Jet and Tatum in the Snow

So the snow isn’t bad with a good car and the dog’s in seat belts. And the husband has been doing a lot of shoveling, which is also nice! I really appreciate when he does that! He’s such a great guy. He doesn’t need to find out about side effects of diet pills since he’s been working so hard on the snow!

The dogs, of course, love the snow. They are out playing in it a lot. I threw a tennis ball in the deep part so that Jet would go find it, to show how deep it is. I am pretty sure we got over a foot total. We haven’t had this much snow in a lot of years. It’s good for our water supply. And I like the snow until the end of December. Then I’m pretty much done with it and I’m ready for spring.

For now the dogs are enjoying it!

Sasha Playing

How can you deny that sweet happy face? LOL she is such a doll. I miss her, but my husband is right, had she stayed here we might have fallen too deeply in love with her and just had to keep her. UGH fostering collies is so hard! I love them all!

Sometimes you just get lucky with a picture and I think this is one of those really lucky ones! I just love the look on her face. She is one sweet happy girl.

Tuesday she goes in to get her teeth cleaned and to have her nose, ears and eyes biopsied.  We get to have her Monday night, then my husband will take her into the vet on Tuesday morning.  We hope she doesn’t come back with something awful with her nose… but we are prepared. If necessary, if she’s terminal or something awful, we’ll just keep her and love her for the rest of her life.

Bonnie in the Snow

While I was there I had, of course, to get some pictures of the foster home’s other gorgeous collies! Above is Bonnie, she’s a black tri and isn’t she just gorgeous? Tatum loved playing with her. She’s a spunky sweet collie girl!

Tatum and Roughs!

And above is Tatum with all three of her collies. They are so pretty! I just love collies, dangit. I just fell in love with the breed years ago and now always will want a collie or three or four in my life!

Now I’m feeling a bit sick again… I’ve had a bug the last few days, no need for Lipovox but I have been eating poorly so probably gaining some weight. Ugh. Oh well. I’m going to crash on the couch and watch some bad Sci Fi movies… and rest, and drink some eat. As the dogs all sleep around me too.

Sasha and Tatum

So of course I had to drag the camera outside because it was pretty when the snow was just starting to accumulate on the grass, and you could see some of the grass peaking through.  Tatum and Sasha are becomming good friends. But then, Tatum befriends everyone.   Tatum is such a good girl. Sasha even chased Tatum around a little bit outside this morning.  Zoom Zoom!

Sasha is doing really well. She is not coughing as much as she was. She is letting me comb her out just a little bit now and again. Her skin seems very sensitive but that could be due to whatever is on her nose, too.  I was able to get some of those tiny pre-mat things out of her right side last night, and her right rear flank.

Running!

My husband was feeding her treats at the same time I combed to keep her calm and reward her. She stopped taking the treats though, so we stopped the combing too. I think her skin and her coat are really bothering her. Though I think she was groomed fairly recently, because her underbelly is trimmed straight and so are her legs. Her feet are too fluffy though!

This picture of Tatum and Sasha running is a bit blurred but it’s pretty darn cute. Tatum so loves it when someone will chase her!

Sasha’s blood work came back fine, so that’s good.  And my husband says that means there’s less chance of her having the really nasty thing wrong. It seems like all three options, below, are really autoimmune things.

Sasha is eating really well and I’m glad she is starting to play. I think she’s more of a people dog than a dog dog. She loves to be with me and my Husband. He even thinks she likes him better! Which is just kinda odd becuase it’s more common for rescue dogs to trust women more than men, unfortunately.  I know a lot of wonderful men who would never even dream of hurting a dog.

So she settles in. We did even get an offer of a foster home for her! But now that we have her, it’s hard to put her someplace else, especially with her condition. Because we have an emotional investment now, as well as financial and, also, we just want to know what is going on with her darn nose!  And another tidbit of good news…  Sasha was bringing toys to my husband last night to play! That’s an excellent sign.

Collies and Border Collie

Me and some of the members of my flyball team, Thunder Paws… we are renting a townhouse and so we will have fun evenings with wine and beer and song… okay well maybe not song, but videos for sure. I’m packing up dog videos that we can watch for entertainment.

The driving situation is all worked out, so we hope. I do hope that all my junk and a team mate’s junk fits in my Outback. And three dogs. We might have to send some of the junk down with another teammate in her car instead.

Anyway.. I don’t know if I’ll have internet access from Vegas or not. I’ll have my laptop with, but if I don’t have internet I’ll have to save the pictures and info for when I get back.

So anyway Lucy does have a lot of striations (I hope that is the right word) in her lungs. More so than spots. It reminded me of Mars and all the alleged canals that people used to think were up there. But Dr. Hennemen was not convinced it’s cancer. But we are going to treat her like it’s cancer. She did say that it might be calcification. She also said it looked like one of Lucy’s ribs had been broken a long time ago. Goodness… dogs. Man, they can hide pain so well. I wonder if it was when we had our rollover all those years ago in the snow. That’s the only thing I can figure, since she’s never been on her own really, except the week we went to Maine and put her in boarding with Levi and Angel. Hrm.

Anyway Lucy has lots of calcification on her bones in her rib cage, too. Now I’m just saying what i remember, and my memory isn’t all that great. I like it when my husband comes because he remembers better. But anyway…

So we are going to strengthen Lucy’s immune system, Vitamin C and E. Antioxidants too. And I’m going to give her more whole foods in her diet that are seasonally appropriate. And some cooling foods, too, like Celery and Duck. I wrote more things down and they are in my purse. But we are basically gonna see about getting her as healthy as we can. And then, in a couple months, get new x-rays and see if there is any more growth of this stuff in her lungs.

So we have some hope. Oh.. and while I was gone, our regular vet called and my husband answered. They said they had someone look at Lucy’s x-rays as well and he said it looked, to him, more like calcification than cancer… so, I am a bit excited. However, still worried. Lucy’s energy level is still very low and she’s being cranky. But Dr Hennemen also said her lymph nodes are swollen and we have to keep a close eye on her.

So that’s the scoop so far.

Yesterday was a great training day. I am having major PMS and feeling like crap, but I was able to keep myself upbeat and take my time setting up and tearing down crates, and dealing with the dogs. I had fun once I got to my classes which I expected. Even when I’m down or not feeling well, training always lifts my spirits.

I was going to go to the Obedience Fun Match today and decided not too. Mostly because it was a stretch for me yesterday when I was feeling horrible. And, there is a winter storm warning for this afternoon and I don’t want to drive in the snow, it’s over 20 miles one way.

So I thought of looking at directbuy for some household items, since they offer merchandise at manufacturer-direct prices. But I think I’m going to stay home today and catch up on some blogging and dog training.

Chase is doing really well with his obedience practice. His heeling is doing well, and his go outs, and his articles. His recall, however, is a bit messed up. I discovered that when I call him on a recall, since we’ve been doing so many go-outs with him, that he goes right around me to check out the stantion to see if there is a treat on it! LOL my instructor says this is typical, thinking, border collie behavior. The smarty pants!

Levi is also doing great. He is more advanced than Chase and needs more work. I’m going to do a private or two with him so I can get him going for his CD. I think he’s almost ready if his front can be closer and his heeling a little more polished. And since it’s mostly heeling, that’s what is important.

I got a super compliment from my trainer today. She asked me if I would like for Levi to go to the AKC Invitationals for the collies. I would love him to go! I would have to Q him on a more consistent basis. But he is a great agility boy! He runs in preferred, though. We’d have to see about getting him back into 24″. Not sure if he’d like that too much.

My goal with Tatum is to get her into the AKC Invitationals. I think that’d be great, and as fast and as spunky as she is, I don’t see that we’d have a problem. Plus, there’s not too many collies that do agility. Not as many as border collies!

Anyway… so that was our day!

Saturday I’m going to practice some Obedience with some friends. And.. oh, in the morning Tatum gets to go to puppy class. That will be fun I love Tatum and puppy class! Though she might need to graduate to a higher level class soon, because she retains better than the puppies. But it’s nice to work with her regularly.

Sunday there is an Obedience and Rally Fun Match in South Ogden I plan on going to. Though if it snows, I won’t make the drive. Probably over 20 miles to get there. Maybe more like 30 or so. Or maybe even more. I just don’t want to think about it. I’ll bring Chase, Levi and Tatum and see how they do.

Monday not sure yet, might have some more dog training. I get my nails done in the afternoon. Looking forward to that!

So hopefully I’ll get some blogging time in this weekend. We’ll have to see. I need to do some laundry!

Taking off my diamond pendants before I go out with the dogs so as not to loose them, I crouched down and snapped a bunch of quick shots. And I’m adjusting the brightness a bit, because they were pretty dark. Maybe I need to learn about ISO. There is so much to learn!

Anyway, so here’s a pic for today! Oooo, I should do a wordless wednesday… LOL.