Night Night Time

The other night I was greeted with a Kodak moment at the top my stairs on my way to bed. Normally when it's bed time I have to call out "night night time" and one of the dogs will go racing up the stairs. Typically it's Graham heading up the stairs and I have to pull Lola out of her crate or away from a sock. On occasion Graham will lay down at the top of the stairs waiting for me to come up. 

The other night as Josh headed to bed and I took my sweet time rounding things up downstairs before heading up. As I start to climb the stairs I look up to see my two little fluffy butts waiting for me! It was the cutest thing ever, both had there heads resting on the top stair and both of them seemed half asleep. Usually as I start going up the stairs they get up and either head towards the bed room or run circles in the small hallway at the top of the stairs. Not this time, this time they stayed laying there until I got to the top to sweep em up in my arms and carry them away to bed. It was as if they were telling me it was night night time <3

Lola's Bruise (and bald spot)

After a weekend trip to the vet, my poor Lola is sporting a nice little bald spot.

A few months ago Lola was due for some shots. We made our trip to the vet, got our shots and that was that. Well a week or so later Lola got a bit stinky, like all dogs do, and I discovered what looked like a bruise. Lola didn't seem to upset about it so I decided to keep an eye on it. I figured it was either a reaction to a shot or Graham had attempted to beat her up.

A bit later, maybe a month, our groomer noticed it. All I can think is "Great, now PetSmart things I abuse my dogs!". When we picked her up our groomer had already left for the day but the other girls pointed it out....same spot as it had been when I originally saw it. I asked the groomers, after telling them I was aware they probably had no answer for me, if it was a bruise or something I should be concerned with. Of course, they had no answer, but said it looked like how dogs with massive mats look after the mats are being cut and how they all found it odd since she had no mats. So we left the groomers and decided to just keep our eyes on it. Our wedding was in a few weeks and, like before, she wasn't acting like it bothered her.

So now that the wedding is nearly two months over with, Lola was getting another bath and.....that dang bruise was STILL THERE!!!! A few days later a postcard came saying she was due for her bordetella at the vet and I thought, thank god, we are going to get this checked out now.

Of course this pesky bruise isn't any easy to see with her massive amount of fur that is in some needing of being groomed. So while at the vet I pushed her fur around a bit and was able to find it to show our vet. From the little viewing area we had it almost looked like a little scratch. I thought in my head "great it's clearing up!". Our vet asked if we had noticed her being itchy lately and both Josh and I agreeded that nothing was out of the norm. The vet suggested that we shave a little spot of her fur and he would give us some cream to put on it since it really did look like a spot that had been itched to much. We gave the go ahead to shave a little spot and to the vet's surprise the little scratch was defiantly not a scratch.

Our vet agreed it was defiantly more bruise like and was a bit shocked on how big it was once the fur was gone. He seems a bit baffled by it but gave Lola a shot of antibiotics in hopes that it would clear up whatever was causing it. So not only does my little Lola have a bruise, and an officially weird bruise, but she is also now rocking a bald spot. If she is standing it is pretty unnoticeable due to her hair's length but when she lays down it's pretty visible. 

I'm trying not to worry about it to much. Although it hasn't gone away, it also hasn't gotten any worse. And Like I said above, she doesn't even seem to notice it.

 If anyone has any ideas of what this might be your help would be greatly appreciated. It's not very fun when something isn't quite 100% right with your fur-baby and your vet can't give you an answer. I'm hoping someone out there has dealt with something like this before and can help calm my nerves by having some type of answer.

Frozen Pup

I'll admit it and I'll admit it with pride.....I like to put clothes on my dogs.People may laugh and think I'm odd but when they see Graham in a sweater and Lola in one of her winter coats they always say how cute they are!...ok not EVERYONE, but most everyone!! If you've ever seen me put an outfit on Lola....why yes, she does growl and try to chew my fingers off. But once the outfit is on, she loves it! In fact, she even gets excited to put her Snuggie on after she gets groomed. And yes you read that right, Lola has a Snuggie along with coats, raincoats, hoodies, dresses, sweaters and costumes.

Dragon Costume

Coat

Snuggie

Sometimes it may be a little questionable about how Lola feels about her outfits. Sometimes she will freeze into place for awhile after putting an outfit on. She will ALWAYS freeze if the outfit has a hoodie and you put the hood up.



Lola decided to freeze again tonight after putting her Thunder Shirt on. This is a rare photo of Lola! She hates being on her back, won't even roll over for a belly rub, but somehow she froze in this position until I took a picture and then took some pity and rolled her over.

Opossum Lola

Puppy Fever

There is something about puppies. I love my dogs to pieces but I'm getting puppy fever. I don't even really WANT a puppy, I just want to play with a puppy......REALLY REALLY bad!!! Looking at pics of my pups and other pups just doesn't help!!! I just want to play with a little tiny thing that will tucker out and then curl up and sleep in my arms. And not just sleep like dogs sleep but how puppies sleep, that 100% out cold puppy sleep were they relay on you to protect them while they catch their Z's. If any of my friends are reading this.....please purchase a puppy so I may play with it!!! Three dogs is just to many for me to handle and I have to many years of Lola and Graham to enjoy before tiny lil pup can enter our house long term.

Air Swimming

When we lived at the loft all of our air registers were in the ceiling. I had longed to see what Lola would do with a blast of air coming at her from below. I had a tiny glance of it at my parent’s house during one visit but all that happened was a look of shock and then a loss of interest. When we bought our house and moved in I was excited! I was for sure something funny would happen or our dogs would enjoy warming up by them in the winter and cooling down on them in the summer. Six months in and our dogs acted like they haven’t even noticed the air registers and the blowing of warm of cold air coming from them! So the other day I took it upon myself to make them figure it out.

First I picked Graham up and put him over the air. He didn’t seem to mind it but was a bit unsure of what to do….odd behavior since this is the dog that pee’s when he sees new things! The end result was Graham in a superman pose as his fur fluffed in the wind and his ears seemed like little parachutes.

Second I picked up Lola. Again I was not met with shock or a terrified dog trying to wrestle out of my hands. Instead I was met with swimming. The second the air touched her belly Lola began to swim. I think I may have peed my pants from laughing! It was the last the thing I was expecting.

I gave the dogs a break for the day from teasing them with the air register. It only took a few days before my urge to take the dogs air swimming was too much to bear!

I picked up Graham, who is afraid of everything, seemed more annoyed then anything and began to slowly swim.

I then picked up Lola who dutifully began to swim. Lola seems to be an excellent swimmer and was kicking her little paws as best as she could. The lower to the ground I held her the faster she would kick!

Oddly both dogs don’t seem to mind our little air swimming times. We’ve done it a few times and I swear Lola barked at me to hold her over it one time! They don’t act scared of the air register at all, in fact they still just ignore it. And when they are swimming they don’t struggle to get away, they simply swim.

Belle's Big, Scary Weekend

Meet Belle. She is my fur-sister. I think Belle can thank Lola for warming my mom up to indoor pets. Growing up I was always told I couldn't have an indoor pet. Of course that never stopped me from sneaking my rabbits inside the house for the day or even sneaking indoor pets, such as gerbils and hamsters, into my room. But somehow things changed and my parents bought Belle. Belle is the tiniest littlest dog in my life and I often ask her if she is even real because of how small she is! Her small size is made up for by her BIG personality and her LARGE amount of energy! She is also probably the only dog that Graham will play with. They seem to be the definition of BFF.

Tiny little Belle

Belle is a Morkie, just like Graham. You can tell from her looks though that she picked up more Yorkie then Graham did. The Yorkie in Belle was able to teach us this weekend that Yorkie's can have liver troubles. It started Friday night when I got a call from my mom. They were playing with Belle when she suddenly got sick. Really, really, really sick.When I first talked to my mom they had been waiting in the vet's waiting room for 30 minutes and had had no news. She said Belle was barely clinging on during the car ride to the vet. I couldn't even imagine seeing my dog the way my mom described what had happened with Belle. She was fine one minute and the next minute was throwing up. Belle began to seizure and then just went limp. After 3 hours in the vet clinic's waiting room, my parents found out it had something to do with Belle's liver. 

Is that a bill goat?? No, It's Belle!

My parents learned over the weekend that Belle's liver wasn't functioning properly and her body was basically poisoning it's self. A MRI was scheduled for today, Monday, to let them know just what was wrong with the liver. They faced two options, either a problem with a shunt that would require surgery or something that could be taken care of with medications. I got a call tonight that Belle is home and won't need the surgery, however she is on a special diet and will need to take 3 pills a day for the rest of her life to make sure everything functions properly.

It's hard to get a good pic of Graham and Belle!

I'm glad Belle is doing better and her problem was fixable. I try to prepare myself for the time when Lola and Graham won't be able to be with me any longer, but it helps to know I still have many many years with them. It's hard to hear about fur babies that are so sick at such a young age. Loosing a dog is hard no matter what, but loosing a dog after a couple years is a different type of hard then living a full life with them. I'm glad my parents were able to avoid that situation. I am also glad they were able to get her the help she needed in the a timely matter. I would of missed my lil fur-sister and I have no idea what Graham would of done with out his friend.

A weekend visit to the parents results in some VERY tired puppies!

Back To School...

After taking 8 weeks off of classes it's time to start back up. Sadly, this means bored lil puppies as I try to organized myself for the next 8 weeks of this term and 8 weeks after and then the follow 8 weeks and so on...for another year or so :( At least I have the cutest study buddies ever!!!