Wordless Wednesday - Awaiting Blood Test Results

                                                        






Monday Mischief - Turd Rules

I don't know what's worse.  Gloria actually eating the poo, at least it's gone right? Or Gloria rolling in the poo.

Oh yes, Saturday she managed to sniff out one small turd.

 Then proceeded to have a regular roll fest in it.

She was having so much fun there was just no stopping her.

She had a regular ole turd dance going on!

Yea, go ahead and try to shake it off.  That's right poo sticks to fur like glue so guess who had a bath!

"Why does Gloria get the Monday Mischief spot?  Look at me, I knocked over the air cleaner!"

"Sorry Freddie but turd rules."

"Ooooooh, look at me! I'm rolling in turd!"

"Give it up Freddie. It's not going to work."

You'll notice Freddie isn't wearing a collar.  You see the rust color on his neck? He also has it (but darker, almost black) in his arm pits and the same on his back inner thighs. I have taken him off of the glucosamine as that is when it seemed to start. Of course it is itchy too!  It almost looks like a yeast infection and I wondered if it was an allergic reaction to the glucosamine.  Has anybody else had this issue?  For right now we have him just on the wild salmon oil until he sees the vet next Saturday when he goes to get his nail trimmed.

Menopause Moment and a Full Moon

I normally don't post on the weekends, but since it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm up, what the heck. It's officially October 28th and our 29th Wedding Anniversary.  Steve and I are still going strong after all these years.  It's the subtle little things that happen between us that let us know we still mesh.  Before I sat down here to do a post, I went in and filled hubby's water glass he keeps beside the bed. He woke up long enough to look at me and say, "Thanks dearie".  That's one of the reasons why I love this guy so much! The little things. In the morning he's off to Detroit as his beloved Seahawks are playing the Lions and this only happens  in Detroit every 6 or 7 years.  I will be staying home as I just don't want to leave Freddie for a whole day.  I worry too much and then it's not enjoyable.  So I will use the time to prepare a romantic dinner for when hubby gets home and maybe get some crocheting done.

Back to my menopause moment.  I'm up, I take the hounds out to pee and I see we have a full moon.  The hounds come in and do this........

 I took these without the flash because I didn't want to wake the babies.

I grab my camera and head out front in my housecoat and slippers and take pictures of this beautiful moon. Sometimes I do wonder what the neighbors think if they see these flashes at 2:00 a.m.

I really like these two with our tree branches.

This one just looks like it's holding the moon.

I didn't know we were going to have a full moon tonight. I don't know much about this full moon so I will have to head over to Remington's RRC and see what I can find out.  He usually has all the information on these full moons.

As for my menopause keeping me up, I'm trying to look at the positive aspect.  If I wasn't up right now I would have missed this beautiful full moon and if it wasn't for hot flashes I wouldn't have this dewy glow! LOL!

Well, I'm off to catch up on some blog reading. :)

Surprises and Thank You's!

This past week we have received a few surprises in the mail.  Each one has brought tears to my eyes as I just  get overwhelmed at how genuinely thoughtful and caring people are.  Our first surprise came from our extended hound family at Autumn Blaze Bassets.

Becki donated half of the sale of her last puppy from her last litter to the Freddie Fund! (The puppy flew to sunny California to his new forever home.) She would not take no for an answer and said it could help with Freddie's meds.  It will help out immensely and we can't thank her enough for her thoughtfulness!

Then we got a surprise all the way from Nebraska from Gracie, Schatzie and their Momma, Val over at My Girlz Got Paws!

We were so touched by their donation that came with a cute little card and a thoughtful note with a great reminder.

Now there was one condition. If you noticed on the envelope it said , ATTENTION: Gloria.  That's because they figured since Gloria is the serious one, she should handle the funds.  Great idea Val! After all we don't want Freddie squandering it! 

So Gloria dutifully put the money into the Freddie Fund jar (just ignore the cheese stuck to it, I had to do something to get her to touch it!) and  now it's official.

  

 Gloria will be treasurer!

"Go ahead. I don't give a rat's a@*!"

Fred obviously is milking this whole hip thing to no end.

Then our mailman brought a parcel for me from Utah! It was from our good friends Goose and his Momma Michelle over at Gospel of Goose.  Fred and Gloria were quite curious so I let them help me with it.

 "I think I smell a Goose!"

They had lots of fun with the paper.  Even Gloria got right into it.

"What is it Freddie?"

"Duh, I don't know Gloria. It looks like some kind of bowl or something."

Nope!  It is the most wonderful wine holder I have ever seen!  I just can't believe that Goose's Momma parted with this for me. Look at the card, it's a Zentangle by Reilly's Momma at Cowspotdog that has Goose on it!

You can see the wine holder in Goose's taco post if you go here and in his Potential Mischief post here. But here is the very first time I saw it on their blog and fell in love with it and the way Goose is looking at it is priceless!  It does look like Freddie! I think I have commented on how much I love it every time I see it in one of their posts and I can't believe they remembered!! How sweet is that!  Thank you so much Michelle and Goose I will always cherish it!

We thank all of you from the bottom of our hearts!!

This was the best picture hubby could get of the three of us! lol

Wordless Wednesday - The Face of A Poo Eater

                                                    





Awards x Four!

I am behind on awards again. sigh!  I don't know how it happens, but it does.  I at least want to take the time now to thank everyone for the wonderful awards we have received over the past few weeks.

The first award we received was from Daisy over at Everyday Adventures in Havachon Heaven.

                                      

Daisy is so sweet and innocent looking but don't let that fool you, she can get into mischief with the best of them! Thank you so much Daisy.

The next award we received was from Elka over at The Elka Almanac. 

                                                   

Simply put. Life with Elka a very smart and very beautiful Doberman and the ins and outs of training her. Thank you Elka.

Next up the award is from our buddy Higgin's over at The Adventures of Higgins. 

                                                  

If you don't know Mr. Mantastic, you'd better go see him.  He's a hoot! Thank you Higgins, from one Devious Clever Genius to another! BOL!

Our final award today comes from Sheba over at Shebas's life story.


Sheba is one of our friends from across the pond and hers is the story of a now 3 year old Dogue de Bordeaux x Rottweiler from her puppy tales to adulthood. Thank you Sheba.

We want to thank all of you so very much.  We are very humbled and honored!

Monday Mischief - What Is It With Kleenexes?

Okay, what is it with kleenexes that fascinate Fred so much? I mean honestly, it drives me nuts.  The thing is there are always kleenexes around our house as we have allergies and lots of runny noses.  Freddie has stole my housecoat before and rooted through the pockets for kleenex but now he's taken to trying to go through the pockets while I'm still wearing it. These next pictures were taken yesterday morning.

At first I thought he was trying to cuddle as every morning when I sit and have my coffee Freddie comes and lays on my lap.

It didn't take me long to figure out he was trying to get into the pocket of my housecoat.

By the time I pulled his head out, he'd got it........the dreaded kleenex.

Which of course I knew he was going to shred. But the worst part was now he's actually started eating them.  He used to shred them and spit them out, but now he actually swallows them!  Yuk!

Gloria wakes up and try to see what Freddie's got this time.  People ask where Gloria is during Freddie's shenanigans. Ninety percent of the time, sleeping. As soon as I run the bath water for a bath, Gloria looks in on me and then promptly goes into our bed.  I think she like having it all to herself.  In the morning when I have my coffee, she usually lays at my feet and sleeps or she cons Fred out of the big chair which is why he winds up on my lap. So most of the time while Freddie's getting into trouble, Gloria takes that opportunity to get the prime sleeping spots without getting bothered. 

One thing about Gloria, she's getting a lot of use out of the stools we have put around the furniture to help them up and down.

The Relaxing Bath

I had a totally different blog post in mind for today but when I finally had time to sit down and write it last night, I thought I'd have a nice relaxing bath and get into my jammies first. Bath yes, relaxing no. First off Fred has to come in and try to lick all the water out of the tub and off of my arms if he can reach them.  Then hubby may as well come in and sit on the side of the tub to soak his feet.  "They're clean" he says.  Fine. So, while I'm not laying out in the tub relaxing ('cause hubby's feet are now at one end) we hear a big bang, a bunch of growling and as we look out the bathroom door the waste basket from our bedroom goes rolling by with Freddie right behind it. "Don't worry" I said, "It's empty.  Shortly after we can hear that it is apparently stuck some where and we see Freddie go trotting back past the bathroom.  About a minute later the waste basket from the computer room goes rolling by.  It too is empty.  This does prompt hubby to get his feet out of my bath and go check on Freddie  He dries his feet and carries his towel to take to the laundry.  On the way by the living room, he sees that Freddie is eating one of the said waste baskets.  I hear a raucous and he says he's got it. He puts it up where Freddie can't get it and walks back into the living room and I hear the not so pleasant words start all over again.  I ask "What now?" from my supposedly relaxing bath.  Hubby replies "Well s**t!" "I put my towel down to get the waste basket from Fred and when I turned around the little bu**er stole that!" So now in order to get Freddie to drop the towel I started making lots of splashing noise in the tub which he could not resist and came running.  I like to think he thought I was drowning and came running to my rescue.  Hey, it doesn't hurt to dream!

By now my nice relaxing bath is a bust so I give up, get out of the tub, get my jammies on, go into the living room to this.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Wordless Wednesday - Snouts

                                                            



Monday Mischief - Life Goes On

I'm glad to have the past few weeks behind us.  Now we can just settle into a routine and get back to normal (whatever that is!).  So Life goes on just like a roll of toilet paper.

Yep, Freddie's at it again!  No matter where I put the roll of toilet paper he manages to get it.  He had completely stopped this for the summer and now he just struts through the house scanning counter tops, tables, dressers anything, just looking for something to snatch! Here he is scanning the table top.

"Look at me Gloria."  "I got bad hips, so I can do what I want!"

 Then he just flops in the chair and acts like he owns the place. Well.....actually...... he does.

"Geesh, Momma!"  "At least let me cover my wiener before you take the picture! "

And Gloria well.......

"I'm sick of Freddie!" "I'm joining the circus!"

She's started practicing to be a circus dog act. Apparently she's tired of all the attention Fred's been getting over this hip stuff. I keep telling her that she'd never make it travelling around from town to town without her family but hey, a girl's gotta have dreams I guess!

Question for anyone who gives there dog fish oil supplements.  Could you recommend something as I have no clue what to get for Freddie.

Now this is a little late but in answer to Dip- Dip & the Bridge and Declan's question "What is a pack rat?" from an earlier post;  a pack rat is a hoarder, someone who keeps everything and can't part with things which is apparently me now!

The Consultation

"I, Freddie Spaghetti have been violated."

Our consultation went well, sort of. There was good news and bad news. After going over Fred thoroughly  and looking at his x-rays the surgeon  figured Fred is doing pretty well in the state he's in right now.  He can still walk and run without acting like he's in pain most of the time and he still has good muscle tone. So they recommended to carry on with medication and physical therapy until he reaches a plateau or hastily declines. He also suggested Fred lose some weight and we add fish oil to his diet.  Since they can't tell how fast his hips are actually deteriorating, he recommended a follow up in a few months to do a comparison x-ray.  This should help determine what rate it's progressing at.  He could have months before something needs to be done or (fingers crossed) he said he could have a few years.  He said it's a little harder to say with bassets as their legs are screwy anyway. 

Next problem.  Fred apparently has small bones and he doesn't know if Fred would even be a candidate for hip replacement later.  When the time comes they would take radio-graphs to see if his bones are big enough to hold the hip replacement. He felt we need not put him through the radio-graphs now and we agreed. If in fact his bones are not big enough to take a hip replacement, he said he would be a candidate for FHO surgery even though he did weigh in there at 67lbs.   He said Fred could have his play time.  Running in our contained yard for a bit was fine.  He was not to keen on him and Gloria wrestling and definitely no stairs.  So, no more going downstairs to the rec room watching dogs with jobs on the big screen from his my Detroit Lions chair. For right now we have a reprieve. We felt a sense of relief just knowing a little better where we stand so we are just going to take it one day at a time and try to go on normally.  That is the "sort of" good news.  

The bad news.  Apparently both his back legs have bad knees.  His worst one is the right knee which is the same leg that's hip is worse (the one that clunks).  Again, bassets have screwy legs anyway so it's hard to tell if a lot of it is just his legs or if it's the disease in the knee.  They are not that severe now, one is a grade one out of four and the other is a grade two out of four, so we are not going to think about that right now.  

So there you have it in a nutshell. Freddie is allowed to play (supervised) and when he's in pain I will give him medication and we will see how far this will take us for now.  I again want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for all your positive thoughts prayers and well wishes for Freddie.  It really means a lot to us!  For right now, as far as we know there will be no surgery in the spring so I see no need for a chip-in at this time. It still overwhelms me to know that everyone was right there for us ready to help out.  People really are good!  Our house will keep the Freddie Fund going for on going meds and appointments and hopefully we have lots of time to build up a substantial fund for when the time comes that Freddie needs surgery and I know help is there if we need it.  That's enough for me!

I apologize for the long post but here are some pictures of our day.

We had to rig up something quick for Fred as his seat belt wouldn't fit when we went to leave.

He got to look out the window before we left town.

This is the Small Animal Clinic at Guelph University.  They also have a Large Animal Clinic and a Cancer Clinic.

Freddie was not impressed with having a thermometer shoved up his butt.  He was totally humiliated!

They had lots of treats there but he just didn't care.

I made these ones Wednesday afternoon to take with us for his reward.  I got the recipe from Wag The Dog.

Freddie checking out the pee mail after we left and believe me he left some hate mail himself!

He was ticked at me the whole way home.

Ahhhh!  Home sweet home after a very long day!