Student Driver?

Any time I ever get outta the car Ginger takes the opportunity to keep my seat warm...separation anxiety for sure!

Ginger's 1st Christmas!

Today is Ginger's 1st Christmas and even though my immediate family had decided to conserve money and skip the gift-giving this year and instead just get together and enjoy each other's company I had to get the pups a little something! I bought 2 identical wish-bone shaped Nylabones that are made for chewing and teeth cleaning (not edibles) that I found for only 4 bucks each! I also bought two plush squeaky toys (one for each pup)...one was a squawking mallard duck and one was a high pitched squeaky squirrel. The girls were crazy excited when I got out their new toys...I gave them the bones first and waited an hour or so before giving them the stuffed toys so they could have time to chew before we played! They played for hours...but we'll see how long that "newness" lasts! Sadly it rained almost all day so most of our playtime happened in the house but they didn't seem to mind much. Then around 3pm the sky cleared up somewhat so I strapped on some Rollerblades and harnessed up the girls so that we could all get outta the house and get some exercise! I bladed and they pulled and ran for a solid hour and by the time we got home believe it or not they still wanted to play! I threw the ball for them for another 20 minutes or so in the backyard then fed them dinner, took a quick shower, and then left for my mom's house for our Christmas dinner and mom's birthday mini-celebration. I don't know what got into everybody but I don't think the 5 of us (me, mom, Wayne, Sherry & Matt) have laughed so hard in a long time...seriously an innocent bystander would've thought we were drinking and we weren't! It was a very fun night and yet it was a simple get together. Merry Christmas everyone...and Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Saved a Dog...on a Rainy Day!!!

So it's two days before Christmas and Leah and I had taken Baylie, Ginger, and Dakota to the dog park and in the beginning it was a bit cloudy and a tad windy but after an hour it started to get misty...then sprinkly...and after another 30 minutes or so everybody was cold and wet so we'd decided to call it a day. As we were leaving it began raining enough the windshield wipers became necessary. I was stopped at the light at Olive Drive and Fruitvale when Baylie barked in my ear. I realized she was barking at a beautiful big yellow male Labrador who was running across Olive drive through traffic. Luckily for him, he came running up to my car when he heard the bark. I hit my hazard lights and jumped out of the car. He had a collar but no tag, but there was a little piece of yellow plastic on the ring that looked like the same color my girls have that is for their microchip tag number! Anyways, he was nice to me and let me pet him with tail wagging and a smile on his face so I opened the back of my car and put him in! I just assumed in this nasty weather he was sure to get hit when someone couldn't stop in time with the wet roads! I then drove strait to the Coffee Road Animal Hospital (because it was the closest vet I could think of). I walked in and asked if they could scan him to see if he had a microchip and at first they couldn't find anything...but I insisted they try again because it looked like he used to have the yellow tag and sure enough, a number popped up! The desk clerk contacted the pet watch number to see if he was registered and got a contact number. We got ahold of the owner and she said her and her son were out of town! Luckily her husband had to work and hadn't left yet, but didn't get off work until 3 pm (currently it was almost 1 pm). Long story short, I gave the wife my name and number and told her I'd take the dog home with me and await her husband's call...I almost forgot to ask her the dog's name (figured that would be important considering I inherited a third dog for the next two hours). Once we got home we played ball in the back yard while we waited...Ginger really liked "Drake-o" (spelling?)...Baylie didn't mind him as long as he didn't sniff her hind-side! The funniest part was that he had clearly NEVER used a doggie door before...we had to show him how to get outside! So, the story had a happy ending...his owner came and picked him up from my house just after 3 as his wife said he would...he was very thankful and Drake-o had so much fun playing with the girls that we had to convince him to go home!

Almost as good as new!!!

Well...mom and I are first time re-upholsterers and I have to say we did a pretty darn good job!!! Unless you REALLY inspect it, or knew how bad it looked after Ginger ate it for a mid-day snack...you'd never even notice it is a patchwork masterpiece! It took approximately 3 weekends in a row to hand stitch each section of the couch...pushing a 4 inch needle through folds of fabric limited the number of hours per day mom's hands could take the punishment. I bought "pleather" from the fabric store, all the foam, needles and thread and thanks to "Black Friday" I got a pretty good deal and repaired the couch for under 60 dollars!!! The crappy part was that it isn't as strong as leather so sometimes the staples or stitches would rip out so it took a lot of careful consideration on how to go about the stitching process. The dumbest thing that happened during the process was me stapling in a lit flashlight! You see...I'd taken off the felt that covers the underside of the couch to do some mending from the inside and couldn't see well so I propped up a flashlight inside. I got the job done and it looked so good I got excited and then re-stapled on the felt and screwed on the feet and flipped the couch upright. A few minutes later mom was in a tight spot and needed extra light to see and then it hit me...UH...the damn flashlight is stapled INSIDE the couch! Ooops! :) Anyways, after that slight blonde moment setback we made quick progress, had some ingenious ideas for spray glue and staples to accompany the stitching and we're done! It is surely good enough to last until Ginger is out of the puppy stage and I save up enough buy new couches someday! Enjoy the Before and After!!! (Thanks again Mom! This couldn't have been done without you!!!)

Benadryl...Never Leave Home Without It!!!

So the other day I was watching a pre-recorded DVR session of that new show "The Doctors" and they were doing a special on what every person should always carry in their medicine cabinet and/or purses especially if they have loved ones with known allergies. The spoke about various cold medicines, thermometers, pain and fever reducers, allergy meds, bandages, gauze etc. Then for people with severe allergies they said you should invest in an epi-pen. Anyways, this show came on TV just a few weeks late for me but it made me remember my scary event! It was the Thursday after Thanksgiving I believe, and I got home around 5:30 and noticed that when the girls came in the house Ginger looked "different, tired, or even old...her eyes just weren't right!" I just wrote it off and assumed she'd been asleep and had just woken up when I got home. So, I fed the girls dinner and started making mine when I heard Ginger rubbing her side down the entire hallway and then she went out to the futon and was burring her face in the pillows and when I got her attention and saw her face I was HORRIFIED! In the matter of less than 5 minutes she had broken out in a crazy allergic reaction and I could literally watch new bumps pop up on her face, head, and along her rib cage! I could tell she was terribly uncomfortable and itchy...but the part that really scared me was that her poor nose was swelling up so much I was worried about her breathing! Ginger is a pup that hardly ever pants even when running and she was clearly breathing out of her mouth already! With the time (almost 6 pm) I knew my only option was the outrageously expensive emergency vet if I couldn't get the reaction to stop! I'd used the last of the children's Benadryl back during her spay surgery infection...so I threw both girls in the car and jammed to the Rite-Aid on the corner! Ran in and bought the Children's Fast Melt Benadryl times two boxes just in case! I got to the register and ended up in "Chatty-Cathy's" line who makes it her duty to talk as much as a manicurist!!! I'm on the phone with my mom at the time talking loud and frantic enough for the dumb woman to hear about me "needing to get the meds to her before she can't breathe" and she STILL had the nerve to tell me about the survey on my receipt that could result in winning a cash prize! I could have cared less at the time...I just needed to help Ginger before I had to pay an arm, leg, and foot at the ER Vet! I had already done the research about the milligram dosage for dogs and knew it was approx. 1 mg per pound of body weight and each of the Fast Melts were 12mg so I gave her 3 to stay on the safe side...and within about half and hour her facial swelling started to go down and within the hour the bumps on her ribs finally went away. The worst part is...I have absolutely no idea what set off the reaction in the first place! I scoured the back yard and even checked with the neighbors on both sides to ask if they had any bug sprayers or something come that was out of the ordinary...and nothing??? So I now keep stock of Benadryl in my medicine cabinet and in my purse in case it happens again when I'm away from home! (PS...not to worry, the pictures were taken AFTER the Benadryl was given to her)...and still the poor thing looked like one of those big green bumpy pickles (without the green part).

Halloween Fun at Work and at Home!

As of Wednesday I had actually come to the decision to get one of those T-shirts that just said something corny like "this is my costume" but the kids kept hassling me about not dressing up and I had plenty of co-workers say they couldn't wait to see what I came up with this year because I always come up with crazy costumes. So I guess I did succumb to the peer pressure of it all and decided not to be so ba-humbug about it and figure out something to wear. I bought new things minimally because it was two days before pay day and I actually have a pretty good stash of wigs and crazy makeup...so I created a costume that seemed to work even though it didn't have a "name". Katie (a friend and co-worker) who always has the spirit to dress up stopped by my classroom in the morning for a quick photo-opp. as "little bo-peep". We then had a pizza party during lunch for the kids in my class and I turned my math classes into a circumference finding pumpkin seed estimating goo factory as some of the kids got to carve pumpkins for the very first time! It was messy but fun on a Halloween Friday! I later came home to deal with trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood so I just left on the costume all day...most of which was fine but the wig gets itchy and hot! I took the time to get a couple of pictures of Baylie and Ginger in their witch costumes and some with me too and answered the door 5 or 6 times for kids I recognized. At around 8 the door bell rang and I peeked out the window to see only a few small feet so I answered the door to surprisingly find about 12 kids on my doorstep and a freakin' van parked across the street none of which I'd seen before! It took so long for me to pass candy out to each kid that eventually Ginger squeezed passed my legs and the crack in the door frame and ran out to "greet" all the people! I wasn't worried about my goofy puppy interacting with the people but I worry if the people are scared of dogs in general...so I quickly finished throwing candy into buckets and then went to get her...at this point I'd had enough stress and decided Halloween was over! I blew out all the pumpkins, turned off the spider lights, and tried to make my house as dark as possible so that people would stop ringing my bell then I riped off the wig and hit the showers to get off the crappy fake makeup and wash away the very LONG day! So Happy Halloween Everyone...it was fun while it lasted!

Houdini strikes again!!!

Well believe it or not the whole get to the vet before work on Thursday and make it back before 4th period (11:45) actually worked! They took Ginger to the back to get the suture line cleaned up and then about 15 minutes later they called me back into an exam room where the Vet met me with Ginger...who was now in an even BIGGER cone that the one I paid 13 bucks for on Monday! The Vet agreed that it was infected and gave us antibiotics but insisted that Ginger was somehow still licking at the incision even with the cone?!? In my opinion this is impossible but it is infected so who knows? I also asked the Vet to give her some kind of pain pill because she's so restless at night that her body is gonna be too weak to fight an infection! THEN...I get home on Friday afternoon at 3 (which was early thanks to it being Highland's home coming) and find Ginger VERY happy without her cone on!!! Yep! You guessed it, my little Houdini somehow chewed the cone off and proceeded to eat off each loop where the tie goes through so that it was impossible to reuse it! Her belly was again raw from licking so I risked my life to pour hydrogen peroxide on it to clean off the gazillion germs she no doubt licked into it! (OK, so that's a bit exaggerated but I'm telling you for a little thing she kicks hard and is quite strong!) Then it was a trip to Pet Co. to buy yet a third cone! At least the Vet exchanged the 1st cone for the bigger one without extra charges but I won't complain over a 13 dollar piece of plastic again because at the pet store I paid 17! O-well...at this point I'll do whatever it takes to get past this...I'd love to sleep in my bed again and not see her in so much distress! It has been 2 days now and thanks to the antibiotics, the pain pills and the children's Benadryl we are surviving...but sleep is still pretty priceless!!! Oh, and PS...Baylie still hates the cone...even her new pretty pink one!!! Four more days and counting for stitch removal...

Miserable and frustrated!!!

AHHHHHH!!! I'm so frustrated...as of tomorrow it will have been one full week since Ginger's surgery and I'm ready to rip the cone off because it is such a pain! Then today her wound is STILL oozing and bleeding...I came home to little gnats bugging her! She looks to me incredibly miserable and it is so hard to see her this way and not be able to fix it for her! When my mom came over to help me hold her to put the hydrogen peroxide on we got a good look at it and it is red and raw and hot...pretty clearly infected! It is obviously bugging her to death because she has been trying to scratch at it so much that she has now caused red raw claw marks on her upper belly. We just can't win...so I've already called my boss and friends at work to help me cover my morning classes tomorrow (Thursday) so I can again take her back to the vet for the second time. I hate having to take more time off work but it can't wait and I just hope I can get in to see a doctor early so I can start her on antibiotics! She was originally supposed to get her stitches out 3 days from now...then when they added the staples the removal date was pushed back until next Wednesday the 29th...who knows how far THIS will set us back (time wise or money wise)?!? We'll see tomorrow...I'm gonna call first thing and then beg for an early appointment! For now she is finally asleep thanks to the last tranquilizer pill that Sherry and Matt gave to me (thank God)...it is the only thing that seems to help her relax! My body is tired of sleeping on the floor each night next to her...but sadly it is the only thing that seems to comfort her and help her relax enough to sleep...only it means I don't sleep that well. Keep your fingers crossed for us that modern medicine can help fix her...because both of us are ready for this to be over and get back to normal!

My Poor Little Cone Head!

Ok, so once again a spay surgery that just doesn't go smoothly. Back when Baylie got spayed she never had any problems with the initial stitching. She didn't lick the wound or pop any stitches...HOWEVER her body couldn't dissolve the interior stitches so that was an extra trip to the vet! Now it's Ginger's turn...as of Friday everything looked pretty good, but by Saturday afternoon one of the stitches had come untied and the wound bled and leaked a bit. By Sunday morning the stitch was gone and sometime during the night she'd licked the wound clean (not good). Anytime I tried to clean the area she whined, squirmed, and kicked me in the face which didn't feel so good! So thank goodness I'd taken Monday off work because I called the vet this morning to let them know that at least one stitch was out and that the area was oozing...and yep, they wanted me to bring her in before 11 am because they thought she might need antibiotics! So we got there around 10 and had to sit in the waiting room for 20-30 minutes. When they came to get her they didn't want me to come back with her...so I waited. Finally, about 10-15 minutes later Ginger comes round the corner wearing a huge white plastic lampshade-style cone! Aww, crap! Now her new rules are that she has to wear the cone 24 hours a day FOR THE NEXT 8 DAYS!!! They also informed me that they had to add "a few" staples to pull her cut back together. Now I don't know about you but I was taught that a "few" meant 3...yeah, well when we got home I counted 8 added staples in addition to her remaining stitches! Well hopefully she won't rip any more out...but with those new stab wounds we are back to having a bloody belly! I worried what would happen when we arrived at home because Baylie is a BIG scaredie cat! Sure enough, Ginger and I walk through the door and Baylie's mohawk on her back goes up and she is barking in her "big girl" bark at poor sulking Ginger! I even tried giving them treats to get them to stand near each other to show Bay that Ginger is not scary--no success at all! Baylie refused to get within 5 feet of Ginger and her alien cone! I felt so bad for poor Ginger because she is running into everything, has a rough time drinking, and turning her head to see things (why they don't make the stupid cones see through is beyond me...it was so opaque that it deleted all of her peripheral vision!), she couldn't even figure out how to lay down and now she's getting barked at! Finally after about an hour and a half of convincing I finally got Ginger to lay down for a nap...she was literally falling asleep standing up because she didn't like the way the cone felt! I also think that the wound is itching as it heals or maybe she feels it oozing...because she does these crazy flinches where she jumps up or turns around in a flash as if something bit her! I just hope that she heals up quickly now because I go back to work tomorrow and I won't be able to comfort her and lord knows Baylie won't help! I can't wait to get her stitches out next week Wednesday the 29th!!! Eight days and counting......wish us luck!!!!

Ginger...outta commission & moving slower for a little while!

Poor Ginger has had 2 rough days in a row! On Wednesday October 15th I took Baylie and Ginger down to the 17 news station for the annual SPCA Unleash Your Love fundraiser. Two years ago I actually got Baylie microchiped at that same event...so when we went the other day I wanted to get a chip put in Ginger and I wanted to get Baylie scanned just to see if her chip was still working right. I feel strongly about the microchip because it actually helped to save Baylie the time the gardeners left the back gate open when we lived off of White Lane. She was caught running down White Lane by a good samaritan who called my cell phone from her PetsMart tag but I was at work and didn't get the call so he then called the 800 number from the 24-PetWatch microchip tag were he got my mother's number (who was listed as my emergency contact). Between the three of us we got Baylie back alive and unharmed! Now I'm even more compelled to pull off the road and pick up dogs running on roadsides with tags...so far I have safely returned 2 dogs to their owners...I just figure karma...what goes around, comes around!


THEN...Yesterday (Thursday October 16th) I dropped off Ginger at 8am at Auburn Animal Hospital for her spay surgery. When I called at 3:30 they said she'd came through the surgery just fine! Luckily the vet allowed me to pick her up by 5:30 that evening with the deal that I'd keep her still and quiet. I arrived about 5:15 and when the nurse brought her out she looked pretty lethargic and pouty (for lack of better terms) but she was medicated so I didn't think much of it. The nurses teased her though, because they said that two seconds prior she had been happy and wagging her tail in the crate round back...but the instant she saw me she put on this pity-party-drama-queen "show" for me! She is feeling and looking better today...still sleeps more than normal but she's much more alert than yesterday! Her little belly looks so funny all shaved and for her sake I hope the hair grows back faster than Baylie's did!!! I'm sure that by tomorrow she'll be back to her old self and it will be my challenge to keep her from playing too rough and ripping out all the stitches!

More Photo Fun...Happy Halloween!

After I got Ginger weighed the other day and found out that she was almost 50 pounds...I decided that I needed some updated photos with her and Baylie now that she's growing out of being a puppy! Putting them side by side it is surprising because even though Ginger still has a puppy face, her body is becoming a dog! She is much more lanky than Baylie ever was...she is just all legs!

Check out my new Halloween collars at http://www.moesdogcollars.blogspot.com/ !