This time last night, misphit and I were just getting back from taking our Basset Hound Beth to the emergency vet down the street, for lack of appetite, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea. While at the vet, Beth at one point went over to a corner, squatted, and let loose about a cup of blood with a minimum of fecal matter... which I got to clean up, because ( Read more... )

Spent a good chunk of this weekend working on the yard and square foot garden. Mowed yesterday, misphit mowed some more today, bought a lot of hardware and dirt ( Read more... )

One: the dog training has gone awesome, and Beth is a way better dog than I could have hoped for now. We still have a while of being careful around strangers, and helping her feel at ease, but it just keeps getting better. At some point, I won't even worry about her.

Two: my car got thoroughly nailed in the hailstorm yesterday. Rear window is ( Read more... )

We've got our Basset Hound, Beth, on a training regimen with Kim the Dog Trainer. We're doing private lessons, because Beth can be aggressive and has bitten people. We're well past knowing what to do with her in most cases, which has had a deleterious effect on our party plans as well tying us closer to the house, since we don't want to take her ( Read more... )

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We have a new puppy as of tonight. Care of misphit's brother, who discovered a Dachsund/Chihuahua (?) mutt in his trash, but couldn't really take him in. He's really cute, but I don't know how really excited I am about it. Fleming, our cat, is even less interested in this development.

We put Winnie to sleep this afternoon. She was eight years old, and had spent the last five years with us after we picked her up from an animal shelter in Pittsburgh. I'm writing this mostly because it's easier to type than to talk right now.

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There's not really any doubt now that Winnie has cancer. She has a huge freaking tumor on one of her kidneys, and in our vet's opinion, our two main options for easing her suffering are putting her to sleep and removing that kidney. After discussing the matter a fair bit, especially with misphit's parents, we are a bit skeptical that a kidneyectomy ( Read more... )

Winnie has a big lump in her belly, that we've been trying to ignore for a long time. She has a history of (benign) fatty tissue deposits, on her skin and even one really gross one on her lip ( Read more... )