Guess What We Have!

When we got up this morning we found something wonderful. Our wishes came true.

After the very hot summer we had, we all were wishing for a cold snowy day and here it is.

Dad, come see what we have.

So what does a water dog do on a freezing cold day when the temperature is 20 degrees?


First we check out the wading pool, but the water is frozen.

So we settle down on the cold ground to chew on some ice and some icy cold sticks.

It's a wonderful life!

We Join the Occupy Movement

Our friend Mr Pip is the sponsor of the 'Occupy The Couch' movement and we're all joining him.  We're sending our pictures to him to show that we're all occupiers. On his blog he's posting pictures of all the protesters and next week he'll choose two to win  prizes. If you believe in the 'occupy the couch' movement, be sure to visit Pip and join the throngs who occupy.

Morgan is a leader in the movement. At least she was until she injured her leg. Now she's not allowed to jump onto the couch, so it leaves room for someone else to occupy.

Tsar is another lead occupier and he's big, so nobody argues with him.

Samba believes in making herself comfy while occupying.

Fudge is a well dressed occupier.

Sky really gets into occupying.

We have four couches in our house, but there are ten dogs and two humans, so sometimes all the couches are occupied at the same time. When that happens, we occupy the window seats. Here's Noah showing the technique.

Sky is the major window seat occupier.

Won't you join this important movement? Just have your human snap a photo of you in "occupy" mode and send it to Mr Pip by December 12. Two random occupy protesters will receive gifts.

It's December?

 Wow, it's December already! How did that happen?

I've been doing pretty well on my crafty projects lately, but I've had a bad case of 'blogger's block'.

I sit down at the keyboard and nothing comes to mind. Now you know that with ten dogs and three birds, our house is a center of activity, but the minute my fingers land on the keyboard, it's all gone. Does that ever happen to you? Maybe it's just seasonal overload.

We got our lab reports back from the recent vet visit and they were almost great. I say almost because with Samba and Morgan on meds, certain levels are a little off, but Dr B is pleased and says we're good to go for another six months.

Tsar wants you all to know that he has a time consuming new hobby, mouse hunting. Apparently a family of field mice has taken up residence in the rock pile in the back yard. Tsar and Bailey spend most of their outdoor time searching for the little rodents. Baily has managed to dislodge several rocks and dig a few holes, but Tsar has actually caught a couple mice.

I watched him catch one a couple days ago. He stood extremely still watching a certain spot. After several minutes a mouse came out from between two rocks. Tsar pounced like a giant cat and landed on the mouse with his front feet. It was all over for the mousie. Tsar delivered the body to me and I disposed of it while he went back to the rocks to start again.

Sky got a package in the mail today. A while ago I noticed that he had broken the  clasp on his collar. It was still holding together, but I couldn't trust it. Last week I sent the collar back to Lupine and today a brand new collar arrived to replace the broken one. Sky is very happy and sent Lupine a thank you note and a smile. Lupine guarantees their collars, leashes and harnesses. This is the first time we've tested the guarantee and we're very pleased with their quick response.

A friend of ours, Mr Pip is staging an 'occupy' event and we're joining him. His family removed their couch and haven't yet replaced it with a new one. What's a couch potato to do? We're going to go start making our signs for the protest, but all you have to do to support the operation is send a picture of yourself occupying the couch. We have lots of those. There's always a dog occupying the couch at our house.

At the grocery store yesterday I picked up ingredients for Christmas cookies.

Don't Christmas cookies taste great? They're even better than cookies at any other time of the year. I love the decorating and always think I'll make pretty ones like the pictures, but I usually get tired by the time they're ready to decorate.

Then I wind up just spreading some icing on and forget about getting fancy.

They taste just as good without all the artistic touches.

I'm going to make a real effort to overcome this block and share my holiday spirit with the rest of you. Are you doing festive things this weekend? Tell me about your activities and give me some ideas. Maybe I can get my brain working again.

Too Good To Believe

Today was an important vet visit. The three oldest dogs, Morgan, Tsar and Samba get a check up and bloodwork every six months to stay on top of all health issues. Lately we've had some serious problems and I was anxious about today's visit.

I woke myself at 4AM to give Samba her thyroid tablet. She was having a thyroid test done this morning and needs to have taken the pill 4 to 5 hours prior to having her blood drawn. I slept badly the rest of the night and was up at first light to get urine samples from all three. They all cooperated nicely and we arrived at the clinic for our appointment in pretty good spirits.

Tsar went first. His checkup was great, he stood still for the blood draw and Dr B was very pleased with him. His weight is good and all systems seemed to be working well. We've been treating his arthritis for six months now and he's like a new dog. The first thing I noticed a few months ago was that he lifts his leg again to pee. He also does a playbow and he and Fudge run around the yard together playing almost every day. He comes when I call him, often running to me and he's even eating more regularly I guess he just feels better, period. His urinalysis was perfect and we'll have his lab results back tomorrow.

Morgan is using her leg about 80% of the time and sometimes her limp is barely noticeable. Her eyes are a little worse than last time, but don't seem to be bothering her.  Her urinalysis was the same as last time which was good and the only new problem was some pain in her wrist from arthritis. Dr B was pleased with her progress, but she's gained two pounds from inactivity during her knee recovery. She'll be dieting for  a while starting tonight.

Then it was Samba's turn. Samba had been busy getting into things in the office while waiting. At one point she stepped on the pedal that controls the table and Morgan started dropping fast. Dr B and I both grabbed Morgan while our tech, Melissa, grabbed Samba. She had been trying to reach the treats by herself.

Samba has a lot going on, but we were amazed at what's happening. She's getting new muscle in the head area where the MMM destroyed her jaw muscle. The other muscles are bigger and stronger and although she's head-shy and  won't let us open her mouth, she can open it quite wide by herself as she demonstrated. Her eyes, though a little slow, have good blink reflexes.

She has injured her foot and cried out when it was examined. We'll watch it and maybe do an x-ray if it doesn't improve by itself. Her injured tail has improved. The inflammation is gone, but she has lost some of the movement in the very end of the tail.

Then we checked the  urinalysis. We've been trying for months to get a kidney infection under control and although the antibiotics have helped, they haven't killed the infection completely. Last month Dr B and I discussed the option of injections of a strong antibiotic that could kill the infection, but could have very severe side effects. I decided not to use it. Today the test showed that there is no longer blood in her urine. Her body is fighting it off. Her poor damaged immune system is trying to kill the infection and is succeeding. Dr B and I were both jubilant. We'll repeat the test in a month to be sure it's still improving.

This was a most wonderful vet visit. We'll have the blood results on everyone back tomorrow and that will tell us if anything else is going on, but for today, I'm doing a happy dance.

Let The Shopping Begin!

Look guys, the big truck guys have been here and they left lots of boxes.

Mom must have been shopping on the computer again.

I wonder what's in these. Do you think they're all for us?

At least Mom stayed home with us on Black Friday. She did her shopping online.

Hey Mom, let's open some of these.

Thanksgiving At Our House

Mom says that today is Thanksgiving.  We have some things we're thankful for.

We're thankful that Samba's illness is under control and that Morgan is getting around pretty well with just a little limp.

We're thankful that we're all together with our Mom and Dad.

We're thankful for that 26 pound turkey in the freezer in the garage. Think how much soup that will make for us.

We're thankful for the full treat jar in the kitchen.

Noah is thankful for the big piece of lasagna he grabbed off Dad's plate the other night when Dad wasn't looking.

We're thankful for our warm beds and blankets, especially after Mom sticks them in the dryer for a few minutes.

We're all very thankful for all of you who come visit us on our blog. Have a happy holiday.

Santa's Work Shop

Today Rob and I went to Santa's work shop, aka the Disabled American Vet's Thrift Store.

For $18, the price of two toys at Petsmart, we came home with a big black trash bag full of toys for the pack for Christmas.

We found a huge bunny for Lola.

Two big floppy dogs, both with embroidered eyes, so they don't need to have any hard parts removed.

A frog, just the right size for Morgan.

A cute little cow.

A funny looking lamb that just might wind up in my toy collection.

And two monkeys for Bailey. her favorite pal is looking pretty worn out these days and I'm hoping she chooses one of these to be her new best friend.

It was a pretty good haul and all of our dogs except Samba enjoy playing with stuffed toys, so this Christmas they'll have lots of new friends to play with.

I'm starting to feel the holiday spirit. I hope I can hang on to it for another month. Have you started your shopping yet?