Pool Time

It was warm enough today to drag out the pool-which Legend thought was a fantastic idea.

Some of these pictures of her shaking off just cracked me up.

I tried to put Trip in but he was not impressed.

Lyric is not interested in the pool

And Barney almost fell asleep watching this fly.

Cute

How could this cutie not be adopted yet? This cutie, however, has started having more accidents in the house. So today we are going to check yet another urine sample.

Handsome boy playing with his ball-a smaller one than normal so it's a more attractive picture. Usually he's got the HUGE one hanging off his face.

The Princess lounging in the sun

I was taking some pictures of the flowers yesterday when Barney decided to pose with them. So here are some cute shots of Barney and the flowers both!

These were all yesterday. Today it's yucky and rainy again.

Good Dogs

You might remember that we were having a problem with Legend peeing on the living room floor overnight so she had to go back to sleeping in her crate. Well lately we have been letting her sleep loose and she has not had any accidents. If she drinks a lot of water before bed or won't go out last thing then we still put her in the crate. But for the most part she's doing well.

Trip is much improved on his potty training troubles. He has not had an accident overnight in quite some time and he's doing much better around the house. Of course as soon as I bragged on him yesterday he had two accidents in the house last night and one in his crate while I was out running errands today. Trip also had a whopping 184 hits on petfinder this week-where are all the applications?

My agility goal for Lyric was to have her in a trial before the end of the year. She seems to be way ahead of that schedule so I think I'm going to plan on entering her in our local NADAC trial in late June. She should be ready for at least some of the classes by then. If nothing else it will be good experience for her.

That just leaves Zodiac-he's always a good boy!

Rainy Day Fun

It's another nasty day here. The temperatures are hovering at the brink of freezing so everything on the ground is slush and there was ice on the trees. But it's melting so now there is just more slush and mud. And it's still raining and windy. I felt so sorry for the horses I let them in the barn to eat. But we don't have any stalls and they seemed to enjoy pulling down the bales of hay and trying to eat those rather than eat the loose hay I put out for them so after about an hour I put them back out. One day we will get some stalls finished-it won't take much, there is a place where some used to be but the previous home owners took out the partitions and gates.

Anyway here are some fun pics to brighten up this dreary day. As promised, some more cute pics of Trip and his blankie.

One from the other day when it was nice and dry and kind of warm.

And now a real blast from the past. I found this when cleaning my closets. It's from Cross Country districts my senior year of high school.

Gloomy

Our two days of sun have vanished. Today is chilly and rainy. I guess it's actually snowing in a lot places. Not sure if that's better or worse. Anyway, it makes for a lazy weekend inside. The dogs got a chance to work some obedience inside. Lyric got to proof some stays, Legend worked open exercises and Zodiac got back to articles. It's funny-he gets it right the first time but then struggles if you ask for the same one again. Maybe I trained him to think after he does one right we are switching to the other material (metal then leather and vice versa). So we are spending some time working on that issue.

On the good news front, after four weeks of Clavamox and countless trips outside,Trip is doing significantly better on both house and crate training. He is having way fewer accidents and as a result has been enjoying spending most of today out of his crate. Which is good because it's rainy and he can't play outside today. He actually played long enough to lay down in the living room. Only took about three hours!

Doesn't he look cute on his new blanket. I have some other cute ones but they are still on my camera. If they turn out well I may post them another day. This one is just from my phone.

SUN!

Today was the first sunny day since we have been back from our trip. And I was off work! But before we could enjoy the day I had to take Legend to get caught up on vaccines before agility class starts and pick up all our dog and cat food I had ordered. Then a few more errands and it was back home to play!

Legend is still working on weave poles. I'm happy to say she is nailing almost all entrances. She is slowly improving on driving through all the poles without me. It's a work in progress. She will eventually get it but sometimes it takes her several tries. We tried to work obedience after agility and that was a flop. She was all worked up from agility and just acted like retrieving the dumbell was something we'd never even tried before. It was a little weird because she usually loves the dumbell. But maybe she was stressed about the weave pole work-heaven forbid she have to think about something! And then I was getting frustrated so we just stopped for the day.

Zodiac had an OK practice. Lyric was the only true star today. She did a whole circle of obstacles-jumps with a tunnel and tire interspersed- without going around any of them and allowing me bit of lateral distance. Not a lot-but enough that if the jump had wings I wouldn't crash into it!

I have two colors of crocuses blooming now. But I'm glad not too much stuff is budding because it's supposed to freeze and snow this weekend.

A Princess Party

Sunday was Kennedy's first birthday party-her birthday is later in the week if you can believe that! Kristen picked a princess theme-perfect for this sweet little girl.

No party girl is complete without the perfect purple dress!

Here she is getting her crown-she did manage to get it on by herself. Sort of. I think this is one of my favorite party pics.

Kennedy enjoyed the presents and having all her friends over, but she really enjoyed cake.

Specifically, icing!!

She liked it so much she cried when they took it away! Now that's a kid I can relate to!

Wash rag anyone?

Vegas

I didn't mention this before I left but we have spend the last several days in Vegas for Jerry's birthday. We got back last night. We visited the Hoover Dam-here is a picture of Lake Mead, formed by the dam. We went on the dam tour, took some dam photos, and saw a lot of other dam tourists. Seriously, that never gets old.

Here is the new bridge they are building to eliminate traffic over the dam.

We stayed at the Excalibur. It was nice but the rooms are a little lackluster. I guess they want you down in the casino, shops, and restaurants.

Here is the Excalibur at night-pretty cool.

Here a few views of the strip

This is where the TV show Pawn Stars is filmed. The show has increased the shop's popularity so much that you have to wait in line to get in. When we went during the day we didn't have time to wait in line so we came back later and it was closed. Only the pawn window is open 24 hours. But at least we got to peek in the doors and windows.

We also did some shopping, gambling (broke even) and spend a little time at the hotel pool and hot tub-barely warm enough for this. We went to the four story M&M world which was pretty neat. I've never seem so much M&M stuff in my life.

On a more somber note one of our pot-bellied pigs, Spadias, passed away while we were gone. He seemed not quite himself before we left but declined quite quickly while we were gone. His companion seems to be handling it ok-she still wanted to eat and graze like normal.

Senior Wellness Revisited

Previously I wrote about senior wellness screening that your vet may want to perform on your pet. Today we are going to revisit senior wellness but from a "what can I dog at home?" perspective.

1. Lump and Bump check: Once a month feel all over your dog, checking for new lumps that may be under or on the skin. Many of these may be benign age related changes but only a quick needle biopsy can tell for sure. Also check for lumps under the chin, armpits, groin and behind the knees (back legs). These are places were lymph nodes are and enlarged lymph nodes are also something that needs to be checked out right away.

2. Dental care: If you are able it’s best to brush your dog’s teeth. If you can’t then at least try to take a quick look in the mouth and look for obvious signs of disease-heavy tartar, red or bleeding gums, irregular gum tissue or tumors.

3. Diet: Feed your older dog an appropriate diet. Your vet may prescribe a prescription diet if you pet has certain diseases like kidney failure, heart failure, or diabetes. But even if they don’t have a specific condition older pets have different metabolic needs and will need a quality senior diet.

4. Exercise: Just because your dog is older and less active doesn’t mean he should become a couch potato. Light exercise is still good to keep the muscles strong and joints loose. Go for shorter walks if needed or don’t throw the ball as far or as much but still let them exercise. Keeping your older dog lean will lessen the problems he or she may have with arthritis as well.

5. Weight: Monitor and write down your pet’s weight every month or so. When we see our pet every day it’s harder to notice a gradual weight loss or gain. But both of these changes, especially weight loss can indicate a serious problem that needs to be addresses.

6. Supplements: Two supplements that I think are great for any older dog are Glucosamine/Chondroitin and Fish oil (fatty acids). Glucosamine/chondroitin help slow down the process of arthritis as well as reduce some of the discomfort. My favorite brand is Cosequin or Dasuquin-both from Nutramax laboratories. Since nutracueticals are not regulated many of them don’t contain what they claim they do and may not be bioavailable to dogs. These two supplements are proven to be reputable. Fish oils are anti-inflammatory and are useful for many conditions such as arthritis, heart, kidney, and skin disease.

7. Eating and drinking habits: Keep an eye on your dog's eating and drinking habits. Decreases in eating can be caused by a variety of problems . Unexpected weight loss or gain in relation to appetite are also cause for concern. For example weight loss with good appetite or weight gain with normal to decreased appetite are not normal. Watching the food intake and the weight will help you notice these things. Increased water consumption is also a sign of several age related diseases that need to be further investigated.

New pics

I'm not sure how I like the new header but I guess it will do for now. Here are some pics of Trip from today for his update on the MOKAN website. How cute is he getting?

It was windy today which helped his ears stand up-but I think they will stand on their own before long.

Here are some photoshop things I messed around with today.

Facelift

Since all the expensive things we want to do to the house are on hold we have been doing some mini-projects (painting the bathroom and laundry room). While we were at it we decided to give our kitchen cabinets a facelift and replace the old tarnished handles with new ones. For convenience and financial reasons we neglected to also change the hinges. We had 34 cabinet handles and 11 drawer handles!


We used these for all the cabinets and a more square, simpler design for the drawers

Overall we think it added a nice touch to the kitchen.

These are some more pictures from yesterday. I didn't take any more today but the weather was equally as wonderful and the dogs enjoyed lots of great pay time outside. And now they are tired!!!

I like this photo because you can see the leaf shadow showing through the petals.

Barney-supervising.

Squirt-up close

This is the same photo as yesterday but with slightly different "special effects"

Spring is on the way!

It was a great day here-warm and sunny with no mud! A perfect day take pictures and then play with Photoshop. But it wasn't all playing. I got the last of the closets cleaned out and worked all the dogs. Everyone did great again! I won't bore you with all the training details but here are some pictures from today to enjoy!

Not recommended

So I started the laundry room project today. And although it only took me one day it did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. At first I thought I would get away with just one coat of yellow paint. Then as it dried I noticed some spots that needed touched up. So I touched up and let it dry more. The next time I checked on it I thought the whole thing looked really streaky and bad. So another coat went on. It looked really good after that.

On to the grapes. Let me just say that the spongy stamp thing-definitely not recommended. At first I thought I could dip it in the paint, blot off the excess and go to painting. That didn't work at all. I found I needed to brush a light layer of paint on it with a sponge brush and then stamp it on the wall. But not enough paint and it didn't leave a good imprint. Too much paint and it would run and leave a "tail." And better yet if the paint or the pressure wasn't even you could get both in one stamp!

Overall I'm a little disappointed but I can live with it because it's a laundry room-and it's definitely more interesting than the off white walls that we had. But if it were anything other than a laundry room I would have stopped and continued a search for a stencil or something that worked better.

Actually if you don't look close and obsess over it then you don't notice the imperfections so much. But of course I have been obsessing a little. It will probably be even less noticeable when we get everything moved back in and on the walls.

While the paint was drying I got to spend some time outside with the dogs. Everyone did great!