Wordless Wednesday - Post Storm Nap

A Walk

Come on an evening walk with us at Point Clark. 

This is what the roads look like here near Lake Huron. 

Lady says it is more sniffing than walking . . . there is a lot of peemail to read.

On this walk, we walked to the boat club. Years ago, Lady's Grandfather kept a sailboat named the Trillium here (Lady's family has had a cottage/now house here since sometime in the 1930s).

Walking down to the beach we saw JAWS! (Note Lady was born the day Jaws entered the theatre, weird random fact).

 Lake Huron

On the way back, what did Lee see?

A bunny!

Last stretch back to the cottage.

This is our garbage can. Because this is cottage country, you have to mark if you have garbage or no.

Hope you enjoyed our walk!

Mischief Monday - Road Trip to a Storm

Greetings from Point Clark!

On Saturday, we got up very, very early, and got into the car with Lady. We knew it was going to be fun even if she didn't give us breakfast. This with his anti-nausea meds meant Phod did not throw up!

Ok, being in the car was not that fun. We were in it for 87 million hours (Editor's Note 8.5 hours and we covered about 740 km/560mi).

Hailey sat up most of the drive there

But then we finally got here to visit Grammie, the Big Guy and their dog Tendra. 

It was fun, until the thunderstorm came. The one during the day was less stressful. Lee found the perfect place to hide. 

 It was the one at night that caused the mischief.

A very heavily medicated Lee thought the only safe place in the house was in bed with Grammie. Since that couldn't happen, Lady ended up in the living room, with all the lights on, and music playing. Lady had to spray Lee with water to get her to stop digging the wall. (Lady felt very bad about this, but one squirt seemed to stop. Lee and she was able to sleep in the hall).  Lady slept on the couch from 1-3, in her bed from 3-4:30, and then everyone was up for a bit a 4:30 (that may have been Tendra's fault). Finally, we were able to sleep until 8. Needless to say, we had a fairly quiet, nappy day yesterday.

Lee trying to get to Grammie's room

Phod not sure what is going on in the middle of the night

 There is suppose to be another thunderstorm tonight. Lady hopes we can work it out so if Lee needs to she can just sleep with Grammie.

Nature Friday - A Baby

The quality of these pictures is not great. Lady was working at her desk and was in the middle of a consult when she looked up to see Bambi in the yard. Over the past few weeks the fawns have appeared in our neighbourhood. 

There are also two young bucks with little antlers starting. We hope Lady gets some better pictures soon!

Lee vs The Pool

As mentioned Tuesday, a puppy pool can now be found at our place. While Phod took to it like a fish out of water,  Lee was more hesitant.



Yes, I am clearly a caring a sensitive wife!




In the end she would stand in it a bit and drink from it. So that is something! We will see if she starts to like it more (at the lake she will only stand in it).

Wordless Wednesday - I don't Understand Why You Won't Throw It

Staying Cool - Spoiled Phod

It has been as hot as Hades. We live in an a/c free house. For the most part, we can be comfortable, however, after a few days of high temperatures (we are talking in mid-high 30C/90-100F) we are all done. While we live near the beach, it isn't possible to be taking the dogs there and back to cool off all day (the 500 step walk can be almost prohibitive), so we bought them a pool.

It only took a few minutes for my Water Phod (I am sure he was born under a water sign) to realize this was a good thing.



We are not sure if the water was too cold, if he didn't like how he fit, or if he was just playing because he was in and out and in and out. He had a great time playing. From rolling Precious in the Chunnel to Phenny and Nelly's, quickly made the water very dirty.

Stay cool and have a drink! 

We know many of you were dealing with extreme heat too. Hope you stayed cool! 

Mischief Monday - Repaired

When we first moved into our home almost 7 years ago, we had been in the house for 10 days when Hailey did the following:

Hole from 10 days ago

The Man did a decent job fixing it for a person who has no experience with this type of thing.

Then at the end of July of this year, Miss Lee made this happen.

New hole

Because we learned from time one, drywall repair is not our speciality, and because we are in a slightly different financial situation (i.e. we didn't just move, adopt a second dog, and we aren't carrying 2 mortgages) we hired a handyman to come and fix it. 

He finished the job last week. While he was in the hall, the dogs were suppose to be downstairs but . . . . . . . . 

Zaphod managed to sneak upstairs but with a few reminders stayed out of the way. 

Hailey had no problem staying downstairs while strangers were upstairs.

Now, for the first time in almost 7 years, we have a complete wall at the front door (and it is all painted the same colour as the paint we had was slightly off - who knew they could colour match paint? Not this not at all handy gal!). We are hoping to enjoy this section of complete wall for more than 10 days. 

And of course the new spot is all finished too. 

We are hopeful we will never had to fix Hailey destroyed walls again. 

Nature Friday - The Flowers in Our Yard

Today we join Rosy and the Boyz for Nature Friday.

Lady is not a gardener - it is one of those things she wished she liked, but really hates. In spite of this, we still have some flowers in our yard. 

At the front of the house, planted by the people who built the place, we have some lilies. They just started to open last week.

In parts of the yard, where we are 're-wilding' (which is a movement to let nature take care of itself and have humans interfere less - and it sounds much nicer than the peeps are way to lazy to do anything about this part of the yard), we have some very pretty wild flowers. 

There is some of the flowers in our yard! We hope you enjoyed!

For Phenny and Nelly

Hey guys,

A long time go, Angel Easy and I started digging a tunnel from our place in Quebec to your place in France. I haven't talked about it, but I still continue to work on it. Phod helps too. We do this  not just because it is the only place in the yard we are allowed to dig, but because we want our own Chunnel. It is taking an extra long time because our ground is frozen half the year and we haven't figured out how to steal the neighbour's backhoe!

Just thought we would let you know in case someday we popped up in your yard!

Your good pal,

Professor Lee

Lee coming out of the hole. It doesn't show in the picture but it is a good foot or so underground

Wordless Wednesday - Waiting

A Hailey Update

While I was at the clinic with Phod, I was able to discuss how Lee was doing with our vet. At the time, he said we keep Lee on her 30 mg of prozac, even if she seems a bit stoned, for at least another week and we would talk about it then. He also prescribed Xanax, to be used when we can't be home, but a storm is coming. 

I did ask him about cannabis, and he said that there are no products designed for dogs, and no studies on use in dogs. While he is interested, he can't recommend it. He has had clients try and and they report success. He said if I was interested "I was on my own." So for the time being, we will not be exploring this for Lee. We will try things that are vet approved.

While our Xanax is meant for emergencies, I did not feel comfortable giving Lee a new drug and leaving her alone all day. Saturday night, while we were home, a huge storm rolled in (the type that takes the power out for a short period of time). It was the perfect time to test it. After a few minutes, she was able to go to her fortress of solitude (aka our downstairs bathroom) and curl up on the bed there and ride out the storm. While texting with my vet the next day (I don't know what I will do when he retires), he said that is probably the best we can hope for.

He also wants us to keep her on the 30mg for at least another week, so we will. Probably a good idea as we have 3 days of thunderstorms in the forecast. The wall repair should be done this week, we don't need to add another hole.

So that is where we are with our girl. I hope this will all help!

--------------------

As a pet owner, the best thing I have done is teach my dogs to tolerate me "shoving" pills down their throats. It all started with our Loki ,who at the height of his disease needed 15 pills a day. We had tried all the other methods, and he would spit them out. These were drugs that were keeping him alive. I recommend to everyone, to teach your dogs to tolerate it because it will help you assure they are getting medication they need. 

Mischief Monday -The Annual Day of Torture - by Zaphod

Dear pals,

You know I am a very good boy, so I don't understand why sometimes the Lady does the most horrible things to me. Last week, I was excited to go in the car with just her! But then I realized, no good was coming from this.

I had only thrown up a little, when we arrived at our first destination, Day Camp. I showed Lady my displeasure by peeing on a post in the store (even after she had me pee on 100 things outside of it). I tried to jump into her arms before being led to the back.

When Lady returned 87 million hours later., I was in a playroom, standing by the door. I was so excited to see her. Camp gave me a good report, so Lady was pleased I was not embarrassing, but is sure I just spent most of the day standing by the door. I don't really play with other dogs. 

This is when the day got worse. Lady took me to the V-E-T for my annual checkup. While waiting for my turn, a stranger with a cane approached. I did my best guard duties by moving between my Lady and her and trying to push my Lady away. As you know, I don't like walking sticks or canes. I don't remember why. Lady thinks it is because I was hit when I lived with the dragons, before my brave escape. At any rate, Lady told the stranger I didn't like sticks, so she hid it and kept petting me (which I tolerated). Lots of people were interested in me in the clinic, which Lady thought was weird because clearly I was stressed. Most of them were cat owners, so you would think they would understand pets being stressed at the clinic. 

Checking the peemail outside

Finally, it was my turn. I weigh just over 78 lbs. It is perfect. I seem in good health. At about age 8, I have another year or two before I have to move to senior food. Dr. W, swabbed my ear and looked at it under a microscope. My ear wax is yeasty.  He diagnosed "allergy ear" and gave Lady a heavy duty cleaner with cortisol. I have to clean my ears 2 times a day for a week, then once a day. Dr. W. said he hopes we can get to cleaning them every 2-3 days, and that may be the best we can do. I tolerate the cleaning and hate to admit but my ears are much better. I was brave for my shots too.

Waiting my turn

Lady was talking to one of the vet techs who she had not met (or didn't remember meeting), but had been at the clinic for 13 years. Lady said, "you must remember my first dog, Loki." She said "Of course I do." Loki had immune mediated hepatitis that caused psoriasis of the liver. He had 11 months of intense treatment before going to the bridge at age 8. They still talk about his case and his file still exists. He died over 9 years ago.  That is how weird a thing he had. 

So in the end, I got treats, and shots, and pets, had to protect my Lady and then we got to come home.

It was a very tiring day. I don't look forward to it next year.

Your healthy pal, Phod

Nature Friday - A Walk

This is the post Lady had planned to put together last week, but she was melting so didn't get to it.

For Canada Day weekend our human cousins (aged 3 and 5) came for 2 nights without their parents. Lady and Man are proud of how we did with them. We were very good puppy cousins, even if they acted afraid of us.

On Canada Day, we all went for a nature walk. Man and Lady were worried this may be chaos, but were very happy with how it went! The biggest problem we had is that we found the kids slow and were often miles ahead of them. 

Us with the Man way down the driveway

One of the coolest things we saw on this walk (which is not as cool as the porcupine we chased of a tree this week or the skunk we saw across a field that Lady did not have pictures of because she needed 2 hands to hold us) were all the butterflies. The little girl human was very interested in the dead one we found. She carried it for a long time.

We walked all the way to the pond where we saw no frogs (we saw some later in a ditch). We did see minnows. Turns out, Hailey is scared of minnows!

That is a little of the walk we took, we hope you enjoyed walking with us. 

Help Our Lady - by Phod

Hi, everyone's favourite Phody is here, with my sidekick Precious, to share some important news.

If you don't know our Lady well, she is organized, dedicated, headstrong and independent, which makes her current endeavour sort of her personal hell. She told me she feels about it like I feel about having to have my ears cleaned every day, twice a day (so that is terrible).

Lady is on a fundraising mission. If you don't know, she works with individuals with autism. She has volunteered her time to abandon us forever travel to Tanzania in February of 2020 with the Global Autism Project. The Global Autism Project is on a mission to create sustainable treatment for autism worldwide using a train the trainer method. Lady is going to use the skills and talents she has obtained during her career and her love of  travel to help others (and maybe see a giraffe too. I don't know what that is, but Lee says it is something I would love to chase - I think she would love chasing it more). One of the requirements is for her to fundraise a minimum of $5000 USD. This covers some of her expenses while she is away. She will be paying for her flight, food and non-work related travel. We will be stuck here with the Man for like 2.5 weeks, while she is living her dream. (She told me the only thing that would make it better would be for her to be able to take us).

If you happen to have any extra treat money laying around that you could spare, please consider making a donation to her CrowdRise page  HERE. If you do go, please click on Kristen's (that is her name - it isn't actually Lady) Tanzania so the money goes to her account and the charity sees she has raised it and let her go on the trip.

For those of you who saw it on Facebook etc. and have been able to make a donation, Lady gives her most heartfelt thanks. She is humbled by the generosity of others.

Thanks for considering this, even if it means she is not spending time with us. She made our dreams come true when she rescued us, so we can repay the kindness by helping her have hers come true too.

Your pal, Phod (and Precious and probably Hailey if she wasn't so medicated, and Emma who is being pretty good this trip).

Wordless Wednesday - Staying Cool