New Life!

                                   Eva at one day old

Looking at my previous blog pictures, I realize how long it's been since I posted to this blog. It's now August, the dog days of summer, and we have two new residents in the neighborhood. About three weeks ago a filly was born to my neighbor's TB mare, and last week, another mare at her place gave birth to a little colt. Both foals have the same sire, a Trakehner who stands at 17 hands, so they will both be big. The filly's name is Eva; the colt is Edouardo. They are both gorgeous and full of themselves. Interestingly, Eva is very confident, independent and very curious, while Edouardo is more timid and likely to stay close to his mom. It's fun to watch them learn more every day.

                Edouardo at 2 days old

Buddy's back to normal

Here's JD and Buddy heading off to the woods for a hike. The cone came off Buddy's head on Friday, and he is ready to rock 'n roll. Today's temp was almost balmy compared to the past 2 days. It was about 21 degrees when this picture was taken. It's been highs of single digits recently, so the 20s feel pretty darn good.

Buddy is now completely legal. He has his license, he's been micro-chipped, neutered, and has received just about every possible vaccine available for dogs. We've been working on training, and he is a quick study. He's excellent with the "sit/stay" and "come". I'm working on "down," which has some resistance. He is also coming along with crate training, and will run right in the crate when I say "kennel." We're working on keeping him in for a few minutes while we're in the room with him. Hopefully we will be able to secure him in the crate if necessary. The trainer comes back on Friday, so we'll work on some issues, and discuss when he will be ready for agility. She (the trainer) has already started agility classes nearby, and I'd love to get him into this. It will be a good "job" for this very busy dog.

The Buddy saga continues

Life continues to be an adventure with our new Golden Retriever, Buddy. He was neutered last Tuesday, a procedure that should have been a non-event. However, Buddy took exception to having stitches in his privates, and succeeded on removing some of them, setting his recovery back. So on Friday he was back in the vet's, where he received staples to hold the whole thing together. He's on an antibiotic because he got the incision infected, and has to wear a cone on his head so he won't attack the wound. The cone causes him high stress, and so to calm him down, he has to take Benadryl. We tried valium, but it had no effect.

We were also supposed to put an antibiotic salve on the incision, but Buddy was so terrified of having someone touch him there (he's a little paranoid by now) that he bit JD when we tried to put some on the incision on Saturday night. So JD had to go to the doctor's and get an antibiotic for his wound. Now we have to take Buddy to the vet every day so they can treat it, since we're not interested in any more bite wounds.

The conehead thing stresses Buddy out so much it is hard to get him to relieve himself outside. The whole thing has turned into such an ordeal, I'm wishing we never had him neutered. We're now looking at a minimum of another week before this is healed. I don't know if any of us will last that long. JD is still sleeping on the couch to keep Buddy company at night. We can't let the dog upstairs, because that has become the cats' sanctuary. They refuse to go downstairs if the dog is around.

So here we are, a crazy conehead dog, two frustrated cats and two exhausted humans trying to survive this madhouse in the middle of winter.

More snow pictures

It's a regular winter wonderland around here...

Heavy snow on trees

After the big snow

Noble says "there must be grass under here somewhere...

Sailor takes time out from digging in the snow.

New family member

Christmas was hectic as usual here, with us hosting JD's family on Christmas Eve, and my family on Christmas Day. My mom (on a little hiatus from the nursing home) spent Christmas night at our house. It was great having her here, and considering what she has been through in the past year, it was nothing short of miraculous. But, taking care of a nursing home patient is a tall order, and it was very high maintenance to care for someone who needs help dressing, bathing, etc. The joy she felt made it all worthwhile, though.

After she went back to Bennington, VT (where nursing home is), our life got permanently turned upside down on Sunday, Dec. 27 when we adopted a 3 yr-old Golden Retriever. We got him from my brother-in-law, who apparently didn't want him anymore. The pup is a gregarious individual named Buddy, who has had no obedience training whatsoever, and very little life experience outside his house. He really has turned our house upside down - the cats have been living upstairs and have not come down. I moved all their necessitities to our upstairs bathroom. Buddy stands at the bottom of the stairs (which now has a gate across it) and gets all excited just to watch them. Lacey, our mom cat, sits on a ledge next to the stairs and hisses at him to try and get her point across. But Buddy never gets the message.

Tomorrow morning he goes to the vet for shots and a checkup. I am also scheduling an appointment for neutering, because he is still intact. I'm hoping that will take his hyper-ness down a few notches. Then we'll start some obedience training. So far I have managed to teach him sit, but he needs a lot more than that. I've also ordered a crate so he won't destroy the house when we're not at home. He's already bonded to us and gets separation anxiety when we leave him, so the crate will be a necessity. He's a good dog, and very smart, so I think it will all be worth it.

My sick kitty

After a couple of weeks of trying to convince myself that there was nothing really wrong with my cat Freya, I finally decided to call the vet today. She had a serious fever of 105.1 about 3 weeks ago, that required a 3-day hospitalization. After a week of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory meds, she was doing much better. But she never really got her mojo back. Typically, she's ready to go out first thing in the morning and start her day. But she has been very quiet in the morning, sometimes not even getting up to eat for more than an hour after we awake. When she did go out, she came back after about an hour and collapsed. So today we went back to the vet, who examined her carefully.

Good news was she has no fever, and all vital signs were good. But her breathing had a little "squeak" in it, and the vet believes that she has asthma. She had a serious respiratory illness during the summer that caused a nasty cough, and it's possible it damaged her airway. Having a serious fever probably knocked the stuffing out of her, leaving her weakened. So she got a steroid shot to help relieve the inflammation. I hope it works. She is functional, but just not herself. I've had lots of cats, but this is the first time I've had to deal with asthma. I hope we can get her by this, because she is a cat that just loves life and likes to live pedal to the metal. We'll know in a couple of days if the shot worked.