Happy Birthday Tess

Blogland seems to be especially full of birthdays and anniversaries lately. Not to be left out of all the celebrations, we have a few of our own. Today is Tess's birthday.

She was born a little before midnight, so she's a day older than the rest of her siblings. That gives us an extra day to celebrate. Tonight Tess will get a special birthday dinner, then tomorrow we'll have our big party when the others turn six years old.

Samba and Sky are holding their own. Samba seems pretty happy these days so I'm guessing she feels better. We're still coping with diarrhea and picky appetites, but we're managing. Sky is not so happy. He seems to feel I'm picking on him because I make him take medicine and go outside on a leash.

We have another mystery symptom to deal with. Both dogs are losing their hair. It's coming out in big patches. When Samba started sporting bald spots we thought it was related to her steroid use, but now Sky is losing his hair, too. The Doc thinks it has more to do with their weight loss and general poor condition. So he's come up with a new torture to try.

Natto! My apologies to any Japanese readers, but this is nasty stuff. Dr B warned me that is smells and tastes bad and that it looks like slime. Great, just what I wanted to play with. However, dogs do like to eat nasty, slimy, bad smelling stuff, so this might be very popular with the canine members of the family.

Natto is fermented soybeans and is apparently very nutritious. Dr B thinks that adding it to their diet along with vitamin D, we may help them recover. Afterall, we've tried some other disgusting, experimental procedures and they've worked out pretty well.

I can't get to the Oriental food store till next week, so I turned to a girl's best friend, Amazon.com, for help. There's a bottle of natto capsules winging it's way to us as I type and by this evening my two sick pups will be getting the benefits without the slime factor.

So now I must get back in the kitchen and start baking  treats for the big party tomorrow. The fun just never ends around here.