Memories

Asleep At His Post

Cairn terrier puppy lying in sun.

Yesterday was too hot for Toby, so I left him inside while I went out to work. When I was done, I found Toby asleep inside of the glass door. Usually dogs can hear you coming from far away, but Toby was lying on his side in such a deep slumber that he didn’t know I was there. I decided that I was going to watch him for a bit as his little paws twitched. Suddenly he rolled over onto his stomach and looked up at my face…then down at my feet…then up at my face…then down at my feet. This went on over and over and over. He didn’t stand, and his tail didn’t wag. He was still asleep! I was planning to move just to see how he would react with the glass between us, but before I could I saw his brain wake up and his eyes come alive. He smiled, and his tail started wagging. My boy was back.

I’m a little bit sorry I didn’t get a chance to see how he would react through the glass, but I’m glad I looked first before opening the door. 😆

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Now is a great time to introduce your kids to the world of art. With Dream Our World, you can do so through a canine perspective! Have all the fun of a museum experience without the expensive gas to get there.

Dream Our World

Inside, Bitey and Toby visit the museum of their dreams and enjoy a day of unsupervised fun.

Dream Our World is available from my shop.


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Sinister Owl

Uh huh! Uh uh! Eeee!! Noooooo! Help! Aaagh! Nope nope nope! Arf! Aiiii! Arf! Yipe! Yipe!

Geordie was always hyper aware of birds of prey. He could spot a hawk in a tree from a quarter mile away. Toby never seemed to pay much attention to them until my folks brought this owl decoy for the garden. When he saw it he let out such a blood curdling scream that you would have thought he was being murdered. If the little guy weren’t so afraid, it would have been funny.

I am curious if the owl will discourage Toby from trying to steal beans from the garden. So far the bunnies and the beetles don’t care. (Stupid bunnies.)

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Mommy’s Tick

Help, I have a tick! It's the worst pain in the entire world! She's doomed!
Don't worry. I'll save you!
That's not what happened. Who is the world going to believe? You or me?

Well, it was my turn to get a tick this week. I foolishly laid down in the grass to stretch my back, and one of those blood-thirsty little suckers got me. Toby said he was glad I finally knew what it felt like to be snacked on by a bug and that I should have much more sympathy for him and that I should give him more Milk Bones to make up for all the suffering he has gone through and the Milk Bone compensation is retroactive to Geordie’s lifetime and it extends to other animals that have ticks too. In other words, many more Milk Bones.

Many, many more Milk Bone

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Not a Cat, Not a Brain…

Not a cat, not a brain, nothing.

Not a cat. Not a brain. Nothing.

I got all of my test results back and found out that I have…absolutely nothing. This is the way it’s been for the past 30+ years. Nothing shows up in blood work or X rays, so technically I am healthy.

My veins object to people trying to take what is theirs.

The reason I went to a doctor was to get a prescription for eye drops so that hopefully I could go back to doing computer work and painting. The insurance company, however, determined that the eye drops are “medically unnecessary”, so here I sit with no computer or paints, trying to figure out a future with limited eye usage.

Did you know there is such a thing as ocular rosacea? I didn’t.

A friend sent me a few articles on supplements that seem to help people like me who are having odd, random symptoms. Perhaps one or a combination of them might get me to a point where I can at least draw some Bitey Dogs again.

Toby seems to have an opinion on all that is going on, but he only knows how to express himself as a growling, tantrum-throwing fiend. He has attacked me three times in the past two weeks. They say God sends you the family you are supposed to have. I must have really ticked Him off at some point.

What are you looking at? Grrrr….

On an unrelated note, if you haven’t seen the movie The Miracle at Cokeville, it is a particularly uplifting story given recent events.

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Cake

Hooray! Mommy gave me a cake!

What if I put some peanut butter on it?
I'll take it!

Monday brought the most incredible news. Toby’s groomer said he was a good boy! He was such a good boy that she didn’t even charge me a “Dangerous Animal” fee. Everyone decided that with Toby’s weight loss, his calming medicine worked more effectively.

To be honest, I would rather be fat and feisty.

(Yes Toby did get a treat for being a good boy, but only a small one.)

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The Scan

They want to do a CAT scan of my brain to see if they find anything. I hope they find a brain! I hope they find a cat!

On Friday, I finally got to go to a doctor to get a referral to see (ha ha) an ophthalmologist. I figured while I was there, I would ask the doctor about a few other things like the dizzy spells I had in February. I mentioned that I had already updated my glasses and thought that maybe I needed to see an ENT?

No, given my cluster of seemingly unrelated symptoms, I was told that it sounds like I have something wrong with my brain, not my ears. The doctor immediately wrote out an order for me to have a CT scan. I asked her if by “wrong with my brain”, she meant tumor or disease, and she said that it seemed that a tumor was unlikely. What I described sounds like MS. Well, that was certainly not what I was expecting when I set out to get some Restasis that morning.

I went home and did some reading about MS, and it does sound like what I have been going through. I had always thought that MS was a terribly awful disease, but from the article I read it seems that if you take medication for it, you can lead a pretty normal life.

Toby has his next grooming session tomorrow, but as soon as we are done, I have a list of doctor appointments and tests that I need to schedule. While it sucks to have a disease, it would be nice if treatment could help me feel better. I want to be healthy enough to spoil my Toby as much as I can.

I could have told you there was something wrong with your brain without the scan.

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Hey 19

For the first time ever, one of my pups came in at the right at the right weight during his annual physical. Yippee!

Hooray! Can we celebrate with chocolate cake?

I had asked Grandma and Grandpa to take Toby to his visit for me, so they got to hear all of the praise for his new, healthy weight. (Hopefully it will inspire them to not sneak him goodies.) The vet also said that she is seeing no evidence of the knee issues that had been bothering Toby. All good news. 😊

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