New Puppies!!

Will post info on puppies later, just wanted to get some pics up!

Ouch!!

At about 8:30 this morning I get a call from Houston's teacher on my cell phone. I know it can't be good. If it wasn't a big deal, she would have called the home phone first. Seems Houston and one of his friends were horsing around in line when they were walking outside after breakfast. Houston tripped over his friend's feet and face planted on the concrete. He cut up both of his lips, scrapped under his nose and his forehead, plus scrapped both elbows and knees. The first picture I took of him after lunch when he fell asleep on the sofa (don't worry, the smears extending from his mouth is just pizza sauce). The other picture I took about three hours later. I wish I had a picture right after it happened when the swelling was really spectacular, but the camera battery was charging.

Shiloh

I know that I won't be able to do this tomorrow, so I am doing this tonight. Tomorrow afternoon, we have a 3:45 appointment with the vet. We have made the decision to put Shiloh down. This has been heart wrentching for us. We have struggled with this for the last 6 months. For those who don't know...Shiloh has a congenital defect. It is a called a luxating pattella. Basically her knee-cap dislocates on a regular basis. I can pop it back in, or by streching her leg out she pops it back in herself. Yes, this can be very painfull. We have been doing home treatments for her for almost two years. I have talked to two different vets plus other owners of great pyrs who have had this problem. There is a surgery to correct it. We oppted not to persure surgery for several reasons. It is not always successful. There is a minimum recovery time of 12 weeks that Shiloh would have had to stay confined unless we were taking a potty break and then only 5 minutes on her feet at time. With bigger dogs you run the risk that they over compenstate with their good leg during the recovery time and end up damaging the good leg. One great pyr owner ended up have to do two knee surgeries plus a hip replacement to correct the problem. In addition to that, we just can't afford $2000 worth of surgeries. We did our research and the home treatment we chose was the same that you would use for and older, arthritic dog. She was given 2000mg of glucosomine, fish oil, and flaxseed oil twice a day. After a year of this is when her leg became more painful and we started pain meds. She was given tramadol everyday and rimadyl on extra bad days. We've noticed increasingly in last few months, that she is slowly getting worse. You would have to be with her every day to see this. When she is in motion, she is ok. But when she stands still her back legs shake (we suspect that her good leg is now starting to be affected) and she has a harder time getting up after she has been laying down more than a couple of minutes. Sometimes, all she can do is lay there and wag her tail. I can tell that she wants to get up and come over to me but she just can't. We love her and that is why we are doing this. She is already in pain, and it is not fair to let it continue.

First Hair Cut

These pictures are from Feb. 3. I think one of my favorite feature of the digital camera, is that it tells me when the picture was taken. I have a whole desk drawer of pictures from when Houston was little(r), pre-digital days, that I have no idea when I took them. Anyway...These are from Feb. when I got tired of Lorelei always having to push her hair out of her eyes.



Wow! It only took her three years, but she FINALLY grew some hair.


After she calmed down, she managed to smile and show off her hair cut. She was very patient and even though she cried the whole time she stood very still while I cut her bangs.





Now you can see just how uneven they were. After Lorelei was done posing for the camera (there are about 5 more pictures of her acting goofy with her new hair cut) I got some sharper scissors and evened them up. She enjoys being able to see.

Stay tuned for pictures of Lorelei's new 'do!

Cryptic Message

After we got the new truck, Brian really wanted vanity plates. He wanted "CRODADY" but I vetoed that. We both have to drive it and I refrained from getting "CROMOMY" plates on the van since he had to drive it, too. So he told me his top choices, and told him mine. A few that were considered: (AR plates lets you use 7 letters and/or numbers)

C130TRP

CROFMLY

4DAKIDS

Here is the one that Brian practically begged and pleaded for and I gave in. Can you figure it out??

New Truck

I'll have to take some more pictures soon. The truck has a new tow hitch and shiny green valve stem caps on the tires. These are special caps because today I had the trucks tires filled with nitrogen.