Couches galore!!

Other big news from this week--we bought a new couch!!!!!! We absolutely LOVE it, it's so spacious and big and comfy!!

Before:

After:

It's a big sectional and Carter's favorite part is that it's long enough in both directions for him to fit laying down! (which also means it sleeps two people, which also means it seats at least 6 people!!) My favorite part is how nice and new/fancy it looks! And I also like that we can now put the matching purple furniture (which I also still really like) in the upstairs living room, which means we can get rid of the un-matching furniture in there and have TWO living rooms with MATCHING furniture in each! I feel so grown up!! Hehehehe

Here's a shot of what our upstairs living room currently looks like.......

Couches galore!! We're trying to sell the striped couch and the big desk on craigslist (wish us luck!), then we might put the papasan in the guest bedroom. Then we might get new ottoman(s) for downstairs and put that wooden coffee table upstairs with the purple furniture. I'll post more photos when we have things finalized.

Welcome, Gemma!!!

I'm an auntie again!!!!! Becky gave birth to a beautiful baby girl a couple weeks ago and named her Gemma Marie!!! Little did she know I had been working on special gifts for this bundle of joy.



This was my first try at knitting stuffed animals and I LOVED it!! It's sooo fun and quick and actually much easier than it looks. I can't wait to knit more!! I knit the bunny first, then the frog.


Carter is learning photoshop and showing off his skills above :-)




The look smaller by Carter's head than they do by little Gemma's head!



I've been in a major knitting mood lately--more photos to come soon!

New wrap and good news!

We had a great vet appointment today! Carter and I took Emma this morning and met with our vet....usually they just take her into the back to re-wrap her foot but this time I asked "do you mind if we watch?" and she said sure! So I got to hold Emma still (aka, sit on her) while the vet worked. She took off the old bandaging, cleaned the wound a little, and decided the stitches could come out! Yay! She said the wound itself is healing very well. We watched her move each of Emma's little toes and they seemed to be moving fine, only the 1st toe (inside toe on her back right foot) seemed a little stiffer than the others, but the other three seemed good she said. I think it's still early to tell how much of an effect on her running this will be.



She also gave us the good news that this is Emma's last week with the splint! The splint can come off as early as next weekend, then she'll have to wear bandages for another 2 weeks. She'll still have to go to doggy daycare and stay off her foot as much as possible (aka no walks) for 3 more weeks total, but the end is in sight! Get well soon, Emma!!!!

Birds of Prey

I don't think I've written about Birds of Prey for awhile, so here's an update:

I have told most of you, I think, but maybe not everyone--the founder and director of Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Center passed away last year (November maybe?). It was VERY sad, Sigrid was an amazing person. She was from Austria and had a THICK accent and occassionally spoke in German :-) My favorite memories of her were from 2 summers ago, when I worked every other Friday. There was only one other lady, an employee named Joyce, who worked Fridays and no other volunteers--she always needed so much help so Friday's I'd work most of the day (6 hours or more) and Sigrid would work more than normal those days too to help out. I spent a lot of time with Sigrid on those Fridays, she taught me about the birds, about the challenges of working with vets and government agencies, etc. She told lots of stories about different birds she's gotten over the years (she seemed to remember ALL of them!), how to work around birds, how to handle them, etc. I watched her examine birds, take them fromt he cages, check their wounds, joints, bones, etc. She certainly had a way with animals, that was sure, she was extremely unique! I respected her so much, she COMMANDED respect, she was a very strong person. But she was also very kind, and my all time favorite memory was when she came in on a hot day when it was just me and Joyce working, and she brought us a plate of sliced cucumbers and a little bowl of cucumber dressing she whipped up! The cucumbers were from her garden, and it was JUST what we needed on a super hot and very busy day. The three of us just stood around and chatted while we took a break, and ate cucumbers :-)



Here's a nice story about Sigrid on the Birds of Prey website: http://birds-of-prey.org/cm/never-to-be-forgotten-sigrid-noll-ueblacker-passes/
And another, this one makes me cry!! http://birds-of-prey.org/cm/thoughts-of-sigrid/



And here's a photo I got from Birds of Prey today:

(scanned, so it's not great quality) She's holding Adam, an educational bird that couldn't be released so she used to bring it to schools, etc.

I've only been able to volunteer a couple times since Sigrid passed away, and though many things are the same it's also just so different. Quiet. Sometimes awkard. I wasn't very close to the other two employees, and Joyce stopped working at BOP last summer I think, when I was working Fridays and volunteering every other Tuesday. I get very sad everytime I go there, but the good news is that the show much go on, and the Foundation will go on. They will name a new Director soon, or so I hear, and we'll keep fixing broken birds! I think Sigrid would be happy to know that we're not giving up.

Here are some great shots I got today with the new camera (first time I've taken it to BOP!)

Great Horned Owl--he didn't want to sit on his perch!

This Coopers Hawk had 3 fractures in one wing, he couldn't stand :-(


Screech Owl, I don't think I have every seen one of these until today! What a cutie!! Smaller than I thought!


This Prairie Falcon was very aggressive so I had to take this photo through the cage door!


This poor Kestrel was caught in a "sticky trap" whatever that means--he was covered in oily tar stuff but apparently his feathers are starting to look better


There were two Red Tailed Hawks in today, I don't remember which one is which!

I like the lighting in this one. (this is one of the red tails)



Then I saw this guy as I was leaving :-) I like to think maybe he was just checking in on a place he had to stay once, and giving his thanks!

emma's latest cast

Not the greatest picture, but I wanted to document her latest cast. Now that we're back at the regular vet, we have weekly appts for re-wrap. This is good because we're pretty sure that the doggy daycare started off walking her for potty breaks, but lately we think they've been just putting her in an outdoor run by herself with no other dogs. They don't wrap her cast with a plastic bag like we asked them too either, which kinda sucks, but we didn't think it was a big deal since it has been soooo dry here. But she keeps coming home with an increasingly dirty cast! Yesterday it snowed so we told them they HAVE to keep that bag on anytime she's outside and I really thinkt hey did, it wasn't wet when we got her back.

Aaaaaaaanyways, now that she's walking more and maybe even running at doggy daycare, her splint has shifted! It's kinda crooked now and she walks funny, but again it didn't seem to be bothering her. Then today I saw her start to favor that foot a couple times (but not all the time), poor Emma! The vet couldn't get her in this afternoon, but luckily we have a standing appt for Saturday mornings for the weekly re-wrap, so she'll go in tomorrow and get new wrapping (this time I'm asking for purple!!!!!!)

Other than that, Emma has been pretty normal--she wants to go on walks but we can't take her :-( we let her go up and down the stairs by herself now, and we've started leaving her in the house more often, with fairly good results (a couple potty accidents, but we're working on that. I think she's an anxious pooper! (ie, doesn't really HAVE to poop but gets so anxious she just feels the need to poop on the carpet! doh!) at least she's never tried to chew anything, including her cast!)

Wish us luck for the re-wrap and here's to hoping she has more toe movement this time! (last time only 2 toes looked normal, the other 2 didn't have much flexing movement)

Emma update

Emma survived her first 2 days of doggy daycare! The ladies didn't talk about her too much despite my prodding (they have so many dogs, they probably didn't pay so much attendtion to Emma in particular?), but they did say they started her out in the indoor "run" (about 6ft x 8ft maybe? or 4ft x 6ft?) but noticed she was jumping too much and they knew that was bad for her leg, so they moved her into a "crate" (kennel). I think she stays in there alllll day, and they take her out for walks on leash a couple times a day in areas with no other dogs so she can do her potty thing. I picked her up Tuesday and they said she didn't eat any food, and spilled her water all over her pillow! Carter picked her up yesterday and apparently she PEED on her pillow (she never does that!) but luckily they have washers/dryers there so it would be clean by this morning. (she still didn't eat any/much). We dropped her off together this morning and I didn't get a chance to talk to the girls who work there because they were so busy with everyone coming in with dogs.

Emma made the blog! http://divinecanine.blogspot.com (they probably don't normally take pictures of dogs in their kennels but Carter specifically asked them to take her picture for me :-) awww) She looks pretty pathetic, but she'll just have to be pathetic until she gets cleared from the vet to run again! Scroll down to Tuesday's post and she's about half way down. (she's not on Wednesday's blog, and for today you can check after 530pm, when they normally post)

She's been soooooooo excited to go to doggy daycare (I don't thinks he's put it together yet that they just put her in a cage and she can't run or play!), and soooooooo excited to see us at the end of the day! When we get home she's super tired and just conks out--I thinks he's exhausted from barking all day!

Just 4 more weeks of this........

non-dog related news:

1) Emma's got a new little cousin: Gemma Marie Curl was born this morning between 5 and 6am!!!!! Becky and Gemma are doing fine and we don't have photos yet but I can't wait to see the babe! She was big, 9lbs, and has dark hair and long fingers. Congratulations Becky and Marcus!!

2) We got a new garage door today! The old one broke in a way that couldn't be replaced so after 2 weeks of not being able to get into the garage we finally broke down and paid for someone to install a new door.
it's nice--insulated so we keep Emma warm and get a tax write off, plus he fixed some things that were done wrong in the installation of the first garage door, so this one should last longer (not that we'll be at this house forever, but nice to know it's better quality)


3) I am leaving now to get new tires put on the Jeep! This has been an expensive month!

Emma's still going strong....

...in fact, she thinks she's perfectly fine! hahaha

We took Emma off the sedatives and she's back to her old goofy self. She doesn't seem to be in any pain but she is still pretty pathetic, mostly because we are constantly telling her "STAY", "DOWN", and "PILLOW" because we want her to stay off her foot as much as possible. I think she thinks she's always in trouble, she has this look on her face that says "I'm sorry Mom! Whatever I did I'm sorry!" Poor girl!

Here are some updated pictures. We got her an inflatable collar that fits better but I think it still may be too big (I'm sure she could get it off if she really wanted to). We've only put it on her once to test it out and she seems to not mind it at all, fell asleep on it for a long time! With us around she doens't seem to be interested in her cast at all, never licks it or chews it or anything, so there's really no need for a collar at home. When we send her to Doggy Daycare tomorrow though we'll probably tell them to keep it on her just in case, since they may not be watching her as closely as we watch her at home.
Also in these pictures you can see her brand new green cast!! Yes, we had to go back to the emergency vet place for the 3rd time in 5 days (I'm not bitter, really) for another rebandage. The last splint kept slowly moving up to the point where Emma's foot was hitting the ground with every step, and it was causing her pain (the whole point of the splint it's longer htan her leg and absorbs the shock with each step, so Emma's foot never has any pressure on it). Needless to say we are not extremely happy with the Emergency Vet and we are having Emma switched over to our regular vet for any further care. If everything goes well this week the regular vet will see her on Saturday for a rebandage, then once a week after that until he feels she's healed enough to take the bandages off (maybe 4-5 more weeks?)


One bit of sad/happy news from the vet came after examined Emma's foot while replacing the bandages. Apparently all of Emma's toes are working except one. I am so glad that most of them are flexing fine (I guess meanign the tendons are working/healed?) but sad that one of her toes may never be able to flex again. Obviously I would have preferred ALL of her toes to completely heal but I guess this is pretty good too. And who knows, there's still time maybe in the following weeks more tendons will heal and that toe will start working too!


In the meantime we'll be sending Emma to Doggy Daycare during the day while we're at work! I'm starting to think this might be what having a baby is like.....we've been watching over Emma very carefully, taking turns to leave the house so one of us can alwasy be with her. We have to monitor her potty breaks carefully, give her medicine, force her to eat and drink, take her to the doctor, and now yesterday we took her to check out a daycare place! We can't go do the regular evening things we'd like to do (shopping, dinner, movie, bar, etc.) and we've had to cancel plans to go snowshoeing in the mountains just to stay home with our baby!

Anyways the daycare place is called Divine Canine and they even have a blog where they post pictures everyday--I can't wait to check it out tomorrow and see if Emma makes the cut! This place seemed really nice--they will keep her in a small indoor "run" (4ft x6ft) that is just big enough for her dog pillow, a bowl of food, and a couple toys. It doesn't have a top, just goes to the ceiling, so they made a special point of telling us that they'll watch her carefully and if she starts jumping they will switch her to a crate so she won't hurt herself. They will take her for potty breaks on a leash only, and in an area with no other dogs so she doesn't get distracted or try to play. It's really a sad existence for Emma but that's what she needs now to heal! I feel bad for her because she'll probably hear and see the other dogs all playing together in the large outdoor communal area but she won't be able to play with them :-(

Right now I"m at home because I have MLK day off (yay for being a government employee!! hahah) and Emma is sleeping downstairs in the papasan chair. Usually she moves between that chair in the front living room, to her dog pillow downstairs, to the bed upstairs. Occassionally I'll put her on a couch :-) We don't let her climb stairs by herself or jump up into chairs so I have to carry her a lot (it's my workout!). She thinks she's completely fine though, and when I'm not looking sometimes she'll climb the stairs to follow me somewhere--bad dog!

Keep your fingers crossed that this splint continues to work well and that Emma's tendons heal up well! Maybe we'll get our energetic, running, hiking puppy back by late spring/early summer? I can't wait to go hiking again, and neither can she!

Emma update

Yesterday I stayed home with Emma, and here are some pictures of the poor, pathetic dog. She was pretty calm all day....she would sleep for a couple hrs then wake up and get kinda ansy so I'd either give her food and water, carry her outside for a quick potty break, and/or just move her to another soft location. She moved from the downstairs livingroom pillow....
......to the papasan...
.....to the bed....


....and back downstairs to both of the couches! She had a very full day. She was pretty groggy most of the day, didn't eat much but drank a lot which was weird because she didn't pee at all! She wasn't acting like herself at all :-(

Today Carter stayed home with her and confirmed how weird she was acting.....didn't want to eat or drink at all, vomited bile once, and just seemed groggy and unhappy. Then on top of that he saw that her splint was broken! Doh! So he took her back to the vet and they fixed her up with a brand new, heavy-duty splint and re-wrap her (for a charge, or course). Also they confirmed that she was acting kinda funny so they told us not to give her any more of the sedative drug in case it was causing her bad reaction. We were only using it at night, one pill before bed. We'll see if it makes a difference--I don't necessarily want her bouncing off the walls, she's supposed to stay "quiet", but I do want her acting normal! It was scary to see her all groggy and weird for so long.

Here is a photo of her snazzy new cast!! Apparently these vet-techs didn't get the memo that purple is Emma's favorite color :-( Also no hearts. Poor Emma


I'll stay home with her tomorrow because it's my Friday off. (I was going to volunteer but Emma is too important to me!) Then Sat and Sun we'll both be home with her (I guess no snowshoeing this weekend :-( Emma would have loved it :-( ) Then Monday I'm off for MLK day so I'll watch her then too. The hard part about staying home with her is that you can't leave the house all day!!!!!!!! Very boring. I'm used to running errands on my days off and I have lots to do, but I can't leave her inside yet. Saturday we'll get a smaller, inflatable collar (as opposed to the lampshade, which she HATES) so then she'll actually be able to fit into her kennel (can't fit with the lampshade).

Wish me luck and say a little prayer that our baby-puppy heals well and quickly!!

Emma's injury story

(see photos below if you haven't already)

So last night, Carter was playing fetch with Emma in the front yard, like we do almost every night, and I was inside eating dinner. After just a couple minutes they both come in and Emma plops on the floor. "Well, that was short!" I said, as I walked into the room and noticed blood gushing out of Emma's back right paw onto our carpet!! Carter tried to cover the wound as I got paper towels, and we cleaned it up the best we could, put lots of gauze and wrapped it with electrical tape. Apparently when they were playing fetch Emma was running and then all of the sudden let out a little yelp! The funny thing is she kept going, jogging a little slower, and and brought the ball back for Carter!

Well luckily when we first moved here I made a point of noting where the closest 24hr animal hospital was, just in case of emergency (which if funny, because I'm not sure which is the closest emergency room of urgent care!! hahah). So Carter carried her into the car and I drove us to the vet! At first the emergency vet thought it looked like just one tendon was cut, and it was hard to tell if it was cut all the way through or just partially cut. She couldn't see much because of the blood and hair so she said she'll have to sedate her and clean it up to see what's really going on. The surgery could take 1.5 hrs or so, so we went home and within 20 min the vet called us to say it was SEVERAL tendons that were cut ALL THE WAY THROUGH! The surgery team couldn't even find the other ends of many of the tendons (tendons are like rubberbands--when they are cut the two ends kinda curl up and snap back into the leg), but they were able to stitch up 5 tendons, some superficial and some deep.

We went to pick her up after surgery and she was such a sad sight!! As you can see from the pictures, she has a big long splint wrapped with purple vet tape. (the vet somehow knew that purple is Emma's favorite color!!) She was just coming out of her drugs so she was sooooo dopey and high!! sShe couldn't walk very well, and kinda fell over a couple times. Finally she just layed down on the floor of the lobby while we were going over her medications and home treatment. Poor girl!!

Of the 5 tendons stitched up, the vet didn't have high hopes for many of them healing :-( She said the success rate is extremely low with stitching tendons, and she had hopes that one of them might heal back together. Unfortunately we will never know without opening up her foot again!! (which we wouldn't do, obviously). Best case scenario: several tendons will heal, and become stronger to make up for the lack of other tendons, and she will be back to her old self in several months! Worst case scenario: no tendons heal and she's never able to flex her foot in the same way :-( This wouldn't hurt her, and she could still still run and everything, but she would be pretty gimpy and might look funny running. Worst worst case scenario: because she can't flex her foot, she may put weight on other parts of the foot, which could cause sores and possibly joint problems :-( Let's hope for the best case scenario!!

So what caused the cut, you may be asking?? Well while she was in surgery we tracked back her trail of blood and it started/ended in a funny sheet of ice. We figure she must've hit the ice at just the right angle, maybe breaking through a little and cutting her foot--what a fluke!!! When I saw the cut, when we were in the house before we took her to the vet, I almost vomitted--it was such a large and deep cut!!!! It's hard to believe it was just ice but we don't know what else it could have been.

So since she's been home, Emma has been under STRICT orders not to move around very much. The more inactive she remains the more likely she is to heal better, so the doctor says. Carter stayed home with her today and luckily she just slept most of the day. I'm with her now while Carter is at vball and she is wide awake!! The poor girl just wants to chase the cats, who of course keep taunting her by runnign around and playing on the hardwood floors!!! Poor Emma! I have to hold her down and stay in the room with her :-/ Tomorrow I'll stay home with her, then Thursday Carter again, then luckily I have Friday and Monday off work to make a 4 day weekend for MLK Day! After that we'll have to figure out what to do with Emma--we can't put her outside like normal becuase she's just run around all day and put too much pressure on the foot! We'll have to try to kennel her or put her in doggy daycare. I'll keep you posted as to what we decide.

Say a little prayer for our poor little Emma Jean! I don't think she's in pain anymore, but she's definitely uncomfortable and doesn't want to stay still as much as she should. We'll have to give her sedatives at nighttime :-/

Get well soon, Emma!!!!!!!!!!!

Sad, sad dog :-(