A while ago, I talked about Abby and silicone and how much she likes it.  Well, my husband and I both got iPhone’s last year, and as many people know, you can not get any insurance on the phone, so we thought we would get phone cover’s for our phones, to protect them.  I got a really cool one.  It had a black silicone base that went on the phone first, and then it had three different colored pieces that I could change when I wanted a new color, that went on over the black part. I had set my phone down on a side table, got up to do something around the house, went back to get my phone and it was gone. I started to look around for the phone, and I wondered if Abby had taken it.  Well, of course she took it, and took it outside. By the time I got outside to get my phone, she had eaten both the covers off the phone, and left the phone face down in the dirt.  So, off I went to get another phone cover, and I liked the first one so well, that I got another one.   Well, the same thing happened again, out side in the dirt, and each time, she has left the phone alone, just eats the silicone covers on the outside of the phone. Thank goodness, I would hate to buy another phone. I thought I would try one more time, and try to keep the phone away from her, you guessed it, and she got this one also.

  The next time, I brought a clear plastic case, but I did not like that one, however she did leave that one alone, so I went to look at another case, and I bought a leather case, and she left this one alone.  My husband saw some new cases for our phones, which also have some silicone on them, and we just looked at each other, like should we even attempt to buy the new covers, or not? We went ahead, and bought the new covers, and so far she has not touched them. So all in all, we have spent about $200.00 for our phones covers. I did buy a wood box to put on the table, to put our phones in when we are watching TV, and our remote controls, as she has eaten the buttons off the remotes to the point that we could not use them, and had to replace several of the remotes.  Continued 

Up date on Abby, she gave me a scare yesterday; her temp went up to 103.7 in the afternoon.  Gave her the medicine to bring her temp down, and sure enough it did, and at bedtime she was at 102.3, which, is normal for a dog.  I checked on her during the night, and she was doing well.

This morning she is doing very well, her breathing is good, and her nose is cool and wet.  The past three days her nose has been very hot and dry. Her temp today is 101.6, and she is playing with Maggie today, another good sign

I will get back to Abby’s Antics tomorrow, when I am sure, she is out of the woods, and is up to her antics, like her old self.

I am telling this story today, in hopes that this information will help other people to check their dogs or cats on a regular basis.

I am not sure where to begin; it’s been a very tense couple of weeks around here, between Norman and Abby.  Last week we took Norman to the vet, as he was having trouble walking.  He was limping on his front left leg, and it kept getting worse and worse.  We looked at his paw, his leg, his shoulder, and we could not see anything wrong, and so we decided to take him to the vet to see what was wrong with him.  Well, he has arthritis in his shoulder, as well as a fatty tumor on this shoulder.  He is on some pain meds now, to help with the discomfort and to help him get around a little bit better.  Well, the vet wanted to see him back in a week for a recheck, and we thought we would take Abby with us, as she is due for her rabies shot and exam.  During the exam, they found out that Abby had a temp of 105.5, the normal temp for a dog is 101.8 to 102.5, so they were very concerned about Abby, and would not do the shot until her temp came down.  Told us to take her home and watch her.

 George had given Abby and Maggie a bath that morning, so the vet thought that maybe between the warm bath and the car ride that maybe that was the reason for the temp.  So we took them home and Abby was not getting any better, but did not seem to be getting worse either, except that, all of a sudden Abby was having trouble walking on her left back leg. She would get up, and could hardly walk on that back leg, but the more she moved the better it got. It was very strange. I kept feeling her hips and legs, and did not feel anything out of the ordinary. We kept an eye on her all night, and she seemed the same.  Well, morning came, and she was not good, she looked like death warmed over, so we rushed her to the vet, her temp was 106.2, so they rushed her in the back, and did the cool water treatment on her, under her skin to bring her temp back down quickly.  The vet came in and talked to us about what was going on, and we all decided that she needed blood work.  What the blood workup indicated was, that a tick had bitten her.  We do not have any pine trees in or near our yard, so this was a real shock to us.  The vet told us that there have been, quite a few cases of tick bites in this area lately.  I hope this information will help many people to check there dogs and cats often, and look for any signs of fever, vomiting, joints that are sore, or any other signs that are not normal for your pet.

Abby is doing much better now, her temp is back to normal, and she is on antibiotics every 12 hrs, and an anti-inflammatory for her back leg.  She is still breathing very heavy, but better than she was yesterday morning by far.  I called the vet this morning, and if she is not breathing better by tomorrow, I need to get her back in, as it has not been a full 24 hrs yet.  He long term prognoses is very good, and we feel very lucky we got her to the vet when we did, or things could have turned out very different, and yes I was a flipping wreck!!!!  Continued

Story 12

OK, here is the second story about the Opossum’s. Like the other story, we had gone to bed, but this time we were still awake, thank goodness.  I could here that Maggie and Abby had come in thru the doggie door, and they starting barking and barking.  I got up, and there is our bedroom is another baby opossum, only this one was much bigger and had a full set of teeth.  This one was hissing and growling and showing its teeth at the two dogs, well as you can imagine, I freaked out. George got up, and he freaked out also.  In our room we have the dog kennels that we used when they were puppies, to kennel train them.  The dogs use the kennels to sleep in at night with the doors off, so they can come and go as they please.  Well, this opossum backed up between the two kennels, and then behind one of them, next to the wall. George got me a flashlight and said to keep it on the kennels to keep the opossum behind there, while he went to get dressed, and get his leather gloves on, to take the opossum out of the house. With the flashlight in hand, going back and forth, trying to keep the opossum behind the kennel, and the dogs trying to get behind the kennel, I was freaking out. When George came back, he got the dogs out of the room, and then opened our drapes, so he could open the patio door. Well, I am sitting there, at the end of the bed, with the flashlight on the kennels, naked as a jaybird, and he opens up the drapes for all of our neighbors to see.  I said, “Honey what are you doing? I am naked here”, so I put the flashlight down, and ran into the bathroom to get some clothes on, and by the time I came out of the bathroom, he was headed out the patio door, with opossum in hand to put it back outside, and over the fence.  Well, that was the last time we left the doggie door open for the dogs to go outside during the night.   Continued 

This past November, some good friends of mine came up from Arizona to visit their son, and family for Thanksgiving.  The day after Thanksgiving is the day that I start to decorate for Christmas.  I decorate everything, except a tree, you see, the first Christmas we had Abby, I put up our tree, and four days later I took it down.  She thought this was her personal toy tree, and I lost so many ornaments, it just was not worth keeping the tree up.  So we have not had a tree for, four years now.

 My friend and I decided to go to lunch, and I thought it would be ok to leave, as Abby had not touched any of the decorations, that I had out.  So off we went. While we were gone my husband came home for lunch, and he said everything was ok when he got home.  We got back about 45 minutes after he had left to go back to work, and when I walked in the house I about fell over.  Abby had destroyed about four of my cute snow people, attacked my three foot Santa, and I have had a stuffed kitten that my oldest daughter made for my mother. After my mother passed away, I brought the stuffed kitten home with me. It has been sitting on top of the couch for ten years, and Abby has never bothered it, but this day she pulled that down also, luckily, we got home in time before she destroyed that too.

 My friend started laughing and laughing, because when we walked in I said in a loud voice ABBY, what have you done?  Well, she took off outside.  Now mind you, I am so in love with this dog, and I would never hurt her in any way but she knows when I am upset with her, by the tone of my voice. My friend just thought it was so funny, that she beat cheeks outside, and there she stood watching me, on our deck, behind the glass door, picking up her mess, and my decorations, or what was left of them.  Continued

Now that I have introduced Maggie, this next story is about Maggie and Abby. This story is one of two about opossums. At the time, we were leaving the doggie door open all night, so the dogs could go outside, if they needed to.  

One night we had gone to bed, and were in the first stages of sleep, when Maggie and Abby started barking and barking.  Maggie has two barks, one is, you will not enter this house and the other is her happy bark.  Well, I got up to see what was going on with her, and of course it was dark in our room, but I could see that she was barking at something on her dog bed.  I turned on the bathroom light so I could see what was up.  There, lying on the dog bed was a baby opossum, and of course it looked dead, as opossums do.  I started screaming and screaming and woke George up.  He was sound asleep, and could not understand why I was so upset.  He came around to the end of the bed, and there he saw the baby opossum.  Mind you, he is still somewhat asleep, he kept telling me to keep the dogs away while he went to get something to take the little guy out of the house. All Maggie wanted to do was to play with it, not hurt the little guy. Keeping the dogs away was a real chore all in itself.  He came back with leather gloves on to pick him up by the tail to get him out of the house, not knowing if the little guy was playing opossum, or if the dogs had hurt him and in fact he was dead.

While George was walking out the door he looked down, and the baby opossum was looking up at him.  He set him down and came in the house.  The next morning my husband looked outside where he put the baby opossum, and low and behold he was gone. We are assuming that Maggie brought the little guy in, and we are not sure how she got the baby opossum away from its mother. Continued.

Abby does not care what room she is in when she is looking for trouble. This time she picked our bathroom.  I have a clear plastic container that holds cotton balls and Q-Tips.  It sits on the counter toward the back. I am not sure how she got it off the counter, but she did.  I walked into the bedroom, and there all over the bathroom floor, the bed, the bedroom floor was cotton balls and Q-tips. Most of the cotton balls were wet and most all of the Q-Tips were wet and broken.  My plastic container was all in one piece.  Now you would think that I would be smart and close the bathroom door so she could not get in the bathroom, but no, I did not learn my lesson.

 You see about a week later I was reading the newspaper and watching TV, I had also fallen asleep.  When I woke up I looked over at something on the carpet.  I could not tell what it was so I got up and walked over to see what it was.  It was my brand new Sonicare toothbrush.  I had just used it one day, she had chewed the silicone off the toothbrush and in the process, she destroyed the toothbrush.  Needless to say I was very upset.  Again I do not know how she got the brush off the counter, as it sits, way back out of the way.  As luck would have it, I had not thrown the old one away, and my husband being the person he is, very handy at repairing things, was able to put the inside of the new one into the old one. We had just purchased new brush heads so I was able to replace that as well. I did learn my lesson this time; the bathroom door stays closed all the time now.  Just in case, we both keep our toothbrushes up in the cabinet.  Continued  

Right before Christmas this year, I bought some fleece sheets for our bed.  We liked them so much that I went back, to buy another set of sheets.  I was changing the bed, putting the new sheets and pillowcases on.  A couple of hours had passed, and I had gone back in the bedroom, and I saw that my bedspread had been messed with up by the pillows.  Now, I knew that Abby had done this, but I did not see that she had done anything to the pillows. I fixed the bedspread and continued on with what I was doing.

 It came bedtime, and when I pulled the bedspread down, there it was, she had chewed the corner off the brand new pillowcase, and not just a little bit of the corner, a huge hole, and guess who’s pillow it was.  Yes mine, apparently she did not like the new pillowcases, thank goodness she left the sheets alone. Continued

Now that I have told you the story about Norman, I am going to introduce Maggie to you. We got Abby in September 2005 she was 4 months old.  While George was looking for a poodle, he was also looking for a Labradoodle.  In October 2005 he came across a Labradoodle in the paper, so off we went to LOOK at this dog.  We wanted a female, and the breeder had 2 females, one had a smooth coat, and the other had a curly coat and the sweetest face, well you guessed it, we took the one with the curly coat home with us.  She was 3 months old and such a sweetheart, we named her Maggie. She learned to use the doggie door within 2 hours of being home, what a change from Abby. Maggie did the usual things that puppies do, she chewed on our wood deck, she chewed the corner off the shed, chewed the railing on the shed to the point that George had to remove it.  She never chewed anything in the house and I think she only had one accident in the house.  Being Poodle and Lab she is a very smart dog.  Maggie grew up to be a large dog, last trip to the vet she weighed in at 108 pounds.  Maggie has a few store’s herself, nothing, however like Abby.

I would like to take a break from Abby, and tell you a little bit about Norman.  He was found on the side of a road by my daughter’s girl friend.  A car had hit his mother and he was left behind, so she took him home.  She already had 3 other dogs and wanted to find a home for him.  I went with my daughter, to her house when she opened the door, she had him in her arms, one look at him and he was mine.  George and I took him to the vet for his puppy shots and a week later he became very sick. We rushed him to the vet and they told us he had parvo.  The vet gave us two choices for him, one put him down, as most dogs do not recover from parvo, or try to save him.  Well we chose the second option, $800.00 and week later we took Norman home.  Norman is your average dog, he does not know any tricks, but he has been a great dog.  The one thing Norman did do, was save our lives and our house.  One night George put a car battery charger on a battery in the garage, well when the battery gets fully charged the charger should shut off. Well, it did not shut off, and the battery just kept charging and charging. I had gotten up very early the next morning, and Norman went to the door to the garage, and started to growl and growl and would not leave the door.  I went to wake my husband up, so he could go out in the garage and see what was going on. I was too chicken to open the door, not knowing if someone or something was out in the garage.  He opened the door, and the garage was full of smoke, the battery was about to explode and it was sitting right next to his classic 1966 SS Chevy.  So Norman saved the day, our lives, and home.  We still have Norman he is about 15 now, his health is failing him and we know we will not have him much longer.   Continued

Silicone oh my does Abby love it.  I had bought some silicone hot pads and had left them on the counter after I had taken the dish of food out of the oven.  All I did was turn my back for a quick second and they were gone, by the time I got outside to retrieve my new hot pads she had eaten half of one of them.  Well it did not end there, every time I left the hot pads on the counter she would grab them and eat them, so I bought new ones again and of course the same thing happened again and again, so needless to say I did not buy any more of them, but what I did buy was a silicone basting brush that I love.  I had used the brush and put it in the dishwasher, turned back to the sink to put more dishes in the dishwasher and the brush was gone.  Of course she was outside again with the brush and by the time I got out there she had eaten the brush part but not the handle.  I bought another one and of course she got that one too, only this time she got up and retrieved it out of the sink, so I thought I would try one more, and no she has not gotten this one YET!   Continued

A few weeks later I was reading my newspaper and had it opened all the way holding the paper in both hands, Abby came up to me (I did not see or hear her) and she took the paper right out of my hands so fast I was in shock and of course now that she has gotten used to the doggie door, out she went in the rain with my newspaper.  As I was trying to retrieve the paper she just kept running back and forth in the yard with the paper flying out of her mouth.  I did finally get the paper or what was left of it.  Now I will back up a bit and tell you that George bought all kinds of books to train her, and he did a good job as far as getting her to sit, stay, lay down, but the command (come here) she never did get and to this day she still will not come when we ask her to. 

The next thing that she did my husband was not happy about.  We both were watching TV and apparently fell asleep (like we usually do); when George woke up he asked me if I knew where his Cell phone was. I asked him where he put the phone and he said right here on the table next to me, hum that’s funny I said, it should be there.  He started looking all over the house for his cell phone.  I started to help him look around the house, but with no luck.  He took a flash light and went outside to look in the back yard, not knowing if Abby had taken the phone or not, he looked all over the yard and could not find the phone.  At this point he came up on the deck and started to come in the house and all of a sudden he looked down at our 3-tiered pond and there in the bottom of the pond was his cell phone.  He retrieved the phone out of the pond and of course it was not working, we had no idea how long the phone was in the pond, the only thing we thought of was, she wanted a drink and the phone was in her mouth and she just dropped it in the pond.  Needless to say he had to get a new phone.  Continued 

We wanted Norman to get to know Abby for at least a couple of weeks before we put Tippy down, Abby was not social as she had not been around people, she did not respond very well, I remember when we got her home and in the house, we turned on the TV, that scared the hell out of her, in that time Abby was very difficult to potty train, it took her the longest time to learn how to use the doggie door. 

Well, she finally did learn how to use the doggie door, which in its self was a huge relief.  About a month later it was time for us to put Tippy down as she clearly was in pain and had a hard time walking.  The transition with Norman went well with Abby here.  At this point she was still small and could not get into to much trouble, but then she grew up and got very tall, this is when things got interesting.

When we brought Abby home I told my husband that this would be his dog, as he was the one who wanted a poodle.  Clearly after a few short months it became apparent that I was so in love with this dog.  There is something so special about her and she just captured my heart.

Our first experience was when she almost set the house on fire.  I had finished up with the dinner dishes and threw a dishtowel on the counter and part of the towel landed on my glass top stove.  I went to sit down and watch some TV with my husband and fell asleep, when I woke up he asked me if I smelled something burning and at first I said no, but within a few minutes I said yes I do, and got up to go investigate, and there on the stove was my towel just about ready to catch on fire. it was smoking and the corner of the towel was red hot and smoldering and ready to go up in flames.  Abby had jumped up on the counter to get the towel and tuned on the stove by accident.   Continued 

Let me start of by saying WOW! This is the only way I can describe Abby.  I will start at the beginning.

My husband and I had two dogs, one named Tippy and the other Norman, Tippy we got right after we moved into our new home, we went to the Oregon Human society looking for our new love, well we indeed found her, she was about 9 months old and was a German Sheppard mix with big brown eyes and a beautiful brown and black and tan coat.  I put my arm in the pen to pet her and she jumped up and put her arms around my arm and looked at me like please take me home, well of course I did, how could I not.

A year latter we got Norman, his mom was hit by a car and she died and he was found on the side of the road crying, so my daughters girlfriend took him home and she already had four dogs and this one needed a home, well I took one look at him and of course he found a good home and after a bout of Parvo and a cost of 800.00 he has been a good dog, we still have him, he is about 15 yrs old now, which brings me to Abby.

You see Tippy got sick, had a bad heart, we took her to the vet and she was on heart meds for about a yr, but we could see the end was coming quickly as her stomach was big now and when she walked she tripped and fell off our deck, well Tippy and Norman were attached at the hip and if Tippy had to go to the vet Norman went nuts.  So George and I thought that we should get another dog so Norman would not mourn himself to death, I was really worried about that, George wanted a Poodle as he was raised with them and kept telling me what wonderful dogs they are and how smart they are, well he kept reading the want ads and low and behold he found a poodle for sale at a breeders in our price range.

So off we went to LOOK at this poodle and on the way I started to cry, as I knew this was a replacement for Tippy and I was resentful, even though I knew this was the best thing for Norman.  Well we drove almost to the beach from Vancouver Washington, when we got there I was not impressed with the breeder and the conditation of her dogs.  We asked to see the female poodle and I thought I was going to look at a eight or nine week old puppy, not the case Abby was four months old and she looked bad, she had been pined up in a kennel outside for four months, she was dirty and had a lot of straw in her coat, she kept jumping on me and she had a sweet face, I asked my husband if we could talk about this and come back, so we left and had a bite to eat and talked about this dog. I really did not want a dog this old but it was such a long drive and she was cute in her dirty way, and George wanted a poodle, we took her only after we told the breeder that she must be bathed and clipped, which she did.

So with Abby in the car we started our long drive home.  When we arrived home and took Abby in the house, Norman loved her right from the get go and Tippy, well lets just say she was not happy, which made me unhappy as I think that she knew this was her replacement, she started sleeping outside in the cold, when I would go outside and try to get her to come in she was wet from all the dew that the night air produced.  She would just look at me with her big brown eyes, and I also knew that she was in some pain.  Continued