500th Post...and Our Puppy

She LOVES to watch football.

So. 500 posts. Who on earth would've thought that I could manage to pull THAT off?! Certainly not me! It has been awhile since any real posts, but that's because I'm livin, folks! Not that I don't miss blogging, because I do, but I have a pretty good reason. Her name is Derby and she's the newest addition to our little family.

Here is her story...
I had been a fan and follower of Ohio English Setter Rescue for about a year before we took the leap into fostering, which we knew would be an incredibly rewarding experience and help provide unconditional love and support for a rescue dog. After application approval, passing our home check, fixing a fence, many conversations, pup meet-ups, and a LOT of discussion (truth be told, we were nervous and carefully weighed every option, scenario, and never forgot our beautiful senior kitty gal Wink throughout the process), we knew that OESR was a group of people who were exactly our kind of people and we were committed to becoming part of their organization one way or another. We also knew that when it was right, it would be right, that we would know it, and the rest would be history...

There she is...far right.

 Well, during all of this time, OESR rescued an English Setter named Jordie from a high kill shelter. And she was pregnant. Oh boy. Oh boy and five girls, as it turned out. All the pups were born late June 2011 at foster momma R's house and they were the. cutest. puppies. ever. But I really didn't want a puppy. Really and truly. I wanted to give a home to an adult. Maybe even a senior dog. I felt it was a calling for me, but...But. Bubs felt a bit differently about that. He had his eye on those pups. Oh boy did he.

As a bit more time passed, Jordie momma dog was adopted out and one, by one, the pups, too, were both fostered out and found their forever homes. But R. held on to the little brownie bundle of puppy love named Josie. Josie was the one pup who was different in the litter. Out of the 6 pups, she was the one born with the most color and, of course, being the odd girl out, she tugged at my heartstrings.

Pupper McSpottypants

Josie's first foster DogMomma R. is a rock star. She's a wife, mom, dogmom to her own pack and, on top of that, she went back to school to become a vet. She had fostered Jordie during her pregnancy and was there for the entire whelping. Needless to say, she was (and is) a busy, busy lady -- one who made the very hard choice to love this pup enough to let her go. This was an incredibly difficult thing for her (trust me, you'll see how much stronger she was than me!) and her family to do, but she had Josie's best interests in mind through and through. Fate played her hand in all of this, because once I came to learn that R. might be looking for a new foster home for 3-month old Josie, I told Bubs and, after a few more phone calls and coordination, we got the green light to take over Josie's fostership and we drove to pick up our new little foster babydog!

And she was perfect. She snuggled in my lap the entire 2 hour car ride. She went potty outside at a rest stop. She didn't pee or barf on me. It was love at first sight.

Wow. It was not easy! I was raw nerves those first few days. (From what people tell me, it's a lot like what having a new baby is like...) But after some time, we found a routine and stuck with it. We were up 3 times a night for almost 2 months so we could housebreak her, knowing that even though difficult, it would be worth it in the long run to support her early. We taught her to sit, stay, come, lay down and shake with both paws. She had all the right toys to chew on (and only the toe of one flip flop and the side of one slipper ever was chewed - not bad for damage control lol!) She was our little genius dog. We were going to help her be the best dog we could help her be for her future forever family.


A couple months passed and conversations came up about whether or not we would adopt her. I stuck to my commitment as a foster (and no one believed me...), knowing that letting her go would break my heart...but I told myself it was for the best. And then, after 2 months of our fostering, she was put on Petfinder. And the next day, an application came through from someone very, very far away. And I cried. A lot. Bubs sulked in his man cave. The truth was, neither of us wanted to let her go, but it took the thought of never seeing her again to help us to see that. Even though everyone at OESR had warned us, that once an application for her was in, there's no going back if it got approved. We KNEW that. But with a hope and a prayer, we let them know that if, for whatever reason that first application didn't get approved, that we wanted to adopt her -- and so we put in our application, too. (We were such jerks. How we had waited so long is beyond me...I chalk it up to major anxiety and commitment issues. God bless OESR for putting up with us and, specifically, my neuroses.) After a little less than a week, the planets aligned (and fate once again played her hand) and we got the joyous news..."Congratulations, it's a girl!" And the rest is history...and just the beginning of our glorious foster failure.Bubs said an English dog needs an English name, so we renamed Josie to Derby. She's now our little "brown" Derby and she the best little girl ever. I never thought I'd be one of those people...the kind who forgoes normal adult conversation to tell people about Derby's poops or the custom, handmade coat I bought for her on Etsy, but I am 100% that guy and loving every minute. She helps me see the humor in everything. To get outside more (even if it means being on poop patrol), to meet new friends at the dog park, to smile and laugh, to watch my tone, to grow up.

Derby's 6-1/2 months old now and growing like a weed. She loves chewies, her stuffed duck (which is really a pheasant I think, stuffingless, beakless and stinks to high heaven), belly rubs, playing at the dog park, shaking for treats and digging holes in the back yard (but we're working on that one...) I could go on and on, but this post is long enough...I can't wait to share more funny stories and cute pics later. Thanks for stopping by :o)

Look at that face! The sun washed out her Setter spots but they're there :)

Cutest. Kitten. Ever.

{Scotty the kitten at Capital Area Humane Society}

This little fuzzball is just one more reason to adopt your pets from a shelter! Oh, Scotty. Be still my heart.

(No animals were harmed during the making of this movie. This little cuddlebug purrbox would ONLY cry that sad little cry when I would put him back into his cage. In his attempt to dig his way back out to me he, pretty much, dug a big ol' hole right into my heart instead.)

Mingle with the Mutts TODAY!

{clockwise, top left: Chloe, Mister, Alvin, Blizzard -- all available for adoption!}

If you're in and around Columbus today, head on over to the Franklin County Dog Shelter's Mingle with the Mutts from 12 noon to 2pm. More than 150 shelter dogs and foster dogs will be there for giving kisses!

And don't forget...all the pups 45 lbs and over are only $67* through today. That includes tags, spay/neuter, too! Come on out and meet your new best friend :)

*excludes pups 6mos and younger. contact shelter for details.

How Cavalier! Westminster Dog Show

 {image + image}

Counting down the minutes to the Westminster Dog Show tonight (1. because I'm a big dog show dork and 2. because sometimes I like animals more than people.) I'll be rooting on the Cavalier King Charles spaniels, as always!

Am I alone here, or is watching a dog show more engaging than watching the Olympics? Sorry, humans. You're competing just isn't as cute as these furry little pups.

Wink

It's been awhile since I posted about Wink the Cat and I caught her being completely cute the other day, sprawling out in the sunshine. As I mentioned in a previous post, Wink was diagnosed as having Psycogenic Alopecia...in layman's terms, she's crazy and obsessively overgrooms herself to the point of baldness. I was saddened by this because, although completely rotten, she's very pretty and her big bald spots on both of her sides were doing her no justice.

Long story short, we tried giving her her kitty Prozac meds for awhile, but she seemed so miserable, always laying about and missing her quirkiness. And it didn't stop her from overgrooming. Essentially, she was bald and more unhappy than she was before and we didn't like that one bit. That was the end of the medication. We were OK with her being bald, but we didn't want our aging kitty to be unhappy.

Well, the good news is she's happier (and nicer) than she's ever been, not so afraid of strangers and is letting her fur grow back (as you can see from the photo above)! The bad news is the tops of her ears are now bald...What a little weirdo.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Wink the Cat went to the vet today because she has groomed herself almost completely bald on one side of her body over the last few weeks. Being a domestic long-hair tuxedo, it's pretty easy to notice the spotty blueish skin against black fur, let me tell you what. Now, I have to preface this story a bit more. Wink does not like people. Not at all. Honestly, she has barely tolerated us for the last nine-ish years. And she really doesn't like vets. She's can be a holy terror anti-Christ when she wants to be. Just ask the vets when she was spayed -- a tornado of claws and teeth and she was just a lil kitty then. Guess what! She hasn't outgrown it...and so the story continues...

Worried sick that something was wrong, we got her into Ohio State's Vet Clinic this afternoon. She surprisingly went into her carrier very easily. This should've been a sign for impending doom, but I took it as a sign of good luck and went with it. Upon speaking to the Senior vet student in charge of Wink's diagnosis, I warned her over and over, trying desperately to reiterate how not nice Wink can be. After several minutes of her not really beliving me (really..how much trouble can a 7-lb, ten year old cat be, right?) I told her, "Listen. I'm really sorry for what's about to happen." She politely nodded and off I went back to the waiting room. D. met me and we waited and waited and still no word. All they were supposed to do is get a blood sample and it was taking a long time. Finally, the student vet came out...with trepedation. We knew she believed us now. Her words? "How do you feel about sedation?" I laughed and signed the waiver. What I really wanted to ask her is how she felt about it...after all, it wasn't ME in the room with one, angry feline!

Long story short, after the first run of blood results taken for a geriatric pre-screen (I still can't believe she's almost ten years told) we met with the vet and student vet who were almost in disbelief of the legend that Wink had made herself. Several hours later, her results were back and abnormal, not for the kidney issues they were considering, but for a strange anomaly with her blood (something about a component of her white blood cells being insanely low.)

They asked us to bring her back (while still under slight sedation) to pull another blood sample (before she has another opportunity to go completely bonkers.) It's a super quick trip and about 15 minutes later, we were on our way home again. Another 30 minutes after that, they called with the good news -- she has a clean bill of health and systemically, she's perfectly healthy. But what about the bald spots, right? She has been diagnosed as having disorder called psychogenic alopecia (aka compulsive overgrooming.) This can happen for a number of reasons... because she's bored, understimulated or sort of obsessive-compulsive. Sheesh! Wink's always been a strange kitty, so we're not enitrely shocked, but ultimately relieved that nothing is seriously wrong. She now will be perscribed an antidepressant (I'm being serious) and we'll have to take steps at home to play more, not reinforce the behavior and provide her healthy distractions when we're at work.

I guess we just have to get used to the idea that our consistently neurotic-yet-beautiful fraidy cat will be a balding geriatric on kitty Prozak, potentially for the rest of her life. What a weird day...