Seven Links

We were asked by My life with flyball dogs to do the seven links/posts game.  I did my best to try and remember all the thinks I'd written about and reviewed some of my older posts but didn't have time to look at all of them.  So here is what I came up with.

Most Beautiful: My Best Friend, a tribute to my special dog Oreo.

Most Popular: I Knew It, this was according to blogger stats but only included the last few years.  I wouldn't otherwise know how to figure it out so I guess that's good enough.  I also have no idea why this post was so popular.

Most Controversial: Trial Results and Other Things, obviously it's the "other things" part of this that is controversial, it's a rant on whether or not your agility dog should be left intact.  I have more to say on this subject of leaving dogs intact and whether or not I agree but maybe I will save that for another day.  For the most part, lets just say I don't agree.

Most Helpful: Chocolate Toxicity, I chose this based on the number of people who call the clinic to ask if the amount of chocolate their pet ate is ok or not, and also the amount of people who think their dog will die if they eat an Oreo or a chocolate chip cookie.

Surprise Success: UD or not UD, again this came from Blogger stats.  I don't know why this post was so popular but there you go, that's why it was a surprise I guess.

Didn't get the attention I felt it deserved: Lights Out, I think this post was not very popular because I wrote it early in my blogging career and didn't have many followers.  Or maybe it's just not as interesting as I thought.

Most Proud Of: This one I had a hard time with.  There are lots of posts I'm proud of, but all for different reasons.  I ended up just picking this one because it's funny, popular, and based on real life.

So anyway, hope you enjoy those.  If anyone else wants to play feel free to consider yourself tagged!

The Boys of Fall

Ok, so it's really just one boy.  But he's so handsome do you need more than one?

Puppy Mill Perspective

Busy kid

Since I obviously had no plans today I baby sat.  This is one busy kid.  She had a lot to get done today!

First, there was coloring

 Then playing with the bunny

 Summer got tired first!

 Playing with the kitty

 Lyric helped supervise the outdoor activities

 Tending to the plants

 Of course, the ever popular playing with the water hose

 Putting the pool toys away

 And watering the horses

She's passed out on the couch now.  Wish I was too!

The final nail

I'm from the midwest.  I don't worry about hurricanes.  I don't track or follow them or worry about categories.  And I certainly don't think about them on perfectly sunny Missouri afternoons.  Until now.  Hurricane Irene is headed right for New England.  Right when I'm supposed to be there.  Yesterday they announced our concert would be moved to Friday night due to hurricane warnings in Boston on Sunday.  By the time plane landed and we get to the stadium we would miss a good deal of the concert.  Strike one.

Watching the news and the path of the storm did not bode well either.  This is supposed to be the worst storn in New England in 100 years.  Best case scenario, we spend 3 days sitting in the apartment, with or without power, talking about our half-concert experience.  And no telling what it would be like trying to get back home with all the flights that are inevitably going to be cancelled.  Strike two.

Then, Legend had a seizure.  She's never had one before, that we know of.  I fed them dinner and went to feet the cat when I heard the thud.  When I turned around I first thought she must be choking but when I got there she was seizing.  It was short, thankfully.  Afterwards she looked at me like she didn't know me and ran off.  When I went to her she growled like might bite me.  I shut her in the bedroom alone, sat on the floor and had a meltdown.  Strike three.

So I called my friend, we discussed and decided to cancel the trip.  I took airline credit for my plane ticket.  Our concert tickets will be refunded if I postmark them tomorrow.  I'm beyond disappointed about this.  We have literally had these tickets (so close to the stage!) for 10 months.  Why did there have to be a hurricane this weekend?  In New England??

Legend is fine now.  You would never know anything happened.  But it did.  Now we have to wait and watch, and wonder.  Will she have more?  Is she epileptic?  Is it something else?  Hopefully it's nothing, just a freak event but only time will tell. 

So, I didn't really have a good day. But there is always tomorrow. 

Summer stuff

I must say I've really enjoyed the last month with no agility trials. We've gotten to do a lot of "summer" stuff that we hadn't gotten to yet as well as getting lots of stuff done around the house and just plain old relaxing!

Next weekend I'm headed off for five days to visit a friend in New England. The highlight of the trip will be the Kenny Chesney/Zac Brown Band concert at Gillette Stadium-we have seats on the field and are very excited! This is the first time I'm flying by myself which is a little nerve wracking but not much.

Eva is doing well. She has even taken a few steps in her splint. I don't really want her walking on it but it does show how adaptable cats are. Her incision is healing well and she seems comfortable and happy.

Lyric is doing better on the teeter. I even took both girls to a class last week and she did that teeter just fine as well. They both ran well at class and got to use some of the distance and layering skills we have been working on.

I've been doing more running and am excited about doing more 5ks this fall and seeing how much I can get my time down.

Also we got Stormy sent off to Colorado and she's doing great in her new home!

Foster updates

I had to amputate Eva's leg today.  Further x-rays showed it could not be pinned.  We tried to devise some elaborate double leg sling for her but could not get the fracture reduced and aligned.  But it's just as well because when I was doing the surgery I noticed the end of the broken bone was starting to turn black and likely would not have healed even in the best circumstances.  The other leg remains in a splint.  She can't walk in the splint and will likely spend the next 3-4 weeks lying down.  She had such a rough day I sort of wonder if I should have just put her down.  But if she heals I guess 3-4 weeks is not bad for a long, happy life.  Of course I need to find a nice family to give her that long, happy life...like maybe my mom and dad???

Speaking of long and happy lives, Stormy is off to her new home in Colorado this weekend!  Actually she will only live there for 6-12 months and then the family will return home to their very lovely house in California.  They seem super nice and very dedicated to their dogs and to giving Stormy a great life.  She will have four kids to love on her and two other rescued border collies to play with.  The mom is flying to Kansas City, renting a car and driving Stormy back to Colorado.  We are meeting her in KC Saturday morning. 

I got a recent update from Leeloo's (Ribbon) owners.  She is growing into a beautiful, happy dog.  They also had her DNA tested and it came back 50% BC and 50% Great Pyrenees.  How cool is that-we were right!

Also, I'm having trouble leaving comments on some blogs-someone posted the fix to that somewhere but I don't remember where.  Anyone know what to do?

Tiger Tri 2011

A month or so ago two friends and I decided to to a triathlon relay-no one wanted to do the whole thing (or felt capable of that, I actually don't even own a bike) but thought a relay would be fun.  So we entered, and we even trained a little!

Triathlons are apparently a whole different ballgame than your run of the mill road race. We had to follow a lot of guidelines as far as when to be where, getting signed it, etc.  We had to pick up our race packet the night before and we all had to go (not together thank goodness don't know how we could have done that) and show photo ID just to get our numbers.  Everyone had to have a 1 day USAT membership since we were not members just to enter. 

Then we had to get up 4:30 to get to the designated parking area, get our timing chip, put our gear in the transition area and get "body-marked" by 6:45.  This means that in addition to wearing a number (runners) and having one on the bike we got our number written on us 4 times in black sharpie.  Also they wrote our ages on the back of our legs-also in black sharpie.  I'm not sure what the point of that was. 

Then they line all the swimmers up in order their estimated 300 yard swim time and let them go in the pool one at a time.   Our swimmer waited in line 40 minutes.  After the swim our biker took over for the 12 mile ride.  There still people coming out of the pool when when she got back and then I took off on the 3.1 mile run. 

Our overall time was 1 hour, 32 minutes.  Against the other teams we didn't fare too well but could definitely improve since we didn't do much training.  But against the individual competitors we were far from last so that was good!  There was do dividing the teams by age or sex so we really have no idea who we were competing against.

But we did have fun and may even try it again next year.  My 5K time was about a minute faster than the last race I did so I am hopeful to continue to improve with some actual training!



No hiding anything today!



Sharpie everywhere!

Livid

Yesterday at work one of my previous foster kittens came in (Olivia, but due to a clerical error now Eva-we go through a lot of kittens!). The owner wandered in late in the afternoon without an appointment and mentioned that she was having trouble using her leg and placed the kitten on the counter.  The receptionist came back and told us what the owner had said but added that the kitten appeared to be barely able to stand up.  I told her we needed to get her worked in so they set him up with a work-in appointment. 

The history he gave the tech was that they had tried to pull her out from under the bed YESTERDAY by her back legs and she had been limping ever since.  Upon exam I found a kitten almost too painful to touch with an obvious fracture in one leg and possibly in the other.  For their part the owners only seemed mildly concerned that they had inflicted this much pain on their cat and then allowed her to suffer.  I announced we needed to sedate her, start pain meds and take x-rays and left the room fuming. 

X-rays confirmed femoral (the thigh bone) fractures in BOTH hind legs!  How are you so rough with a kitten you break 2 legs?  Upon further examination of her record we noticed they failed to show up for her appointment to get spayed and finish her vaccines about 5 different times.  Keep in mind this is a FREE spay included in the adoption fee. 

We decided to quote them a price we thought they would be unwilling to pay for the repair and offer to take her back into rescue if they wanted.  It worked and she is happily purring away on opiods now waiting to get her legs fixed.  Maybe if they acted a little more like they cared we would have worked more with them-maybe if they had called right away, seemed concerned, worried or remorseful.  Not casually wandering in the NEXT AFTERNOON like a broken leg (which he admitted might be possible) is no big deal.

To make things worse they asked if they could adopt another kitten, or, if we got this one all healed up could they come back and adopt her again.  Seriously?  Lets review the facts.

1.  They broke 2 of this kitten's legs
2.  Failed to bring her in for preventive care
3. Waited until the next day to seek attention for broken legs
4. Let kitten be obviously painful all night
5.  Did not seem worried or concerned
6.  Did not even consider coming up with money to fix the legs they broke
7.  Virtually showed no hesitation in giving her up
8.  And again-BROKE TWO LEGS!

So, that's a NO, on both accounts.  They can get a kitten somewhere else, we put a lot of work into ours.

Tomorrow Eva should be having surgery on one leg and possibly a splint on the other after the doctor that does our orthopedic stuff takes a look at the x-rays to see what she can do.  Eva has been a trooper-purring and wanting attention and even used her litter box!  Also, she looks just like her momma Emmy now that she's a little more grown up.

She will be looking for a new and improved home once she is all healed up-anyone want a special kitten?

Behind

Well,  I'm behind in blogging, and blog reading again.  Although admittedly not much to blog about this week.  It's been super hot here-like a lot of the country so not much training going on.  We've been out a few times for about 5 minutes and that was plenty for the dogs.  I did get out the Manners Minder one day and used it.  That was nice for me because all I had to do was stand and send-didn't have to run out and reload or guard the target every time!

It seems like I have a lot of stuff I want to work on with Legend-contacts, distance, obedience...
But for now I think I will focus on improving her speed and confidence on the contacts and table as that is our main hang up right now.  Once she finishes her MACH (still hard to believe we are facing that reality!) I will focus more on distance work so she can get her NATCH and also more obedience.

Lyric is working on overcoming her teeter issue and also improving her weave poles and table. 

We spent most of the weekend doing water related activity to keep cool which was enjoyable.  Jerry even tried wakeboarding yesterday.  I opted to stay in the boat or float in the water-more relaxing.

If you recall last summer we finally put in stalls for the horses.  This is great if we know the weather will be really bad and we put them in.  But this doesn't help much if there is a pop up storm and cold wind or something.  But we realized if we install one more panel in the barn we can swing out the stall door closest to the barn door to meet the new panel and create a run-in situation for them.  Now, if the weather is questionable or not bad enough to lock them in and shut the door they have the choice to go in and out.  They seem to like it as they were hanging out in it before we had finished bolting in the panel!  They are getting pretty spoiled these days. 

Eventually I will have some more pictures to post!