Doctor Doctor

Monday was like Christmas, I got three packages in the mail and came home to a bouquet of flowers. I was a bit worried the packages wouldn't get here in time for Silas' birthday and was surprised they got here so fast. I ordered some carob powder (I couldn't find any unsweetened carob chips that were reasonably priced) and a dog safe frosting mix that I will use for his special birthday treat. I am still waiting on one more present to arrive.
What a week! Yes, I do realize that today is only Tuesday. On Saturday I took Silas to the dog park where he decided it would be a good idea to wrestle with a St Bernard. (Silas has an ego problem and thinks he is a big dog) They had fun, a lot of fun! Maybe a little too much fun because after one of the times the rolled around Silas had a bit of trouble getting up as quickly as he wanted to and then started to limp slightly. He has a loose knee that used to pop out of place and would correct its self and he would be fine within 24 hours or maybe two days tops. This morning it was still bothering him so I called the vet. Silas had to go in for a check up and his knee is swollen but didn't seem to cause him a lot of pain when the vet was moving it. They aren't for sure but suspect an acl injury. He was put on puppy bed rest for 7 days and given a pain med with an anti inflammatory and if that doesn't help and he is still limping or his leg gets stiff then we have to bring him back in for x-rays and possibly surgery. The vet also suggested we up Silas' acid reliever to every 12 hours. (He throw up twice Saturday night but I did forgot to give him the acid reliever before bed and has thrown up each morning since) He also said he doesn't see a problem with switching him to adult food although I really wanted to wait until 18 months to switch we might have to do it sooner.

Our dog is a pill popper

Present number one and he can't have it until his leg has completely healed

My flowers! Kevin even had them set in the spot I like to put them in, he's so good.

This is what we picked form the garden today except the pineapple I bought that at the store and the jars are what we canned.

Canning Season

Today we canned our first tomatoes. We even broke out the pressure canner I got for Christmas! It is so much faster in the pressure canner only 25 minutes compared to the 2 hours in the old fashioned water bath canner. Kevin helped me out and chopped the tomatoes and set up and did the pressure canner since it scared me.

Best email ever

Silas' birthday is coming up in a few weeks so in preparation for this special day I have been doing some online shopping. One of the presents I bought him came from a company called Varsity Pets and they sent me the best shipping confirmation email I have ever read! I would love to have been at the meeting where some guy says "I think you should send out funny order confirmation emails" and then the boss is like "yeah I totally agree".

Here is the email:

Dear Nichole,

Today is a special day.

This morning, at dawn, one of our field dogs -- a German Shorthaired Pointer named Hawkeye -- saw your order coming over the horizon. He immediately set off running across the Varsity Pets campus, barking excitedly to alert the rest of our staff about your great decision to purchase a Varsity Pets product.

Hearing his cries, two detection dogs -- a happy couple of Golden Retrievers named Sonny and Cher -- began combing our warehouse for your order. They quickly found your selection and carefully nosed it out from among our other great products and onto a sled tethered to our eager team of studly sled dogs.

Your order secured, the sled team set out through our warehouse at break-neck speed, flying around corners and dashing across the open expanses towards our loading dock.

The sled was met at the dock by our top-notch quality-inspection team -- a German Shepherd named Wolfgang and a Belgian Malinois named Waffle. The boys verified that all the details of the order were correct, stamped it with the Varsity Pets seal of approval, and loaded it onto a delivery truck.

On the truck, our security detail -- two beefy Rottweilers named Hans and Franz -- stood guard over your important order, watching it tirelessly as the truck left the warehouse and set off across the world, headed for wherever you call home. The entire Varsity Pets team watched together as the truck disappeared over the horizon, pleased with the knowledge that the gift of fitness and happiness would soon be delivered to your devoted pup.

A single, anonymous tear fell before we gathered ourselves and got back to work spreading canine fitness across the world.

In all seriousness, we're extremely grateful for your order. Thank you for being one of our customers. We sincerely hope that you and your dog(s) love your new purchases.

Back to School

On Monday school officially started, so now I'm back down to only 2 kids except for Thursdays when Natalie has preschool. It has been so much quieter this week but it has been so much easier to go places with only two since I still don't have my car back yet. Monday night was the first class with the new trainer and so far I think she is fantastic! The only thing I don't like is that this place uses the clicker training method and I just am not a huge fan of it but other than that I think this course won't be all that stressful.

This is our 200 page book with all the things in there for the first 6 week course

This is our new clicker

And in case you didn't hear there was a big fire on Monday

Woof Woof

Today Kevin is out working all day so Silas and I had planned to catch up on all our house work we have been neglecting all week. Well that didn't go as planned. We got up at eight and took an all morning nap. This is Kevin's fault since he made us stay up until 1:30 in the morning watching Breaking Bad. Anyway we were sound asleep until the mail man rang the doorbell to drop off Silas' bark box. Also tonight is date night! We are going to go out for dinner and then to a movie. Kevin wants to see the movie Jobs but I am hoping I can convince him to see something else.

These things smell awful but Silas seemed to like them

Silas loves ice cubes so I'm sure these will be a hit

Liver treats gross me out so Kevin can be the one to give these to him

I am the most excited about this guy. Its a water toy! Its made of wet suit material and the tag says that the wetter it gets the longer it will last.

These are just bully stick flakes. Bark box suggests adding them to food for picky eaters but I think that would make a picky eater worse so we will just sprinkle them in his peanut butter for his kong

Bath time fun

Our bathroom is better than yours. Inside our shower is an art gallery. Don't believe me? Take a look....

For Alivia's birthday we gave her a bath themed gift with all kinds of fun soaps and bath crayons in it. Some how I forgot one of the packs of bath crayons so I opened it and put it in our shower. I was just going to use them to write myself reminders but kevin found them and now we draw.

What we did this week

Well other than working I did a whole lot of nothing. Silas and I decided to skip our house work and play at the dog park 3 days this week so needless to say the house is messy and we will be spending tomorrow cleaning it up, well maybe we will take a morning trip to the park first. Kevin took a couple of vacation days from his second job so he was home at night with us. Kevin also decided we need to start watching the show Breaking Bad. I didn't want to watch it and so far its not a good show it is slow and depressing and I don't like it but I have watched enough that now I am invested and need to know what happens to these characters. Today while we were at the dog park Animal Care and Control and a Fort Wayne police officer showed up to question everyone about a dog that has been causing problems. Apparently over the past 3 or 4 days it has caused at least 5 dog fights and has bitten 3 people one of which had to get stitches. We thankfully haven't been there when this dog was there and I'm hoping they find out who it is. Today Silas finally made a friend that likes to wrestle as much as he does. They played for about an hour and when they weren't playing they were laying with each other. The other dog was smaller than Silas and would lay across his front legs and Silas would rest his head on the other dog's tummy. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen and I am so mad I didn't get a picture of it.

Why these bugs keep hanging out at my house I don't know but they need to go

Fires, ponds, and mini vans

So I am still driving the stupid rental van, I am praying they got my part over the weekend and my truck will be all fixed by Tuesday at the latest. I really miss it. Last night we had Andy and Tiffany over for dinner and a fire. Andy supplied us with deer meat (he killed it himself) and we supplied the veggies (picked just two hours before dinner from our garden). I did not like the deer meat so I had lobster and veggies although everyone else said Kevin did a great job cooking it and it tasted really good.

Kevin and Andy were really testing our neighbors limits. Everyone was a bit surprised no one called us in.

Today we stopped and picked up Silas' picture from the pup-nic and then went to Fox Island for some more swim time and this time Kevin joined little Silas for a swim. (It was much too cold for me to swim) We tried out his new life jacket. Kevin who was not a fan of Silas having a life jacket said that it did help Silas swim. I knew it was a good idea. However the jacket I bought for him on ebay was listed wrong which is why it is too big. I had looked up sizing and safety information on the outward hound brand (which is what this was listed as) so I thought it would fit him pretty well but the one I got is ruff wear brand and the sizing is much different. I think we are going to try to sell this one if ebay won't refund us and get him the one I had originally planned on. In other news we have officially accepted Program A's therapy training and we start August 19th. I am actually very nervous about going. The therapy training is no joke, it is intense and if you make more than a tiny mistake they ask you to leave the program. The first 12 week course won't be too bad as it is basically just preparing him for the actual therapy training. During the first 12 weeks we go over basic manners and therapy situations (getting used to being around wheelchairs and people with canes or crutches and people he doesn't know interacting with him) we will also be working on preparing for the CGC test. So keep us in your prayers and think good thoughts for us. 

This nasty thing was on my wheel the other morning

He was able to go much farther with his vest on

Nobody likes the van, not even Silas

Isn't he just the most adorable thing ever

Great week for Silas, Not so great week for me

So as you know over the weekend we went to Fox Island. Well with all the rain we have had lately parts of the "roads" there were partially flooded. When I was driving I refused to drive through the flooded half of the road but on the way home Kevin was driving and of course had to drive very fast through the flooded part and then into the grass to drive through that flooded part as well. After that my car started to make a yucky sound, Kevin said it was just because my brakes were wet and needed to dry. Well it just kept not sounding any better and then yesterday it started to sound even worse and then today it was so bad I was convinced it wasn't safe to drive (although Kevin said it wasn't that bad and it was fine) so I took it to Crummbacks. I dropped it off at 10 and they finally called me around 4:45 to tell me they had bad news. My stabilizer something or other is broken and some sort of very important shield is completely shattered. The guy told me my truck is completely unsafe to drive(apparently they are always shocked that I'm not hurt/still alive after I bring it in since all of my repairs there have just been gut feelings and ended up being really unsafe issues) and without said major important shield my truck could catch on fire super easily. I am convinced it is all because Kevin wouldn't listen to me and drove through all that water.(I am going to ask them when they call me back.) Oh yeah and to top it off no where in Northern Indiana do they have one of the parts I need so it could take days or a week to just get the part. So until my truck is safe I have this to drive.....

Its a mini van. Eeewwwww!

Now on to Silas' great week...........

He is now an avid ebay lover too! I broke his 'diaper' bag and won him and even better one which we are impatiently waiting on to arrive. I also won him a super cool doggie life vest. Although I'm not sure what to do about it, for the size of his length, neck and weight he needs an extra large but his girth is in the large category so I ordered him an extra large but looking at it on him maybe a large would have been okay. I don't know. The vet said he still has some growing to so maybe I'll wait to decide until next summer.

More good news.......

Since the day we brought this little bundle of joy home with us I have been telling Kevin I want Silas to be a service dog. I wanted to get him search and rescue certified and therapy dog certified. (There is only one search and rescue group in Fort Wayne that I have found and the certification test is coming up in September so they weren't taking any new dogs until after all the testing was completely over.) So I got into searching for places to certify us as a therapy team and as of last night Silas has officially been accepted into two separate programs. However for both programs that have accepted us he needs to have his CGC (canine good citizen certification). The test for the CGC is in October. If he were to take the test tomorrow he would 100% pass 8 of the 10 items and possibly pass 9 of the 10 items depending on how they do the test. I am going to start working with him everyday to help him prepare for the test and don't be surprised if the next time you see us I ask you to work with him too because trust me I am going to ask you, anybody and everybody is now fair game to help him prepare. Now we need to decide which program to go with. 

Program A has accepted us into the program without the CGC. They have a 12 week course (broken up into two 6 week courses) he has to take before he is allowed to go into the active therapy training (the active training is done on location at different hospitals and places he would visit as a therapy dog) but they have allowed us to go ahead and take the 12 week course without the CGC since we are going to take it in the middle of the course and if he fails then they said he can just retake the 12 week course and test for the CGC again.

Program B has accepted him into their training program, but he has to take 3 or 4 basic obedience classes and then the CGC training classes (even if he passes the CGC) then he can automatically start the pre-therapy training without retesting into it. (He has to have all of his training done with them even the beginner puppy stuff. to be in their therapy program) This program is also more expensive but is highly recommended. 

Its a Pup-nic and Ice cream Social

Last night we went out with my friend Erica and her husband Qunicy. We went to Wayne Rec to bowl, I was the only one of the four of us who doesn't have their own ball and shoes, lame! We bowled, drank some drinks, talked, and just had a good time.

Kevin made us spaghetti for dinner

Left side: Kevin, Right side: Quincy

The fun continued today. I took Silas to a pup-nic (picnic for dogs) and ice cream social. It was an event to help raise money and get donations for the Fort Wayne Pet Food Pantry. The event was very well done(although there weren't very many vendors there) and we had a good time and I'm sure all the other dogs there had fun too. At the event they had an area set up of all different size water bowls and small pools set up for the dogs to get drinks and cool off, Silas took complete advantage of the area and tried to swim in every pool and bowl. On our way back to the car there was an area that due to all the rain had flooded and ha maybe 5 inches of standing water that Silas once again tried to swim in. I guess we will be spending a lot more time at the dog beach. I wish we would have taken him swimming sooner, we didn't realize how much he would like it. While we were at the event I paid $20 to have a mini photo session done with a pet photographer. The set up was adorable and he looked so cute, I am dying to see how his pictures turn out.  

The best day ever

Silas basically had one the the best days ever!
Today was the first Saturday Kevin has had off in a long time. We started our morning off with eating out for breakfast, something we used to do pretty often but haven't done in a long time.
 Next we picked up Silas from home and headed to the dog park. It once again wasn't very busy and most of the dogs there wanted to play with toys and Silas would rather wrestle, however he did finally get one of the dogs to wrestle with him for awhile. There is one couple we have seen there ever time we have gone and I am determined that eventually we will be friends. Since Silas wasn't doing a whole lot of playing we decided to take him swimming. Fox Island has a dog beach and some of the people we talked to there said it was nice, so we decided we might as well give it a try. First we stopped by Kevin's mom's house to see if we could borrow a towel, which she very nicely lent us.
The dog beach was not exactly what we expected. It was a very tiny area and to get down to it you had a very steep incline (I wore flip flops since i thought we were only going to the dog park) and then you were basically in the water. Silas loved it! (I think I will be looking into dog friendly beach areas around here that we could take a day trip or half day trip to.) He wouldn't get out of the water, even though he was very tired he just wanted more.

Swimming

I got it

We need to invest in some toys meant for water play, these get full of water after a while 

Dad throw it

In case you forgot what I look like

I love this bowl! One of the best things we have gotten in his bark box

He was so tired he was sound asleep on the way home

For lunch I was going to make stuffed zucchini but the zucchini ended up being all gross when I cut it open so instead of wasting all of the stuff I had ready for it I mixed some of the rice with some chicken broth and some left over food pieces from his breakfast and let him have a special afternoon snack.