was supposed to get, ten days worth, and put ointment in his eye three times a day for two weeks. It seemed to be getting better right up until yesterday when it suddenly looked horrible. I would post a picture of it, but I don't think you'd want to see it; it is hard to look at. The doctor examined the eye with several different lights and scopes, then he stained it with yellow stain and looked at it with a blacklight. He said Cody's eye is in trouble. The eye injury has now become ulcerated, and there may be infection inside the eye but he doesn't have enough equipment to be able to get a good look in there. He gave us a stronger oral antibiotic for Cody, and some drops to put in his eye every few hours. We are going to have to be pretty vigilant with the drops, using them as often as we can in an effort to save the eye. We also are going to try to get in to see a dog opthalmologist at the vet's recommendation. The only ones around are far away but come to Melbourne (about half an hour south of here) a couple of times a week, so we'll have to call to see if we can get him in. Poor little guy.

Oh yeah, and today is our sixth anniversary. Happy Anniversary, honey!

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving yesterday. We did the usual and ordered a full turkey dinner form the grocery store and all we had to do was pop it in the oven for about two hours to warm it and there was little mess and no fuss. For just the two of us, it is the best option so that we can enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving meal without spending all day cooking and then cleaning up.

Instead of cooking and cleaning, I spent the day grooming our six dogs, all of which had gotten quite wooly. What a gargantuan task that can be. I didn't even do their nails- I am saving those for later in the weekend so they don't get too stressed out all at once. I was fairly exhausted after six hours of wrangling the fuzzies.

Today we shopped a little- none of the real crazy Black Friday stuff, but we had some good coupons and went clothes shopping and such. Tomorrow we have to take Cody to the vet. His eye that was scratched a couple of weeks ago and has been healing well suddenly looked pretty bad this morning. I have to take him back to the vet to make sure everything is okay. I was able to get him appointment for tomorrow morning, so hopefully they will be able to help him. After that I need to sit down and work on some school work for a while. How was your day? Did you hit the Black Friday sales? Any big purchases?

I only posted a quick photo yesterday, because a lot was going on. First was a minor thing, poor Cody had a bad scratch in his eye. He is almost completely blind now due to his cataracts, and I noticed that there appeared to be almost like a chunk taken out of the surface of one of his little eyeballs. It was very watery too, and didn't look good at all, so i took him to the vet. They stained the eye and looked at it under a blacklight, but it didn't even require a blacklight to tell that there was some damage to the surface of his eye. Fortunately it is not too much of a problem. We have to put ointment in his eye three times a day and give him some pain medication, but he should make a full recovery.

When I got home from the vet with Cody, Andy said his dad had called and his aunt was in the hospital. The particular aunt that is not doing well is probably one of the nicest people in the world, a really sweet giving person. His aunt has taught first grade for around thirty years and loves children. She was just this year afflicted with some liver problems and diagnosed with Alpha 1 Antitrypsin deficiency, and was scheduled to see a specialist this coming week after she had been put off for months due to doctors being too busy to see her. She started having severe liver pains late this week and went to the hospital, and then had a heart attack there due to a freak clot- she had no hardening of the arteries or blockages. She was doing very poorly yesterday, but then began to do much better overnight and this morning, when she was actually able to sit up and eat breakfast.

Sadly, she took a turn for the worse this afternoon, when her kidneys began to shut down and her lungs started filling with fluid. She is now on a ventilator, and the prognosis is not very good. She is only in her mid-fifties and we are all very worried about her. Please keep her in your prayers; she's going to need them.

It has been a busy but fairly non-eventful week so far. Well, I say that, but we did get to experience the twin sonic booms of the shuttle returning home today and watch it glide in overhead, so that was a bit of an event. On my way home from work today I passed the astronaut's Airstream vehicle carrying them from the Shuttle Landing Facility back to the astronaut quarters.

Anyway, today is my little Louie's birthday. Lou is the little black dog that is the first pet that Andy and I ever aquired together (I had three dogs already when we met). He was my wedding/Christmas present in 2001, and is our special little spoiled baby, He has never spent a night away from us since we got him at about six and a half weeks old.

Happy Birthday, Lou!

It has been a fun-filled day today, the beginning of my birthday weekend. This morning, I took Michaela to her final dog training class where we miserably failed her final test. It is okay; she did improve quite a bit in her socialization, but she is still terrible about walking on a leash. She always wants to jump up and bite my butt to get my attention, or she chews on the leash out of nervousness. She never learned the stay command at all. But, she got out of the class what I wanted for her; she is more comfortable around other people and dogs, so I am happy. I am not enough of a glutton for punishment to put her through any more obedience classes, though!

This afternoon we went to our scheduled visit at the Turtle Farm. We got to look at all kinds of hatchlings and it was very hard to pick out just one. The choice was made easier because I knew I was going to get another Hermann's tortoise so it could eventually interact with Virgil, and there were only two of them. Still it was very hard to pick one. I chose the smaller of the two. Hermann's tortoises can' be sexed until they are quite a bit older (we don't even know if Virgil is a boy yet) so we just have to guess. Since we guessed boy for Virgil, we are going along as though this baby is a girl. I haven't named her yet, but I have a couple of names in mind. I kind of like Violet, and it goes well with Virgil, but I also like Emma. I will think about it more tomorrow and come to some sort of decision then.

This is the little baby here. She is really cute and looks almost just like Virgil did when we got him last year. She has to be kept separately form him for a sort of quarantine period for a while, so I can't show the size difference in them, but he is a LOT bigger than she is. It is hard to believe how much he has grown in a year. Below is a picture of the house we have set up for her in a wine crate. I have to go get her a few things tomorrow from the store; the correct lighting and such, but we had most of the things she needed like a water bowl and a hut to hide in because she can use the ones Virgil outgrew. I just love her.

To finish off the day, we went to another bird class at the bird store here. We took Charley with us in his carrier, and he said "Hi" "Hi" "Hi" during the presentation because he was nervous. I got him out and held him for part of it. Several other people were there wiith their birds and it is fun to see the different ones and how they interact with their owners.

And that is how I spent the day, surrounded with animals just as I like. I hope you all are having a great weekend!

Eeek. It rained again today. And I spent most of the day with dog hair in my eye.

Yesterday I groomed four of the sweet hounds. During one of the groomings, while I was using the dust buster to suck the hair up, a little bit of short cut fur flew up into my eye. My eye has been red and irritated ever since.

Luckily this afternoon while I was at work, I think the little piece of cut dog hair worked its way out of my eyeball. The white of my eye started turning back from nasty irritated pink to normal eye color. Thank God- that little piece of hair was quite uncomfortable.

The rain we have been getting this year is nuts. It seems like almost every day it will rain at least enough to wet everything down outside.

My wonderful little Denny dog is crazy when it comes to having people on the other side of the fence. When he can hear people over there, he runs out to the fence and runs back and forth at the edge of the yard like a little obsessed nutcase. He has worn the grass all away in that area, so now it is nothing but dirt. Frequently within the past couple of weeks, Denny has run back into the house after a marathon barking session wearing "mud boots." This is when his little feet have gotten wet and dirty from him running around out there by the fence and it looks like he is wearing little brown boots. Sometimes he'll even get Ramona to go out and put on some mud boots of her own. Just yesterday I had to rinse both of their feet at least twice. The night before last Denny came in the house at bedtime and was up to his chest in mud boots. He's been getting lots of baths lately.

Time to buy some more sod!

Today we attended an event called "Woof it Up!- Responsible Dog Ownership Day". We were there with the Poodle Rescue, but the event is put on by the dog training club we are members of so we were there to help them out as well. The more of these kind of events we go to and places we volunteer, the more people we recognize at them. There were a lot of familiar faces at the park today.

We brought Ramona with us, but she was a bit of a pill. Her behavior around other dogs has been very good lately, but the only time she has been around other dogs is at the training center. I think she is so comfortable at the training center that it is non-threatening to her and she doesn't have the fear response we were seeing today. She kept wanting to lash out at dogs that got too close to her. I'll have to talk to the training director about her because I am not sure how to remedy that kind of situation.

One of the other volunteers with our rescue group had picked up a new rescue from a shelter in a town just south of where we live. The poor little thing was in a crate and was terrified when she got to the event. She brought the dog to the event because the lady who is going to foster her was volunteering there as well. Andy got the furbaby out of her crate and got a leash on her. She had been making all kinds of horrible noises in the crate but once she was out on a leash she was much happier and seemed to be okay. She had some irritation around her eyes, so someone got another volunteer who is a vet tech at our vets office to take a look at her. She thought that the skin around her eyes was just irritated, not anything contagious.

Andy took charge of the poor little thing during the event, walking her and playing with her. The next table over from the poodle rescue was a table set up displaying some really nice dog collars and leashes. The people at that table were so kind as to donate a lovely new collar to the poor little waif to replace the ratty, frayed one she had on. If you are in the market for a new dog collar or leash, check out If it Wags for some great options. They are very nice people and they just moved to our area.

Anyway, Andy had fun with his new little friend, even though she looked a mess. The shelter had called the rescue saying that she was a poodle of about eleven years of age. In reality, we think she is mostly, if not all, Yorkshire Terrier, and that she is only about four or five years old based on her teeth which are nice and pearly white. She was in desperate need of a bath and a good haircut, but she's in good hands now. In any case her luck has certainly changed for the better.

At the park I also got to meet up with a friend of mine from the very first dog training class I took, the one Denny was in. Her dog is just awesome; she's a seven-year-old Golden Retriever with such a passion for life it is infectious. She is such a fun dog, and super high energy even at seven. At the event they had lure coursing; I knew that my friend's dog would love it and she did. Here is my horrible video- I am no cinematographer- of her racing around chasing the lure. It looks like fun to me!

Last night in the middle of the night we had a huge downpour of rain. The reason I know this is that the noise of it woke me up a little bit. I turned over in bed and wiggled around a little and that was enough that little Michaela knew I was awake, and she jumped off the bed.

Michaela gets up every night whenever I get up to pee and waits for me so I can walk downstairs with her and watch her go outside and go pee. She has a tiny bladder and she has to go in the middle of the night pretty much every night. While there is a dog door downstairs leading to the backyard, there is no light on out there and left to her own devices she would sooner pee on the floor upstairs than go out by herself in the dark.

Knowing that, I knew when I heard her get up that I was going to have to take her out. I got up and started heading downstairs, and Annabel jumped off the bed and followed. She was another little pisser that had to go. We got to the back door and went onto the porch and it was absolutely like monsoon type of pouring rain streaming off the roof of the porch all around us. The two girls looked at me like "there's no way in hell we are going out in THAT" and I stood there and looked back at them quietly pleading with them just to go to the edge of the porch and pee. There was no way I could take two "fully loaded" dogs back upstairs. Then Denny and Ramona came downstairs too and they needed to pee as well. Crap. All four of them stood there with me on the porch and looked at me as I watched the rain. At two am. In my pajamas. I was so tired, and I was starting to think that if I just walked out into the drippiness of it that maybe I could coax them to come out and take a quick piss. I could dry off after that, right? You would stand out in torrential rains in your pajamas at two am to try to talk your dogs into coming out for a pee, wouldn't you? Or had I completely lost it?

I think about fifteen to twenty minutes passed and the rain finally started to let up a little. The dogs slowly started to ease out into the yard to pee and then run back under the porch where I dried them with a beach towel from the pool towel cabinet. Then we all staggered back upstairs. I hope that those little boogers appreciate it!

Sticky Mickie is what I call our little bitty Michaela for fun. She's such a tiny wisp of a thing at only seven to eight pounds. Mickie is also the last one of the dogs to be cycled through canine obedience classes and her first class was this past Saturday.

When we got there and I took her up to meet the teacher, she was shaking like a leaf. She looked like she would shake apart out of fear. Her teacher, who was also the teacher of Denny's class, said that since Mickie was so terrified that I should hold her for a while and just have her observe class until she got more comfortable. She also suggested some tranqulizers for next week's class.

Poor little Mickie was overwhelmed by all the dogs barking in class but eventually she managed to settle down some. She felt a little more comfortable towards the end of class and was able to show off the commands she already knows when I got her away from the rest of the group. She is advanced as far as the rest of the dogs in class go, as she knows sit and down already, but she has to get over her little fear thing. We'll see how it goes!

Ramona says "Hi." Isn't she a cute little beast? Well, crap, things haven't gotten any slower at all; I am up to my neck in projects and stuff. I am trying like hell to find time to write here but it hasn't been working out too well.

On a good note, there have been a couple of positive things that have happened in the past couple of days. One was that we got a new "assessment" in the mail for our seven and a half acre property here in Florida, and our taxes have gone down by over $800. This is all due to the fact that we dedicated some of the wetlands as a conservation easement in order to be able to build our house. Now our taxes are only based on the buildable part of the land rather than the entire parcel. I knew we were eligible for a tax reduction, but I really thought I would have to take all of the information to the property appraiser's office and fight for it, so I was shocked that it happened automatically without us doing anything.

I hope everyone is doing well and that I can catch up with all of your blogs soon. Life has apparently gotten in the way for me right now.

Goodness! I can't believe how very busy I have been lately. I am trying my best to keep up with everything, but certain things like work and house planning and dog training have taken precedence, leaving little time for blogging. But I am making an effort at least.

I am deeply absorbed in some self-initiated projects at work that involve a lot of research. I have discovered that I have a real love of learning or natural curiosity and I can spend hours reading and researching topics in order to understand a concept. I have found a bachelor's degree program that is online and that focuses in the area that very closely deals with my work- Occupational Safety and Health- and I am looking into completing my degree in that area. I already spend an inordinate amount of time researching and studying in this field so why not get a degree?

I would describe my little pursuits to you in greater detail but I fear that it would bore you into a coma-like state, if not death. I think most people are bored nearly to death by the things that interest me. Oh well.

On another note, Ramona has completely vanished just now under the bed. Andy came up to go to bed carrying a blanket that Michaela likes to sleep on that he had washed. He was flipping the blanket around and snapping it and he managed to scare the hell out of little suspicious Ramona. She went straight under the bed growling and he couldn't convince her to come out for a while. Finally she came out when he was giving treats to Annabel for sitting, and standing and such. She's such a little poop sometimes. I don't know what gets into her.

No really, I know I have been a slacker, but I am still here. Things have been busy as ever. There was another big push at work to get our pod done ahead of schedule and we did, but it makes for some busy days. My stubborness has caused me to go off on some other tangents at work that have required a lot of extensive research as well, but I am actually getting somewhere with it, so all is good.

And now for the funny part. In Annabel's dog training class, we learned some tricks a week or two ago. We were supposed to practice so that the dogs could show off their skills in class. Annabel's trick was "spin." I would say spin and she would turn in a little circle; really a cute little trick for a dainty little dog like her. We practiced it a lot, and even Ramona learned it so I would say "spin" and both of them would pirouette. The very last class of the session was this morning, and each dog was put through the normal paces of the things they have learned, like sit, stay, down, come, and so on. Each dog had to go through a little "course" that was set up where they had to walk nicely on a leash and then stop at certain points and follow commands.

Everything went well and Anna did a great job until we got to the sit stay sequence. She was all excited about being on display anyway, and desperately wanted to get a treat, so when I told her to stay she started just turning in circles. I told her to stay again and she spun some more. I couldn't stop laughing and by then our instructor was laughing and pointed it out to the whole class. Annabel is such a cutie that everyone had to giggle at her turning circles out there. the basic training class is very low key so we could all get a good chuckle out of it. She still graduated with the rest of her class, even though she was in auto-rotate mode. What a silly girl.

Both Ramona and Louie graduated from basic obedience class tonight, though we may have Louie repeat it at some time because the socialization is good for him. I want to take Ramona on to the next level of dog training to see how she does since she is such a smarty pants. The next class for her will be Intro to Rally, and I don't really know what to expect, but it sounds like fun. There isn't another class starting for about six weeks so she will have some time off.

Annabel is set to graduate on Saturday and we have been working on a little trick, the "spin" command. She is so cute when she spins in a little circle. A week from Saturday the next session of the Saturday basic obedience class will start and Michaela is up next. That is going to be an interesting experience as Michaela or Mickie for short has never been leash trained. Coming from the bad circumstances she came from, I think she was mostly crated and since she is so tiny she was just picked up and carried rather than ever walk on a leash. She bites at the leash really badly whether it is attached to a regular collar, a harness, or a training collar. I am thinking about trying one of those head collar thingies with her. Like I said, it is going to be interesting. I know she can do it, though.

I sent in her photo and story a while back, and today Ramona is one of several puppies featured on the website, The Daily Puppy. Go over and vote for your favorite puppy if you like. The website is at dailypuppy.com, click the grid of photos of the puppies or the link at the bottom of the photos and scroll down to see her individual photo and story along with all of the others featured.

Ramona is such a little goof ball. She loves to sit in the dog door with the flap of it resting on her back, looking out into the backyard. These pictures show the view of her from inside the house when she is doing so. She'll hang out like that for a good long time, enjoying the air conditioning (and letting a lot of it out) while poised and ready to run if something interesting should catche her attention in the back yard. Andy loves to sneak up on her and grab her when she is sitting like this which is funny, because she goes running off, but she always comes back to sit in the doorway again. Such a strange little dog!

There is a lady that is in dog training classes with me on Saturdays, when I take Annabel, that also has a poodle. She was in the puppy class I took Ramona to as well, when her dog was a puppy. I remember being a bit wary of her after meeting her for the first time and she told me how she had had a standard poodle for a few weeks but that she gave it away and got the samll dog she had then in class. She told me how she had tried to adopt a dog from the poodle rescue I work with but that they had never come through for her. I pretty much could understand exactly why, after talking to her and hearing about her practice of "returning" dogs that didn't work out.

This morning she asked me if I had a phone number for someone at the poodle rescue and I asked if she wanted to adopt a poodle. She was actually looking for someone to watch the poodle she had bought when she went on vacation. I told her that the poodle rescue was not really in the business of sitting for poodles and how most of the volunteers had as many dogs as they could handle. Any extra space for other dogs would be taken up by foster dogs in order to save their lives, so these people could not watch her poodle while she was on vacation. She went on to say how the rescue was the most non-communicative group of people ever and talked about how she spent a lot of time filling out an application initially (before she bought her dog) only to not hear from anyone. I asked her if she had requested a very young dog, and of course she said yes. She had wanted a puppy, and the rescue does not generally place young dogs with older people as so many of the dogs that come in to the rescue are dogs that have elderly owners that can no longer take care of them. The rescue does not want to put the poor dogs through being rehomed again when their adopted owners can no longer take care of them. This lady is in her upper sixties, and when you think about the fact that a small poodle may live for twenty years, what do you think is going to happen to that dog? There is a high probability that the poodle rescue will have to take in the dog she has now at some point.

I guess some people just don't get it. This lady is surely one of them. The puppy she bought and took through pupppy school is nearly ruined, because she will not stand up to her, lets her get away with anything, and the puppy pushes the limits. It is kind of sad because I have seen the progression from the beginning. From the very first class she brought the dog to, she has gotten worse and worse due to her owner not being strong enough to tell her "no." Now the owner has problems with the dog biting her when she doesn't get her way and I fully believe it is because she screwed up in the early days of training. I think I would probably bite her too!

When I talked to Melanie on the phone last week, she said that I have such a nice camera- that I should take more pictures. So I am trying to take more time for photography. Here's a cute one of baby Ramona. She looks so sweet and innocent here, but in truth she's a bit of a terror. I love her to pieces!

Several weeks ago, Poppy mentioned something on her blog about her kitty's feet smelling like Dipsy Doodles, and I thought it was funny, because I had always thought my dogs' feet smelled like corn chips, but I thought it was just me. I looked it up and it turns out that dogs foot sweat is well known for smelling like corn chips and the term used to describe them that I absolutely love is "Frito Feet." Cats have the same kind of thing going on, the sweat from the glands between their toes has a toasty, corny smell, or so I have read. I have never sniffed cat paws because I am allergic to cats. Some people say their animals' feet smell more like popcorn, some like Fritos or other corn chips, and I have even heard of some saying they smell like corn dogs, but there is always that "corn" component. There are differences between individual dogs, too. My little Ramona has completely delicious smelling Frito tootsies, but Michaela's don't smell much at all. Denny's are nice and corny, but Cody licks his all the time, probbaly keeping all of the Frito smell for himself, the little booger. And fat Lou and Annabel each have paws only faintly scented with Frito.

Some people may think it is completely insane to sniff their dogs' feet, but they are missing out. It is one of many wonderful things about dogs. I also love the "baloney breath" of very young puppies. I think maybe this means I am a little bit crazy, but it also explains why I am so damn popular with dogs.

Okay, so if you haven't done it already, you've got to sniff your dog or cat's feet and report in the comments what they smell like. If you don't have a dog or cat, just run out and grab the nearest one you can find, just to check, okay? Kidding. I have found that right after a bath their feet won't smell much like Frito, because they are too clean, so they need to be a little bit dirty to get the full Frito-y effect.

I just got this photo emailed to me from one of the other volunteers with the poodle rescue- my favorite volunteer and the one that keeps me wanting to stay invloved with as many events as possible because she and her family are so great and so much fun. This picture is of me with Ramona at the Mall event this past weekend, and I can't help but notice how vey big Ramona has gotten. Good grief! It is hard to keep it in perspective until you see a view like that. She has grown so much. My little girl isn't a baby anymore!

I made this lovely video of the kids wading today- enjoy!

I feel like I am still trying to catch up on everything after such a busy time at work. I was going to say "such a busy week at work" but then i realized that it has been two weeks- I just worked all of last weekend so it all ran together. I got to sleep in until 7:30 this morning which was nice. Most people probably don't consider sleeping until 7:30 sleeping in, but since I have had to get up at 4:30 or even 1:30 am for the past 13 days, it felt great to me. I got to go grocery shopping this morning, play with my dogs, and then we packed Ramona up and went to volunteer at an event at the mall with the poodle rescue.

There is a big thing at the mall each year in July where the different rescue groups and training clubs and such all set up tables and bring dogs to talk to the public. It is a pretty fun event and I thought it would be good for Ramona to experience the crowds. I wasn't sure how she was going to react, so we had the plan to take her home if she was horrible and take Cody in her place.

Ramona, it turned out did a great job. She was really very good and allowed tons of people- children and adults- to pet her. She was very cute and captured the hearts of many; she was a real spokespoodle. It was nice for us to see all of the people we know through the poodle rescue, and now through the dog training club, and through our vet and even through some of the other rescues that we have worked with at events before, such as gift wrapping at the mall last Christmas to benefit the rescues. The nice thing about meeting and hanging around these people is that we know right off that they have similar values as we do when it comes to animals. We are starting to have a nice group of people we see regularly at the events.

There was one poor poodle there today that was brought by one of the other members of the poodle rescue. She just took him in this past week and got him some badly needed veterinary care. Poor little Mookie is a five month old puppy that is in liver failure. There is nothing that can be done for him so she is just taking care of him until the end. How sad. She said that he is just like a regular puppy mostly- he doesn't know he is dying. He has some neurological problems as well so he walks in circles when he is put down, but mostly he is held and hugged and loved. If that isn't a tearjerker I don't know what is.

I am tired. I have been working a lot this week and last night Andy and I started training class with two of the dogs. We took Louie and Ramona to the basic training class to teach them some good behavior. Ramona was well prepared because it was at the same place that she attended Puppy Kindergarten at and she was pretty comfortable. Louie was kind of a wreck, though. Poor Lou has been loved and coddled by us since he was six weeks old so he is a spoiled little brat and very demanding. He actually did pretty well in class though, believe it or not. He was nervous, but he did what was asked of him and didn't freak out too much. He did a lot fo pacing and panting at first and he was kind of trying to hide behind Andy.

Poor Anna has to go see the vet tomorrow as she has been doing a lot of hacking. Please wish her and my wallet some good luck!

My whole life these last few days has been work. With all of the overtime I have taken on, my poor doggies missed me a lot this weekend. Andy was there with them which was the only reason I even agreed to work such long hours, but I always feel bad because I know they want to spend time with me too. Those sweet little cuties. I am glad that they sleep with us at night. Even if they take up a damn lot of room, at least they get to spend that time cuddled up with us and we know they are safe and comfy all night. I took this photo of Denny yesterday when I was out on the back porch photographing the oncoming nasty thunderstorm. Doesn't he have the greatest smile?

I've got nothing. Really. I spent the day doing things like grocery shopping and laundry. Bo-ring, Then the afternoon was completly absorbed with dog grooming. I gave hair cuts to the two black dogs, who both needed to be groomed very badly. There is the equivalent of at least one whole dog in my garbage can now; I cut so much fur off. It takes quite a bit of time to groom them, but we have tried so many places and have never been completely comfortable with them, and the professional groomers are not very quick either. They like to work on the dogs assembly line style, which means that they end up spending the entire day there even thought they are only worked on for an hour or so. Most of the time they are sitting in cages, miserable. They can be miserable for a much shorter time here at home.

I bought new clippers and blades and a nail grinder to get started. I spent about $190 on them and it seems like a lot until you realize that it costs $180 plus tip to get them all groomed one time. So from here on out the savings will really make it worthwhile. I have one more dog to clip tomorrow, and then I am done for the time being. All in all I am very happy with the way the dogs have turned out the first time I groomed them by myself. I hope they don't hold it against me.

Tonight we went to a meeting of the dog training club that holds the classes Denny and Ramona went through. They have the meetings quarterly, and after you have completed the basic class, you are eligible to join the club. We were sponsored by two current members so we were allowed to join, and that will save us a lot in training costs as we can train all year for a flat fee instead of having to pay by the class. Louie and Annabel are scheduled to start class next Monday, and then Ramona will move on to her first real class after puppy kindergarten in a couple of weeks.

It is interesting, because the club members have all different motivation for dog training. There are some people that are really into competition and winning titles, and there are some that are into the agility and flyball and the more fun things. For us, we just want to spend time with the dogs, socialize them and maybe have them come to us when we call them or sit when we ask them to once in a while. The classes are really for them, not us.

So anyway, I am exhausted as we were out until after eight and we got up around 3:30 or so this morning. Work has been super busy and I have got to get to bed. *yawn*