Bailey and Cali Illustration

A big thank you to Kelly (Gibson's mom over at Corgibutts)...I contacted her to get one of her amazing illustrations of my girls. I planned it for the hubby as an anniversary present. I had such a hard time keeping this surprise from him, but his face was so worth it. He loved his gift, and so do I.

Grad pics :-)

Alright, per special request of one :-) Thanks Laurie for convincing me to share my grad pics :-)

I graduate May 20th with my law degree. The picture in business attire is actually for a composite board, where every person from the 2011 graduating class is going to be portrayed. This board will hang in my school forever, for all the future students to see the happy graduating class of 2011 :-)

Bad Puppy...

Well, I fell so far behind with my pics of the day that I don't even know if it's worth continuing...ugh, I hate failing like this, but this semester at school is KILLING me...but it's only a couple months left, and then I am graduating...I just got my grad pics. Does anyone want to see them? I don't want to post them if there is no interest, after all this blog is dedicated to my pups...Speaking of, Cali is quite a naughty little girl...Look what she did to my $200 blow dryer...(and yes, I am aware that $200 for a blow dryer is beyond INSANE...it was a gift though, and I do have very very crazy hair, and this blow dryer used to cut my drying time down by a lot, so it would have been worth every penny, had I paid for it :-) Anyways, look what she did:



and here she is right after, looking all cute and innocent


The hubby fixed it, even though I am a bit scared...the hubby is not real handy with stuff like that, but I inspected what he did to it, and it looks quite safe, but what do I know about this kind of stuff :-)

Also, Cali has been quite the problem child lately...she decided about two weeks ago that she wasn't going to eat anymore. If you remember, she used to scarf down her food, and we were even told that she needed to go on a diet. Well, so about two weeks a go, she wouldn't touch her food anymore. It was just her food, she was still eating treats during training and what not, but come breakfast and dinner she would sniff her bowl and walk away from it...After the tick scare the hubby gave her a bath, and I realized how skinny Cali actually was. I still thought of her as a bit chunky, but when wet and all that hair went down (she's quite fluffy, you can't really tell in pics, but that puppy has a ton of hair) she was skin and bones...I talked to the vet about it. the vet checked her out and didn't think that she was sick in any way. She said that she doesn't seem to enjoy her food since she was still eating treats and what not.

So off to PetSmart I went to buy her some other foods. I bought about 5 different versions of kibble and 3 different can foods. I got lucky with one can of food that she actually ate. She didn't seem too excited about it, she just kind of ate it, but she didn't finish it. She did not touch any of the different kibbles...So off to the store I went again to try one more time to find a new food for her. Well. I went back to a food we used to have Bailey on. The Wellness can food that is 95% of a certain meet. I noticed a pattern with Cali that she didn't seem to enjoy all those veggies and fruits in her food, so I wanted to find a can food without any of that stuff in it. There aren't really a lot of them out there. There is the Wellness and a Before Grain variety that is primarily meat based. Anyways, I got the 95% Lamb version for Cails tonight, and wouldn't you know it...she scarfed down her food...Let's hope I can keep her eating for the next couple of days...I even mixed one of the kibbles in with the lamb can food, and she ate it all right up :-)

Bailey kind of went through a similar phase when she was younger, but her phase did not last quite this long...

Ticks :-(

Let me start out by saying I hate those little things..I found one on Cali yesterday. I have no experience with them whatsoever, all that I had in my mind when I found the creepy critter behind Cali's ear was LYME DISEASE :-( I couldn't even remove the thing. I was too scared that I wouldn't do it right, so I had the hubby do it. He got it to release to insure that we didn't pull it out but the head was still attached. Of course I immediately jumped on the internet and researched ticks and lyme disease, lots of information, and most of it said that only about 10% of dogs will get the disease, and that California has a very low likelihood of a dog contracting lyme disease. But of course, I am still very worried. Anyone got any more input on this for me? It also said that a dog won't show symptoms of the disease until about 2-5 months after exposure. :-(

So now how did Cali get this tick? Probably picked it up on a hike last Sunday, but that is a long time for the tick to be still on her. I read something about 48 hours, and we did check both dogs after the hike for ticks, and didn't find anything. After finding the tick on Cali yesterday, we checked the rest of her again and checked Bailey too. I cannot believe we didn't see the tick on Cali. She is a white dog for crying out loud. We were always more worried about Bailey since she is mainly black, and that it would be harder to see on her. But the problem with Cali is...she's got A LOT of hair...We had a hard time even getting to the tick since there was so much hair in the way. The hubby almost cut off a huge piece of her hair to get to the critter, but we got it out in the end without ruining her hair do :-)

We are definitely going to have the vet do a blood test on Cali. However, the initial blood work will only determine whether she has been exposed to the bacteria. If the test comes back positive for the bacteria many more tests need to be conducted to determine if she has developed the disease...:- I am thinking, it's probably a good idea to have Bailey tested too, just in case...

Way late Day 12

how did so much time go by??? oh I know why. I was so stressed about a midterm I had coming up, and then I went on spring break...

Bailey looking innocent, but the muddy face and paws gives away what she's been up to :)

Day 11...

I'm a little late on Day 11 (Day 12 will be up later today)...
The hubby titles this photo "Watch out Dances with Wolfs, here comes Sleeps with Toys" :-)
This just shows you a little bit about Bailey's obsession...balls mainly but anything that we can through and she can catch will do the trick for her :-)
Oh and let me say that we did not put all these toys around her...she gathers them up and places them around her herself...

Day 10..

Studying is so much sweeter with a pup by your side :-) Good thing I didn't need those folders she is resting her little head on :-)