Enjoying the gift of today...

Tink apparently had a good morning. She didn't want to walk at 9:30, but at 10:30 she actually went around the apartments with Nick (We have some nice schedules around here some days ; ) She slept in her own bed ALL night last night...she hasn't done that in years! I did pick her up after my alarm went off this morning to snuggle instead of actually getting moving. Molly joined us and made me into a sandwich, Moo on one side and Miss Tink on the other : ) It's a miracle I made it out of the house on time this morning!

I got home this evenig to Tink circling continually in her crate. She continued to circle outside of her crate until I fed her... I found her standing 1/2 sitting 1/2 standing in the back with a slight shake in her body very shortly after dinner. She snuggled down on the couch with me for a little bit, then I walked miss Moo and came back to find her sitting on the couch again in a 1/2 sitting, 1/2 standing position. She walked down to the dumpster with me pretty well. I was going to have her go further, but my gut said to take her in. Each time I ignore my gut I get annoyed with the results so Miss Tink and I went inside.

Fortunately for Tink and Moo, I made up a new dinner entree for them when I arrived home this evening. I thought it might be a good idea for them to sample it while it was still nice and warm! This evening's tasting included venison, kale, nappa cabbage, celery, jasmine rice, eggs, and a bit of garlic for the girls dining pleasure : ) Both scarfed it down feverishly. I gotta give Tink credit, she's been eating like a champ! (it also was a convenient way to give Tink her piece of baby aspirin I forgot to put in her dinner.)

Once again, I think we're going to spend the evening snuggling on the couch... : ) My most amazing husband got us caught up on laundry and took care of the kitchen while he was home this morning. I'll get to do more baking as a result. A win-win situation, right? : )

Poor Molly is feeling a bit off with all that's been going on lately. She sat up on the couch this evening with us and put her little paw on my hand as if to say "hey, I'm here too!" Now don't get me wrong, she's been loved on, but I will say, she's definitely Nick's little lady : ) She's such a goofy girl, we'll have to post some of the goofy stuff she's been doing to keep us laughing over here!

Accentuate the Positive...

Tink walked to the dumpster and back this morning with some encouragement

Tink walked down the hallway quite confidently and proceeded to nest Molly's bed and take a cat nap in it while Nick showered

Tinker was barking her little head off when I arrived home this afternoon

She proceeded to do the Tinker dance and act all crazy excited because I was home and she was free.

She is currently resting in my lap and being the little love that she always is.


on some slightly less positive news, Tink's been tanking the water up like a mama camel
she's having a hard time regulating her body temp and as a result she's been panting a lot and drinking more water more frequently
Her back end continues to be weak, but she's still walking a bit more today
She's developing a weird sort of body twitch, not quite like a seizure, but seems to almost be in that family....

One day and one moment at a time. Thanks all that is expected and all we can ask for : )

Taking Each Day as a Gift....

Tink always has and still continues to be a fantastic little snuggler.

She is still eating well. The stand we created to lift her bowls up seems to help her balance.

She perks up at her peanut butter cookies and takes them gently from my hand.

She still lets me know when she needs something. Sometimes I just have to listen a little harder.

All in all, today has been a gift and I will treasure each moment.

Fun & Happy Happenings

• So last Friday before PMAD, I was giving Molly a bath (because she gets so stinky so quickly). I brought in some duck strips that both girls love for a yummy treat for Miss Moo, except I put it on the floor so I could easily reach it while I was bathing her. Do you see where this is going yet? Tink sniffed out the goods from the living room, came into the bathroom, major stealth mode, sniffed the duck strip out in 2.5 seconds. She snatched it up so quickly, turned around, and booked it out of the bathroom without a single bump! I just sat there on the edge of the tub laughing. Molly looked at me like "hey, that WAS mine!" Tink's still got it, that's for sure!

• Unfortunately for me (fortunately for the little ladies), Tink has taught Molly that each time they come in from a walk or potty break, they get a treat. So the only thing harder than ignoring Tinker when she wants a snack is ignoring Tink AND Molly when they want (and feel entitled) to a snack. So now the 2 of them stand in various places around the kitchen, Tink ringing her food bowl and Molly hopping on her back legs and wiggling her butt! Yes, they definitely have me trained....
  

• Molly has the cutest little butt wiggle and yodel when it's meal time or when she THINKS it's dinner time! She has also stopped waddling and is developing muscle and strength in her back end
  

• Tinker still walks up the stairs at least 2x's per day. Every once in a while, she initiates walking up and man is she a confident little lady!
  

Puppy Mill Awareness Day 2009

So PMAD 2009 arrived today!! Nick, Tink, Molly, and I arrived right around 9am to meet Jodi at the Intercourse Park. It wasn't until Joy arrived that we actually got the table set up and rolling! Tiff and Lilo were there too: Lilo was our BT kissing machine : ) Lara and Jill both made treats and they sold wonderfully! They were all human grade ingredients, so human members of the group decided to give the treats a try!

Kyla Duffy was also there, she is the author of the Happy Tails book series. Kyla was a treat to speak with and spend time with today! She was able to meet miss Tink who was in her book. She brought books and bumper stickers and allowed the group to keep all of the profits from those items! Kyla is an amazingly talented, yet totally down to earth kind of girl. The second book in the series, Golden Retrievers, with Labs, Daschunds, and Pitt Bulls coming soon! It's not too late to order your BT book or any one of the others. What a great way to support rescue, raise awareness, and get a great read! (bring your tissues!)

Here are a few pics from the day. Nick was the camera man and if feeling under the weather so he was fairly stationary for most of the day....

Lilo

Lilo looking pretty!

chit chatting!

The BT at the booth next to us : )

Molly's nose

Molly chillin' on the chair. So glad we brought the chair for you moo!
No, in all seriousness, Molly was AWESOME today!

Snoozin'.... she was easy going, laid back, polite. She slept for a good part of the day,
yet walked around with us like a complete angel when we needed her to be : )

Can you tell Nick loves this dog?!?

Lilo was borrowing Molly's blanket, so Molly was borrowing her bed : )

Lilo and Molly begging for food. Look at how good Moo's silhouette is!

The Frechie's were there again this year is large numbers,
but this little guy stole our hearts! He was such a character!

Look at those face and ears!!
What's not to love?!?!?

It was such a pleasure to meet and spend time with Joy, Lara, and Jill! And as usual, it was great to catch up with Tiff and Jodi! The weather was beautiful--perfect for being outside.
Victoria Stillwell spoke (it was cool to see her in person!), many many people marched in protest past some known mills. It was great to see how much this event has grown since last year! And on top of all the festivities, NEBTR successfully raised over $200!!! Go group!

Despite the lack of photographic evidence, Tink was indeed at this event. She was either in my arms or in my lap! If I wasn't careful, Joy was going to take her home! (She's in some Joy's pics, I'll post them when we get them!) What a fabulous day! Now all four of us are snuggled up in bed... Nick is sick and the pups are tired! Actually, i'm exhausted too, now that I think of it!

Time to Update! Molly gets sick...

So Thursday night we're ready for sleep and Tinker is nesting her bed, refusing to settle. Molly is chewing her big bone and not ready for sleep. Nick and I are exhausted from late nights and a busy week and we're ready to crash. We finally take the bone away from Molly and throw Tink into bed (and she immediately lays down and begins snoring. No word of a lie.)

I didn't realize this, but Molly never fully settled that night. And for good reason. She spent all night (every 1/2 to full hour) getting up and puking or going outside with rather ummm explosive diarrhea. She was limping earlier and had been a little off to begin with early in the day. All night from midnight to quarter til 5, Nick and I were up with the Moo Mama. Nick was really good with her, but he doesn't do puke, so I had to assist at certain points in the night!

We must have missed her trying to get us up or she didn't tell us, but she didn't get outside for a very important trip that should have been outside... instead it ended up under our dining room table. It was not such a pleasant surprise after a rather sleepless night... Every pertinent cleaning supply in our closet was no match for this level of disgusting. Our house reeked. And with that humid damp weather we were having, it wasn't moving!

To make things worse, Molly refused to eat anything on Thursday morning (not even a morsel!) which was a huge red flag for me. She just looked sick. She sacked out on the couch and couldn't even bring herself to get up and go outside. Obviously this was an immediate phonecall to the vet. Dr. Haver seemed to think it could have been a reaction to the Trilostane and instructed us to keep her off that for a few days. She was still drinking which was a really good sign and according to him, her not eating for the time being was a good sign too. We fasted her Thursday morning (obviously, she woudn't eat.) But by 10:30am, she was already perking up and acting hungry again. We gave her a tiny piece of turkey to see if she could hold it down, which she did and then gave her a fraction of her dinner in 2 separate sittings to see how she would do with that. And since then, she has been normal.

2 days later, she's back to her normal diet and is acting just fine. We haven't added the Trilostane back to her diet yet. (I was supposed to call Dr. Haver friday morning and I forgot...will call on Monday.) He shared that we would probably drop her dose to every other day for a while and see how that goes. So we'll give her a dose tomorrow morning and then skip Monday and see what he has to say then. If she does fine on every other day, then for sure, that's what I vote to do! She hasn't shown any signs of regression since she's been off the trilostane either, another good sign.

We decided Thursday evening that the spot needed to be steam cleaned. In fact, the carpet in general could use a good cleaning (we can thank Tink for much of that too...) We priced out the spot bots and other comparable spot cleaning machines, but in the end we decided to rent a rug doctor and get down to business. Friday was a beautiful evening spent vaccuming, moving furniture and cleaning our carpets. The end product is a beautiful clean carpet with no hint of sickness under our dining room table!

Molly's feeling better, our carpets look great, Nick and I slept very well thursday and friday night, all in all it could have been a lot worse!

Puppy Mill Awareness Day 2009

Puppy Mill Awareness Day is set to take place this coming Saturday at the intercourse park in intercourse PA. The day begins at 10am and is filled with speakers, lots of great rescues, a free vegan meal, and a time to raise awareness about the horrors of these mills.

Check out www.awarenessday.org for more information! Don't miss this event!

Little Molly Moo Moo

One of the songs we use to sing as a kid was "Little Bunny Foo Foo" (hoping through the forest, picking up the field mice and bopping on the head.) Well I've adapted the words for Miss Molly. I have a few variations, but i'll share the most common ones we sing:

Little Molly Moo Moo
is waddling through the forest
eating people's snack foods
and peeing on their lawns

or

Little Molly Moo Moo
waddling down the hall way
looking for a tasty treat
then snuggling on the couch


Moo or Moomoo has been established as Molly's nick name around here. It's fitting with her appetite, and it's fun to say : )

She has the worst sense of direction though. She gets turned around in the apt complex hallway and can't seem to remember which door is ours (even thought its the only one with a door mat.) We joke that Tink has a better sense of direction which isn't too far from the truth. Tink certainly knows which apartment building is ours and her way around things much better that Moo. It's funny cause we'll be holding the door open to come into the building and she is standing by a neighbor's door. So we laugh and say, "why don't we use this door Moo, it's open."

Molly share's Tink's affinity for warm and soft blankets. She has discovered my down comforter throw and she loves to lay on that on the couch. Since we've graduated to a 2 dog house, I think we're going to need a bigger couch. The love seat is perfect for 2 plus Tink, now with Molly, we get rather creative with seating options. And if Molly doesn't think there's enough room, she just sits there looking at us, until we move Tink or create some more space. Tink has been observed to use Molly's back as a head rest or snuggling up tight to fit us all in. Ha, realistically, we'll just sit nice and comfy with the 4 of us under some covers watching a movie : )

Molly's appetite seems to be stabilizing a little bit. She's been going out to pee and then without hesitation she joins the 3 of us in bed. This weekend we had a good 30 min to an hour both on sat and sunday morning with the 4 of us all cozy. I'm in heaven in the morning like that : )

Anyways, it's been fun yet fairly low key in our house with the 4 of us. Tink's doing pretty well with Molly and Molly is thriving here. Even her weight and shape looks so much better! Tink's back end was really weak this evening as I watched her try to nest or walk a bit. I'm not sure what's up with that but we will certainly be keeping an eye on her. She seems to walk fine in the morning and evening, but certain times after her evening walk, she can be a bit unsteady in the house. And she's certainly unsteady before she completely wakes up in the morning. Aside from that issue, Tink's been eating pretty well, walking well, and my little snuggle queen!

Oh our little doggie retirement home makes me smile!

Molly Vet Appt 9-11-09

So Molly and I took a trip in the rain over to see Dr. Ramos the holistic vet in Palmyra this afternoon. I liked her very much. She was pleasant and knowledgeable, she didn't beat around the bush, yes she wasn't harsh. She came in and spoke with me, got to know Molly and she explained her philosophy and the holistic approach that she takes. She said that there are some things that she will use herbs and a more natural approach (her strength is acupuncture and massage therapy) where other areas she believes those approaches will not work or be nearly as effective.

The long and the short of it is this: Dr. Ramos would not change anything in Molly's current treatment (or living conditions.) The Trilostane is working beautifully in her professional opinion. She loves the way her coat looks, her weight is perfect, she loves the home cooked diet and the supplement regime that we are using (good building blocks for her health as she described it). Dr. Ramos said she never would have known that Molly has cushings without looking at her chart. She recommended a full panel yearly though (including liver enzymes, thyroid, etc) if everything continues to go well. If something were to change, bring her in early (obviously.)

It felt so good to hear the vet praise how good Molly looked and how well adjusted she appeared to be! She valued what we are doing and seemed to think it was suiting Molly beautifully! She also stated that a dog with Cushing's who is regulated can live for another 6 or 7 years. Although as she said Molly's a "'98 Model" and basically implied that she's older and that length of time isn't necessarily feasible for Molly. But certainly a few years, a few good healthy, happy, and active years are.

On another note, the two girls were snuggled up on the couch between Nick and me this evening while we watched a movie....it was so stickin' cute!

My Cuddle bugs

I've never seen Tinker cuddle up next to another dog like she does with Molly. We catch the 2 of them on the couch nestled nice and close to each other more often than not. Molly will often inadvertently step on Tink on the way up but sometimes Tink returns the favor when she's moving around or looking for the food I'm eating : ) But Tink really enjoys having Molly around. Definitely her favorite foster dog yet : )

Things have been going pretty well with the 2 of them around the house. They get along just fine and we've even left them on the couch for 10-20 minutes alone if Nick and I are barely missing each other. Both times, they were totally fine.

I'm wondering if Tink is feeling ok though. She's messed in the house twice in 2 days, once in her crate and once on the floor this morning... I was not a happy camper at all this morning. She's laying here on the couch under a blanket. I know it's raining and gross out, but she really seems to be under the weather today.

Both girls got baths when we came home from the cabin; I love having clean matching Bostons! Their coats are so shiny and soft and with the 2 of them getting into bed like they do, I want clean dogs! Last night Molly came up into bed during Project Runway and nestled herself in between me and Nick. She was happy as a clam right there!

Molly's not a big fan of all other dogs. The little ones she seems to adjust to with some time. Bigger dogs she just doesn't adjust to. Poor Maddie couldn't catch a break all weekend. Molly didn't seek her out if she was across the yard or anything, but she definitely snapped at her if she came within reach. Jazz would instigate, but Molly was just telling him to cut his puppy antics.

Molly has a vet appt with a holistic vet in about an hour... we'll be leaving soon. I'm wondering what is really in her best interest, if she can be adopted out or if she should remain as a permanent foster. I'm hoping a visit with this vet will help give us some direction with the Cushing's Disease and how to best help this little one. She is such a gem.

My 2 litlle gems are on the couch....one will be off soon in this rainy weather! More to follow on the vet visit.

Tinker & Molly

So Miss Tink has been doing fabulous lately (minus a few "accidents" in the house!) She's been alert, walking well, good appetite and looking good! Miss Molly has been showing more and more of her personality. She has been sleeping on a bed in our bedroom at night rather than in her crate and she is loving it (and doing very well!) We realized that she likes to sleep under a blanket so i've been tucking her in at night too : ) It's definitely cute and she looks so comfy. She usually makes it to about 6:30 am before she's gotta go potty. At that point she looks at Nick with a small whimper and he take her out. She then jumps into bed and if we're lucky, we all sleep for another hour snuggled up together ; )

We just finished reading through the BT Happy Tails book and the last few nights we had both of the dogs in bed for our bed time story. It makes me smile so much to have 2 bostons in our bed as we read some amazing rescue stories! Unfortunately for Molly, after the story is over, she has to sleep in her own bed (blame Nick for that...something about not having any room to sleep. Whatever!)

Molly has learned that Tinker leaves food in her kong and usually in her crate and she makes it her mission to clean it all out to the point that she rushes outside to get back in (which can be annoying quite honestly!) So, I've been making sure she doesn't get a hold of Tink's kong or get in her crate in an effort to stop the 1 way track mind.

After having her here for almost 2.5 weeks, I'm wondering if her meds do need to be upped at some point. She acts a bit more hungry than I would like to see... we'll definitely see what the holistic vet says next friday before we do anything of course.

Right now I have a BT on either side of me on the couch! One of my favorite ways to take a break! We're getting ready for another weekend at the cabin this weekend....should be a blast!