Lots of Things Come With Training...

for a marathon. Like, sore knees and legs, lots of sweating, and this:

Last night, this little guy started following me on my run. He ran next to me and in the road and when I reached the main road with a 45 mph speed limit, he was still with me. I was able to grab him to see if he had any identification... nope. So we walked down to the local wine shop to borrow a phone to call E. He and the girls came to pick us up and we searched for his owners to no avail. So, he came home with us. Sophie and the girls loved playing with him.

This morning, we took him to the vet to see if he had a microchip... and thankfully, he did. They called the owner and I spoke with him and offered to drop 'Jack' off. He was very happy to have him back. When the owner opened the door to go back inside, Jack escaped again. He was able to chase him down so Jack is now back home, safe and sound for the time being.

Mystery Solved!

After several emails back and forth between Sophie's previous owner and me, the strange mystery has been solved. I figured that I would share because if any of you are like me, you need to know.

Apparently, his marriage of 13 years just recently ended. The house where he is living, is owned by one of his good friends, and he is renting the basement. Once his affairs are in order, he is heading back to England.

Ahhh... now it all makes sense and I guess they're right about what they say when you assume things.

And on a side note, I took Sophie to the vet today just to put to rest our post-Isis jitters. Dr. Adam said that she looked great but is in need of LOTS of exercise, but we already knew that.

Have a great weekend!

Fate?

I'm not really sure what to call it... so I am going with fate.

The day after we had to put Isis down, I was speaking with a parent at e's school... which I guess I never told you how we solved our dilemma. OK, quick sidetrack...

We found a part-day private Kindergarten for e. It's at one of the church's here and is from 9-12 everyday. It's perfect. She gets to go for the morning, learn something and hang out with friends and then in the afternoon, her and I get to hang out while KK sleeps. In the fall, we are going to re-start her in Kindergarten, either at the school in our backyard, or the charter school. Not sure about that one yet, but we have plenty of time to decide.

Alright, back to fate...

I was speaking with a parent at e's school and told her that we had to put Isis down. The next day, she told me that she had heard from a friend of a friend, that a man was moving to England and had a 2 year old lab that he was looking for a family for and wanted to tell me about it first because of our situation.

I mentioned it to E, but neither of us thought much of it at the time. Then we started talking more, and you all know what happens when we start talking and thinking...

So, we decided to email the guy and just get a feel for him and the dog. We emailed back and forth and he told us that she was a really sweet dog, was house and invisible fence trained. He told us that he works 10-12 hours a day and it's not fair to her to be left alone. He also might be moving back to England where there is a 6 month pet quarantine. And he sent us this picture...
Obviously, a puppy picture, but look at that face.

After more emails and questions, we were informed that it would be an adoption, not a sale, and she would come with everything. Oh yeah, she's spayed too. Now, with our history of all things strange, we didn't think twice. 'Cuz why start now??

We arranged to drive 2 hours north of us to meet them. They were outside waiting for us. We talked outside for awhile and then proceeded inside... first to the garage where all of her supplies were waiting (toys, food, bowls, etc.) and he told us that he didn't remember the name of the food because his girlfriend buys it. We then went inside, he put the dog downstairs and we went into the family room where we were introduced to two girls, older than ours, and told one was upstairs. His girlfriend also poked her head down at one point to say, 'Hi.'

Hmmm, OK, so I was sort of under the impression that this guy was single. But while sitting on the couch in a really awkward conversation, I looked around at the pictures where there was one with him and his girlfriend and the three girls. Back to this in a minute.

So, we decided that she was the one and we were going to become dog owners once again, much sooner than expected.

Meet Sophie
a 2 year old, REALLY black lab, in need of a couple of work-outs but has the cutest face ever.

When loading her into the car, the guy was tearing up because it is SO extremely hard to let a pet go. But no one else came out of the house, no one else said good-bye. This is one part of the whole thing that I cannot wrap my brain around and I don't think I ever will, no matter how much I obsess about it. I mean, is the dog always alone at home? What about the kids and the girlfriend? Did they recently become involved? I will never know.

Anyway... she LOVES to play tug of war, and her and e have become fast friends. Sophie will drag e all around the house with e laughing the whole time.

She does have some bad habits, not her fault, so we will be doing some re-training over the next... well however long it takes to undo and redo. It should be a fun challenge.

And she also came with this on her collar. Fate or something else??

Thank You!

I just wanted to thank all of you for you thoughts and prayers for our sweet Isis. It was greatly appreciated.

Everyone is doing much better and the girls speak to her daily by looking up at the sky. How innocent they are... I wish we all could recapture that.

Stay tuned... we have something up our sleeves...

We're crazy, we like adventure...

it's one crazy adventure we're on.

I'm a dork and E is hanging his head in shame...

The Life & Times of Isis

It is with a heavy heart that I write this entry. After a long month of trying to figure out what was going on with Isis, we ended up having to put her down this afternoon.

After our wonderful day at the beach, she just wasn't the same. We thought that all the activity wiped her out, but when she didn't eat and moved very little the next day... we realized something was wrong. Our Vets were on vacation, so I took her to a different animal hospital and was told that she may have hip dysplasia and we were sent on our way with anti-inflammatories and a $290 estimate for sedation x-rays.

We didn't agree with the diagnosis and made an appointment a couple of days later with the fill-in vet. Both she and the vet tech agreed that she was showing signs of a tick-borne illness (E had pulled a tick off her that previous Sunday) and we were given pain medication and antibiotics. After 3 days with no sign of improvement, we saw our regular vet, who also agreed with the tick-borne illness diagnosis and he decided to increase the antibiotic dose to see what happened. Again, no noticeable improvement was seen. It was like a light switch was turned off and our puppy turned into a old dog... she no longer wanted to play or run.

Another call to the vet was made and we decided to do x-rays to see if there was something that had been missed. The diagnosis that came back was Panosteitis... which is inflammation of the long bones. Basically, growing pains for a dog. We switched pain medication and were told that we should see improvement in the next couple of weeks. The following week, she seemed to be doing better... she was learning to shake paws and was constantly wanting to shake. She even picked up a few toys to play with.

Then the past 3 days, she was steadily getting worse. She started whining and yelping when she would get up. The night before last, she was clearly in pain as her yelping increased during the night. Yesterday, I called the vet and got more pain medication since she spent the whole day being extremely uncomfortable. When I spent last night physically carrying her up and down the deck stairs, I decided to take her in today.

Needless to say, the news wasn't good. The thought is that there was neurological damage and we could have gotten a MRI or taken her to a specialist for a second opinion. The specialist is located in VA and I could not stand the thought of driving her a long way when the 10 minute drive to our vet had her in terrible pain.

I called E and we discussed it and decided that we needed to end her pain... which was a horrible decision to have to make. But I believe that we did indeed make the right one. The past few days have been so hard to watch her cry out and not be able to do anything for her.

She was loved by this family and will be sorely missed.

Cuddled up on the couch with her blanket to be more comfortable.

One of the last shots taken.

Maryland has not been good to us on the pet front. It is so hard to have to explain death to the kids. Our ever sweet and emotional e wanted to say this prayer...


'Jesus, please help my dog. Feed her, let her sleep and drink. Please take care of her and train her too. Amen.'

Adventures in Potty Training Part 3

As most of you know, this has been an unusual progression in potty training for KK. If not, catch up with the first installment or the second installment of Adventures in Potty Training.

She continues to surprise us. Her latest thing is pooping on the potty, but not pee. She will tell us that she needs to go and will sit there until she is finished with her business. Backwards, I know.

I put her on the potty the other day and when I came back to check on her, here is how I found her. It made me laugh to see just how interested she was in the dog supply magazine.

And speaking of potty training... the dog is pretty much house trained. Woohoo! But, now that we send her out on her own, we have to go on periodic poop hunts. Turns out that her favorite spot to go is in the leaves... not the easiest place to spot poop. Can you find it? It's like 'Where's Waldo?'

Congrats to kmm for finding the poop. You should be proud!! Something fabulous is coming your way sometime soon! (How's that for specifics??)

By the way, I am sure that my neighbor thinks that I am insane... it's not every day that you see some one walking around with a pooper scooper and a camera. And yes, I already know that you think that I am insane.

First person to find it gets a prize! What's the prize you ask? It's a surprise. Hopefully, it's not a steaming bag of dog poop. Come on, who wants to play?

A Great Day

The nice thing about where we are living now is that we have a wide range of temperatures. One day it can be snowing and the next day will be sunny and in the 60s... we get to experience it all.

This past Sunday was beautiful and we all went for a long walk through the woods and down to the water.
There is a great path just a couple of streets away from our house where you get to see this...
or this... I love scenery.
When you get to the end of the path, you climb down this sturdy ladder to get to the water.
and if you're a little nervous about it, don't worry... someone will be there to help you down.
'It's OK... follow me, girl.'
Everyone had fun playing and running on the beach. Isis played fetch and even took a dip in the water. e collected rocks, as usual... our geologist in the making.
Mom and e even braved the cold water...
to retrieve this beauty.
'Can we come back again?'

Since We Have Nothing Better To Do...

and there is something completely wrong with us, we decided to get a puppy. You see E's parents never got him a dog which he has always wanted. He had been talking more and more about it over the past few years and I was able to successfully hold him off. But now, he has enlisted the help of two little girls to help plead his case. e has been asking since Monterey when we were going to get a dog. She actually decided that it would be OK for Buddy to die so that she could get a dog. KK even would ask, 'can me get a dog Mama?'. And now, we actually have a yard... I didn't stand a chance.

Meet Isis... a not so puppy puppy.

We had been looking everywhere over the past few days and just couldn't figure out how to find a darn dog. All of the breeders we found were hours away and we didn't really want to go to a shelter and get an animal with lots of baggage. We finally looked up the classifieds in the Washington Post and happened to find lots of ads for lab puppies and actually found a lady in our area... just 20 minutes away. She told us that she had 2 female yellow lab puppies that were 12 weeks old. The price was right and we headed out to look... cash in hand.

We pulled up to this beautiful house with horses and dogs... a hobby farm, I guess. It seemed like the perfect place. As soon as we pulled up, we saw the dogs in the 'play yard'... 2 English Bulldogs and 1 yellow lab. Bonnie descended from the porch to greet us, enrobed in soiled barn attire and front tooth protruding ever so nicely. She told us that we got there too quick... she was able to get one of the dogs in the house, but the other was still in the yard. We headed over to meet her. Dog #1 was extremely friendly and excited to see us. She was big, but cute. Bonnie told us that she was going to be 100 lbs. After playing, we headed in to see dog #2. We were warned that she was a little shy and would need to warm up a little bit. Shy might have been an understatement... the dog wouldn't even look at us. She sat there while we petted her and e fell in love with her. She wanted to get her 'because she was sad'. That's our girl... she's going to save the world some day. We somehow convinced her to head outside and take another look at the other dog... we were concerned that a 'nervous' dog would not do well with KK (those that know her will understand that decision). When we stopped petting dog #2, she got up and we noticed that she had soiled herself. Yep, good idea to go look at the other dog.

We decided that she was the one. I paid Bonnie our money, signed some sort of document that said she wasn't responsible for anything... including Parvo (see she was selling the dogs for a friend who was in the process of moving), and we were on our way. After further inspection of the document and the dog, we decided that we should call a vet since we had 48 hours to determine whether or not the dog had a life threatening genetic disorder in order to receive our money back. The people that we are renting from happened to leave all sorts of magnets on the fridge for us, one of which was a number for a wonderful vet. The news we received wasn't so wonderful. Instead of being 12 weeks old, our puppy is actually 4 1/2 months old. Although she was supposedly de-wormed a total of 4 times, she was riddled with round worms. She has juvenile cataracts in her right eye, probably due to blunt force trauma, and will probably lose vision in that eye... unless, of course, we opt to bring her to a doggie ophthalmologist. She also has a severe overbite and we have to keep an eye on the bottom teeth when they come in so that they don't puncture the roof of her mouth. If they don't correct themselves, then capping the teeth is an option.

Did I mention that she smelled? I don't think that she had ever had a bath and had spent her whole life outside in a play yard.

We have made great strides in potty training and stair walking... apparently she had never seen a set of stairs... ever.

With all that though, she is a great dog. We are happy to have her. We feel like we did the right thing... a really expensive pet rescue... and she is so happy to be here.

Introducing...

Hailey 'M' ... named for e's great friends from CA.

We also refer to her as 'Pinkie Pie' (KK has a great love for My Little Ponies and her eyes really are pink).


Why do we have another hamster you ask? Well, after 14 days, 14 states, 3 hotels, 5 relative/friend houses, 4219 miles & 74 hours in the car, our other hamster 'Hamsley/Snow Princess', decided to off herself. Apparently, adventure is the name of her game. Being sedentary just wasn't her thing. E found her the morning after we got to the East Coast, hind end outside of her cage... we have no idea how he did it, but it wasn't pretty.

e was beside herself with the news. We had a full funeral, complete with flowers and remembrances... and a morning full of tears and sorrow.

We headed to the nearest pet shop to find a suitable alternative. What we found was pretty cute... although she is a bit of a nibbler. One crisis averted.


We also lost our cat, again, and spent the last day and a half looking for him. We informed the neighbors, the pet microchip company, and area shelters. This morning he appeared in our bedroom at 2 AM... we couldn't have been happier. There was no way that we were ready to deal with two pet losses in one week.