Ewwwww!

So there I was freaking out about the stain on the steps when I heard "Mom, there's blood!"  followed by a sneeze.  I rushed to the living room and there on the floor was a huge amount of blood, but the victim wasn't one of the kids, it was our geriatric dog (she's around 18 years old or so.)  When I got there, she had moved about six feet away, to the nice new living room rug.  Yeah, can you see where this is going?

I grabbed some paper towels and was cleaning up the first mess when I hear another sneeze, followed promptly by two more sneezes.  This dog had the Mother of All nosebleeds.  Before we could corral her, she had left two more sneezy, bloody messes in two more rooms (including on the dining room carpet.)  Yuck.

We (the kids and I) hit the mass panic button and finally got her hemmed up in the kitchen where at least the floor would be easy to clean.  While this was going on, I rushed to call my Sis-In-Law who worked at a vet's office for years and is our repository for all animal knowledge in the family.   Then we got to work cleaning up all the mess. 

The poor dog's nose was gushing blood and was really gross, poor thing.  We laid down moving blankets, made her comfortable and made sure she wasn't going to die on us over night and went to bed.  First the steps disaster and now the dog one.  I was completely stressed out by this point. 

The good news is, she's fine.  The vet kept her all day under observation, gave her antibiotics and there's been no more nosebleeds.  The bad news is that not one person knows what caused it and it could happen again at anytime. Yep, two hundred odd dollars later and the vet is clueless.  

Being a pet owner is so much fun.

Proof That It's Cold

I'm freezing.  It's been freaking cold here, especially for us here in Georgia.  I don't like cold.  I'm standing by my statement that I'm allergic to the cold weather. I can't feel my fingers, toes, nose or behind.  I want heat.  I want my summer back.  This is why I never go on vacation to cold climates.  My sister in law goes snow skiing and calls it fun.  Phooey.  I'll go snow skiing when and if it's of absolute necessity and I can survive no other way.

Wanna know who else has been cold?

I set a blanket on the floor beside a space heater for our 17.5 year old dog.  She was so pitiful and I wanted to baby her.  Look at the crowd that showed up:

This is absolutely amazing.  Let me tell you why:

Yellow cat -doesn't like the other three animals

Brown cat -doesn't like the other three animals

Black dog - doesn't like the cats, barely tolerates little brown dog

Brown dog - Loves everybody but is at the bottom of the totem pole

And lastly:  that blanket was only 2 foot x 3 foot in size.

How about a close up of the part of the picture that had our jaws gaping wide:

If you only knew how many fights I've had to break up over the years with these two.  They hate each other.  They've even divided the house up into territories in order to avoid each other and woe be the one who crosses into the wrong territory!

Truly, hell hath frozen over!

Goodbye

There are four less feet clicking on our floors today at my house.  One less gentle loving friend to greet us at the door.  It's heart breaking.

Jette was 13.5 years old and suffered from hip and knee problems.  Her body just couldn't keep up anymore.  We're going to miss her dearly.  A more gentle, psychotic looking dog you've never met.  She was the best alarm system that we could have had and a wonderful playmate.   She was our first baby and is the first to go of our four footed children. 

It's been difficult to explain to the Youngest.  When he asks where Jette is, we just tell him that "She's at God's house."  He asked us after that if the baby was hugging her and we said, "Yes, Baby Jesus is hugging her."  It's only the truth.


Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I'll see you on Monday.

Dog Crisis

At the end of last week we had a dog crisis. Cessna,

Wishing the photographer would go away...

a 16 year old (that's right, 16 years old) spaniel mix who is incredibly cute, has a couple of slipped discs. She was walking like she was drunk and she was in so much pain her back was arched like a spooked cat's. I found out that this is the fetal position of the dog world.

This lead to a major dilemma. There were three choices:

1. operate
2. drugs
3. euthanasia

At this point the important thing is quality of life versus quantity of life. It would be crazy for us to operate on a dog that is 16 years old. Not going to happen. I decided to go with the drugs. At best, its only a temporary fix. Her spine will never be fixed and she will be in pain again. I don't want her to live in that kind of pain again. It won't be long before we have to put her down. I'm gearing up for it. She's been in our lives as long as we've been married. We rescued her from the pound about a month after the wedding and that was almost twelve years ago. So sad.


To offset the sadness, how about a 9 month old puppy?

Silly puppy

News tomorrow about two knitting projects!

The Secret is Out!

The Secret Project can now be seen! Meet "Mini Minnie":


This was my Mom's B-day gift. She's a Westie (the toy, not my Mom) look alike from Alan Dart's Perfect Pups series. The pattern is Sirdar #2101. Done on size 6 and 2 needles, but I substituted Bernat Boucle and Bernat Softee Baby yarns for the suggested Sirdar yarns.


I found a dollar store collar that looks very similar to the one that the real Minnie wears. It's red with white paw prints on it. You can get a glimpse of it here:


But details are everything in a gift. Check out the tag that I had made for this:


The Youngest wanted this toy so bad! He kept crying for "Minnie" . He got to her a couple of times when I wasn't looking, but it was so cute. He sat down and kissed her over and over.

I have to move this past weekend's doings to tomorrow. But I promise, it was Redneck heaven. Hmmm...

Roxie's Impersonation

Roxie's Impersonation of a Drowned Rat:

Where's all the cute fluff?

Roxie says "I am not amused."

first 2008 FO

Well, I finished my first dog sweater. I used the Penny sweater from Knitty 2003. I ran into all sorts of trouble making this. This should have been a quick, easy knit. I had this thing about half way finished before I realized that the pattern had all sorts of mistakes. So, I ripped it back and went online to look for errata. I contacted the designer and she promptly sent me a corrected copy. Great. So, I began again. And then found another math mistake in the pattern. But, I fixed it with no problem and now have a cute sweater to show for it. The next sweater I make will be a little longer I think, probably about two inches.

Roxie models her sweater while sitting with the Eldest on the Bean Bag.

I'm off now to torture Widget the Supervisor Cat with the sweater next. Wish me luck that I don't get scratched to ribbons.

Meet Roxie

Here's the puppy pic I promised you yesterday. Still not a great one, but I'm working on it. It's not like I can get her to stand still in my new light box you know. She tends to want to eat it instead.

She's a Chinese Crested Powderpuff, born on Sep. 9th. She's super tiny and soooooo sweet.

Meet Roxie.

I started her a little sweater today. I'll have pics of that soon. I hope.

Dogs!

This might be one of the best knit sweaters that I've ever seen. Go check it out. Someone's got a great imagination.


Remember the exploding dog I spoke of in my last post? Well here she is in all her Chow/Shepard fuzzybutt goodness:

Hi, I'm Jette and my hobbies are exploding and chasing cats

I'm also into begging for whatever you're eating

And this is her furry counterpart, Cessna, the Spaniel/Beagle alpha dog. Yes, we named our dogs after airplanes. We figured Jette was bigger and faster and Cessna was smaller and slower and somehow the names just stuck. We had Jette first and someone else had already named her. When we brought Cessna home from the pound, she just sort of took over the leadership position and now runs the entire household.

Hi I'm Cessna, but you may call me boss mama