Friday's Foto Finish Fiesta

This is Kota.

Kota was a sweet girl who we adopted from a rescue. She had the softest fur and a shy disposition. She was slow to trust people, so when we finally won her trust, it the best gift ever. She was protective of our family and very gentle with the kids. She was strong despite physical limitations. She was a true best friend that gave us unconditional love. We miss her terribly.

We've been talking lately about adding a new German Shepherd dog to our family. It's something that we're hoping to accomplish this summer. I only hope that we find a creature as special as our Kota. Those are big shoes to fill.

For other photo stories, check out Candid Carrie!

It's raining cats and dogs

We decided to take in our local kennel club's all-breed dog show today. As we arrived and saw the onslaught of RV's, I suddenly had horrible flashbacks to that hilarious movie, Best In Show. These people weren't playing around.




We made our way to the first ring of the day. The only one I insisted on seeing completely. The German Shepherds. And there were some ADORABLE dogs here. It made me misty seeing all these cute furballs.




And then we made our way around to check out some of the other cuties. Here's a French Bulldog. Those ears get me every time. How could you not love that face?





Moving on to the English Bulldogs. These guys are cute too, despite their affiliation with a certain school that shall remain nameless. Ahem.





And then a horse show broke out. No, my bad, it's just the Great Danes. And these guys were enormous. And way cute in that gangly, goofy sort of way.





We made our way up to the bleachers, where we found a loving bond between a gal and her dog. I've never considered Dobermans as lap dogs, but these 2 proved me wrong.





Here's hubby and Big A. She asked me to take this pic. She was a bit jealous of all the camera time that the dogs got prior to this.






And of course we now have hubby with Little A. My little ham.







After watching some of the show from the bleachers, we made our way outside, where Little A made a new friend. This Bloodhound was completely enamored with the girls. And they thought he was pretty cool too.




I've always had a thing for Borzois. They used to be called Russian Wolfhounds. I call them cute.






This, I don't get. And I think that stupid haircut is a lot of why I don't care for Standard Poodles. Or any Poodle for that matter.






But this, well, I could eat this up all day. Pembroke Welsh Corgis are cute all on their own, but puppies are a whole new level of cute!





And so, after a full morning of fun at the dog show, we made a big decision. It is time to finally add some pets back into our home. The question is, what kind? And so we decided on these 2 fiesty ones. Allow me to introduce...

Our new little girl, Leaf








And our new little boy, Percy







Yeah, we'll see how long this lasts. Meow.

Message Received

They're calling for some nasty thunderstorms here today. We had a very brief one blow through here yesterday while the kids & I were at a friend's house for a play date. I learned an important lesson when I got home.

Apparently, Chloe is not a big fan of thunderstorms. I actually already knew this, but it didn't occur to me that she would try to eat the metal doorknob in order to get out of the house to try to come find me. Lesson learned. Time to add new doorknob and doggy Prozac to the shopping list.

Updates on Chloe and my brother-in-law

Thanks to all of you who have sent well-wishes for Chloe's speedy recovery! Her symptoms have responded very well to the new meds and the doctor's are pretty certain she has a tick-borne illness. We'll get the final bloodwork results next week. We sprung her from the vet kennel this afternoon and she's currently sleeping on her very comfy bed. She's got a look on her face that tells me without a doubt that she's glad to be back home!

My brother-in-law is doing better. He's still in a lot of pain, but I think the danger of death has passed. He had surgery today to insert a catheter into his heart, which should catch any clots that form due to his immobility from paralysis. The doctors are already formulating a rehab plan and he might be going to Atlanta for that. (About a 2 hour drive from here) I'll keep you guys posted on this developing story. Thanks for all the well-wishes and zen you all have sent our way! We really appreciate it!

When it rains it pours

Just as my family is dealing with the stress of my brother-in-law's accident this week, we were dealt another scary card. Our new family member, Chloe, began sneezing blood Tuesday night. As I mentioned in the previous post about her, she is on the tail end of getting over kennel cough. I kind of thought that maybe all of the snot that she's been slinging from that wonderful adventure had irritated her nasal passages somehow. After a frantic call to the emergency vet hospital that night, I felt a little better that I could probably wait this out until yesterday morning.

So, after 2 hours in the vet's office yesterday, I was very disheartened to find out that she either has a tick-borne disease (such as Rocky Mtn Spotted Fever) or the beginning of an auto-immune disease. We're praying for option A because if it's option B, we're in a lot of trouble. So, with a lot of tears, I left her at the vet's office to begin a 3 day stay where she'll start a new round of antibiotics and we'll keep our fingers crossed that she'll respond to them. Ailey & I visited Chloe this morning and she is so ready to come home. We're actually thinking of trying to spring her out tomorrow night, because we're all missing her terribly.


4 different bags of dog food in hopes of finding 1 she'll eat..........................................$100

2 trips to the veterinarian to treat illnesses received from previous homes............$560

Canine kisses of gratitude.................................................................................................Priceless

Chloe & Asher: A Tale of 2 Shepherds

Chloe agrees that there's no place like home

Chloe & Ashlyn having fun in the backyard

I love German Shepherd Dogs. I might have mentioned that once or twice before. I had a GSD as a young child and I think that's where my love of the breed emerged. They have such power and grace all at the same time. I could gush for an hour, but I digress.

When Jake & I purchased our first home in 1999, we immediately fenced in the backyard and added 2 puppies to our home. Meeko, was our GSD and Val, was our Boxer. When the furkids grew to be about 2 yrs old, I came across another GSD named Dakota that was in desperate need of a good home. After many tears, I convinced hubby that she just had to move in with us...and so she did. Both of our GSD's suffered from severe hip dysplasia (which is very common in the breed unfortunately) and they each developed a condition called degenerative myelopathy (also common in the breed). We lost Meeko in January of 2007 and then Dakota in August of 2007. It was a very hard year and heartbreaking to lose both of my GSD's that close together. Our Boxer then very unexpectedly passed away in February of this year, which left our house very quiet. There's nothing like the "tic tic tic" of doggie nails walking along the wood floors in the middle of the night.

Before Val passed away, we had made plans to purchase a GSD puppy from a local breeder in June. Due to mother nature's hand in the matter, the puppy was never conceived and we were left wondering how we were going to fill in the empty hole that this family had. And then the miracle of the internet appeared.

Craigslist has got to be one of the coolest sites ever! You can buy/sell/trade/giveaway/locate anything that you can imagine on that site. One evening, while feeling especially low, I found an ad asking for help to find a home for a pair of GSDs. Hallelujah!! I emailed the person and was soon on the phone with a guy who gave me quite a sob story about the plight of this brother/sister pair. After a very long weekend, we made our way to the local Humane Society and met these 2 adorable creatures.

They both had the exact coloring of my Meeko that had passed, which immediately made me want to pack them up and take them home. Their dispositions were so docile and they desperately needed to get out of the shelter situation. So, we decided to adopt them immediately and take them home! Ashlyn & I headed for the pet store to purchase all the necessities, while hubby took the new furkids home. The first 24 hours were pretty shaky as we soon discovered that the female was not particularly happy with sharing her new home with her brother. After a couple of days of this aggressive behavior, we knew that the situation was not going to work out and that someone was bound for a new home. Little did we know that we were now going to be put into a position that we never wanted to be in...rehoming an animal.

We were now in full swing to get these dogs fully vetted (they got a lovely case of kennel cough from the humane society) and make the decision on who would stay and who would go. By this time, we had given our new houseguests names that we thought fit them quite well. The female would be called Chloe and the male would be Asher. Chloe was a sweetheart who loves people. She's not fond of other animals and she has a leg injury to a front leg, courtesy of a tangle up with a cow at her previous home. Asher was a gentle giant. Weighing in at close to 100 lbs, he was content to lay on his bed or sidle up next to me for all the rubs and hugs he could stand. This was an excruciating decision, but we finally settled on finding Asher a new home, since he would be the easier of the 2 to place.

We distributed flyers, made lots of calls and utilized the internet to the best of our ability. Thankfully, after a week, the right family came along! They had lost their male GSD (Asher's lookalike twin) just recently and really wanted another GSD in their house. It was meant to be. With a lot of tears and a broken heart, we said goodbye to Asher and focused all of our energy on making sure Chloe fit into our house just right.

It's been 10 days since we said goodbye to Asher and Chloe has really become a wonderful dog! She's more at ease and playful. She's finally eating with consistency and almost over her horrible kennel cough. She's getting used to having 2 little girls who just want to love her. And she finally has her silver charm on her collar that proudly displays her name, address and phone number. Chloe is finally home for good!