When Did It Become Mid-June?

Whew. While I didn't really forget about this blog I kinda would only remember about it right when I was climbing into bed. And for a little while there our internet at The Shop had gone wonky.

Excuses, excuses.

But I remembered today! So much has been going on in the 15 days (!) since I've last posted. Biggest thing? We put in an offer on a house! The house is kinda ghetto and is in really rough shape but it's on a LOT of land. Enough land where we could build a nice home for ourselves, a big barn with maybe an in-law apartment or two, some greenhouses and an orchard. The Man descends from farmers. It's all about the land. I personally would love to be able to grow our own food. I would love to have fresh veggies all winter long. (Oh, and if we get the house I've already decided that I'm naming it The Burrow. Because I'm a total Harry Potter geek and I'm positive there will be a lot of people coming and going since we'll now have the room for them.)

Not so cool lately, Little Girl has been battling some kind of crazy allergies. She's been REALLY REALLY itchy and her fur started thinning. She even developed hives one day... =( She's on antibiotics and I've switched her food. Some dogs can be allergic to grains and since The Man insisted that the dawgs were vegetarians (much to my chagrin) their food had A LOT of grains. I've switched them over to the Natural Balance L.I.D. Sweet Potato & Fish formula (grain-free). They've been on it two weeks tomorrow. She seems less itchy and I think her fur may be growing back in (since I see her all day everyday it's hard to tell if I'm seeing a difference or not...).

Uhm, what else. I haven't lost any weight. That makes me sad. I've been kinda trying. But in the past I've been like, "I wanna lose weight. I'll cut out soda." And BAM. I'd be 10 pounds lighter in a week or two. That's not working now. And I still don't have any energy. I've read somewhere that even if your thyroid blood tests come back as "normal" (which mine are on the low side of normal) you might still need to have your meds upped. I think I'm going to need to break down an go to the doctor to talk to him face to face about it. =/

Anyway. I think that's it for now. OH. I did promise you guys pictures from the Boston Terrier play group! There were 5 Bostons there besides us. It was a blast. =)

Stinky is on the left and Little Girl is on the right.

Four of the other five cuties.

Stinky, Sweaty, Yay!

Hey Hot Weather. What's up?

It's currently 91 degrees.

It's May.

WTF?

On a side note, the first Boston Terrier play group of the area is meeting this evening for fun at the doggie park. I'm wicked excited! Hopefully I'll have some cute pics. =)

Why The Man And I Will Probably Have Our Dogs Taken Away At Some Point

The Man is on the west coast for some business training. I had to talk him into going because he doesn't really like to travel but is always glad he goes to these things. This is a convo we had by text. (All The Man typos were totally him. I'm a great speeler.)



The Man - Thanks for being such a bizatch of a girlfriend and making me come out here. I'm am going to full on crush the Portland market like a straving Rottie after a porkchop!

Me - Whoop whoop! I need monies! I checked to see how much to get Stinky's teeth cleaned under sedation. From $400-$650! I was like, WTF? So instead I'm just going to slip him an Oxy and scrape any shit off with a kitchen knife...

TM - Do eeet!

Me - I have to wait until you get home. I wouldn't know where to get Oxys. You have people though... Right...? You're like popular and shit, right? At least you're cute. You could totally get some desperate bitch to buy some for you. I can't do anything on my own. =(

TM - Inorite!? Just give him some scotch bunzz.



Please don't call Doggie Social Services on us. We were only kidding. (Or were we?)

Yes. We totally were. (I think.)

Good Thing They're Cute

Oh my wonderful balls of fluff...


I had to bring the pups to the vet this morning. Stinky needed a heartworm test so I can restart their meds. Since it's so freakin' cold here in the winter and all the bugs die, I don't keep them on the heartworm and flea and tick meds throughout the winter. That shit is EXPENSIVE. But every spring I get them tested before restarting just in case.

So anyway. He got his blood drawn and it all came back negative. Sweet. Then I asked if they had a quick minute to check Little Girl's butt. All dogs have anal glands that usually empty when they poo. Yet another way for them to be all like, "This land be MINE YO!". Anyway, some breeds have trouble getting their icky fluid out sometimes and Bostons are definitely known for it. Both Stinky and Little Girl have been squeezed since I've had them. I figured since we were already at the vet and she had been doing the oh so attractive butt-scoot that I'd get them to do a quick squeeze.

So of course, for some reason, Little Girl's glands are swollen and one was very difficult to express. The vet put her on prednisone to hopefully bring down the swelling. They also suggest she gets a bit more fiber in her diet. Giving her things such as broccoli, carrots and pumpkin can really sometimes help.

The vet also noticed how itchy the little beast is. She thinks she has allergies but we're not sure if they're environmental or food related. We're trying a medicated shampoo first. Which means that I now get to bathe Little Girl 2-3 times a week. Score! Like I have nothing better to do. Luckily she's a petite pup so the $20 (!) bottle of shampoo should last awhile. If that doesn't work I get to start the adventure of trying different dog foods. I'm sure she'll need the most expensive food out there...

Oh well. She's worth it.

Thankful Thursday - My Dawgs

With the post I did earlier, I hope that I can help Lebron, however I am VERY thankful that within the past two years I have been able to rescue and give good homes to three different dogs.

Stinky was the first dog I rescued. I already knew that I was getting First Girl in June. I was getting a tattoo in February (it was our first Valentines day together and The Man got me the tattoo <3). My tattoo lasted for 3 hours. We talked about this and that and the other thing. I mentioned how I was going to be getting First Girl in June and wouldn't mind finding her a playmate. I knew she had never been a single dog, I thought that she'd do a bit better. Well surprise of surprises, my tattooist is also a doggie-foster-mommy!

She had Stinky. He was 9 years old. He had been saved from a shelter in Arkansas and brought up to Maine. She had had him for 3 or 4 months and he had been adopted. Apparently he's very, uhm, strong willed. The woman that adopted him didn't know how to be a leader and got snapped at. She returned him. My tattooist then had him for almost 6 months before I showed up! Poor beast. No one wanted him... My heart bled. I WANT HIM! My tattooist ended up just going on a tattoo tour in Europe and it was a couple of months before we were able to meet up again. In April of 2008, Stinky came home to stay. He is definitely a handful. I was a little insane to think that it'd be cool for my first dog ever to be a dominant alpha but after a couple of rocky months we've got each other figured out. =)

So in June, First Girl came to us. She had been living with family of The Man's. Unfortunatly, First Girl had pretty bad separation anxiety. It was impossible to leave her unattended without her destroying, defecating and urinating all over the place. When the family was at work and school, First Girl was tied up in the back yard. It took awhile, but we convinced the remaining 'kid' that when she went to college, First Girl would do better at our home rather than tied up all the time. She was a wonderful dog. Very obedient and snuggily. I just could never leave her at home. I'd leave her in her crate but she'd always urinate if left for more than 3 hours and would paw and chew at the metal bars, injuring the crate and herself. She was wonderful at the shop. I wouldn't even have to tie her up. She just wanted to be near me.

I first started noticing something odd with her in behavior/health when we moved in July. She was a little shaky but thought that it was nerves from the move. The first vet visit was on a Friday in August. I noticed that there was some green goop coming from her eyes. The vet gave me drops, thinking that she had an eye infection. By the next afternoon however she was shaking violently at the shop. She wasn't interested in food (VERY odd) and grunted any time I picked her up. I was upset because I was going to have to wait until Monday to bring her back to the vets. (The emergency vet is MAD CRAZY expensive.) To my amazement (and relief) my vet happened into The Shop on Sunday afternoon! She took a look at First Girl and told me to bring her in first thing the next morning. She'd make room for her. That's how bad First Girl was looking. I couldn't get her to stand up. I had to carry her home from The Shop that night (1.5 miles).

That Monday morning we did blood work and a urinalysis which all came back normal. We started her on antibiotics anyway to see if it would help. I suggested that maybe her shaking was from pain of some sort? We started her on pain meds. With the pain meds we saw a bit of an improvement but it didn't last long. Her legs started swelling so we thought maybe kidney problems? During the next couple of weeks we did more blood work (fine, no kidney problems), tried different meds and taking x-rays. The vet thought that there might be something on the x-ray of First Girls abdomin. We were referred to internal med specialists for an ultrasound. By this point The Man was starting to get a bit irritated at the sheer amount of vet bills that were coming his way but I wanted hardcore to know what was wrong. The ultrasound ended up being clear. DAMMIT! The internal med vet then decided to take an x-ray of First Girl's legs to see if the swelling was soft tissue or joint. WHOA. Something the doctor had not seen since vet school. First Girl had a condition called Hypertrophic Osteopathy. Essentially her bones were growing out from where they should be. This is usually a secondary condition caused by a lung tumor. We already knew from x-rays that her lungs were clear. We were left to guess that her tumor was in her brain. Huh. That would explain the random seizures she used to have in her old home (she never had one with me).

While this wasn't the answer that I really wanted, I was relived that we at least had an answer. We knew what was wrong and while we couldn't do anything to cure her, we could sure as hell load her up with outrageous amounts of pain meds. She was a brave little girl but it eventually got to the point where she couldn't stand, she couldn't walk, she couldn't even go to the bathroom on her own. At the end of September we made the decision to put her down. It was horrible. We only had her living with us for 15 months but in those few months she almost never left my side. I was in a rough spot.

The hardest thing after losing First Girl was going to The Shop without her. After she joined us, I had never once been at The Shop without her. I tried bringing Stinky but he is just not good there. He whines and barks and is not easily calmed. I started what I wanted to be a very slow process of looking for a new pup. I perused petfinder and craigslist. I didn't want to jump into a dog that wouldn't be right for either myself or for Stinky. I let my tattooist know that I had started looking. Almost instantly she found us Little Girl. Within a few days we had Stinky and Little Girl meet and it was love at first sight! They were even more perfectly matched than Stinky and First Girl had. Since Little Girl hadn't actually made it into the rescue she wasn't fixed but I was able to convince The Man to bring her on because we weren't paying a rescue fee for her. Yeah, that didn't work out quite the way I was planning; her $350 fixing turned into a $600 fixing and hernia repair.

So there's my painfully long Thankful Thursday. Whew.