Saying Good bye

A good friend and former co-worker had to put her dog to sleep yesterday. He had cancer, but he put up a good fight for a year and a half. He was a wonderful dog. He will be missed terribly. I wish I had a picture of him to post, but I never took one of him. But you can take my word for it, he was absolutely beautiful.

We'll miss you danny

I Fight Dirty

The question: How many 5 year-olds could you take on at once?

The specifics:

- You are in an enclosed area, roughly the size of a basketball court. There are no foreign objects.
- You are not allowed to touch a wall.
- When you are knocked unconscious, you lose. When they are all knocked unconscious, they lose. Once a kid is knocked unconscious, that kid is "out."
- I (or someone else intent on seeing to it you fail) get to choose the kids from a pool that is twice the size of your magic number. The pool will be 50/50 in terms of gender and will have no discernable abnormalities in terms of demographics, other than they are all healthy Americans.
- The kids receive one day of training from hand-to-hand combat experts who will train them specifically to team up to take down one adult. You will receive one hour of "counter-tactics" training.
- There is no protective padding for any combatant other than the standard-issue cup.
* The kids are motivated enough to not get scared, regardless of the bloodshed. Even the very last one will give it his/her best to take you down.

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Created by OnePlusYou

Pertinent Question

My life has been less Abby-centric now that she is settling in and everything is calming down. But a friend asked me a question the other day that made me wonder if my life will always be Abby-centric to some degree or another.

The question was: Does it make you kinda sad that you won't be able to do the things that you used to do when you just had Pocket and Mole?

This question threw me off guard because I hadn't thought about MY life and how it will change now that Abby is back. It wasn't that long ago when I didn't give a second thought to packing the kids up in the car and going camping or hiking or seeing strange new things.

Notice the happy little dog next to the strange cold river.



Or the curious dog next to the funny smelling goats



Or the fun off-leash doggie time these two are having



I think my answer was: We'll figure something out. . . The typical answer you give when you don't know what the real answer is. Because the truth is, it does make me sad. I will forever miss the easy times I had when my two, well socialized, well behaved dogs could go anywhere and every where because they were "stable" dogs. Right now the time I spend with my two out of the house is far more stressful because of the third. Everyone feeds off of everyone's anxiety - including my own. But I do have to figure something out because that is my life style. I need dogs that I can trust and that trust me. However, I'm smart enough to know that it takes time and that neither one of my dogs was perfect when I got them, but they became close enough to perfect to make our relationship work. And I'm probably stupid enough to think that Abby can get there too.

So, I guess we'll figure something out. . .

Disappearing Chip

Microchipping your pets is the most important thing you can do for them - next to spay/neuter. Even though Abby was not returned home from her chip (she had a tag on her collar), it put my mind at ease knowing she was chipped.

WAS being the operative word. . .

Abby was chipped when she first came into my life - I know because I scanned her and registered her. But when she came back, her chip did not read. I am one of those weird obsessive people who randomly scan their dogs "just to make sure" And I did this for years - even before I ever lost a pet. But working in shelters I see many pets that had to have been someone's loved companion but had somehow gotten out and were not able to be found - thats how pocket came to be here. When I scanned Abby the other day - just to be sure - the chip was not reading. At first I thought it had migrated because she lost so much weight; but after scanning every inch of her body it did not show up. Thats when I scanned my dogs - just to be sure -and their chip came right up.

I wasn't taking any chances with this dog, so I chipped her again. Poor thing probably thought I hated her because just minutes before I gave her stinky butt a bath. So now she is chipped with HomeAgain. It wasn't my first choice because my other animals are chipped with Avid. But HomeAgain was what was in the hospital, so HomeAgain it was. . . or is. . .

I'm going to scan her again on Monday "just to be sure"

Only Some Will Understand

This makes me happy. . .

Either you get it, or you don't . . .

Not Abby. . .

While I love Abby, I'm honestly a little exhausted with this whole experience. She is somehow more difficult to live with then the last time she was here. The only time I am ever alone is in the shower as she feels that she must always be by my side. If for some reason I leave her she makes me regret it. And because I am just a tad bit tired of Abby this and Abby that, here is some non-Abby stuff

Miss Sylvie:
Most people I know have dogs, thats why we are friends. well, maybe not why we are friends but definitely strengthens the bond. And while I love all my friend's dogs equally, there is one that holds a special place in my heart, Sylvie. Sylvie is a papillion but one of her ears flops over - its considered a fault by the AKC, but who really cares what they think anyway. While miss Sylvie doesn't always like everyone, we have always gotten along; and I often get kisses when no one is looking!

Mister Herbert:

Herbie is an energetic little bichon. Well, actually, he is an energetic large bichon. But he isn't large because he is fat, he is large because he is long. Not freakishly long, just larger or "bigger boned" as my grandma might say. Herbie has to be the center of attention; and since he is so cute, he often is. Herbie loves chocolate and fishing. Herbie is a non-dog who is allowed to love chocolate because everyone knows that you aren't allowed to feed chocolate to dogs!


I have known these guys for years and one day while baby-sitting them I decided to take a bunch of pictures of them. This photo shoot took place the day before "you know who" (and I don't mean the famous "you know who" of the HP series!) came home. I have had to apologise to their mom continuously that I haven't sent these pictures to her sooner. While I took a bunch, these are my favorites - and the ones I've spent time correcting the exposure on this ultra bright afternoon.

I love close-ups. And he has is gorgeous





Latch-key Kid


Typical sylvie. . .


Spontaneous Opera


Definitely didn't fix the light on this one, but it was too cute

Can Someone Explain It To Her

Please, please, please!

Abby does not seem to understand that she needs to stay in her crates when I put her in them. The crate is there to keep her safe and prevent her from getting lost or hurting herself.

I understand that Abby has some serious issues - I understand that she probably lived in a crate for the first 5 years of her life when she was at the mill. I understand that she has a bit of separation anxiety both before getting lost and now even more after. I know that crating her is stressful on her emotionally, but I don't really have much of a choice.

Abby houdini'd her way out of her crate again - this time with a cone on (and the front door is still closed) Instead of getting lost, she ripped open two stitches. The whole reason I left her in the crate was because I thought it would be safer having her confined rather then having the opportunity to jump up and down off the bed. The jumping motion will easily rip open the stitches but so will crawling out of a tight space.

I'm going out tomorrow to get a hard plastic crate. I don't think she will get out of that one. Although she will probably break some teeth on it - she has already tried to chew her way out of this one. And I think that teaches me my lesson of going out for an hour and getting dinner. I guess food is not in my future. . .well, maybe if its an out-door dog friendly place.

Update

I know its unbelievable that Abby is home, but I have some even more unbelievable news:

Abby is completely healthy.

Let me explain:

Simple blood tests were done to determine her liver/kidney/pancreatic functions and everything was NORMAL. There was no damage to any of her organs - they were perfectly fine.

A fecal test was done to determine exactly what type of intestinal parasites she had. It was NEGATIVE. She had no intestinal parasites.

Special testing was done to determine which tick borne diseases she had and it was NEGATIVE. She was exposed to so many ticks, but none transmitted any deadly disease to her.

Its really unbelievable that given her circumstance and the condition she came home in that she will have no lasting health effects. She should live a long healthy life - once I put five more pounds on her!

I still can't get over how incredible this whole thing is.