New blog is up

The blog I helped create at my work, the News & Record in Greensboro, NC, is live! Please visit it at www.news-record.com/blog/thepetshop

It's called The Pet Shop, and four other staffers will join me in talking about our pets and the pets and animals in our community.

I'll continue to blog here when I have time, but that will be my main blog for updates on Cassie and Greta.

Updates

Not much has changed with Cassie since I last blogged. Her knee continues to pop out on a consistent basis. Her problem is called Luxated Patella. Twice now though, she's worked it out herself by slowly stretching her leg out. It's popping out consistently now when she stretches after waking up. So we're not keeping her and Greta separated at all if she can pop her knee out just as easily stretching as she can while playing.

A blog update for me is soon I'll be creating a pet blog for work. Four co-workers will be working on it with me. We'll blog about our own pets and also about pet issues in the Triad area. Hopefully we'll also start some kind of reader-submitted feature. The blog will be called "The Pet Shop." I'll keep you updated on when it will launch.

Pop

I haven't blogged in awhile because nothing exciting has been going on in our household. Until now.

Thursday evening Cassie and Greta were playing in the yard, showing off for me like they always do. And all of the sudden, Cassie started screaming. Noises came out of that dog's mouth that scared me to death. Her right back leg was stuck in a weird position, she couldn't bend it to put it down. She was obviously in terrible pain. I layed her down and sort of gently moved her leg back and forth. Then POP. She stopped screaming and hopped up. Only to limp for the rest of the night though.

After a call to our former neighbor who's a vet, he recommended we take her in for some x-rays. He listed several things that could be wrong, from worst case scenarios to something we could deal with.

She paid a visit to the vet on Friday and spent all day there. The vet called me twice to update me. After a physical exam of her leg, he said it was her knee and she was obviously in pain. X-rays showed nothing though. So she came home with some pain meds and a prescription to avoid play for two weeks.

In an effort to follow the rules, the girls stayed inside Friday night to chill out and so we could watch Cassie better. After sleeping through a whole movie, ("Snow Dogs," with a cute border collie named Nana that reminded me of Cassie) Cassie started to stand up but her leg was all messed up again. She only whimpered that time. So I gently moved her leg around some, and then POP. Her knee was back in place.

Saturday I left town to visit my mother for Mother's Day, and decided to take Cassie with me so she and Greta could be separated for a day and avoid play. At 5:30 a.m., I got up to use the bathroom, and Cassie hobbled over to me on three legs. Her knee was popped out again! I did my usual moving it around some, and it popped back in.

Last night, our former neighbors came over, and T.J. the vet, examined Cassie himself. He said it was her kneecap that was popping out of place. He had a technical term for it, but I don't remember. He said it will keep happening and that we needed to have surgery done on it to insert a pin in her knee. T.J. says he can help us out with the surgery, just give him some time to get settled in his internship.

So now we're just on Cassie-knee-watch, waiting for it to happen again. I don't see much point keeping her and Greta separated when the last two times it happened she was sleeping. But we'll do the best we can to keep her from running and jumping on it. Which is pretty much impossible with her. Wish us luck.

Cassie is fat...again

It's no secret to anyone that Cassie is fat. We even met a couple in PetSmart the other day who had a border collie also and they said theirs looked just like Cassie and was also fat. Maybe it's Cassie's brother or sister.

But she's now gained back the 10 pounds we worked so hard for her to lose this past year. And it's my fault. I cracked a rib in mid-December and was out for the count for months. I just started walking the girls again regularly recently and couldn't even think about running with them until about two weeks ago.

But now I'm back to full speed, and Cassie is trying, poor thing.

Ironically, I received my very first marthastewart.com "Pet Happy" newsletter today in my inbox, and one of the articles is about "Fat Pets." The article says it's easy to tell if your dog is overweight:

"It's simple to determine if your pet needs to lose some weight. You should be able to feel the backbone and palpate the ribs in an animal of healthy weight. If you can't feel the ribs without pressing, there's too much fat. Also, you should see a noticeable "waist" between the back of the rib cage and the hips when looking at your pet from above. From the side, there should be a "tuck" in the tummy -- the abdomen should go up from the bottom of the rib cage to inside the thighs."

Well, Martha's reporters pretty much described what we're looking at with Cassie. Can't feel the ribs. No waist, she goes straight from back to hips. I'm not really sure about the "tuck" in the tummy, cause she has so much long hair under her belly, but I would suspect, it's not there.

There are other tips in the article, but it's nothing we didn't know before. We need to be more diligent with her diet dog food, and amp up the exercise. We did it before and she lost 10 pounds. And we'll do it again.

Hey, everyone ... Remember Roxie??

Roxie

Sure you do. That loveable little dog we fostered for three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas? We found the best family for her and her owner started a blog. Be sure to check it out.

Life Love Roxanne

You can search through the archives to the right in November and December to find lots of posts about our journey with Roxie. Here's my last post about Roxie's new owners.

Adorable pup needs a home

Mickey

A co-worker passed this info along to me and I had to post it on the blog. This little pup needs a good home.

Mickey was found in the middle of a winding road in Coleridge, NC, on a bitter cold day in January. A truck coming around a sharp curve almost hit Mickey and one of his siblings. The puppies were too young to have walked into the middle of the road on their own, so rescuers surmised they were put there.

Mickey weighed 1.9 pounds when he was taken into foster care. He’s 13 weeks old and has had all of his shots. His third round of shots is scheduled for next week.

Vets believe he has limited vision, and his foster mom says he’s been a bit slow about learning to manuever stairs and to find his food. But he enjoys playing in his outdoor play area, and the vet believes he can have a good quality of life despite his disabilities.

Let me know if you or anyone else might be interested in adopting Mickey.

What happened to the snow?

You see that pretty snow in that picture below? The snow that makes Cassie so happy? Yeah, it's gone. And it's also hot. In just one week. No, less than one week, the temperature shot up to almost 80 degrees. The snow melted and Greta was the happy dog instead of Cassie.

On Saturday, we took an hour-long walk early in the morning. We hit every cul-de-sac in the neighborhood and even ventured into the newest, undeveloped part of the neighborhood. Greta was loving it. But about 3/4 of the way through the walk, Cassie started to slow down. She started to pull toward the grass. I knew she didn't need a potty break. We'd already passed her one spot. She started wheezing a little bit and and so I stopped for a minute to let her rest. I realized that her winter coat, even in the morning sun, was just too much for her. And maybe my ambitious hour-long walk wasn't a good idea for her. Afterall, she's our fat dog. I think she's packed a few extra pounds on this winter.

I gave her a little pep talk and we moseyed on home. It was a true mosey. We weren't in any hurry at all. When we entered our fence, she about pulled my hand off, she was pulling on the leash so hard to get to a nice, cool dirt spot.

Just another seasonal change as we enter Greta's favorite time of year and leave Cassie's.