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Worried About Angel

Angel March 2009

We are pretty worried about our sweet Angel… Angel Pumpkin Spice Girl. We got her in 2002 and in the last few months she has really, really slowed down.

She’s loosing her footing more often now, and having a hard time standing up. She moves really slow. She is eating well, though, and pooping well so that’s good. She eats more than the rest of our dogs and she’s not fat. We worry that she’ll end up being one of those old skinny dogs so we feed her a lot to keep weight on her. She’s not fat though. She is just fine now.

We are afraid she is not going to be with us much longer, though. We will not let her suffer. I’ve learned a lot since I had Kip and kept him alive a bit longer than I should have. She won’t be spending any time in metal buildings, she has her soft beds and comfy places to sleep. She likes to be in the basement in my husband’s computer room where it’s safe and cozy and dark.

I love my Pumpkin Girl… I don’t want her to go. I hope we’ve given her a good long life. We are assuming she is about 13, but we don’t really know how old she was when she came to live with us.

She likes the couch, too, as this picture shows.

I love you sweet Angel.

Cynthia

November 5, 2009

Angel

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Angel

Sweet Angel Is Getting Old

Angel

Here is our sweet Angel. I can’t help saying Sweet Angel because she is our sweetest dog. She is probably about 13 years old now… and we don’t have low cost health insurance for her. But we do save enough each month so we can take care of her as she needs it as she gets older.

She is doing really well even though she is slowing down quite a bit. She is going up and down the stairs a lot slower than in the past. And she doesn’t like the heat we have been having… okay she never really liked the heat but she likes it even less now.

But she’s happy and loves scratches on the ears and she loves it when she gets ahold of a sock or a shoe and I chase her around. She runs out the dog door to get away. She’s very slow when I chase her but she’s so darn cute we have a good time. I have to run at her speed which is, really, walking slow, instead of running. LOL

We hope she’ll be with us for a lot longer but we hope we have given her a great life. She was a rescue too and came to us with a broken leg. I need to post up a picture from when she has her cast on, poor dear. We adore her.

Cynthia

August 24, 2009

Angel

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Angel

Three Old Dogs

It’s tough having three old dogs in the house. Of course we love them all, and it’s not like we have to spend lot of time exercising them and doing lots of things with them. However, as they age, we have to spend more on medical care. And make sure they get high quality food, a fair amount of exercise to keep them in shape, and good health care.

This picture is from May 5, 2002. We got Angel back in 2002. From left to right, Lucy, Angel (in my husband’s lap), and Levi is with me. All our smooth blue collies. They are such dolls and we love all of them.

Lucy now has megaesophagus and she’s just 10 years old. But we are thrilled that we are managing it okay and she is doing well. Lucy is also pretty incontinent and we need steam cleaners to keep the carpets clean, but we don’t have many carpets so that’s good! Angel is about 12 years old, we are guessing, because she’s a rescue. Angel is very healthy though and so we are happy about that. And Levi is 9.5 years old. He’s also very healthy but he does have arthritis now, typical of an older dog.

I’ll be a wreck when these three go. I love them all. And Levi is my soul mate dog. They are unique and wonderful and we hope they live a few more years with us so we can cherish and love them!

Cynthia

March 10, 2009

Angel, Levi, Lucy

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Age, Angel, Health, Levi, Lucy

Six Clean Dogs

Well today was bath day. It was between bathing the dogs, and cleaning the kitchen, and bathing the dogs won out! And it’s a good thing, too. Lucy was the dirtiest. The water ran off her very, very brown! We haven’t given her a bath for a while because of her megaesophagus and we’ve felt bad she’s been sick. But it was time, for sure.

Lucy Wet

Lucy hates baths the most, but then again, Tatum hates them almost as much. Angel has to spend hours after her bath licking herself. We think she may have been outdoors and cold and if she was wet, it’d be worse. And she has such a thick coat that she takes a long time to bathe and a long time to dry, too. Lucy has a pretty thick coat too. Levi’s is next in line, and then Tatum. Then Muffit with his border collie coat, his isn’t nearly as thick. And then Chase has the thinnest coat of all. He always has. If you want to see pictures of Tatum, Muffit and Chase, you’ll have to visit Tatum’s blog to see them!

Angel Wet

I don’t usually bathe all six dogs in a row. The water heater tank was empty when I finally showered myself off at the end, so the water was cool. Not cold, thank goodness! Muffit’s bath, his was the last, was a bit cooler than I would have liked. We bathe them in our tub. It’s too cold outside (snow on the ground and 32 degrees) and the dog washes are too expensive, even at $12 a dog, when you have six dogs to bathe.

Levi Wet

Do you bathe your dogs? I hear some people don’t bathe theirs ever. But with all the brown water that comes off, I can’t imagine not bathing them!

My back was pretty sore after. Lifting dogs in and out of the tub, and bending over to bathe them. I try to sit in the tub, but we have to move around a lot in order to get all the dog parts. All in all it went well, and it’s so nice to have six clean dogs!

Angel, Chase, Levi, Lucy, Muffit, Tatum

Where Were You Five Years Ago?

I was just sitting around and looking at old pictures from five years ago and wondering where life was then. And where my life and dogs will be in another five years.

Five years ago was 2003… and we were fostering a couple small dogs, a silky terrier mix named Jojo and a Shitzu named Sammy. We only had Lucy, Levi and Angel at that time. This picture is of Levi and Angel at an agility trial my husband came to and brought Angel with.

Levi was only four and we’d only had Angel for a year. Lucy was only five and she was healthy and strong, didn’t have the medical problems she has now.. the megaesophagus, the incontinence, and the general not feeling well.

Our family was smaller, but happy. My husband and I had just gotten married in March of 2003. We live in the same house. We have different vehicles, though. I still had my Toyota Pickup as I didn’t get my Outback until 2004. Now my Outback is for sale and I have a minivan, and three more dogs. Wow a lot can change in five years.

I wonder where I’ll be five years from now. Lucy and Angel might not be alive.. hopefully they will, but we just never know. Levi, too, will be old or gone. Lucy would be fifteen and Levi would be fourteen. We don’t know how old Angel is but we suspect she’s around twelve now. So she’d be seventeen, if she lives that long.

Chase will be ten, and so will Muffit. Tatum will be about eight. And it’ll be time for a new puppy, I hope. And I will be retired, or thinking of retiring. Which makes me very, very happy! Maybe we’ll be moving to Richfield, Utah, and getting some property and some sheep or goats.

Where do you think you will be in five years? Where were you five years ago?

Angel, Chatter, Levi, Lucy

Angel’s Green Ball…?

We have a bunch of.. well, tomatoes left over. They didn’t all turn red before picking time, and since it froze last weekend we wanted to try to salvage them for later. I do love my tomatoes!

We have them laid out in our spare bedroom so they will ripen. And Angel just thought that was the coolest thing, a whole scattering of green toys!

She loves to steal things and get chased. She’s our only dog we do this with. We don’t play ‘chase the puppy’ with any of the other dogs, because it can be so rewarding to them that they don’t want to come!

Anyway, if you look closely you’ll see that Angel’s green ball isn’t, actually, a green ball, but a green tomato. She was so excited to get it that I just couldn’t take it away from her. So I chased her around the house and out the dog door a few times. I love when she gets happy being chased! She gets all goofy and squiggly. And I have to make sure I run slowly, acting like I run fast, so I don’t actually catch her.

A Trip to the Dog Park

I don’t usually like dog parks… mainly because my dogs don’t do too good at them. But I have to say, some of my dogs don’t do good at them.. but actually, only one doesn’t do good at them anymore. Levi used to be horrible, barking at people, running amok, when he was young. He’s better now though, more mellow and he tires out fairly quickly. yeah.. he’s almost nine so he’s showing a bit of age. Darnit.

These first two pictures are of some dogs we met when there that our dogs wanted to play with. Very handsome and cute indeed!

Anyway, this park, Tanner Park, aka Parley’s Nature Preserve, is awesome. And it’s an official dog park now! It is a gully and it’s about a mile round trip. You go down and walk to a little lake kinda drainage pond at the top, then turn around and head back. The dogs love it, you don’t stand in one place for any length of time.. and to keep moving is much better for the dogs.

Chase and Lucy stayed home, because Chase is the dog that doesn’t like other dogs in his face. And Lucy can’t eat treats anymore. So my husband and I took Tatum, Muffit, Levi and Angel.

Muffit had a great time… he always knows where we are, but he pretends to forget where we are. He doesn’t come back to his name as well as Tatum does (when she’s listening). But I think it’s just because he’s afraid the fun will be over, and it’s not deeply reinforced yet that his name means a yummy treat is in order. He will catch on, I’m sure.

You just can’t get happier dogs than this. This dog park is doggie heaven. We did end up losing Tatum at one point. She forgets about us sometimes. She gets so excited about the other dogs, she tends to ignore us and forget about us and she follows the other dogs. I do think, though, with time she’ll get used to it and listen and watch for us more. She is a good girl and she watches for treats after about the first fifteen minutes of getting all the excitement out of her system.

Tatum just has the happiest darn face when she’s at the dog park. She loves it. She came home and is dead asleep now. She laid right down when she got into the van in her crate. Once she realized it was time to go, she like sighed and was happy that she could relax!