Summer Pictures

Here are some pictures Jerry took the other day. They are not of anything in particular but you can get some of his photographic perspective instead of mine for a change.

Icy is feeling better today and enjoying the canned food for a change while her gums heal. Wiggles is doing well. He has been active and eats pretty good-still only veggies and hay but that's ok. He is throwing his hay basket around and tipping his food dish so I know he's feeling pretty good. Still thin though. He and Spring are both doing well on the litter boxes and got their pens enlarged a little today.

Zodiac did a great Go-out today and did one jump great but forgot the second one. He did so-so on signals. He seems to be lacking some food motivation these days but frisbee is working well so we have been training with that some. Then he got to go to Jerry's softball game. He's the only dog that gets that privilege because Legend is too wild to sit still that long with all the people around and Oreo gets too worked up over the ball and wants to go fetch it. But Zodiac likes to hang out and get petted by kids and stuff.

Icy's Teeth

I brought Icy in for a dental today because she had a little tartar on her teeth. As I was cleaning I noticed that both her upper 4th premolars (the biggest teeth in the mouth) were loose. They had no gingivitis or periodontal pockets, just loose. So we took some x-rays and almost all of the root structure of both teeth had resorbed! Cats get weird lesions called Feline Odontoclastic Resorptive Lesions. Usually however they are right where the crown of the tooth meets the the gums and you can see them. Almost never are they this severe without any associated gum disease and a perfectly normal looking crown. So she had to have what remained of both teeth pulled. Here is a picture of her when we got home tonight-she was still looking pretty groggy!


Here are some raspberries from my berry patch. These are the first black raspberries that I have ever produced. And this is the most yellow ones I have had at one time. I have a red bush that is blooming quite a bit this year too. Not to mention more blackberries than any one person could ever eat-off only 3 plants!

More bad rabbits

Since Wiggles has completely unlitterbox-trained himself I decided to make his part of the pen much smaller. To do this (against my better judgement) I make Spring's part bigger. Mistake. It was too much too soon for her and although Wiggles used his box all night Spring missed hers more than once. Both were in small pens before I left for work this morning. Both had successful litter box days! Back to baby steps I guess. Now time for dinner!

Random

Here are the ribbons from this weekend...
We have several of these bushes in our yard. They smell amazing and attract a lot of bees. I never really noticed that they bloom before this year. I don't know if I just forgot or if they have never bloomed before. I thought for sure I would remember the smell because that is what I noticed mostly. The flowers are not that impressive. I don't know what they are but I was wondering it they are some sort of Honeysuckle.

Speaking of blooming my Mimosa tree did not bloom this year-I am not sure why.
This Hosta was here when we moved in. Every year it comes back from the ground, gets hot and dry and then dies. But this year it actually survived long enough to bloom.
And here is a picture of princess Icy perched up on a pillow like that is obviously where she belongs.

Rally Results

Well Zodiac and I got off to rough start on Saturday morning in Excellent. We both made some mistakes and the heat was taking its toll but we did qualify and place 4th-just not with scores we are used to. Sunday though we were back on top and scored a 99 (he lagged on his "fast") and placed first and that finished his Rally Excellent title. Legend mustered up all her self control and managed to score a 97 in Advanced on Saturday to place first and then out did herself on Sunday by scoring a 100, placing first and finishing her Rally Advanced title. I was very pleased with them both. We also got to visit some old friends and make some new ones!

Spring managed to do pretty well with the litter box thing while I was gone, Wiggles however seems to be unlitter training himself. Always something.

Better Rabbit

Well the extra litter box had no effect. She pooped next to all of them overnight. So this morning her pen size got drastically reduced and when we got home from work she had used the litter boxes appropriately all day. Hopefully this will become habit again and I can gradually open her pen up more. She needs the space to run and jump!

Zodiac, Legend and I are off to the Moberly rally trial tomorrow night. Oreo always gets excited when I get out a suitcase because he loves to go places. I feel bad that he doesn't get to go as much as he used to but taking 3 dogs to a hotel is just not practical if you don't have to take them, especially a dog on 4 kinds of medicine. It's bad enough that they all three eat different foods.

We found this guy below on our driveway tonight. It's kind of a fuzzy picture but something different anyway.

Naughty Rabbit

Well I had just been bragging about how Spring was already so well litter trained and then this week she started pooping next to her box. Rotten rabbit. I kept moving one of her boxes around and either way I moved it she pooped on the other side. So now I have three boxes lined up for her to choose from. Hopefully she will find one of them inviting or I will have to find a way to confine her again so her options are more limited. This is not the greatest picture but I took it to show how big she is getting.

On a good note Zodiac did a perfect signal exercise yesterday-first try!

Clean Cat

Icy was due for some vaccines so I brought her to work with me today to give her an exam and the vaccinations and then decided since I had some extra time to try to give her a bath. She's such a good cat, she hardly fought me at all and just sat in the tub like a dog. So now she is all pretty and shiny and I got some of her extra hair off. She does seem very sleepy this afternoon though-even more than usual, she must be stressed from her ordeal.

I worked on mowing the lawn and did some weeding today. My carrots are finally growing and I think some of my pansies. I did have a bunch of Canterbury bell seedlings coming up too but now I don't see very many, maybe the cats laid on them too much. Here is a picture of some our rose bushes that have been growing and blooming like crazy!

So how far was it?

I am still planning on running a 5K in July but the last 4-5 weeks I have only been running about twice a week. I think I've been getting a little bored with the treadmill. Tonight, however, seemed like a great evening for an outdoor run. I never run by myself outside (I've seen too many "48 Hours Mysteries" shows on TV and plus someone sent me a website where you can see where all the convicted felons live around you-creepy) but Jerry was happy to come along so off we went on a big loop around our house. We had a really nice run-it was the first time in quite some time I have not run on the treadmill and thus the first time in a long time I got to do any downhill running. Based on the time of our run and compared to the same effort put forth on the treadmill I had guessed the run at 2.5-2.75 miles. So we got in the car in measured it-3.4 miles. That hardly seemed right so we drove it in the truck-3.3 miles. Huh. Either both vehicles are wrong or my treadmill is clearly calibrated wrong. I'm hoping it's the treadmill because that would mean I'm in better shape than I thought. That's the thing about road races though. You can never be sure how they were measured and how accurate they are. Sometimes you get a good time and you don't know if you can believe it or not. Oh well-what can you do?

Busy

Well we have stayed quite busy this week, although right now it seems I can't even remember what all we have done. Yesterday we worked and then went to a wedding of a co-worker of mine. Then we joined some friends from church for a Springfield Cardinals game and some ice cream. The Cardinals lost the game but we had a good time anyway.

Wiggles is not back to normal but he is eating 1 1/2-2 plates of veggies a day plus some hay. I don't think he will ever be normal again but as long as he seems comfortable we are just going to let him be. I have been opening the gate and letting him and Spring visit some while I supervise and they seem to like that. However with his condition and need for monitoring of appetite I am not sure they will ever get to live in the same pen together. We'll see. Spring continues to grow like crazy-she makes poor skinny Wiggles look so small!

Everyone else seems to be doing relatively well although if Oreo and Legend don't start sleeping quietly until time to get up they are going to find themselves on the other end of the house!

This is our barn cat Lefty hanging out on the landscaping blocks.