A day late! Yesterday was Babs' birthday, she is now 11 years old. It's hard to believe that its been 11 years since Michelle and I were rushing old Cassie to the vet in the middle of the night for an emergency c-section, and Michelle whelped Babs in the back of the van as we sped down the highway! That's how she got her name, Nutmeg's Dancin' 'N the Moonlite. That was a whelping we will never forget. Old Cassie (not to be confused with Cassie who is here now - young Cassie already had her name when she came to us at a year and a half, I would not ordinarily have two dogs with the same name!) hadn't seemed quite herself a few days before whelping, but it was unusually warm and she was HUGE and there was nothing wrong I could really put a finger on. When she finally started whelping she was a long time between puppies and she seemed totally exhausted. After 4, and with a big belly still, I called Dr. Joe and off to the vet we went. Babs was born on the way, and the remaining 3 were born by c-section. I had Cassie spayed at the same time, as she wasn't going to be bred again. Dr. Joe commented that it was a very clean surgery, very little blood. An hour or so later we were back home, and Cassie was settled in with her 8 fat pups. Around 4 am I was woken up by Cassie thrashing around - she was having a seizure! Called Dr. Joe, threw on some clothes, managed to get her back in the van and off we went. She was extremely anemic, and I called Marc and had him bring Lisa Sausage so Cassie could be transfused. She got about a pint of blood plus a bit, and she was definitely feeling better. We mostly hand raised the pups for a few days until she had her strength back and was able to nurse them more than once a day. I remember she got a lot of Ensure and cooked liver during that time!

All the pups did great and Cassie recovered with no major problems, except for a bout of mastitis a few weeks later. We will never know what caused the anemia problem, although I have heard stories from other Akita breeders describing a similar situation. One of Cassie's daughters had the problem, and Babs had a slight anemia, but nothing like the emergency her dam had. One of those medical puzzles.

Anyway, Babs is doing great and happy birthday to her!

Paula had her major surgery yesterday, poor girl! She was spayed and had three mammary glands removed, as Joe felt two small tumors in two other glands. She was pretty painful when she got home last night, but she slept well on all her blankets and was feeling much better by late this morning. She ate her dinner quickly tonight so is well on the way to healing up. Paulie is such a good girl, her tail has never stopped wagging, and the techs said she was a total sweetheart there wagging her tail the whole time .

Is there anything more frustrating than getting up in the morning, switching on the computer, and it's screwed up? Arrgghh!! This morning I had no icons or toolbar on my screen at all. After turning it on and off about 6 times, I brilliantly deduced that wasn't going to work, and finally shut it off and got out my laptop.

Thankfully around 10:30 or so I saw Andy get online and I quickly IM'd him about what to do. His suggestion, right click the screen and then click on show icons was a good one, but when I right clicked, nothing happened. I hoped he would find it in his heart to stop by sometime today before I threw my one year old computer out the window! While I was reading email on the laptop, suddenly my icons on the desktop computer appeared! A few minutes later, the toolbar appeared, with a little bubble that said I had no virus protection. What? Of course I did! But it seems there was an error somewhere.

Long story short, Andy called and said he'd fix the computer for some lunch, which sounded like a great deal to me! He had to do a Windows restore, which I don't understand at all, but it worked. Thank goodness! My laptop is fine, but I much prefer working on the "big" computer. This annoyance wasted most of my day!

Finally this afternoon when everything was resolved, we got a few new pictures of Phoebe. Not great ones, but you can see how much she has grown! She is also quite fat, I guess she really wants to fit in with being a real American.

Well, maybe not that big

First off, today my mother is 70 years old. Woo hoo! Have a great day, Mom.

Last night was hot and miserable and I decided to sleep downstairs on the couch where the air conditioning was. I tried this last week, right after Wheezer passed on, and didn't sleep well all night because I'm used to having a dog sleeping on the floor next to the couch. I thought Arlo might be a good nighttime dog, so I let him out of his crate, where he normally sleeps, gave him a big marrow bone, and told him to lay down. Amazingly, he did! He is such a good puppy, I can't believe he is only 9 months old. He plopped himself down on the floor next to the couch and chewed his bone and eventually fell asleep. I had to get up around 3 am for the usual reason, and he was all stretched out there, and it was good to see a dog in the living room overnight again . He got a bit excited when I got up, started doing that jumping in the air, trying to foot stomp routine, but I told him to settle down, and he did. We both went back to sleep and slept right through until the too early time of 5:30. It's going to be hot and muggy again tonight, so he'll get to keep me company again. I'm not sure if I can trust him down here by himself yet, though. We may have to experiment around with that one.

My sister, who lost her kitty Samson last week, got a new family member! His name at the shelter was Garfield, but he just doesn't look like a Garfield, so he'll get a new name once Ellen and Mike can decide on one. I am not a cat lover by any means, but this kitten is just too cute!





UPDATE!!! I've been told by reliable sources that Garfield's name has been changed to Sunny.

It's been quiet for the past few days, but I won't complain about that! Yesterday, very early in the morning, I took Mandisa for a walk, as she isn't using her injured leg as well as I would like her to. It was about 6 am and still half light. One of the houses down the street has two topiary trees in their front yard, and Mandisa thought they were pretty weird. She didn't want to walk past them at first, but decided after a good look that they weren't anything to worry about after all.

I found a little lump in one of Paula's rear mammaries, so she is off to surgery on Monday. I'm not messing around waiting on that! She is going to love being the queen as she recovers. Paula loves her comfort.

Michelle and family made it to Germany safely, and Rebecca was good on the plane. I was afraid she might have a tantrum and be asked to leave, LOL! Michelle said the kids slept most of the flight across to Europe. What fun they are going to have! I wish I had been able to go with them. It was weird seeing Michelle online this afternoon and being able to IM with her from "across the pond." I know, I am easily amused.

It hit 93 today, much to my disgust. That's over 20 degrees above normal . Thank goodness it will be cooler over the weekend.

Sometimes, I just feel like complaining. Today is one of those days!

Why did Clio have to come into season NOW??? I want to bring her to the National Specialty, and it would be just my luck that even though she's only gotten pregnant once in her life, that she would get pregnant again this time and I surely wouldn't went to bring her out to Kentucky in a month knowing she was. Arrrgghhh!!!

And speaking of the National Specialty, why on earth does Nemo feel he has to totally blow his coat now? Besides being entered in four shows this week with major entries all week and pretty good judges, I'm hoping he will have enough back in time to look decent at the National. I guess I'd better get out the Mane & Tail conditioner and figure he's going to be spending a lot of time up on the grooming table in the next month or so.

Maybe if we had NORMAL weather, dogs wouldn't be blowing coat! Helllloooo....it's the end of September! I don't want to see any more of this crap with temperatures in the 80's - close to 90 forecast for tomorrow - if I wanted to live in a warm climate, we'd be in Florida! I want to see 60's during the day and how about a frost? I enjoy the cooler weather; I'm tired of eating salads and would like some nice wintery type dinners.

Dixie is having a false pregnancy and is driving me nuts. There are dens dug all around the back yard, she's being an absolute bitch in her crabbiness, and poor Trick - she makes ugly faces and growls at him all day long. It's like she's having a major bout of PMS! I hope her hormones settle down soon because she is getting on my nerves.

Yesterday we had to cut Jellybean's nails. They were so long they were hitting the ground and splaying out her toes, making it hard for her to walk. Let me tell you, this was no picnic. Beanie has always been terrible about her nails, which is why they were allowed to get so long, but now that she is old, she is even worse than when she was young! I gave her a mild tranquilizer and we tried in the afternoon - nope, no way! She whipped her head around and got out of the muzzle a couple of times (I'm not kidding when I say she's bad - she bites!), tried to bolt out the door, and nearly got out of her collar, so rather than fighting with an old gal, I thought I'd give her a second pill and try again later. A few hours later, she seemed quite subdued, so I tried to put the muzzle on her again. She was bucking around here like a bucking bronco! Finally I got it on her, and Marc held her down so I could cut them. Sheesh! She was just relaxed enough that I could do it quickly, although not as short as I would have liked. At least they aren't hitting the floor anymore. Jellybean wasn't done with us yet, though - she dropped a big turd while I was cutting them! She was very unhappy. Beanie got two big cookies afterwards to make up for all her stress. i should have had a couple of cookies and a shot of booze myself!

And for my non-doggy rant: What is up with the Post Office? I am an avid reader and belong to Paperbackswap - the postal regulations have changed, so any package over 13 ounces with stamps must be handed to a retail clerk. Last week I had a book returned to me after I stamped it and put it in my mailbox to mail. This means that my mailman took it out and brought it to the post office. I guess he's not qualified to tell that this package that is obviously a book in an envelope, with Paperbackswap all over the labels, isn't a bomb or something. So after it comes back to me, I ask Marc to bring it to the post office next time he goes. The clerk there just took it and said thank you. Did he examine it in detail? Nope. Xray it? Nope. So what did he do that was any different than what my mailman did? NOTHING. Let's chalk another one up to the idiocy of more red tape to protect us from all the book swapping terrorists out there....