A long, strange night....

In a bizarre series of events, Milo, the handsome wandering dog, has found his way home. Turns out he escaped from a dogsitter who had some trouble retrieving the messages I left at his actual home. We ended up at the ER last night after Stuart tipped a Bobcat while doing some yard work. One of the ER nurses was the dogsitter Milo escaped from! His owner is a local doctor who has actually operated on Stuart before! The dogsitters are very good friends with our neighbors. So I dropped Milo off over there before heading back to the hospital and the nurse picked him up after his shift!

I think Milo enjoyed his stay with us. I'm sure Anvik enjoyed the break from Tehya's chewing! Given all the connections between our world and Milo's, I'm sure Tehya will see her new friend again!

This is what the Bobcat looks like this morning. I won't post a picture of my hubby's head--it's nasty! He's still in the hospital, but might be able to come home this afternoon. He will have a major headache for a long while, but other than a funky scar in his scalp, it doesn't look like he did any permanent damage this time!

Found dog....

Anyone know where this handsome boy might belong?


I picked him up yesterday on the Alaska Highway near the Miles Canyon road. I watched him almost get run over and then he froze in the road. Not the safest place for a dog to hang out! He was quite happy to follow me to my truck! He's been quite happy the whole time he's been here. He's playing with Tehya right now. He's friendly, sweet and has his basic manners down pat. He was quiet all night, only woofs and woos when he sees me coming to visit him. Good with other dogs, neutered, has a collar on, even had a phone number on the collar--no answer, no response to my messages. He has an owner, I'm sure of that. I'm hoping they are just out of town and not ignoring me because they don't want him back......although, I kinda like the nameless little wandering guy.

Another new one...

The dogs, actually just Tehya, came up with another new reason to visit the vet on Friday. Tehya sampled some foxtails. Given the sheer number of those damn things around this summer, it's fairly amazing that this has never happened before. She came in the house gagging, trying to eat anything that fit in her mouth, pawing at her face. Outside she frantically ate dirt, grass, and guzzled water. I dropped her off at the clinic on my way to work after a long night of trying to settle her down.

The notes from the vet say "a large number of foxtails" were removed from Tehya's throat, tonsils and tongue. No wonder she was unhappy! She's on a major dose of prednisone for a few days. They got the foxtails all out, but her throat is very inflammed now. The pred will take care of that. Course it also makes her thristy and she peed in the house for the first time in months today!

She's still a little sedate today--for Tehya anyway. Other than that she seems to be wondering what all the fuss was about!

I didn't think she'd grown very much, but she has gained ten pounds since she was spayed in April. She doesn't fit in the big cat cages anymore. She actually got a dog kennel at the clinic!

Well, that's a new one...

Just when I think the dogs have thrown pretty much everything at me, they come up with something new. I've been to the vet plenty o'times with overweight dogs, which most often has turned out to be a thyroid issue. Ozzy has recently developed the opposite issue--skinny, skinny, skinny! No matter how much food I fed him, he just kept getting skinnier. I put him back on their winter, working kibble. No help. I fed him more than I feed the 130 pound malamute! Nothing. It was embarassing to take him for a walk. He looked like a stray who'd been starving for months! Given that Ozzy had parvo as a wee puppy, I was a bit freaked out that some horrible aftermath was lurking so off to the vet we went. Poor new Dr. Jessica! She must be sick of me already!

Ozzy is a timid little guy so he was quite happy to see a soft-spoken, lady vet. Still freaked out, but not nearly as bad as he has in the past. He didn't hide under any chairs and she was able to do a full exam. He even spent the day getting some extra tests done.

Ozzy's problem, as it turns out, is basically me! Despite a dramatic increase in his food, he still wasn't getting enough calories! So now wee Ozzy eats a Satin Ball for breakfast(a disgusting mix of high fat hamburger, oil, eggs and fiber stuff frozen into a ball!) and FOUR cups of Acana Extreme for dinnner. Approximately 5000 calories a day! It's insane! The lady at the Feed Store said they rarely stock the Extreme in the summer, cuz sane mushers(if there is such a thing) wouldn't feed it! It's meant to be fed to dogs are working their butts off at -40 or running the Quest or some other crazy amount of work. It is not meant to be fed to dog lounging around in the summer doing basically sweet bugger all! Ozzy loves it! Wolfs it down and I can get more calories into him without a big increase in volume.

Two weeks after his initial vet visit, Ozzy has gained 5.5 pounds! He needs to gain a few more to reach the "low end of normal", but he looks better already. You can't count his ribs from across the yard! He has to go in to get weighed a couple more times, just to make sure the weight sticks. There is a possibility that his thyroid is messed up, but hyperthyroidism is very rare in dogs and almost always means they have cancer. I'd rather not know if that is the case since I couldn't do a damn thing about it anyway. If he starts loosing again, I'll do more tests!

Now I'm going to have to figure how much he needs to eat to maintain his weight and how much MORE he'll need when he's actually working again. Good thing they don't all need to eat this much!