dogs

Finally - we're starting to settle into the new house.  We finished up work on the old house this week and the renters move in on Monday.  I'll be so glad not to see that place for a while.  The dog fence posts are being installed today and will continue on Monday and possibly Tuesday. Hopefully by end of day Tuesday we will have a completed fence for these dogs.  They need their running room and ability to free roam!  They are getting a little more than an acre all to themselves with plenty of trees and open areas.  They are going to love it!

We managed to capture Big Worm about a week after we actually moved.  He's elusive and we had to go to the house at 10:30 one night in order to get him. By that time he was pretty hungry so I was able to coax him into eating some canned food inside his carrier.  He was pretty leery but hunger won out and I was able to shove him in the cat carrier and close the door before he was able to remove one of my appendages.  He was not happy at all.  Once we got him to the new house, after much ruckus and mewling in the truck, we let him out of the carrier and he took off.  We didn't see him for three days.  Finally I found his hiding spot under the back porch.  Jason fed him some tuna laced with dewormer and we Frontlined him for fleas and since then he's been hanging with us on the porch in the evenings.  As you can see, he was not a happy camper at first, but he's coming around.

We're loving all the wildlife that we've been seeing.  We have a resident pair of humming birds that we see on a daily basis.  Lots of rabbits, frogs and dragonflies.  Unfortunately also a lot of houseflies that are driving us nuts.  We've seen a few deer and woke up one morning to 3 wild turkey strutting around the yard.  Now that things have settled down I'll be trying to get some photos of some of the creatures we see.  Here is a Waved Sphinx Moth that spent an entire night and day on our screen door.

Hopefully I'll get back to my regular postings again and I plan to start Project 52 up soon as well.  Happy Friday!  

Project 365: 80/365

I always have to fight the beast to get a spot on the couch.  If I resort to the armchair, he decides he's a lap dog...and then I can't see the tv.

When the big dog toys are too big to fit in your mouth, just sleep on them.

In regular, non-dog news, we found another piece of property that looks *really* nice and perfectly what we're looking for, in theory.  We'll find out on Friday when we go check it out to see if it's all it appears to be.  It's in Taylorsville, so not too far from Louisville and in a beautiful area of the state, very close to Taylorsville Lake.  It's 18.5 acres and already has a structurally sound tobacco barn on it, which would be awesome for storage.  The front 6 acres are cleared and the rest is all nice, lush woods with a gentle drop-off perfect for building out a walk-out ranch (so we were told).  We're trying not to get our hopes up too much, but if this really is all it's described to be, we'll be making a purchase real soon and our 6 acres at Dog Woods will be put up for sale.  More updates on Friday!

I'm still couch ridden so you're still at the mercy of couch dogs.  Buddy lays with me daily - my trusty side-kick, even though he does kick me more than he should!  Feeling much better today.  I haven't had any pain medication since I woke up this morning and won't take anymore until right before bedtime since I tend to toss and turn in my sleep.  Here's to hoping tomorrow will be an even better day!

I know this is a lame project photo, but thought it would be interesting to share the madness we go through (and our pet sitter will be dealing with - God love them) daily with our dogs. We went from zero dogs on meds to 3 dogs on meds, possibly for life, in a matter of 4 months, all for different things. Tell me how this happens?

I would have attempted a better photo, however, it struck me kinda crazy what we do for our pets.  But I wouldn't change a thing if it meant losing any of them!  They are all worth it.  :)

Oh how I love colored pens and markers, particularly Sharpies!

Not much to report on today.  Hardy goes back to the vet on Friday.  His vestibular disease is getting worse and he's becoming more and more disoriented. The vet said we could possibly try some Alzheimer's medication for dogs to see if that would help, but we're running out of options with the poor old man. On the other hand, Blue is showing good improvement in his back.  He's not limping as much and is walking better, but is still on cage rest for another few weeks.  Buddy and Lois Lane are doing great *knock wood* and continue to mooch food constantly.

As mentioned before, when we first took in Buddy, our Great Pyrenees/Golden Retriever, from the horrid conditions he was in, there was also a female Pyr with a litter of puppies...Buddy's puppies.  At the time they were just tiny (well as tiny as a Pyr can be) little nursing furballs, maybe a month old at the time.  This puts them at almost 5 months old now.  I've been able to keep up with some of the puppies since this site URL is sometimes given to the new owners so they can see what "dad" looks like.

The other day I had a nice comment from Lesley on The Critters page saying she had adopted one of Buddy's sons.  His name is Henry and he is just the cutest, fuzzy headed little thing!  He looks a lot like Buddy and he's a very lucky boy!  He gets to go to work with Lesley every day and everyone around town knows who Henry is.  At almost 5 months old he already weighs over 40 pounds, barely under what full grown Buddy was when he first came to us.  (Now Buddy is around the 85 pound range - I need to go get him weighed again).

Lesley was kind enough to send me photos of Henry and says she'll continue to send them so we can watch him grow up - how cool is that!

Here is sweet Henry - check out that fuzzy head!

And Henry in his Halloween getup. Look how happy he is - ha!

And as reference, a photo of Buddy, the proud Papa!

Ahh today beings a nice looong four and a half day weekend for me!  I have high hopes for the weekend and a list of things I want to do.  There is plenty of work to catch up on, but it can't be all work and no play!  So my goal for the weekend is to  pick up my camera and start playing with something new.  That new something will be macro photography using Kenko extension tubes that Jason bought last year.  They have been collecting dust pretty much since they were bought, so it's high time to learn how to use them before all the good insects are gone for the winter. 

What the heck is an extension tube, you ask?  The extension tubes are hollow tubes that connect between the camera body and the lens.  This setup enables the lens to focus closer than its normal set minimum focusing distance.  The tubes come in a set of three ( 12, 20 and 36mm ) that can be used individually or stacked for varied magnification results.  At a price 1/4 that of a good macro lens, they are well worth the small expense!

However, there is a small learning curve, lots of light needed ( natural or external flash ) and some practice involved.  Here is an Extension Tube Flickr group dedicated solely to extension tube macro photography for your viewing pleasure.  Hopefully this weekend I'll have some to add and post!

And to leave you with a recent dawg photo:

Lois has been home now since Sunday and is doing really good!  Things were difficult at first because she wanted nothing to do with the prescription food the vet wanted her on.  She ate a little bit the first night but turned her nose up at it every offering after that.  Jason had a good idea to ball some up and bake them to make them crunchy.  The first night she loved them and ate a good handful of them. After that, she again wanted nothing to do with them.  Two days went by and she wouldn't take a single bite.  Anytime we put that food in front of her she would push it with her nose as far away as she could.  It would have been quite humerus if she didn't need to eat so bad.  Finally the vet allowed us to try a different type of food.  Again she ate a little the first night and then wanted nothing to do with it again.  So we tried one more and third time was a charm!  She apparently loves Nutro Max Weight Control so that will be her food from now on.

On her second day of eating full meals she began to vomit a little again.  We took her in for a blood test to ensure the pancreatitis was not erupting again.  Thankfully, it was not.  The vet believes now that she is eating on her own the feeding tube that is in her throat is agitating her as she eats and causing her to vomit.  So tomorrow morning Lois Lane goes back in to the vet to get the feeding tube removed - yay!  I'll update more tomorrow when she gets home and we see how she's doing.  She never reacts well to the anesthetic they use to put her under so I'm sure she'll be loopy for the first day or two home.  Then hopefully she can get back to her usual, crazy self.

Buddy is doing really good, too!  He hasn't had an accident in the house for almost a week now and his coat is starting to look almost normal.  I brush him almost every day and every brushing yields a flower pot packed full of white fur.  I bought a Furminator brush for the dogs because I had heard it rocked.  Boy does it ever!  I highly recommend it for anyone that has a dog that sheds - it's awesome!  They usually sell for around $50 for the large one at pet stores, however you can get them for half-price at our PetResearch store (and it helps to support the site as well).

In other news, Monday morning I head off to San Jose, California for a Search Engine Strategies conference for work.  I'm very disappointed that Jason can't come with me as planned, though still excited to see the Silicone Valley and very stoked for this conference.  It will not only help me a lot at work but also with my side business.  I'm going with a co-worker that used to live in San Jose, which is cool because he knows all the good places to go.  Due to the time difference we'll get there fairly early Monday and will have time to drive out to San Francisco and a few other places as well.  I'm taking my Nikon D80 and hope to get lots of cool photos!

Wednesday evening as I was perusing around Facebook I came across a post from a friend of ours that read "Can anyone foster a Great Pyrenees/Golden Retriever mix till Monday?".  Since Jason and I have been kicking around the idea of adopting another dog for several months we thought it might be a good opportunity to help out and to see what life would be like with four dogs in the house. 

What we weren't aware of was the reason the dog needed to be fostered and the condition he would be in when he got to us. On June 30 there were 37 dogs removed from a mobile home in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky.  Every dog was severely emaciated and covered in fleas.  There were dogs from chihuahuas to great danes, young and old.  They were living in filthy conditions where they were standing in up to 6" of feces in some areas.   Every single dog was removed from the home and sent immediately to the vet.  Currently all of the dogs are in foster homes, apart from the ones that are still too bad off to leave the veterinary office.  For the full story and photos visit the United Rescues of Kentucky web site.  There are updates, news videos and press videos linked from this page.  (If you are sensitive to photos of starved dogs, you may want to refrain from going past the first page.)  There is also a donation form to help out with the vet expenses for this group of dogs - if you can help out any at all it would be greatly appreciated.  If you do donate, please leave a comment and let me know!

So Buddy came to stay with us from Thursday until Monday, when he would then be transported to the Great Pyrenees Rescue in Indianapolis.  In the first day alone we realize how sweet and gentle and how starved for attention and food Buddy was.   They marked him as a Great Pyrenees/Golden Retriever mix, however we fail to see where the Golden Retriever is.  At any rate, he came to us weighing 55 pounds when he probably should average about 100 pounds.  He looks big and healthy but one pet down his back and you can feel ever vertebrate, every rib and every bone in the poor guy.  

By day two of Buddy being with us we started pondering on either fostering him longer or outright adopting him ourselves.  The more time went by, the more we wanted to keep him.  So finally last night we submitted our application to adopt him.  Last night we got an email ending with "Congratulations on becoming pyr'ents!" so we're assuming we're good to go. ;)

We're working on fattening him up, grooming him, house training him and he's scheduled to be neutered on Saturday.  He's a little food aggressive with our dogs (who could blame the poor dog) but other than that he gets along wonderfully with all of them.  And he LOVES kids - it's really cute!  So needless to say, you'll be seeing a lot of Buddy photos in the coming months as he heals and transitions into our family.

As for updates on the other dogs, Lois Lane had another seizure and has been officially diagnosed with epilepsy.  The vet put her on phenobarbital which she's been on since Thursday and so far so good.  The meds make her a little drunk acting, however the vet said that would diminish after a couple of weeks.  Fingers crossed that she continues to do well. 

Blue is, well, Blue.  He's put out with Buddy being here and stealing all of his attention, but he'll get over it once things calm down.  And Hardy is deaf as ever, but still going strong.  Happy Dogs = Happy House! And a really bad photo taken with my phone, but it shows Buddy's size - imagine when he's gained 40 pounds!  :P

B Dog is 8 years old today! He had a good stretch after his nap...before laying down for another. ;)

And of course we can't forget the other two.

Hardy and his unruly eyebrows:

Lois Lane, occupying my office chair as usual: