The Glow Of Security

Back in 1993 I slipped on a wet deck and broke my wrist in three places. Since then I've understandably had a heightened fear of falling.  Prior to that accident I never slept with a nightlite. Since then I do. Rob complains about my searchlight and claims it keeps him awake, but his snoring proves that it doesn't affect his sleep at all.

When we moved to this house I not only had a nightlite in the bedroom, but I  have several in the hall so that when Samba and I take our moon gazing trips each night I can feel safe without turning on the lights.

The pups were born in late October 2006 and around Thanksgiving we had an ice storm. One sunny morning a couple days later I was walking to the mailbox when I slipped on some black ice in the driveway. I broke the same wrist. This time I wore a bright pink cast, but the fact that I had eight four week old puppies made the whole incident more difficult.

Today I received a package in the mail from a dear blogging friend. Inside was a new Portie nightlite. It's currently residing in the bedroom and lights my way to the door so that I don't step on any sleeping dogs as I move around. It casts the warm glow of safety and security. Thank you.

Do you sleep with 'search lights' aka nightlites, too?

Problem Solved

Recently I've been on a quest for a special collar for Samba. She used to wear a pretty red and black Lupine collar, but it was a heavy stiff material. When she lost most of her hair I was concerned that it would be uncomfortable.

Since then she's been wearing this denim collar. It's nice and soft, but it's rather thin and I worried that it might not hold up in an emergency situation. Samba can be headstrong and give a good tug if she wants something. I wasn't sure that soft collar would hold her.

I was chatting with our friend Nichole, who is the Mom of the Lapdogs, Zeus, Tut, Lola and Sophie.

Sophie wears a harness and I noticed that it was padded and looked very comfortable. Nichole said it was from Planet Dog. I told her about Samba's collar and she said she had a padded collar in Samba's size.

It arrived on Saturday and it's perfect. It's made of hemp and lined with thick, soft fleece. Samba likes it and it's sturdy enough to control her without rubbing on her sensitive skin. It's even safe in water when we go swimming.

Problem solved.

Our Mom

Hi Everybody, it's me Fudge.

Today is Mother's Day, so we're all trying to be really nice to our Mom. Did you know that our Mom even loved doggies when she was a little pup herself?

She counted up last night and she's lived with twenty eight doggies  in her life.

She took care of us when we were silly pups, teaching us to have good manners.

She plays with us and gives us treats.

Sometimes she makes us special treats.

She takes care of us when we're sick. She gives us medicine and soaks our paws and changes our bandages and takes us to visit Dr B.

She takes us to school so that we can get higher education.

She takes us to shows so we can get ribbons.

She gets annoyed sometimes when I act like a doofus, but I know she still loves me. She didn't even get mad when Norma Jean broke her finger.

She's there for us when we're little.

She's there for us while we're growing up.

We know she'll be there for us when we get old.

We love you, Mom. We didn't get you a Mother's Day gift because we didn't have any green papers except the green envelope that Sky stole out of the trash and tore into little pieces in the office, but maybe you can pretend that the thing you bought on Ebay this morning is from us. OK?

Love,

Fudge and Morgan and Samba and Tess and Sky and Lola and Bailey and Noah and Norma Jean

Things Look Better In The Morning

I didn't mean to sound mysterious yesterday. I was feeling overwhelmed and needed time to sort out my thoughts before blogging. Today I'm trying to put everything into proper perspective, so here's what's happening.

Let's start with Miss Lola. She discovered how to get around the soft headress to lick her sore toes. I had to switch her to the hard plastic type that creates problems for the rest of us when she rams it into us.

 It has done it's job and is protecting the toe. The swelling seems to be down a bit today, though the toe is still two or three times it's normal size.

Lola isn't about to sit on the sidelines and watch the others play. She's a determined girl and joins right in the game.

She's being very good about the new routine of soaking her foot and having medicine applied. All my dogs take pills nicely, so that isn't a problem either. We're hoping to see more improvement over the weekend. If not, we'll be visiting Dr B on Monday.

On Monday afternoon Samba and Morgan had their six month checkups. For the most part Samba's was good. Her weight is perfect, her foot has healed and she has good use of her jaw. We discussed cutting back on her prednisone slightly and will start that in a month or so. Dr B drew blood and sent it off to the lab and he did a urinalysis. Even though she drinks cranberry juice every morning, the ph level of her urine was still a little high so he sent a sample to the lab.

Yesterday morning I got the lab results back. Her bloodwork was good. She had some highs and lows, but they could all be explained by her prolonged steroid use. The lab said that the urine sample was contaminated so Dr B needed to draw urine directly from her bladder. The best way to get a first morning sample was for Samba to spend the night at the hospital so the sample could be drawn this morning before she hit the grass.

Samba and I have only ever spent two nights apart. The first was when she was a tiny pup and Rob was here with her. The second time was when we met Fudge's plane in Kansas City. Our neighbor took care of her then. As much as I complain about her waking me each night to go star gazing, I was as unhappy as she was about last night's sleeping arrangements. She greeted me with a big hug and sloppy kiss this morning after the procedure and is now sleeping on  my feet.

Then there is Morgan.

Morgan is 12 1/2 years old now and is slowing down. Her checkup was mostly good. She has several cysts on her back and her head and she has a fatty tumor on her side. None of these present any real problem. Her knee has healed well and she has only a slight limp. Her eyes are a problem. A few years ago the color faded in Morgan's iris in both eyes. They look strange now, sort of a clear gray. Her eyesight wasn't as good as when she was younger, but whose is? This time, however, the doctor saw almost no pupil response. We know she can still see, at least a little, but we don't know if that will last. I know that dogs adjust well to gradual blindness and Samba, Fudge, Rob and I will all stay close and help her get around, but it makes me very sad.

Then the other shoe dropped. Her blood work looked great with one huge exception. Two of her liver enzymes had syrocketed. The doubled from just six months ago. To understand this you need a little background. When Morgan was three years old, she had a reaction to an antibiotic and suffered liver failure. She was in the hospital for two weeks on IV fluids and we didn't know if she'd survive. Obviously she did, but not without damage.

We've known since then that Morgan had liver disease, but over the past four years she's gone into a sort of remission. The enzyme levels came down to almost normal and she showed no signs of the disease. The doctor felt she could live another three years and we were thrilled.

Yesterday it was obvious that the disease is active again and now the doctor is talking about keeping her happy and comfortable for another year. We're going to start her on a medicine to try to slow the advance of the disease, but I still felt as if I'd been kicked in the gut. To lose Morgan so soon after Tsar is just not something I can even think about right now.

Moving On

This has been a difficult post to write. We had some bad news this morning regarding Morgan's latest checkup.  My mood hasn't improved much since I wrote about it last week and today's news hasn't helped.

I do want to alert all you knitters and cross stitchers out there in Blogville that there is a giveaway going on at the blog My Life In Stitches. I'm probably killing my own chance to win by spreading the word, but it's great opportunity for someone to win either a knitting book...

or this cross stitch book. Drop by Julie's blog, say hi and win yourself a lovely book. What could be easier? Tell her I sent you.

Big Foot Lives Here

No not this Bigfoot.

You may remember that a couple weeks ago Samba was wearing 'the cone of shame' while her foot healed from an infection. It was originally caused by a cracked nail that she tried to repair by herself. There's much to be said for self reliance, but in some cases it's better to ask for help. She spent almost two weeks in the cone and took antibiotics, had special gel applied to the sore spots and needed dailey soaks with a medicated shampoo.

Well, Samba's foot is completely healed and the cone has been removed and life is good.....for Samba.


It's a new week and we have a new foot problem. This time it's Lola's foot. On Sunday Fudge alerted me to a problem with Lola's foot. Why do these things always happen on weekends or holidays? On close inspection, one of Lola's toes was red and swollen. I had learned from Samba's experience and immediately got out the cone of shame again. It was still warm from the last use.

I put some of the same gel I'd used on Samba on the swelling toe and confined Lola to her crate. The next morning we made the decision to see the vet.

Have you ever taken a good look at a dog's toes? They're usually long and slim. One of Lola's toes was bright red and about an inch and a half wide and almost an inch think. Dr B was quite impressed with the amount of swelling. I won't gross you out with a photo. Take my word, it's ugly.

Dr B shaved her foot and examined it for any kind of sliver or foreign matter. He didn't find anything, but wouldn't rule out a bite, perhaps from a spider. He said it's become infected, so she's taking antibiotics and we're applying the same gel we used on Samba. Good thing I had a nice big bottle of it. Twice a day I'm soaking her foot in hot water and iodine solution in hopes that whatever may be inside will work it's way out.

This morning her toe was about the same size and still red, but one small area was more swollen than the rest. It's the part where we thought the bite might be located. Keep your fingers crossed that the hot soaks make it open and drain soon. Poor Lola is really hating her new bonnet and I'm not thrilled about doing this routine again so soon. We want to get back to this.