Thursday, December 23, 2010

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays! This year I have a great surprise for my mom coming today. My auntie is flying out to spend Christmas with us. My mom and her have not spent a Christmas since I was 10! It's been hard to keep it quiet so long and hide the gifts I was suppose to mail out on Monday. But I get to pick her up tonight woot! My mom has absoultely zero idea shes on her way :) I love surprises like this.

And to Athena....the dog who's ears are now evil. After 4 weeks of very strong anti biotics she still has brown gunk :( So the vet wants me to keep cleaning then and put drops in for another week. I have been thinking back to when this whole issue started with her ears and realized it was shortly after getting the last bag of dog food. After doing some reading on the food I bought i found out they recently changed their formula...AGAIN. So after some thinking I decided to change her food. It's a little frustrating considering I don't feed the crappiest food on the market. Only grain free for my baby. I guess I should have expected as much from a company I switched from when Athena was still growing due to formula change. So after chatting with a friend who's dog had yeasty ears and her trails with dog food. I decided to switch from the Canadae grain free to Natural Balance Grain Free Duck and Potato. All the reviews are good and they have many different flavors I can rotate though. I'm just hoping this works. I know she hates having a gross ear and so do I! Thus far Athena seems to like the food. I'm mixing it half and half for right now, but Athena doesn't like that as she has been spitting out the old food in favor of the new LOL. So tonight I'll be tossing the last of the old food (about 2 cups) and using the new. *sigh* what we don't do for our kids.

OH and Athena had her 4th Birthday on the 20th! My big girl is growing up *sniffle*

Happy Holidays Everyone!
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Friday, December 3, 2010

Just when i thought it was safe...

Just when I thought it was safe to say Athena was all healed up she proves me wrong lol. Last night I come home to a dog who yelps when I barely touch her head. So i look in her ear and everything was fine like before...So i try to get her to bark because that was the first thing to go last time. And she refuses to bark :( So a 20min phone call to the vet and shes going back in anti biotics for 2 weeks maybe more if it's not clearing up.

I feel so bad for Athena. She has never had something majorly wrong like this before, well besides her weed eating incident a few years ago. At least this time I don't have to take time off work to bring her in. The vet is just re filling the script. Also Athena HATES these pills. I have to crush them up into some yogurt because they are chewable pills and huge so i cant force them down like other ones.

On a better note, I found my granpa's old tri pod and it works with my camera! My mission this weekend will be to get an X-mas pic out of the beast and make dog cookies. I think Athena will forgive me for messing with her ears if I make her tons of dog cookies. Peanut butter & Pumpkin and Peanut butter cookies are on the menu.

I guess what they say is right. Tis the season to spend money though I think most people spend it on gifts. Though I think getting my dog healthy again is a good xmas gift to me LOL.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Where has this year gone?

Wow I can not believe it is December 1 already! I am hoping December is going to be much better and less financially draining then Sept/Oct/Nov.

I love Athena, but she's gotta get a job to pay for her medical bills Ha! It all started in September when she got a foxtail UP her nose *sigh*. Never in all my years have any of my dogs had one up their nose. Toes and ears yes, but not the nose. Then in October she started acting not like her self. She didn't want to move and all she wanted to do is hide. I instantly thought it was her ears because 1. she had some gunk more then normal and 2. she kept trying to shake her head but would just hang it to the side. So off to the vet we go and of course my brain went into worse case scenario thinking she messed her back up or something horrible. The vet (new to us i might add) told me she might have pulled her neck and gave me a series of drugs. They looked in her ears, but told me they looked great. I honestly left the office thinking it was still her ear, but maybe the vet knows better? She seemed to get better until a week after she finished her drugs and then she was back to feeling like shit and imo even worse then before.

So back to the vet we go. By this point Athena has become more and more ear shy due to various encounters of her ears. While she will let me look inside and do whatever i want, she likes to scream in pain of the doc gets too far down into her canal. So the only way to get a great look was to sedate her....And what did the doctor find??????? A festering inner ear infection AND a small tear in her ear drum.....I refrained from saying SEE I TOLD YOU. After a long discussion with the vet about what caused this infection we both agreed that it could have been caused by the foxtail from September. The ear affected was the same side the foxtail came out. Two weeks of some strong anti biotics and shes back to normal. I never thought I would be so happy to get dog food kisses or hear her bark.

And although the new vet was very nice I just wish she took my concern about the issue being her ear more seriously. Athena is not one to show pain. My mind often goes through the "should haves", but you cant change that now. So long story short. Athena is back to her normal bouncing off the walls self and just in time for this cold snowy season.

I am proud to say that ALL of my holiday shopping is done! Yay! I have a few more items to crochet and then I'll be done and able to start wrapping. Speaking of crochet. I have been a crocheting fool. I guess it's in my blood. I have finished a TON of scarfs, a few hats and a few shawls. Most of the stuff i have made is for xmas, but i have some that i'm going to put up for sale. I took a big leap and put some stuff up on my artfire page only to take them down the next day. Why? Well you see...i like to prewash stuff before i sell it or give it away. Mostly so i know it wont fall apart if someone else needs to wash it. And the yarn i made the couple scarfs with washed up UGLY. And by ugly i mean ugly. The yarn it's self was this really soft fluffy acrylic yarn. And after the washing and hang dry process the fuzzy clumped together :( So not cool. And this scarf, which i totally fell in love making it
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Had random loops come out of place after i washed it! It's not even like we have a top load washer. I put everything on super gentile then air dried. I guess they did not want to leave my neck? LOL. Oh well I guess I have new scarfs for the winter or maybe I'll clean them up and donate them. I'm sure there are people out there who need a warm neck more then I do, but i think ill keep the pink one haha.

Back to the grind. Work is calling my name.

Happy Holidays Everyone!