Sit. Stay. Read.
obsessed with dogs
Wednesday is the day. We take him to surgery at 9 AM, and he’ll have to stay for at least one night but perhaps up to three nights depending upon how fast he’s recovering. I am relieved beyond belief that this option will eliminate the cancer. As I watch videos of other three-legged dogs, I …
The past few weeks careened past us leaving everything in their wake, everything except one question: What are we going to do? We met with the oncologist. He was wonderful, kind, thorough, honest. He presented us with the two options we already knew. Surgery plus radiation therapy (every day for three weeks), which would push …
I wrote last week about Emmett and his lump, the tests that were being done, the hopes and fears we had for the outcome. On Monday night, our vet called with the news. “Cancer,” she said. “A nerve sheath tumor.” Those words, they ripped a hole in my chest. My heart shattered into a thousand …
Emmett’s biopsy on Thursday went well. No complications, thanksfully, and the results should be back by Tuesday. Whenever either of the boys have to be anesthetized, we always joke that they stumble around like a couple of drunk monkeys. But this time around, Emmett took a really long time to fully come out of it. …
We have gobs of dog toys. We have ropes and busy bones, Kongs and brand new Wubbas, balls and frisbees, and lots of things that started off as something new and shiny but now look like they’re some sort of slobbery fabric-creature. The boys always have something to play with. They have indoor toys to …
While we were on vacation, we noticed a little lump on Emmett’s front right leg. It cropped up suddenly and was about the size and density of a grape. Of course we were worried, but it didn’t seem to bother him. So as soon as we got back to Bloomington, we took him to the …
After a whilwind week, things are finally settling down for Emmett and Lucas. It started with a road trip to visit family and friends. Festivities included a cookout, chipmunk chasing, and a trip to the dog beach. The highlight of it all for Lucas was meeting his first cat! The boys had never been around …
More news from the ASPCA’s Record-Breaking Dog Fighting Raid. Five hundred souls await evaluations to determine what will happen to them…
Click on this link to go to The Animal Rescue site! By clicking on the button, the site’s sponsors contribute to the food and care of shelter animals. The best part is it takes two seconds, and you can click it every single day – John’s idea was to save the link in our inboxes …
Lucas had surgery to remove what the vet thought was a hemangioma (a small, benign growth) on Thursday. The pathology came back as an angiokeratoma, which I guess is a little rarer, but still benign, thank goodness. The spot was on his chest, in between his arms. It’s not a spot he can lick, so …
And so ends another busy weekend! We started Friday with the first in a series of eight training sessions with Emmett and Lucas. The course we’re taking adds escalated distractions and distance to commands. The boys are pretty decent with distance – not so much with distractions. Especially other dogs. Or kids. Or food. Or, …
This is Emmett: He is the sweetest boy you’ll ever meet. Yes, I may be biased, but he truly does melt every single person he encounters. We spent this past weekend at my parents’ house with many relatives and cousin-pups coming and going. Yesterday about 20 people came to cookout, including my elderly grandfather and …
Because of a whole series of activities occurring on the same day, last Saturday I ended up dogsitting a total of eight dogs: my guys Emmett and Lucas, my mom’s dog Otto, my sister’s dogs Tank and Buster, my cousin’s dog Turk, and my aunt’s dogs Louis and Bubba. All I can say is….. PHEW! …
Typically, Lucas guards the backyard heavily whenever we’re outside. Anything that comes near – a bird, a pedestrian, even the occasional errant leaf – gets barked at. With Turk here, though, that whole dynamic has changed. Apparently, Lucas prioritizes wrestling over guarding! For example: The two of them tolerate a lot from each other. While …
Hello! Welcome back! I hope you had a really nice Memorial Day weekend. A three-day weekend always flies by as we try to cram way too much into three days, and this weekend was definitely no different. Emmett and Lucas attended a cookout on Saturday with a whole pack of dogs: Tank and Buster (my …
This past Saturday, Emmett tested to become a registered therapy dog through the Delta Society, an organization dedicated to “Improving human health through service and therapy animals.” We began training together to be a therapy team in September. The work included medically-specific distractions (wheelchairs, walkers, loud noises, etc.) added to basic commands like heel, sit, …
