When life gets busy, blogging gets neglected

My friends Ann and Ken were here last week and despite uncooperative weather, we still managed to keep very busy and see some of the sights. I'm still editing photos from that week and hope to post them in the next day or two.

White Spot, the lost-then-found Turtle Gardens dog, was hit by a car while on the run (someone saw this happen, but as White Spot kept on running it was hoped there was no serious damage). A vet exam and xrays revealed he has a displaced hip. It was manipulated back into place, and while surgery may still be necessary, at the moment it seems to be holding its own with rest and rehabilitation. White Spot is now in foster care with Lisa, one of TG's experienced foster homes. You can follow White Spot's recovery and adventures at Lisa's blog, here. (I'm working on a post about keeping newly-adopted dogs safe, but you'll see an excellent photo of White Spot in his 'you-won't-slip-THIS-collar" harness and Martingale combination on Lisa's blog).

The Cowichan and District SPCA is gearing up for its huge annual garage sale, and once again I'm on the team of five or six people responsible for sorting, pricing and packing the goods. And I can tell you, there are lots of great buys to be had - so mark your calendar for May 28th and 29th and plan a trip to Duncan. If you live in this area, please note we are asking for donations of clean, quality goods (no dirty or broken items and no electronics unless they are nearly brand new technology, please, as they don't sell and we just don't have time or space or dump fees to deal with them!). Deadline for donations is May 16th - and we'd prefer them earlier than that as the last month gets crazy busy for us.

The Crofton quarterly newletter, The Glance, for which I wrote articles, is now defunct. My friend Liz (also a Croftonite, a member of my writers' group, and a contributor to the Glance) persuaded me to co-author a regular column with her for a monthly newspaper called the Chemainus Courier. Chemainus is the closest community to Crofton, and famous for its murals. The column will be specific to Crofton and contain information on local events as well as our own opinions/reflections on life in Crofton. Okay, it didn't take much persuasion - all Liz has to do is wave a piece of her amazing chocolate cake (made with quinoa, not flour ) in front of me and I'll do whatever she asks.

Spring has finally arrived, and within a day of my company leaving, all the ornamental cherry trees, forsythia, daffodils, and countless other plants burst into bloom. The dogs and I are enjoying the sunny weather, and my yard is beckoning. Time to start the day.

White Spot has been FOUND!

White Spot has been found and is safe tonight. A company called Petsearchers Canada was hired to assist with the search, and within an hour Al of Petsearchers, with the help of his dog (hey, we need his dog's name - equal credit!), had tracked White Spot and located his sleeping spot. While White Spot slept, Al was able to get close to him and slip the leash on.

Well done, Al and Al's dog! And thanks to everyone who helped out in any way at all. Though a hired company recovered him, it was your posters and sightings that helped keep hope alive and focus the search on the appropriate area. Finding a lost dog is truly a community effort.

And now that White Spot is safely home, I will once again say what I have said a thousand times before on this blog. DO NOT USE A FLAT COLLAR TO WALK A DOG. EVER! If a dog is startled or frightened, a dog can elongate its neck and back out of that collar faster than you can say "SIT!" (unless you have the flat collar so tight that it is painful to the dog). Get a Martingale or a harness with a double safety connection, make sure they are properly fitted, and use them every time your dog is on leash.

I will be posting a blog shortly with some other guidelines specific to newly-placed or newly-fostered dogs. Sadly, White Spot's story is far too familiar, and there are far, far too many dogs getting lost shortly after being rehomed.

More sightings

For those in the White Rock South Surrey area, these are the sightings today:
He has been seen in the woods near Softball City (148th and 20th); in the ravine behind the curling rink and ice rink (moving fast); and at 16th and Anderson behind Centennial Arena. Please - if you live in the area, or can drive to the area, or know anyone in the area - please help.

From the TG blog: "He will come out for the dogs. He understand hand signals – he knows the come signal and a wave to come in signal. Squat down [slowly] and give him the come to me hand signal, he will come to you. He knows that. He s also is “jealous” of other dogs getting petted or treats and will come closer. Please do not grab him – use a leash as a noose if he is allowing petting. He likes other dogs and loves jerky!! And hot dogs. " (www.turtlegardens.org)

Please help if you possibly can!
Phone number for sightings is Dionne at 778-839-5569. Carry your cell and the number, and call immediately if you spot him.

White Spot Sighting!

Finally, after three days without a sighting, White Spot has just been seen very close to the area where he went missing - 148th St. at 20th Ave. in South Surrey.
Unfortunately, the people who saw him were not able to catch him and he slipped away into the woods.
If you live in that area, or have the day off and want to go for a nice walk or bike ride (there are lots of hiking and biking trails around there), please consider doing so. Bring lots of smelly treats, and your own dog if you have one. If you see him, try feeding some treats to your own dog to get him interested. Do not chase him or grab at him - slow and steady, letting him come to you, is the way. He will likely be hungry now, so even dropping a few treats as you slowly walk AWAY from him (like Hansel and Gretal dropping bread crumbs to find their way home), may encourage him to follow you while he identifies that this is a FOOD source. Once he is onto the food, you can slow down and scatter more as he comes closer. Once he is fully engaged with the food and by your side, gently and slowly slip a leash around his neck, slipping the clasp end through the loop in the handle so it will tighten if he bolts.

If you can't help out today, please call or email any friends in that area and see if they can get out there.

Let's get White Spot home safely.

The number to call (immediately, please) if you see him or catch him is: 778-839-5569. Please carry this number and your cell phone with you.

The Border Patrol

Border Collie Patrol, that is. My guestroom is across the hall from the bathroom. One dog tends to sleep in the living room at one end of the hall, and the other dog usually sleeps in the mudroom at the other end of the hall. Seventy-year-old guests need to get up to use the bathroom during the night. And that means crossing the hall.

It plays out something like this:

Guest crosses hallway and enters bathroom. One border collie cross gets up and puts nose to closed bathroom door. Said dog then shoves my bedroom door open: "Mom, mom, someone's in our bathroom! Intruder alert! Intruder alert!"

I tell her to go back to bed, but she is insistent. I decide maybe she needs out, so I get up and head to the back door, but she will have none of it. I close the babygate to temporarily contain her in the mudroom. Guest opens bathroom door and returns to bed. Second collie runs down the hallway and noses open my bedroom door. "Mom, mom, someone was walking around the house! Intruder alert! Intruder alert!"

I tell her to go back to bed, but she is insistent. I get up, try to get her to go outside for a pee but she just runs back and forth between me and the guestroom door to show me where the intruder is hiding.

I take both dogs outside for a pee, hoping to take their mind off the 'intruder'. As we come back in, the cat jumps out of her kitty condo and struts down the hall to the kitchen, meowing all the way. She's no dumb cat - she knows that when the dogs have their pee after a long sleep, it is BREAKFAST TIME!

It is 4:00 AM. I give up trying to sleep and feed the cat. The dogs, of course, are fast asleep at each end of the hallway, confident that Collie Nation is safe from intruders once again.

PLEASE HELP FIND WHITESPOT

Whitespot is a DEAF, newly adopted dog from Turtle Gardens Animal Rescue. He is white with a distinctive black spot on one side. On Sunday, less than twenty-four hours after arriving at his new home, he slipped his flat collar and took off around 20th Ave and 142nd St in South Surrey. He was sighted Sunday night near the South Surrey Rec centre and Softball City, but was not sighted at all yesterday.

This is a deaf northern BC dog who is NOT familiar with traffic and with city life! He has no collar or ID tags. He will be very stressed - first going into rescue, then a very long car ride down to the coast, then a new home, and now lost in surroundings where the scents are completely unfamiliar and he can't hear noises like traffic or people calling.

If you live in or near the White Rock/South Surrey area, please go here, print out the poster, and post it in as many places as you can. Especially post it at entrances to parks and wooded areas and any place dog people go - vets, petstores, etc. as it is often a person walking their own dog who will sight a lost dog. Also post at or near all major intersections and pedestrian walkways. Please watch for him, and if you have a dog take the dog for a walk in that general area. If you see him, DO NOT CHASE HIM. Carry a high-smell treat like liver, freshly cooked chicken (the BBQ ones from the grocery store work well), or sardines so you to try to coax him closer. Also carry your cellphone to immediately call the number on the poster, and a leash in case you have the opportunity to loop it around his neck (do not rush this - get him to come towards you, and distract him with food).


If you do not live in or near the area, please send the TG link, or the poster, or a link to this post, or even just a quick email to anyone you know within a twenty mile radius of the area - and ask them to do the same. Whitespot needs every pair of eyes to be on the lookout for him.





(Pictures courtesy of Turtle Gardens Rescue Society; permission is granted to copy the contents of this blog post to anyone, anywhere. )

Dogs, dogs and more dogs

First up: Zuke!
Zuke, the pup who managed to injure his pelvis, is pretty much fully recovered! According to his mom, Elizabeth, there is "no more cone of shame and he's back to running and playing and being the good dog that he is. He sits down when Matthew approaches him as he does when meeting new dogs. I guess this is a submissive puppy thing. He listens well and stays close to the boys when they run ahead. He goes everywhere we go and is so much fun!"

Yay Zuke, good to hear you are back to enjoying puppyhood! Here's some photos Elizabeth sent along, posted with her permission:

And next up: Taleah!

Who, you ask? Well, remember those herding dog pawties that Deb, Sharon and I held with our pointy nosed crew: collies Charley, Sadie and Riley, and shelties Oliver, Belle and Crystal (and honorary herders, the whippet boyz and their mom Ellen)? We ran out of shelties, as all three of them passed away last year. Since no herding dog pawty is complete without a sheltie or two, Sharon is pleased to introduce her newest best friend, Taleah!

(Photos by Deb Strong, Cat & Mouse Designs, used with permission)

Taleah is 7 years old, a purebred blue merle sheltie who was looking for a new home. Sharon found Taleah through a member of the Shetland Sheepdog Club of BC, of which both Sharon and Taleah’s first mom are members. (While Taleah is not a ‘rescue’, the club does have a well respected rescue component that assists with shelties in need of help. In fact, they assisted with Belle’s medical needs when she was first brought to the attention of a rescue group).

Taleah was well loved by her last owner but needed a place where she could be a princess and have her very own personal servant who will give her lots of one-on-one time. So, after the appropriate interviews and paperwork and meetings, Taleah came to Sharon with her own crate, toys, blanket, food and lots of treats. She is a shy girl, a bit of a scaredy-dog, but under Sharon’s care is making great strides. The big white cement lions at the end of someone’s driveway freaked her out at first but now she just struts on past them, no doubt sending them a telepathic message that “Lions may be king of the jungle, but this ain’t no jungle, and on this street SHELTIES RULE!”

Move over big cats, you’ve met your match!

Taleah is working as hard at being a friend as Sharon is at making her welcome. She will happily demonstrate her fetching skills with endless games of ‘toss the stuffie’. She already has Sharon well trained in that regard!

Taleah not only lies with her sweet sheltie nose on Sharon’s feet, but when Sharon fell asleep beside her on the bed, Taleah hopped down, went to her crate, and put herself to bed. And I’m betting she even pulled a blanket over her new Mama Sharon and gave her a kiss on the cheek before she turned out the lights.

Welcome Taleah – I can’t wait to meet you. time for another herding dog pawty!

And lastly, an assortment of news on other dogs. Charley and Sadie are still trucking along - Charley much more slowly but still holding her own, Sadie with a weird and wonky right eye but she doesn't seem bothered by it.

Sadie wants everyone to know that I am a very bad mama - I forgot to celebrate her Gotcha Day which was on March 6th! Sadie came to me, via Okanagon Collie Rescue and the Quesnel SPCA, back on March 6th, 2008. Happy third Gotcha Day, Sadie. I'm sorry I forgot!

So where's my Gotcha Day treats???

In other animal news, Hearts on Noses potbellied pig sanctuary had an unexpected visitor - a hopelessly matted, little deaf lhaso-apso type dog that either found her own way onto the property or, more likely as she was trapped in the well-fenced yard, dumped there by some unfeeling and irresponsible former owner. Update, Janice - did she find a home yet?

Little lost - or dumped - doggy who landed with the pigs!

And another friend is searching for a home for a soon-to-be-dumped dog whose family no longer wants her and plans to move away. More info to come.......

The stories on unwanted dogs are endless. Some heartless soul on the free online classifieds is giving away a 12.5 year old standard poodle who "lives outside because she has some incontinence issues related to age" - and then they try to make out that this dog enjoys spending its last months or years outside by herself. I have to keep telling myself I can't save them all, we can't save them all....but how do you choose who to help and who to ignore?

And so some days we have to focus on the good news stories - Zuke's recovery, Taleah's new-found happiness, and - oh yes - Ruby a potbellied pig who was turned into animal control, and through Hearts on Noses and some fast work over here, is now living a very happy life on acreage with two other pigs and some mini horses on the island. Yay Ruby! (And yay Dawn for contacting Hearts on Noses in your search for a piggy!)

A dog pound is no place for a piggy!

Home at last!

And in the non-critter department, two-legged Charlie (my friend in Calgary) spent a couple of hours on the phone with me this morning, walking me through the steps to re-secure my wireless network (and on his phone bill, not mine!). Thanks Charlie!

And just to spice up the weekend around here, I awoke yesterday morning to the restless pacing of my dogs, who were reacting to men walking around on the roof of the house across the back lane. These men:

A chimney fire, safely extinguised by Crofton's great volunteer firefighting team.

Tomorrow, my friends Ann and Ken arrive for the week. The forecast is for rain, rain and more rain, but I am optimistic - weather forecasters are often wrong. Expect photos of sunshine and water and flowers and interesting people and places as I show off this beautiful island to my guests. But first I better move away from the computer and go clean the house. And do laundry. And make up a grocery list. Why do I always leave these things until the last minute? Oh, yes, I have dogs and a blog.

Have a good week, everyone.

Remembering Mara

Mara

Long time readers of this blog will remember Bonnie and Bob's three beautiful wolfhounds, regular participants of the Wednesday Walks. Sadly, Mara passed away this week. Though not the oldest of the three, she was diagnosed with a heart problem last year which progressively made it more difficult for her to participate in walks and keep up with her siblings.

I feel privileged to have known Mara - her gentle though very tall presence never failed to make me smile as she loped along with all the other dogs, stopping now and then to graze the grass or check out the berry bushes and rosehips. She was a beautiful girl, and I know Bonnie's and Bob's hearts are heavy with sorrow tonight. No dog could be loved more deeply.

Mara, run free sweet girl, full of energy and health once again.

Bonnie and Bob, know that her spirit is always nearby. Hugs to you both.

Good grief - nearly a week since I posted????

Post coming soon. Computer woes. Preparing for company, I moved my computer from my office to turn the office into a guest room, and discovered my wireless network is no longer secure. Googled how to fix it and don't understand one word of the instructions, so was only turning the computer on for a few minutes at a time to check email, then off again.

Last night I got sick of doing that, so I moved it back to my office/guest room for the weekend (company arrives Monday), where it is hooked back into the non-wireless mode, whatever that is called. Today I shall pick up a splitter so I can run it off the same outlet as the television in the living room while my friends are here.

I do have things to blog about.... will do so shortly. Meanwhile, if anyone can give me REALLY REALLY BASIC instructions about re-securing the wireless connection, please post them in the comments or email me using the contact at the side.

It's another pupdate!!

Remember Nugget?

Now called Fitz? Just after he went to his new home, we received an update on him and some pictures of him with his big brother:

Well, his brother is still bigger than he is, but Fitz is catching up fast! His dad, Eric, sent along some new photos of him (and Odin, too!):

Eric has this to say:

Fitz is becoming quite the hiker. After about 2 months of longer and longer hikes, he can now keep up to his big brother and doesn't even need any naps! We did a 4.5 hour hike around some local trails a week ago and he was ready for more on the way home. He is a little hesitant about getting into the water, at the river, but maybe once it warms up he'll feel better about a swim, because he really enjoys his baths.

He has the gentlest nature (other than when wrestling with his brother). And it seems lately he is only getting more cuddly. If anyone leans down or sits by him, he will snuggle right in and make sure you know he wants a hug. He is still pretty much the perfect puppy. Sleeps though the nights, no accidents etc. Also he and our other pup Odin are still being confused as father/son by most people that meet them. Same color and looks, same gentle spirits. What a perfect match.

Also he is becoming quite a chewer. Luckily never on anything but toys. The Stuffy picture I'm attaching is a stuffed giraffe that they use for the tigers at a lot of zoos in North America. It lasted about 3 days(although he had a little help from his brother).

Thanks for the pupdate, Eric! I'm so happy he and Odin are such good pals, and he has turned out so well.

I love getting pupdates - keep 'em coming!

(Photos by Eric, posted with permission)

A Short Post of a Heron on a Post

The tide was out when I took the dogs for their walk today, and I spotted a heron atop a post at the edge of the water. He - or she - (we'll say she, as it is nearly International Women's Day) was most cooperative as I was able to get quite close, even with the dogs, before she gave me her warning cry and flew away.

It was one of those incredibly bright but overcast days which, unfortunately, makes it impossible for me to see anything on the display screen of the camera, so I just pointed the camera in the general direction and shot - which meant a lot of pictures with nothing but sky or sea. Here's the best of about fifty snaps - none of them terrific, but fun to look at anyway. (To see at full size, click on the picture, then use the back browser to return to the blog).












And on the ground, a crow hunts for dinner:




In other news, my vet phoned me yesterday to tell me Charley's bloodwork came back showing no problems at all - good kidney and liver numbers, good white and red blood cell counts, no infections, just a healthy dog. So the vile mouth smell may be something gastro going on, like acid reflux, or may be a dental problem. The antibiotics seem to be helping, so I'll go the distance with that and then figure what to do next about her teeth.

Sadie's eye continues to slip occasionally, but overall is showing improvement. Both of the dogs are happy to get the extra treats that go along with taking their medicine!

Crazy weather, crazy vet bills, and a few smiles

Well, the great hurricane-force winds never happened, at least not in my neck of the woods. There were high winds on the water, though, enough to cancel a day's worth of ferries back and forth between the BC mainland and Vancouver Island. News reports suggest some parts of the island were hard hit, but here in Crofton, all we got was about ten minutes of strong wind yesterday morning (just enough to knock the power out for a little over two hours) and that was pretty much it. There might have been a bit more wind that evening - I was at the theatre and came home to find all the clocks I had laboriously reset were once again flashing from yet another power failure.

Lack of strong winds notwithstanding, it was a strange, strange day as far as the weather went. We had it all - brilliant sun, torrential rain, sleet, hail, snow, wind. At one point, I looked into my back yard and the sky was a beautiful blue. Charley wanted to go outside to lie in the yard, so I let her out. Ten minutes later I looked out my front window to see sheets of rain washing horizontally across my windows. It was raining so hard, I didn't even take the camera out to get a picture of it. I did go to rescue Charley from the back yard, only to find this:

Whaaa??? I'm fine, leave me alone!

Literally, the dividing line between sun and rain was the end of my driveway. In the backyard, sunny and dry. In the front yard, dark clouds and driving rain.

Blue skies in back

Dark skies in front

I started out to take the dogs for their walk several times when the sun shone - by the time I got their harnesses and leashes on, it was pouring or hailing or snowing. At one point, the sky looked promising so we headed out. A block later the wind was blowing hard enough that I thought we might head back. A block after that - down on the sea walk - it was calm as could be:

I'm betting the people with boats at the marina were glad the high winds weren't as predicted - the marina is undergoing significant maintenance, and as far as I can tell, boat owners didn't have access for the past couple of days so may not have had the opportunity to adequately secure everything for hurricane force winds!



Today was more of the same. Sun, gusts, cloud, sleet, snow, rain....weird, weird weather for the island for March! Even the birds don't know what to do. There is a field near here where the trumpeter swans stay over the winter. They disappeared from the field about two or three weeks ago - as they typically do at this time of year. Yesterday, I noticed they have returned! Guess wherever they were heading was cold enough to make them change their minds.



It is hard to do anything when the weather changes so much - the sun calls me to get outside, the rain/snow/sleet drives me back in again. Maybe spring is waiting for Easter?



Meanwhile, in other news....

I thought Sadie's eye had pretty much completely recovered - she had gone 48 hours without any sign of anything wrong. Then I'm eating my dinner tonight and look down at her to see the eye has sunk right back - just like before - and there seems to be a ridge along the edge of the iris. An hour later and it seemed back to normal again, other than the ridge. I have learned from other collie people that this phenomena is not all that unusual, and seems to correct itself in four to six weeks, so unless it continues to change or looks worse, I shall wait it out a bit more.

I did have Charley to the vet today. She has been excessively thirsty lately, and there has been an incredibly foul smell emanating from her mouth every now and then (and her breath would never win her any kissing competitions to begin with!). Ketosis/diabetes comes to mind, as does kidney trouble, so in she went for blood tests, which should be back Monday. Meanwhile, because her teeth and gums aren't great and there could be an infection brewing, we've started her on antibiotics as well. At nearly fourteen, putting her under for dental work is not something I will choose lightly. We have also upped her pain meds for her arthritic hips - she has a lot of trouble walking now.

My beautiful gray-faced girl

So.....$400 for vet care in the past week (and I saved over $50 by getting Charley's prescriptions filled at the pharmacy rather than buying the drugs from the vet!); plus $200 for their dog food, supplements, and some cat grass and litter for Allie; and I'm not done with the animal-related expeditures yet for this month. Heck, it's only March 3rd! Taking good care of animals doesn't come cheap.

Not animal related, but I did have a great tears-down-my-cheeks laugh this morning, when someone drew my attention to a website called Damn you Auto Correct. It contains snapshots of text messages gone awry when autocorrect changed the words they wanted to type to something completely different - or so the authors claim. I've bookmarked it for my daily chuckle. Some are a bit - ahem - colourful - but check out the tab marked "Best of DYAC". One more reason I don't text message. I have enough trouble with typos in my blog without having a piece of technology make crazy auto-corrects for me!

And for my fellow bloggers, a friend told me of a website called Blog2Print that can take your blog and turn it into book form for you. With my distrust of technology or anything internet-y, it has often bothered me that my blog has the potential to just disappear. It also drives me crazy that I can't easily thumb through it from beginning to end. I will never be an e-book or kindle fan - I like the feel and weight and texture of paper. So now I can print off each year's postings (in correct order)as a complete journal, pictures and all, and have them bound for my shelf. (Note: this is not the book I am working on for publishing purposes, which is a book of short stories about the animals in my life. Too much in this blog would have little merit without drastic editing - I'm just looking to preserve it for myself in a form that I am more comfortable with). I am a happy camper to have been directed to this site .

I'll leave you with a photo of Charley, fast asleep, that made me smile today:

Charley dreaming she's a lion?

A Boring Bare-Bones Blog

One of the reasons I don't participate in those "blog every day for a year" challenges is because, let's face it, sometimes there's nothing to say. But when nearly a week goes by and I can't think of anything to say, I figure I better write something before the phone calls asking "you still alive?" begin.

There's something about shoulder-season winter weather - a bit of sleet, a bit of hail, a bit of snow, a bit of rain, a bit of dark, a bit of sun, a bit of cold, a bit of ice - that just stifles my creativity. I get the blahs. I get the 'sit in front of the computer or tv, doing absolutely nothing' blahs. And the same weather also stifles my picture-taking ability. Every time we head out for a walk, in a sunny, blue-skied moment, the weather changes and by the time we reach the park or the beach, the rain or snow has begun. Blah.

It has been this way for five days now. The weather changes - not a little, but a whole darn lot - every twenty minutes or so. It is downright freaky.

So, no interesting stories. No pictures. No excitement over flowers or birds or other signs of spring. No happy dogs, 'cuz if I have the blahs, they have the blahs.

Just words on paper - or on a screen. Boring, bare-bones blogging.

Maybe the hurricane-force winds they are predicting for tonight and tomorrow will add some excitement to our life. Gusts up to 160 km in the wee small hours and on into the morning, followed by a break, then the wind will reverse its direction and come back at us with gusts of 110 km tomorrow night. Hydro says its not a case of "if" we get a power failure, but when and for how long.

And that means no internet or tv. Hmmmph! Now how will I maintain my winter-doldrums stare-at-the-screen blahs????

Guess I might have to write some stories and take some pictures. Stay tuned.

On Frozen Pond, and other news

As I was driving around today, I saw a dog running near a frozen pond, the human about fifty yards away. On the usually-mild south west corner of Canada, frozen ponds are rare. Unfortunately, images of people skating on frozen ponds in central and eastern Canada seem to lull west coasters into a false sense of security. I feel my stomach knot up and my jaw clench whenever I see a dog running loose near frozen water around here.

A couple of weeks ago, a dog just north of here went missing. Tonka's body was found several days later - he had fallen through the ice of a pond and died. Yesterday, a friend's dog went through the ice while on the Wednesday Walk - fortunately the story had a much happier ending, with a chilled but thankfully alive dog making it out (though not, I'm sure, without knocking at least ten years off her owner's life!).

Tonight is supposed to be even colder than last night - minus 16 with the windchill factor. Ponds are frozen - but they are NOT safe! For a pond to be safe, we would need well below freezing temperatures for a very extended period of time, producing several inches of consistently thick ice on still water. One weak spot and the dog falls through - and frantic attempts to clamber out of the frigidly cold water only result in more ice breaking off. Human attempts to rescue the dog can result in almost immediate hypothermia -- and the loss of both human and dog.

Please - if you live in the (now freezing) south western part of Canada (or northwestern part of the States) don't let your dogs run loose anywhere near frozen water.

Off my soapbox, and on to an update on Sadie. Sadie visited the vet about her strange eye problem today. Doc had dried liver treats, her absolutely-most-favouritest treat in the whole wide world, so she was putty in his hands.

The diagnosis??? It's "A Puzzle". That's his exact words. A Puzzle.

He rules out Horner's syndrome - there's no drooping of the upper lid, which he says is most characteristic of Horner's (though I have heard and read that this is not always the case). He also ruled out the most obvious infections: no dental problems, no nasal infection (in fact he did a swab to be absolutely sure), no ear infection. He froze the eye to check behind the third eyelid (that little part that comes up from the bottom, like a pearly-white cover) - no infection or inflammation there. No redness. No foreign body.

However, there is definitely something wrong with it. He says it is tracking okay, but the rate of dilation and amount of dilation differs from the left eye, and the visible shape is different too - it looks different, more sunken, than the left eye. And there's some squinting.

He said there are a few possibilities. First is the possibility of an infection behind the eye - for that he has given me antibiotic eyedrops to use on her for a week. Second is the possibility of a neurological problem that is affecting the muscles behind the eye, and third is the possibility of a tumor or other scary growth behind the eye. For those last two options, he would need to refer her to a canine opthamologist, which means a trip to the mainland and mega big bucks.

His recommendation is that we try the antibiotic and monitor it for now. It doesn't seem as bad this week as it did last weekend, and she sometimes goes hours at a time when it looks virtually normal. We'll keep our toes and fingers crossed (and paws, too) that Sadie soon recovers fully from The Puzzle.

Winter's back!

Looks like a good day to curl up with a good book and two good dogs.

Hmmmm....I wonder what this chicken one's about?

I think you should read this dog one to us, mom!



I just finished this one - a great read for anyone who has ever vacationed with an elderly mother!