WHAT HAPPENED TO 2011?

Well, I just looked at my blog again for the first time in a very long time... Sorry I have not kept up with it... So much has happened since I last wrote, where do I begin?

When I last wrote we were trying to get the cats to lose a little weight. In early 2011, Ernie started to lose weight and looked much better. Suddenly he started losing too much weight, go very sickly and stopped eating all together. I took him to the vet in late February to be checked and he put him on an antibiotic thinking he had a bowel infection. That didn't seem to help so I took him back. The Dr. was puzzled so he had me take him to another vet whose x-ray machine was functioning.. (our vet's wasn't). Well, that day was the most terrible day ever. Poor Ernie was full of tumors, most likely cancer, down to 14 pounds and had no energy left as he also quit drinking water. We made the most heart wrenching decision that day to have him put to sleep. I couldn't bear to see him suffer like he was. We brought our dear Ernie home in a cardboard box and layed him to rest under a shade tree on the hill in our back yard. To this day I miss him terribly. He was such a sweet and loving cat.

Bert misses Ernie more than any of us we believe. He is doing better now but at first he kept trying to get outside to try to "find" his brother. He wandered around the house crying during the day and night, looking for him. Gradually, he seemed to accept the fact that Ernie wasn't coming back. He has taken over for Ernie and started tolerating Ozzy much better. Sometimes, they even will lay beside each other in front of the fireplace or patio door to soak up the heat from the sun. We tried to spoil Bert more by allowing him to sleep with us again but that just wasn't successful as he couldn't stay away from my face. He does get more spoilings than he used to however with soft food, loving and play.

Ozzy enjoyed many more walks this year. We discovered he has subluxating patella's (knee caps slip out of place when he walks). He doesn't use his back left leg when running down stairs and occasionally doesn't use his back right leg when we're on level surfaces. It looks like he hurts a lot but he doesn't cry or wince in pain... And he still really can play! Ozzy has so much energy all the time! He's getting better at car rides and can just lay down to sleep while we're riding along.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I have a new "grandkitty". Her name is Claire and she's adorable! She's only about 8 months old I think. What a sweetie! She visits when my son comes. Bert doesn't like her much and Ozzy is scared of her! Ha!

I hope you and your pets enjoy a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!

Autumn has arrived

Wow, I just realized it's been a long time since I posted last! To catch you up since my last post, Ozzy was neutered and had his double dew claws on his hind legs removed. He recovered very well but it took us quite a while to be able to take off the bandages on his legs as he kept chewing on them. Now you can hardly ever tell there was anything there nor that he had surgery on them. His intermediate class will be over on Sunday. I'm sure he'll graduate but it's been a harder 8 weeks than the puppy class. Ozzy just doesn't like to walk so nice on the leash. We finally broke down and bought an Easy Walk Harness for him. It reduces the pulling he did on just a collar or regular harness. Makes the walks much more enjoyable for me anyway. We've finally learned where to stop while running the yard and to not run away to the neighbor's house. For the most part, he really likes to stay near us when we are outside with him.

I have figured out that Ozzy does not like to be cold. I recently made him some polar fleece pajamas that you see in the photo. When I first put them on him, he seemed uncomfortable and acted like he couldn't walk in them. Now, if he isn't wearing them and he's cold, he will find them, bring them to me and want me to put them on him. Very cute!

Ernie and Bert have lost a little weight again. I catch them every once in a while trying to eat Ozzy's food so that's probably why they were gaining instead of losing. Ernie is getting more and more lumpy however. He acts healthy otherwise. Bert still tends to be Ozzy's play thing. Poor kitty can't be on the floor anywhere near Oz as Ozzy chases him until he jumps up on the furniture to get out of the path of the puppy. Ernie still tolerates Ozzy better than Bert, even letting Ozzy lick him now. Who would have thought our cats would like a dog? Not me!

I'm home all day, every day now with them. Seems to be a good bonding experience with all three. Ozzy follows me everywhere, including the bathroom. When Dave get's home at night he switches to him but then will still be excited to see me again. That's the beauty of a dog. They are always 110% happy to see you even when they just saw you 5 minutes before.

Cute note, I took Ozzy fishing with me the other day. He kept barking and growling at my bobber when I reeled my line in but as soon as the bobber landed, he would run away from it. So very cute!

Time To Grow Up

Well, the day has come, Ozzy is going to get neutered tomorrow. He has no idea so please don't tell him, he'll figure it out soon enough. Poor puppy anyway. But unfortunately, unwanted behavior has already started such as marking his territory outdoors and attempting to have his way with the cats, people's legs and such. The vet will be removing his rear double dew claws at the same time so that we don't have to make Ozzy endure 2 surgeries. On a more positive note, Ozzy's training is going very well. He graduated from puppy class 1 week early with flying colors! We began intermediate class last Sunday and I think he is already ahead of the class. But we're very biased. Bert & Ernie have not really been doing well on their diets. Just when we think they are eating less, they look like they are gaining weight again. Ernie ballooned up to 24 pounds! Not sure what that's all about. They tolerate Ozzy even better than they were before but we have to keep a close eye on him with them. Summer time sure gets busy and hard to post but I wanted to give our update.

4th of July fun & nonsense

The weather was absolutely FANTASTIC this past week. We spent a lot of time outdoors gardening, walking Ozzy and playing with him in the yard. It was great. Saturday, July 3rd was a lot more humid & warmer. Also a lot more people shooting off fireworks during the day. It was hard to have Ozzy outside because of the noises and flying debris. Some friends came over for a picnic, air show and the official fireworks show. Before the festivities got started my friend and I took Ozzy for a walk with the intentions of putting him back in the house for his own safety and sanity during the air show. Near the end of our walk, some very rude neighbors up the street, were shooting off bottle rockets from their chain link fence posts, aiming them towards our street. The wind was blowing all the debris over the road, right where we were walking! They didn't even stop as we walked by! I should have called the sheriff's office but didn't really want to deal with the drama right then. Some people just don't use their heads. By the time we got home, we could hear the planes in the distance for the air show that was about to begin so we brought Ozzy inside to krate him up for a while. The cats had already sought shelter from all the noises in the basement. Fireworks and loud air shows just aren't conducive to having your animals outside.

After the majority of the air show was over, we brought Ozzy outside to "use the facilities" and decided to keep him outside to see how he would do. Our newest neighbors were outside with their 2 dogs, Tyson and Meaty and they seemed to be doing just fine. Meaty, who is a small dog, decided to come visit Ozzy. That was hilarious! We now have a dog for Ozzy to have play dates with. Meaty is 5 months old but I'm not sure what kind he is. All I really know is, Ozzy and Meaty are fast friends now! It was great watching them play. Even Tyson, who is a 9 year old Rottweiler, did well with Ozzy. Of course Tyson has been well trained and surprisingly gentle for a Rott. All the dogs seemed oblivious to the fireworks so Ozzy stayed outside with us for the rest of the night. I think everyone had a great time!

Our 3rd puppy class was yesterday. Ozzy did pretty well. Our assignment for this week was "Leave it" and "Take it" in regards to food and treats. Ozzy had that one "mastered" this week. He did really well. Also, we were to keep working on loose leash walking. He's doing much better with that but usually does better if it's only one of us at a time. This week's new lesson was "down" from sit. As the trainer was trying to get Ozzy to do this for the first time, Ozzy just did't seem to get it. He refused to lay down! Finally, with a little gentle persuasion, Ozzy went into "down". Once he got it once, he understood what we wanted so he was very cooperative in doing it again and again. He even repeated this at home so I know he is understanding. We also practiced "leave it" with toys in an aisle of the pet store and sit when stopping on the leash. That needs quite a bit of practice. Ozzy loves toys! Scratch that, Ozzy loves ANYTHING he can pick up and carry around including socks, boxer shorts, shirts, etc....Josh can not leave his bedroom door open when he is here as Oz gets in there and wreaks havoc.

Last night the cats got some lap time as we watched 2 movies at home. They have been on a diet since last week. Ernie was weighing 22 pounds and Bert was 19. I'm concerned that they will develop feline diabetes if they haven't already so it's time to start limiting their food intake more. I give them their allotted amount at night before we go to bed and in the morning, if there is anything left, it gets put away. Consequently they like to try to eat Ozzy's food when we feed him but we keep chasing them away. They even push him out sometimes so we have to monitor meal times quite diligently. It was nice to have a chance to let the cats have some lap time though. They needed the attention too. Today, we'll be leaving after lunch to take Josh back to his mothers and Ozzy will ride along. He's doing pretty well in the car for the most part. Fun times!

Lessons from Puppy training 101

So, do you think I should always remember the main rule of puppy training 101? NEVER LEAVE YOUR PUPPY ALONE!!! You have to know where he is at all times. So if you don't want your puppy to sneak off to a place where you can't see him, DON'T TRAIN HIM HOW TO GET THERE!!! Yes, there is a story behind all this. Ozzy has been scared of our basement stairs so we worked and worked with him to get him to go down them by himself. Then we worked and worked with him to get him to come back up by himself. So, fast forward to tonight....I'm sitting on the couch to watch the news and all of a sudden can't hear his little claws clicking on the floor. I get up to find him and just as I'm calling his name, I see Ozzy peeking out from behind the basement stair door. Right away I knew he had went downstairs by himself so I better go inspect the basement floor for "presents". Of course, there was a little package, right on the area rug in the family room. YAY!!! And it isn't even my birthday! Blahhhhhh! Not happy. Of course, too late to scold him because I didn't catch him in the act and he wouldn't understand why I was scolding him. So, I took him outside anyway just to see if he would go again. He did go potty when I asked him to. Gotta love these little ones. Speaking of which, he's sniffing around again, better go outside! He's a good little pooper!!!

Puppy Class day, take 2

When I woke up this morning, I wondered how in the world we would make it through this puppy class today. Ozzy was not a good listener this weekend, AT ALL!!! Could it be the full moon or just rebellion? Well, whatever is was, it was frustrating. Everything we did with him seemed like we were starting all over again with our training. So today I dreaded the puppy class. We didn't get to take him for a walk before we went because it was raining pretty steadily until about 9 and we had some things we had to get done here before we went to class. So off to class we went. We first had to go to the hardware store. When we got to the pet store for the class, we were about 20 minutes early so Dave and I worked with him in a grassy area to try to help him work off some of that puppy energy he was storing up. Since Ozzy is the only puppy in the class, the instructor didn't mind starting a bit early. I was happy to hear that today was LOOSE LEASH WALKING day! We just weren't sure if we were teaching him correctly or not with walking on the leash but mostly we were assured that we are doing pretty well with it. Nice to practice in a controlled environment with the instructor right there to "critique" us. There were plenty of other dogs there with their owners, shopping. So Ozzy had to try to pay attention to walking with other dogs around, dog food smells and other people. Overall, I was very pleased with how he did and how we did with him.

After the class we had more errands to run. Dave walked him in a grassy area that had a nice, muddy, puddle due to the rain storms in the night. Ozzy discovered this mud puddle and enjoyed it very much. By the time I caught up with Dave and Ozzy, his white parts were a nice shade of brown!!! But boy, did he have fun. We successfully wore him out at least for a while anyway. Tonight are the fireworks in our town, we'll see how he reacts to those. Should be interesting to say the least!

PLAY TIME IN THE YARD

It's always interesting to try to help an 11 week old puppy use up all his energy outside so he'll chill out inside! The newest fun we have with Ozzy is with an empty Pepsi bottle. He loves chasing it around the yard. Run, Pounce, bite, carry, roll around, repeat.... Very cute! I can't seem to be able to walk around my yard barefoot however as he chases my feet and bites my toes. Anyone have any suggestions to get this behavior to stop? I know that you can substitute other toys to replace things you don't want them chew up but what if he doesn't get distracted and keeps coming back for the toes? HELP!!!!

We've been having a lot of thunderstorms lately and Ozzy doesn't like them so much. This morning, I decided during a severe storm at 4:15 a.m. today, I didn't want to be laying in bed beside a south facing window when I heard the wind, rain and hail pounding against them. I got dressed and headed towards our basement just to relax away from windows but Ozzy was whining. I couldn't just leave him up here so I took him out of his kennel to bring downstairs with me. Of course, then he needed to go outside.... In the thunderstorm, Dave took him out the back yard. It was very dark and Dave lost sight of him for a minute. We thought that perhaps he had ran to the front door so I ran back upstairs to check. Dave yelled up the stairs that Oz had come back into the basement door. Of course, then the storm had mostly passed. Wow, what fun that was.

Since I overslept this morning and went to work late, I couldn't come home for lunch like normal. But since Dave went into work early, he came home early so it all worked out. Oz and Dave had already taken a walk by the time I returned home. Keeping this puppy exercised and entertained is a lot of work but totally worth it. I can almost can feel the muscles getting firm in my legs already!!! Enjoying my time with the little stinker!

I got looking at the fat cats last night and decided to weigh them. Holy, moly, Ernie is now 22 pounds!!! Bert is 19!!! Hard to believe they used to be the little kittens pictured above. Bert has been eating fast and throwing up his food much more than he used to. I think he is stressed more than we realized with the puppy in the house. Last night Bert growled and hissed at Ozzy but Oz didn't seem fazed. Ernie just is taking this strange, wiggly, puppy in stride. Overall, I still think the pet dynamic is going well!