44 posts tagged “sadie”

Five Words Meme - Pets

Sep 4, 2009
2 comments

Since I was a slacker last night...I will now finish the remaining words for this meme!

Pets? What pets? Ohhhhh I think you mean my kids!

Seriously, that is what my pets are to me...they are family. I can't imagine my life without them. I grew up with cats (and a few hamsters) - before my sister was born, our cat Dukie was my best friend (according to mom anyway, I was only 2!). There were a couple years in there, right around the time I moved east, that I didn't have any cats. I can't tell you how empty the house seemed even with Sadie around. Cats snuggle like nothing else can. They are always around without always being _right there_. They don't need a ton of work, and their personalities amuse me to no end! I have NEVER had two cats even remotely alike.

Bandit & Mr. Mouser

I am still devastated that my boys have gone missing. My head is always full of the what-ifs...'what-if I had just made them stay inside' is the most recurring one. But, then I remind myself that Mr M and Bandit never did acclimate to being indoor-only kitties. And no matter how much I loved them, I could not have them destroying my house with cat urine. Clyde, is the hardest to reconcile in my head. He was OK being inside, though he was also the one to make a mad dash for the door whenever it opened. And I tell myself that it wouldn't have been fair to keep him inside while the other boys got to go out. It has helped a little seeing the snake on the patio - if nothing else, it has offered some closure. I know I am not a "bad" kitty mommy...but it is hard not to feel like it when they all disappear in such a short time-span. And even after all the heartache, if another stray showed up on my doorstep, I would not turn it away. Even if I couldn't get it to acclimate to being indoors. This time, though, the other cats still have to stay inside.

Cuteness

To help fill the void, and to keep Bonnie company while I am away on business and the dogs are not at home, I adopted OP. It was a little bit of an adjustment, but now he is right at home here. And he is a snuggler! He now shows up in my bed around 2am each night and purrs...and is usually still purring when my alarm goes off around 6. He likes to get right up next to me, but thankfully, seems to have no interest in sleeping on my head. Bonnie is the aloof one...she has her moments of absolute NEED. Love me now! But mostly she is content to simply hang out in whatever room we are in. Usually you can find her curled up sleeping in a corner.

Sleepy

My mom was never a 'dog person', so we never had a dog when I was a kid. I got Sadie as a "present" from an old boyfriend (just before he dumped me...nice, huh?) She was a pound puppy and around 4 months old when I got her. I did everything wrong that you possibly could when it came to raising her, but in the end, I lucked out. She is the sweetest, most neurotic, gentle dog I've ever met. By neurotic, I mean quirky - for instance, she sleeps under the bed whenever I leave the house. Yup! She can actually get herself under a bed! She will put on the biggest show ever, when we get ready to leave the house...including chattering her teeth. She won't go outside to potty if it is raining out. She doesn't like it if it is too hot out. But, everyone who has ever met her adores her...including my non-dog person mom.

Marly

Then there is Marly-Moo. The Moo-dog. She got her name from an old song about a prostitue - Lili Marlene...which then got shortened to Marly. The nickname Moo came at around 9 months old when she was growing faster than any dog alive. It has since become what we call her because EVERY person who asks what her name is, then asks if she was named after the dog from the book/movie Marley and Me. I get tired of explaining that no, she was not.

Before I moved, I also had fish - a couple bettas and a 75 gallon African cichlid aquarium. They fascinated me. Who knew fish had individual personalities? They were amazing to watch (which I used to spend hours doing). I have thought about rebuilding the aquarium here, but I don't really have a place in the house to put it and the work it took to maintain it takes more time and energy than I have these days. There are photos of my fish here.

I'm seeing spots!

Last but not least are my wild pets - deer, birds, possums, and all other manner of critters that live in my yard and in the woods behind it. Even the freakin' copperhead I couldn't bring myself to kill. (OK, I admit, there was no way on Earth I was going to open the back door with it right there, but still...) Slowly but surely I am building a little bird sanctuary in the yard. And the deer, though I don't do anything outright to help them, they help themselves to the tasty greenery in the yard...and I am sure as soon as I get a garden growing, I will be sharing that too!

I have always loved animals and will never understand people who can harm and abuse them in any way. And yes, someday, I probably will be that crazy cat lady who lives at the end of the street that all the kids talk about!

Next up:

~photography

~marriage

Pet food...and other pet related notes

Aug 8, 2009
2 comments

Just random comments, thoughts, and notes here.

DOG FOOD: Nature's Variety is a pain in the ass to find around here - I sure wish the dogs did as well on some other (easier to find brand). That said, I have begun ordering it from petfooddirect.com I have had issues with not being able to get the carealotpets.com pages to load, or the page is so slow I don't have time to wait (I am usually ordering when I am on the road and working). Also, PFD's prices are lower (just marginally, though) and their shipping costs less...it isn't by much, but on a tight budget, every little bit counts. I am sure there are a couple pet stores in the city that carry the food and manage to keep it in stock, but I am not willing to drive all over town to get it. And now that I have found a steady supplier, I need to really track how long a bag lasts (I think from last time I timed it, I remember it being exactly 4 weeks) so I can get signed up for their auto-ship schedule. I really wish Petco could carry it...I am quite impressed with their new well-pet/whole foods sort of section. It was a smart move for a large chain store to make. I know it hurts the smaller, locally owned family stores but to be honest, I haven't really found one here that I feel compelled to support. The one I was trying to support never manages to keep food (of any brand from what I can tell) in-stock on a regular basis and aside from the guy who owns it, the other folks working in there are obviously just doing so as a favor and don't care about the store or the customers. If I had had a 2 Feet 4 Paws to go to, then there would be no question about where I would get my food! :)

CAT FOOD: Spoiled little OP has created a spoiled little Bonnie (though, it is something I have been meaning to do for her for awhile now, so no big deal). OP gets part of a can of soft food every day. So of course, Bonnie smelled the tasty (stinky) stuff and decided she wanted some too! The disturbing part is that she got sick from the first stuff - that's when I actually read the ingredients. ACK! I just want to throw the diclaimer in that I have always been told by very conscientious vets, animal rescues, and even the crazy cat lady whom we adopted OP from that with the canned stuff it doesn't really matter since mostly they should get it for the added water (most indoor cats don't drink enough water). So, I bough Friskies...because it is middle of the road in price and is what my family has always given our cats in the past. I had never read the ingredient label on it though...it is nasty! I had some 3oz cans of Wellness from a promotion they had awhile back...buy kibble get free canned food.

I am also going to switch the cats over to Wellness kibble. Bonnie has never had a problem with any of the foods I've fed her and it will be easier to be able to just buy it at Petco where I know it will be in stock when I need it. And it will partner nicely with their canned food. Heh. And I am not overly impressed with the Felidae that OP is currently weaning off of. He has gorgeous fur, but it should be much softer. With the introduction of the NV (which I still have a bunch of and will finish up before the switch to Wellness) he seems to be improving. Of course, I imagine some of the dryness is also from the stress of moving to a new house...I still can't get over that process and how spastic the lady was about it. I was talking to my mom last night and she made the comment that it sounded like the lady didn't really know anything at all about cats or their personalities...and it made me remember how the lady told us that she treated her cats like dogs. I told my mom that I think she is right.

Anyway, all the critters seem to be doing well. OP is getting braver by the day - he still isn't too fond of Moo, and I can't blame him. She runs at him and chases him whenever she gets the chance. When she is sleeping he will come out, but he always keeps a close eye on her. LOL I did catch him rubbing up on Sadie last night. Except for the occasional lunge (which I think she purely does to make the kitties 'flinch') she is very good about being gentle with him. She is still curious about it, but much less pushy about it than she was at first. And lastly, Bonnie seems to be bonding with him. I caught them chasing and playing in the 'cat room' last night. YAY! That was the whole reason we adopted him in the first place!

And then there was squirrel...

Jun 6, 2009
Post a comment

The first squirrel to come up into the yard appeared yesterday. Sadie was SO excited - she did her little happy dance at the back door while whining and squealing. I, of course, had to come see what the commotion was about:

Oh boy!!!

and this is what I saw. A cute little critter who also seemed quite excited by the prospect of such easy, tasty treats being available. I took a bunch of photos through the kitchen window, so please pardon some of the weird reflection issues in some of the photos. When the sun came out, it made the white kitchen table reflect on the window - I didn't notice until too late.

I also got some photos of a few of the birds that come visit the feeders. None of the ones of the brown-headed cowbirds turned out, so maybe next time. And the titmouse refused to come to the feeder while I had my camera available. Someday I will catch him, though. Someday!

A Motley Crew

I was excited to capture the woodpecker that has been visiting. He moves around so much that I had originally mis-identified him as a red-headed woodpecker, but now with a photo to examine, I have discovered that he is actually a red-bellied woodpecker.

Tasty Tid-bits

The mourning doves are always lovely too...there are more photos on my Flickr page.

Since I had the camera out, I also snapped some photos of the kids. The kitties weren't very excited about having the camera pointed at them, but I still got a couple OK shots:

The dogs, however, hammed it up as usual:

Marly

Sleepy

After a lazy afternoon, Moo decided it was time to play. Sadie didn't seem to mind in the least and the two had a nice little romp session:

Marly always starts out by assessing the Sadie situation - you can see the romp session coming! The last photo is of Sadie telling Moo to take it easy. Every once in a while Marly will get a little too rough and Sadie has to remind her who's really boss in this house. You can't see it, but there is a serious, deep growl coming from Sadie.

And now everyone is back to being lazy and having a relaxing Saturday afternoon.

Home again, home again!

Jan 14, 2009
1 comment

Holy cow...when I left the hotel in Pittsburgh this morning it was 12 degrees Fahrenheit...by the time I reached the airport, the car thermometer said 8. Inside at the ticket counter the guy told me the current official temp there was 3. Gah!

It isn't like it is exactly warm here...in the mid to upper thirties today...but still much warmer than 3.

Dogs are happy to see me, as are the cats, which is always nice. Moo and Sadie both spent the night at Neil's house. Due to annoying behavior being stuck in her crate all night, Neil left Marly out over night. She ate some mail, including a bill, a Netflix DVD, and also got a hold of a power cord piece (unplugged). Naughty dog!

I do have the advantage here of being able to close my office door overnight so I don't have to worry about her getting into the stuff on my desk...Neil doesn't have that. I told him he needed to puppy-proof the house or else it was all on him if she shredded stuff. Heh.

Overall, though, she is doing really well on her own. I think lately she has just been bored. Tomorrow I am going to try to make time to take her for a good walk around the neighborhood here.

The great dog food adventure...

Jan 12, 2009
Post a comment

I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I cannot afford to do this food elimination trial using the prescription food that the vet wants me to. At $85 a bag with feeding requirements that are double the Wellness volumes - I will end up needing somewhere between 6 and 8 bags of food to do the whole trial. Not happening.

Thus, I am going to move to the Wellness Whitefish & Sweet Potato food. It is a limited ingredient (whitefish, barley and sweet potato) food with the typical mix of minerals and vitamins thrown in.

I was looking at the Solid Gold Wolf King, but it has more ingredients (bison, whitefish, brown rice, millet, oatmeal, cracked pearled barley, rice bran) which would make it harder to start pinpointing the problem child if it didn't alleviate the itching and ear problems. And I simply don't like that they use that many different carbs in the food.

Also, I think the Wellness ingredients are better quality. The food has always seemed fresher than when I fed the SG. The SG is $46/bag, the Wellness $50...way better than $85 since they both have feeding volumes of about half of what I need to give with the prescription stuff. The overall cost savings is huge.

So, I shall restart the trial with the Wellness food. I will handle it the same way - no treats or other foods for a minimum of 8 weeks to see how things go.

My gut is telling me that the lamb in their current food is what is bothering the dogs...Sadie has never done particularly well with it (but much better than with beef or chicken) and this is the first consistent food Moo has had with lamb. Sadie also did not do well at all on the venison when I fed the NV venison to them (both got terrible runs). The NV salmon was fabulous, so I am hoping the Wellness fish will be good too. Fingers crossed!

The best Christmas ever...once I got there.

Jan 2, 2009
Post a comment

Sorry for the lengthy entry...lots of rambling after being gone! :)

Getting out west this year was a nightmare - as noted in my previous entry regarding US Air. I did finally make it a little after midnight on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. My luggage even got there too!

I got the best Christmas present ever as soon as I got into the truck with my sister and mom...my sister announced that she is going to be a mommy!!! Which means I will be an aunt (duh!) - due date is August 20. I am SO thrilled I can't even express it properly. And the funniest part was that the silly sister of mine was sorry she couldn't drink beer with me while I was there! *laugh* Aside from it being a darn good reason for not being able to, it was better all around because I didn't drink as much as I probably would have otherwise.

So, though I had already planned on going back out at the end of August for my sister's b-day (I want to make that time of year my annual trip home time...this holiday travel thing is for the birds), now I will for sure be heading that way so I can help out with the new baby. And it will be convenient, because I can celebrate with both of them each year. Who knows, maybe Nugget (my sister's name, not mine - based on the current size and shape of the fetus) will be late and will have a birthday right next to or on my sister's (Aug 27)! Hehehe! Personally, I think that would be kind of cool since my birthday is the day after my mom's.

Aside from all that excitement, Christmas was nice. My dad was still there because his flight to TX was cancelled as well. I got to see more snow in the harbor than I have ever seen on all the years I lived there. I know it was annoying to the folks having to deal with all the ice on the roads that came with it, but it was also beautiful. I got to hang out with my mom. And I got to spend lots of time with my sister and BIL (they are some of my favorite people on the face of this planet). I got to see Dad's new boat (I forget if I have mentioned that he now lives on a boat?) - it is gorgeous for a boat...but man is it small for everyday living! And as always, the trip was way too short.

UPS got way behind in deliveries because of the crazy weather nation-wide so my sister's presents didn't arrive until after the holiday, but at least they got there. And I made out like a bandit and had to ship a box back home to myself because it wouldn't all fit in my bag.

The trip home was uneventful other than I couldn't sleep - I got into Charlotte around 6:00am on Wednesday and then picked up dogs (who were both beside themselves when they saw me), dropped Sadie at the house and took Moo to the vet for another check-up on the ears (see below).

I slept through new year's eve...no Times Square for me. And yesterday I spent the day reorganizing my china cabinet, kitchen cabinets, and shelves - I am still trying to find space for everything that is useable and accessible. I think I am finally getting there! Today I am going to tackle my bathroom and maybe even my closets. And tomorrow I will work on the office here (which is on hold somewhat until I can afford additional shelving for the closet) and also the refrigerator (I need to go through all my sauces and stuff and see what is outdated, etc.)

First, though, the dogs need a bath. They stink after being at the kennel...I could have gotten them groomed there, but that gal charges an arm and a leg for her services (she does the all out doggy spa stuff...massages and such with the bath).

PS Cats were all fine and happy, happy, happy that I was home. :)

~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

Moo's Ears:

Her ears are still boarderline OK. Way too much ear wax/goo building up in there which is requiring daily and sometimes twice daily cleanings on top of drops and other medicine. The good news is that the eardrum looks to be healing itself well and there is very little redness. So, the vet changed up the ear drops and put her on the food elimination trial. I knew the prescription food would be expensive, but seriously...$85 for a 27.5 lb bag of food?!? Even worse, she needs 6 cups a day (vs the 3 cups of Wellness). And we have to do this for 12 weeks. *sigh* I am also doing this with Sadie for two reasons: 1) Marly likes to steal food from Sadie sometimes and I really want to do this right to see if her problems are indeed food related and 2) Sadie has such itchy skin and it has been seven or eight years since I've seriously taken a look at the problem, I feel this is a good place to start.

This means, including Sadie, I am feeding 10 cups of food a day. I will probably end up buying four bags of this food before it is all said and done...and then, I will also end up buying some canned to make treats with since they cannot eat ANYTHING other than this food during the 12 weeks. I also need to ask the vet when we go back next week what I do for heartworm medicine during the trial - right now they get liver flavored pills which they aren't supposed to have because of the liver in them. I went ahead with this month's dose since it was given on the same day the trial started.

I will be very interested to see what happens with both of their coats during this trial - they currently get salmon oil which I am suspending during the trial. I think it is one of the primary factors in their pretty, shiny fur. We shall see! And once we are done, I am going to go on a hunt for another distributor of the Nature's Variety food. I really liked their salmon kibble and would like to get the dogs back on it. I wish Wellness made one for dogs...they do for cats.

The Moo - so far so good!

Dec 13, 2008
2 comments

The doc said her ears are looking really great...and that now the fun part starts. We have to wait and watch to see if it is going to be a continuous problem.

The good news is that typically a food allergy still shows symptoms even with prednisone, so he doesn't think that is it. (Whew!) However, it could be an airborne allergy that triggers it...so we are now keeping an eye out for feet chewing/licking, shaking the head, hot spots, etc. while she gets weened off the prednisone. Unfortunately, my trip home falls right in the middle of all this, so she may end up on a low dose of prednisone while I am away to stave off any issues until I am back and can tackle them as soon as they show signs.

Ultimately, though, I don't think this is a chronic problem. I truly think it was the infection from this summer that never got cleared up properly. And now that I know I need to clean her ears regularly, I don't think it will be an issue.

Sadie, on the other hand, has a hot spot of sorts...it looks as though something either bit or stung her rear end while she was going potty the other day. Right under the base of her tail. Poor gal! I gave her some benedryl and rubbed the spot with some rubbing alcohol.

I'm electric...

Sep 9, 2008
3 comments

Boogy-woogy-woogy!

Ok, not really...but I did get zapped pretty good yesterday afternoon when a bolt of lightening struck down somewhere nearby outside. At first I thought it hit the house, but there are no signs of singeing or other damage that indicate any kind of direct strike, but it certainly wasn't far away.

I think the cooler I bought for the laptop is what zapped me, though I don't really know. All I know is that it was a very, very loud pop in the office here and several house breaker switches were thrown. In fact, none of the surge protector breakers were switched. Thus far, the only electronic casualties that I can find are the cable modem (went a bought a new one at Best Buy last night and got it activated with TimeWarner - which I will say was a very easy process once I got through to someone...hold time was LONG.), my garage door opener (which may have a fuse of its own that got blown...I will need to investigate further), and the circuit for the bonus room over the garage (I can't get that breaker switch to flip back on even after unplugging everything up there).

So, this afternoon I will call my insurance company to see if they cover something like this and then call the electrician to come look at the circuit. Once that is fixed then we can see if my treadmill and/or stereo up there got fried.

The strike flipped the breakers for my office, the guest room, the master bedroom, the "loft" (bonus room over the garage), and the refrigerator.

I think the modem got fried through the cable line which is the ONLY thing that wasn't run through a surge protector. The new modem is attached to cable that is attached to the surge protector now. Heh. Live and learn. Luckily, the fridge seems OK...but I may take the sales person's advice and get a surge protector for that outlet too.

So that is my recent excitement...Sadie's leg is doing very well. She is starting to stand on it a tiny bit and even walk on it a little, but she still hops on three legs if she needs to go fast. *laugh* There doesn't appear to be much swelling left or redness which is good. Now, as long as she doesn't start pulling at the stitches she won't have to wear one of those silly collars. We'll see how she does with that.

Survival...

Jun 27, 2008
2 comments

So, I have survived my crazy week of travel with our new team member. She, by the way, is fabulous and I can't express how much I enjoyed having some company on the trip. Getting home last night was...a nightmare really. Bad weather all over the place made for lots of late flights and cancellations. I finally crawled into the house here around 12:45am.

Today has been full of work stuff - wrapping up things from this week, conference calls, scheduling for July, etc. But, for the most part, I am done now and must move on to the insane amount of housework that has to be completed before 8pm tomorrow!

Laundry: I have to get the guest bedding and towels washed! All other laundry can then be done as time permits...but those first two are a must!

Cleaning: Vacuuming the entire place will happen this evening. There is dog and cat hair in and on and around everything. I will also try to get all the dog bedding washed before tomorrow evening so that it doesn't smell so stale in here. It doesn't stink, but it all could use some refreshing. And the bathrooms...they both need to be scrubbed. Top to bottom. Inside and out. I should probably do a quick scrub of the kitchen floor too while I have the supplies out.

Organizing: My office and bedroom look like a bomb went off. I need to get things put away. Granted, Dad probably won't be hanging out in my bedroom, but the office? For sure!

The car will go to the wash/detail place tomorrow morning to get cleaned and I will do a quick grocery shopping trip on my way home.

Then, to the airport. Dad gets in sometime around 8:00pm tomorrow evening. Hopefully, he will have an uneventful trip. Traveling these days is crappy as it is...weather doesn't need to compound the crappiness.

Totally unrelated - I got the shoes that I ordered from Simple Shoes. They are adorable, turquoise canvas style shoes. I am going to wear them around the house later today to see how they feel...but just from opening the box, I love the way they look!

Marly's ear is markedly better. She missed her ear drops last night due to my late night arrival home and my being too tired to wrestle with her, but this morning she let me do them and was such a good dog about it. I think she is realizing that the drops are making the itching and soreness go away. The report is that they were good girls at the kennel...however, I think the ladies there just love Sadie more than anything and would say anything to get her there more often. Even up to and including the fact that they charge for Marly at the 30-60 pound dog price. Ha! Both pups seem contentedly tired today which is nice since I have so much to do and don't have enough time to take them to the park today (besides which the weather isn't cooperating for that either).

Oh yeah, Neil put up some old photos of Marly...I already forget how tiny she was when she came to live here! She will be 11 months old tomorrow.

More random stuff...

Jun 16, 2008
1 comment

So this weekend on our little vacation Sadie surprised the living daylights out of me by bounding down a really steep embankment and then by proceeding to charge right into the stream and start splashing about. She even beat Marly into the water! Though, she still made it clear that she does not like to be in water where she can't walk about - she tried to follow Marly into an area that was a bit deeper and immediately turned around and stood on a rock in the middle of the creek and whined at Marly until she came back.

Getting back UP the embankment with Sadie was a bit trickier, but we got her there by placing her feet about half way up where there were some rocks she could get a foot-hold on.

Then this morning at the dog park she actually chased tennis balls with Marly! She out-ran Mars the first few trips, but then slowed way down. It was nice to see her active, but now she is gimping pretty significantly this afternoon. Doggy daycare tomorrow and Wednesday will be good for her. She can still play but it won't be so strenuous.

I have an insane schedule between now and my dad's arrival:

Tomorrow - Wednesday: I am in Pittsburgh working
Thursday: hair appointment over lunch and then a meeting with a branch manager locally here in the afternoon
Friday: jam packed with con calls and prepping for my trip the following week
Saturday: Marly to the vet in the morning for shots and to pick up heart-worm medicine, then in the afternoon I get to sit around and wait for the glass repair people to come and glue the chip in my windshield
Sunday: pack for my work trip
Monday - Thursday: in Winchester, VA for work (training a new team member to boot....whhheeeee)
Friday: more con calls and trying to wrap up work stuff before my time off
Saturday: car into the shop for routine maintenance and oil change. Dad arrives Saturday night

So, somewhere in there I need to get the car over to the detail shop to get cleaned since it is a disaster from our trip with the dogs, clean the house, and get all the laundry done. Heh.

Right now I have to go pack for my trip at oh dawn hundred tomorrow morning. If I am lucky, I will be able to catch a flight that will get me home around 7pm on Wednesday...if not, I am stuck not getting home until after midnight. *sigh*