Busy

That is what we have been lately. Seems we have something going on every night and then we spent the weekend in Nashville and got back very late on Sunday night. Saturday we visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and did some sight-seeing and shopping topped off with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Sunday we wen to the Vikings/Titans game. The Vikings lost (that's who we went to see-Jerry is a big fan) and we got plenty baked sitting in the direct sun and 80 degree heat for 4 hours! It was still a fun trip though. The top picture, obviously, is the Titan's Stadium-L.P. Field and the bottom one is at Centennial Park in Nashville. It's a beautiful day here so I better go take the dogs outside for awhile!

Test photo

-- Post From My iPhone

Test

With this program I should be able to blog from my iPhone

-- Post From My iPhone

Fall

Jerry suggested we do some decorating of the house for fall so today I actually dug out a few fall decorations I had bought a few years ago as well as digging around to find this ceramic light-up Halloween decoration I had painted years ago (I mean a lot of years ago!). The lightbulb still works!



I also picked up some mums while at the grocery store today to use for the front porch. I stuck this one in the middle of a welcome sign we already had and then added a few bundles of straw I made from stuff we have in the barn and ta-da....

Our every day welcome sign is now "seasonal"

Then I planted the other one in my metal wash tub. I usually plant pansies in it in the spring but I tried seeds this year and it didn't work. I added some more straw to complete the autumn theme.

Here is how it all looks together

Moving Day

Today Jelly moved to the garage. We found that she has been peeing on the bedroom carpet where the dog beds used to be. So that officially makes the laundry, dog beds, couch, chair, carpet and a new jacket. We love her but we can no longer live with closing doors, covering furniture and removing all access to cloth in the house. I feel bad about it-this is, after all, a cat that studied with me many hours while in vet school and has slept on my pillow
for a large part of her 7 years with us. But what else could we do. We have tried everything short of medication over the last few years and since she is very difficult to catch, handle and medicate that is not a very viable option. May not work anyway. She should, however, be able to come in for periods of time when we have the bedroom doors shut and we are using or watching the couch. This would eliminate most problem areas and give her a chance to hang out with us look out the windows. And we don't have to put her outside where she would not know what to do and may not end up getting hurt or worse.

In other news of the week...

Wednesday: Legend had agility class and although she was very fired up and it was cool she did pretty well.

Thursday: I started a new session of obedience classes at work. I usually limit it to about 8 dogs but this time I had 11 that wanted in. People always end up missing class or dropping out so I figured that even it it starts out pretty crowded it will end up ok. Plus I didn't have to turn anyone away and since I get paid for each dog it's good for me too!

Friday: Mostly cleaning house and then my sister arrived for a visit.

Saturday: We all went to Silver Dollar City and then did some shopping.

Sunday: Headed up to Cider Days (not terribly impressive) in downtown Springfield to look at crafts. Then said good-bye to Jackie and headed to Best Buy for my early birthday present-the new iPhone which is very cool!

Just Pictures

Here are some non-altered pictures of Squirt from yesterday.

And here are some pictures Leslie took at the concert last week.

While we were gone...

We lost these big limbs in a storm. The one on the right broke away from the tree and landed with the base in the opposite direction (the tree it came from is to the right of the picture)

I'm not sure how long it's supposed to take to grow carrots-but I planted these earlier in the year, neglected them for several months and dug them up today. I think they are supposed to be bigger that this. I'll wait a few weeks and dig up more of them-maybe they will keep growing. They are just for the rabbits anyway. I hate carrots.

Here are some more fake artwork pictures of Squirt. The first one is oil and the other pencil-obviously. Isn't he a handsome subject.

If you will notice I have added a few new features to this blog. You can sign up to "follow" this blog-which really only serves to make me feel special. Also I have compiled a list of veterinary related posts I have written and will add to them as I go along. I have chosen this option instead of writing an entirely different blog. Less time consuming.

Baptism

Jerry and I were recently chosen to be Godparents to his cousin Alex (the little guy in the picture) and this weekend we traveled to Lawrence, KS (I know-Jayhawk country :( ) for the big day. It went very well although, admittedly, it's really not that tough to stand up front and answer a few questions. We were pretty excited just to be asked though-neither one of us have been Godparents before.

In other news the BCSA specialty is fast approaching and I don't think Zodiac will be ready for obedience. We are getting closer though-he can discriminate with all 6 metal dumbbells (pretty well) but leather is throwing him off a little. Go-outs and signals are getting iffy again. It's always something. Legend's weave poles have been improving though and so hopefully we will have a great fall agility season.

Also for anyone who is not an All Creatures client but would like to read our new newsletter, go to the All Creatures website (link is listed to the right) and click on newsletters on the left sidebar. You can download it from there. We will be having one every quarter.

Poets & Pirates Tour 2008

Linda, Leslie and I attended the Kenny Chesney concert in St. Louis last night and it was awesome. We were worried about the forecast of rain-especially when we got there and found out our seats were just outside the covered pavilion. It did sprinkle throughout the opening act-Miranda Lambert. But it cleared out for the next three hours while Kenny played. We got to hear lots of our favorites plus about 45 minutes of Kenny doing classic hits of other artists including Tom Petty, Dave Matthews, George Strait, and U2. The concert did not get over until after midnight. It did pour on the way home and we didn't get much sleep before we had to drive back to Springfield this morning to work in the afternoon but it was definitely worth it.


In other news, Sue over at Portuguese Waterblog has given me this award. I would like to forward it on to fellow agility lovers over at ManyMuddyPaws, 4 Dog Craziness, and Cardiparty!

Ears

Over my few years in veterinary practice I have noticed there are a lot of common misconceptions about ear infections pets. Here are some of those myths demystified-all through the use of real life examples!

1. Ear infections in dogs (especially dogs living inside with no cat contact) are almost never caused by ear mites. Therefore treating your dog with a 3 week course of OTC ear mite medicine prior to seeing the veterinarian is not an appropriate course of action. Also, as more recently suggested to me, ants do not cause ear infections.

2. If any of the following have occurred the problem probably did not start "yesterday"

a) Your pet's ear canal is thickened, narrowed, or deformed

b) There is pus draining from your dog's ear

c) There is blood coming from the ear

d) All of the above

3. The following substances are not likely to be appropriate home remedies for an infection

a) Tap water
b) Alcohol

c) Hydrogen Peroxide

d)Hand cream

e)Cigar smoke

f) The expired bottle of Amoxicillin drops you had leftover from a sick cat

I hope this has been as entertaining and educational for you as it was for me. I'm sure I could have endless stories and information like this if I kept track and have contemplated writing a veterinary themed blog but am not sure I have time. So let me know if anyone thinks that would be worthwhile or interesting to them or what they would like to read about if I did ever pursue writing another blog.

Bath Day

Sunday was bath day at our house. It was quite overdue-they were getting pretty ratty, except Zodiac because he had a bath before therapy last week but he got bathed again. They are all so pretty and shiny and soft now. Here are some pictures of Zodiac in the sunshine today. They would have really looked pretty except for his tongue flopping around in all of them. He's such a beautiful dog with a great coat but he is sadly not very photogenic.

This cute little girl is Skylar-she is available for adoption through MOKAN BC Rescue. We are watching her this week while her foster mom is out of town on vacation. She is very energetic-she and Legend have had a good time playing together since she got here last night.

Cooler weather

Tonight was a beautiful evening and so we all spent a lot of time outside. Zodiac worked on utility-he was totally confused by doing leather dumbbells instead of metal. Earlier this week he was working all 6 metal ones like a pro. Go outs and directed jumping were pretty good and signals were good except for the sit-instead of sitting up he was creeping forward and lying back down. I worked him on a little agility too since he has to get through at least 2 more courses. Then Legend worked some agility. We have been working her contacts since after not working much this summer she seems to want to blow through them. So we did some targeting and then some jump sequences-which
were awesome. Then they all played ball. Here are some cute
pictures from today. This cat is Lefty-he is prowling in the pig pen.


I noticed when the horses came in tonight that Squirt was already just a little bit fuzzy-he didn't even get one good bath this summer-it just went by too fast!
















This is what Icy was doing the other day while I was typing. Tonight she has been in and out of my lap the whole time. She's so helpful.

Old Dogs Pant

They just do. Sometimes I can explain it. Some dogs have heart problems or pulmonary disease or endocrine disease all of which could cause "panting." But sometimes old dogs just pant for no reason. Oreo is one. He has always panted and acted hot a lot but with age it just gets worse.

He pants when it's hot. He pants when it's cold. He pants when he's tired, not tired, anxious, nervous, hungry, thirsty, or bored. Sometimes he wakes up and just suddenly starts panting. This can make it hard to watch TV or sleep but what are you gonna do. Just part of life I guess. I got a sample at the CVC of one of the many "herbal" anxiety remedies that people try to sell. I don't know how well any of those work but they generally appear safe so I thought I'd try it to see if he panted less or slept better. Results were inconclusive. Oh well-we still love him!

This picture was taken the other evening-it's getting dark too soon!

End of summer

We had a really good Labor Day Weekend. We got some things done around the house and got to have some fun too. We went to White Water on Sunday (the first time this summer!) and then since we were already wet headed over to Celebration City to ride their new ride Roaring Falls. This is a fun enough ride but I'm pretty sure the main point is to get wet. All you do is ride the boat up the hill, around the corner and come splashing back down. And believe me, you get really wet!

Yesterday we headed to the beach (trying to get all our water fun in at the last minute). We found out the beach was officially closed due to flood damage from earlier this year but lots of people were parking at the boat dock and heading over anyway so we followed suit. The facilities need some work and maintenance but for a picnic and swimming it was ok.

I finally got the throw rug replaced in the rabbit enclosure. This was traumatic for Spring because it involved a lot vacuuming which she is afraid of but we got it done. Here is apicture of the two of them huddled in the corner during the "remodeling." It's not the greatest size comparison because Spring is hunched up. Anyway, here they are in their upgraded pens. It looks so much better, I hope they don't start shredding it right away! It looks so good it really makes me wish we could get new carpet in all of our house!

Zodiac gets to start his new therapy assignment today. We will be visiting the children's hospital instead of the assisted living facility. I think we will really enjoy that. Plus we get to go with another team instead of alone so that will be fun.