Wordless Wednesday - Itchy, Twitchy and Whiny

 It's been a very long week with poor Freddie. We've been up at night with him, his pills have had him peeing in the house (something he has never done) his ears have been constantly twitching and he's been very lethargic and whiny. We cut his pills back to half two days ago and we finally got some sleep last night and he didn't pee in the house. Yay! Sorry I haven't been around, but we're slowly getting Freddie back to his old self. I will try to get around and visit everyone's blogs today. Today my camera goes to the shop. I went to take a picture of Freddie last night and my flash just started making zapping noises, then just quit! :( Okay, maybe not so "Wordless Wednesday"!

Wordless Wednesday - Pills from the Vet

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Monday Mischief - Itchfest

Fred's constant itching is driving us crazy!  We've said "No Fred" so much the last week that he thinks we have renamed him and he's taken to hiding in other rooms to do his scratching.  We even found him down behind the fireplace at one point just scratching away!  

Our late basset Barney was almost 11 years old when he passed and 9 of those years he had skin issues and I really don't want to go there again.  We spent tons of money over a lot of stressful years trying to figure out what the issue was.  We paid for allergy testing and tried eliminating certain foods.  Was it plants, food, my laundry detergent, my cleaning products.....the air! We tried anti-itch products, oatmeal shampoo and he wound up being on prednisone off and on his whole life.  I didn't like that.  We drove ourselves crazy trying to figure it out.  Guess what, we never did.

Now we have Fred who has started this itching and it really has been upsetting.  At first I thought it might be all the mosquitoes that have come out recently as they just swarm the hounds when they go outside.  

Once he started itching and causing some raw patches, it's like it just snowballed from there.

If he's not scratching,

He's chewing on his legs.  

I feel bad for him and he has even spent the last two nights in his pen as the itching was keeping us all awake. Benadryl has been helping a little, but I don't like to give it to him.

My poor baby is just exhausted from itching all the time. But this morning my husband thinks he's found the culprit.

The Trumpet Vine!

While examining cleaning up Freddie's poop, he noticed something in it. I give you........

Exhibit "A"

The seed pods and

Exhibit "B"

The flowers

of the Trumpet Vine.

We have seen Fred over in the corner of the yard munching on something and thought it was just grass.  That part of the grass is covered with the trumpet vine flowers that are dropping.  So now Fred will be supervised every time he goes outside......again....sigh!...until I can get that corner of the yard roped off.  So keep your fingers crossed that this is the root (hee!hee!) of his itching and we can get this problem solved!

I don't know if this Monday Mischief should got to Mr. Itchy or to the trumpet vine.  What do you think?

Sports Fans Can Be Nasty!

Now that football season is upon us. Fred and Gloria have switched from their collars that they won from our friend Sugar, to their football collars.  Freddie is wearing his Detroit Lions collar and Gloria is wearing her Seattle Seahawks collar.

Before I go any further, I have to say to my hubby Steve, if your at work reading this stop....don't go any further.  You won't like what you see.  You've been warned. 

Tonight Freddie will sit in my chair his chair and watch the Lions play the Baltimore Ravens........

 .........while Gloria takes her spot on the Seahawks side of the room with her father.

As you can see, she's never really into the game. Actually, I think she looks a little embarrassed when she's on that side of the room.

But this morning Freddie did something horrible.  At first I didn't think I was going to be able to talk about it.  I don't want us Lions fans getting a bad reputation like some of those other fans out there.  But it has to be told.  After his Dad left for work this morning Fred ran downstairs and came up shaking and chewing this.

Steve's one and only Seattle Seahawks towel! It's one of the first Seattle Seahawks things I bought him and it's their original logo and colors.  Now I've said before that Fred actually doesn't chew the things he steals anymore he just lays on them, but as you can see in the right hand corner, he chewed a hole in it.  Myself, I think he was just getting himself pumped for tonight's game.  That's what preseason is isn't it?  For practice?

Oh my, what's Freddie going to be like when the Lions actually play the Seahawks in October!!

Wordless Wednesday - My Drool Tool

Monday Mischief - Not Here!

There wasn't a whole lot of mischief around our house on the weekend.  We had a very late night Friday night as our date night consisted of driving down to Detroit to watch the Detroit Lions first pre-season game against the Cleveland Browns.  It's the first pre-season I have  been to with Steve. My daughter and her kids came over to hound sit Fred and Gloria.

Gloria loved all the attention. But as usual the kids hid from Freddie.

"Eeek!  Look out Emma!  It's a big bad, vicious basset hound! "

Fred tried to act like he was just bored by the whole ordeal.

"Yawn"

"Yeah, yeah.  Whatever...I didn't want to play with you anyways!"

I love the whole atmosphere when we go, but this was a late game and it didn't start until 7:30 p.m. so it wasn't over until 10:45 p.m.  Which means that we didn't even get home until just about 2:00 a.m.  By the time we got the dogs outside for a bit, then got them all settled around again and  got something to eat it was well after 3:00 a.m. before we got to bed.  This was the first and only late football game I will go to.   It was just too long of a day for me. The bad news....the Lions lost to the Browns 19-17.  The good news.........

......I got to wear my new Nate Burleson jersey!

Saturday we had to have Fred and Gloria to our vets by 9:00 a.m. for their yearly shots so we were all pretty tired. Their check-ups went fine and  I love the new rabies tag they got.  They have started a new program in Canada where on the back of your rabies tag is a website called getmehome.ca.  You go and register your pet on-line with their tag number and micro- chip number, if the they have it.  You put in all your contact information and if your pet is lost they just check the number on the tag to find their owners.  I love this.  The more ways to help get a lost pet home the better!

I  love that this is a free service provided with your rabies tag.

Sunday we attended my our nieces engagement party and luckily the rain held off and the weather and the party turned out beautifully.  Congratulations again Ami and Adam!

Today I am behind and just trying to catch up as it was such a busy weekend.  My daughter came over to help me get Fred in the tub as he has been itching and chewing like crazy.  I think he got into something last week as he's been itching ever since we caught him in the flower bed.   Gloria just hung around the bathroom howling the whole time we bathed Fred.  After Fred's bath they both conked out.

Awwwwe!  doesn't Freddie look nice and shiny after his bath.  He smells nice too!  So I guess the only mischief here is me getting my mischief post up so late!

Happy Monday everyone!

Holiday Excitement

So things were going great through our holidays.  I had some late menopausal nights which usually kept me up anywhere from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. Since it was so hot the hounds....okay....Fred,  hadn't gotten into any trouble or crud.  They just slept....a lot.  It was great.  Then the one night I was up, Fred and Gloria got up with me and wanted out about 4:30 a.m. to go potty.  Gloria goes on her own but I always have to leash Fred or he won't come back in. duh!

Gloria does her thing and I look over and I think she's eating grass,(remember it's 4:30 a.m. so it's dark)  so I holler at her, she stops, goes to the back door and waits.  Fred does his thing and goes to where Gloria was "eating grass".  I figure she must have peed there and he is going to pee there too.

Now before I go on I have to explain a little "quirk" that Freddie has. Before he comes in the house.......every single time, he has to grab something as he's going to the door and it drives us nuts!  Usually it's a rock, but it could be any old piece of crud and he won't let it go until we get him in the house and bribe him with something.

Okay, back to my story. So Fred walks over, sniffs where Gloria was and all of a sudden snatches something in his mouth.  I figure it's a rock or hunk of mulch so I grab his snout and it goes something like this........

"Oh, Fred!  What have you got now? Give it......aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

I can barely see from the porch light a little leg sticking out of his mouth.  Well, I would like to say I calmly tried get Fred to drop what he had, but I didn't.  I lost it.  I freaked out! I couldn't get him to drop it, so I ran in the house with him holding "the critter" and me screaming at the top of my lungs, "Steve, Steve!  Fred's got something! Fred's got something!  Ahhhhhh!!"

My poor hubby comes running out of the bedroom, looks at Fred where in the kitchen light  we can now see a tail and legs hanging out of his mouth, gets a piece of cheese and bribes him.  He drops it.  It's a dead mouse!  By now I am hysterical screaming, "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" (Now when I look back, it's a little embarrassing)

My husband calmly scoops the mouse into a bag and takes it out to the garbage, goes to the bathroom and goes back to bed.  I take the hounds into bed and they fall fast asleep, but I just lay there staring at the ceiling thinking, "S@#t! Why didn't I get pictures!!"

So for this post you'll have to settle for some pictures I took of the crime scene the next day.

Warning: Some people may find these photos disturbing!

I'm happy to say that was the most excitement we had during our holidays!

Happy 11th Birthday Sugar!!

The Fitzy Resolution Book Review

Before I get to my review, I would like to send out my heartfelt condolences to Marquie from Two Collies and a Mutt who lost her dear sweet dog Ella so suddenly the other day.  Ella had just celebrated her 6th birthday on July 26th.  She loved to dig and was always romping around with her furry siblings Lassie and Petal.  We were just so saddened to hear the news and if you haven't already, maybe you could go offer your condolences to Marquie and her family as I'm sure they are going through a pretty tough time right now.

On to business........

When I was a kid, I always wondered what it would be like if dogs could talk.  Actually, any animal.  Did they have their own secret society with their own secret language?

Well, Allen DeSena goes beyond that question and tells a story where dogs co-exist with their humans and actually have their own secret society complete with a government ruling over it in The Fitzy Resolution.

This my friends is a political drama set in the dog world with a cast of characters that won't dissapoint.  There's Senator Casey, a Yellow Lab; Sasha, a Husky; Chuckles, a Dachshund and Cooper a Golden Retriever; just to name a few.   There's also cats (Mittens comes to mind) bees, birds and yes, even squirrels!  Included in this drama, Senator Casey is heading up an investigation into the missing Yorkshire Terriers with the help of the Bulldog Police while the scoundrel Senator Jupiter (a Beagle) is trying to upset the balance of the Central Canine Government for his own political and personal gain, stepping on anyone who gets in his way! 

So who is Fitzy and what is the Fitzy Resolution?  I guess you'll just have to read the book to find out!

I do have to say I have never read a book like this before and picturing all the voices of these animals in my head as I read took me back to when I was a kid and the way I thought.  Mr. DeSena did a great job bringing the canine world to life.  He captured their personalities and voices perfectly. He even includes footnotes throughout to explain certain terms from the Central Canine Government.   

This book was exceptionally well written by the author and would be a fun read for anyone.  Especially anyone who loves animals, mysteries, politics, all three or heck, just a plain old good book to read!

A.D. DeSena is a Connecticut native living in Texas where he is a post-graduate in Pediatric Neurology.  He loves dogs and has two spoiled Labs of his own.

I encourage you to pick up a copy of The Fitzy Resolution, sit back and let Mr. DeSena and your own imagination take you away for awhile.  You won't regret it! :)

If interested you can purchase a copy here or here.

Disclaimer - I was not compensated in any way for this review.  I was given a copy of The Fitzy Resolution to read in return for an honest review.  All opinions expressed  are my own.

Wordless Wednesday - They're Baaack!!