Gone to the dogs!

Happy Wednesday! Even though I have my office in my house, I still get excited about "hump" day. It's been an eventful last couple of days around here. For several years, I was a dog breeder. Maltese. I still have the Mom, Popcorn, the Dad, Tator and one of the pups Q-Tip. Don't point and laugh at them about their names,now. Garry named each one of them and they have learned to live with the indignity. My groomer left her job after the birth of her second child. She was in my vets office, so it's pretty easy to get every thing they need done in one shot. But, then they started a new policy where if I just took them to be groomed, the vet looked at them anyway and charged me and additional 33 bucks per dog. I was pretty put out about it. 33 times 4 is ... too much money! So, I had been trying a couple of new groomers, but not happy with any of them. Now, my vet assistant is a sweetie! She sent me a letter and mentioned that she had clippers now. Yesterday was dog grooming day here at Casa One I. Wanna see?


Last Friday, Tator started acting odd. Like he just didn't feel good. Remember these are long haired dogs. Lots of long hair. We just kept trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Then on Monday night, he started smelling gross. Really gross. And then he was sleeping and wouldn't wake up. So, a little after midnight, I insisted we take him to the Emergency Animal Hospital. A person knows when something is just not right. Ended up, he had two bad wounds under his fur and they were badly infected. You couldn't see them though. They kept him overnight, put him out and shaved him to his neck. He was on an IV for about 24 hours. He's a very sick baby right now. We got to pick him up last night and he's on steroids now. The pics are scary, so if your squemish....don't look.
I'm so glad I took him in. We might have lost him otherwise. I still can't figure out how he got these wounds. The dogs yard is completely fenced in. They have about an acre to run in. The only thing I can possibly think of, is that when I got my tomato cages out a few weeks ago, maybe he got poked on one while running around. They are rusty on the ends, so that might have caused this. The vet thought that might me reasonable, too. Poor little guy.
Then, I have one more dog, Mugsy. Mugsy is odd man out. He's a shitzu. A guy I used to work with bought him as a pup. Said he couldn't do a thing with him and named him Stupid. When he asked me if I would take him, I had to do a lot of talking with Garry. Garry told me when we got married, "No animals". Ha! So, about a year after I brought him home to see how it went, Garry asked me if we were keeping him...ha again! Of course we're keeping him. He's getting old now, but he's the best dog. And...he got a day of beauty too! I just can't thank Jennifer enough for coming over and doing all of this. I asked her if she wanted me to keep looking for a new groomer and she no, she'd just come over and take care of them. She is a real animal lover. I guess she sorta owes me though, because she's the one who stuck me with The Parrot. She's coming over on Tuesday to trim up Tator's head and do the parrots beak and nails. She'll also help me keep an eye on Tators wounds. I'm just sick about him getting hurt. I'm really a great pet owner and I love them all. I would never let anything happen to them. Poor little guy. They all seem much happier when they are shaved though, and after this fiasco, I'm going to keep their hair shaved in the summer and short in the winter.
No quilty stuff going on here, just gone to the dogs this week....