I just wanted to thank everyone for hanging out with me for the last 15 years.  I hope you enjoyed my life as much as I did.

I came a long way in my 15 years on this big ball floating through space.  I had a really good life with great friends, both 4-legged and 2-legged.

I started my life as a sick little puppy that came from a truly crappy fake rescue.  The place was finally shut down by the state a few years ago.  They started another fake rescue almost immediately and are hopefully going to prison for animal neglect, identity theft, forgery, federal conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and federal mislabeling of animal drugs. 

I went on vacations every year and got to travel through Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, and Montana.  I played in the ocean, explored the high desert, ran around the mountains, got to see the Redwoods, swam in high mountain lakes, barked at wolves and cougars, herded cattle and bison, swam in rivers, rock hounded for obsidian, watched whales, played in the ocean, saw the largest Sitka Spruce, played in snow 4 feet deep, slept in a tent, and climbed part of a mountain.  

I got to eat all kinds of food like emu, pork, turkey, lamb, elk, venison, steak, chicken, pizza, hot dogs, fish, cheesecake, crème brulee, liver cake, bacon, root beer floats, hamburgers, prime rib, cupcakes, and other tasty stuff.  

I played in pools, attacked sprinklers, swam in doggy pools, played ball, went for long walks, played with friends, barked at cats, caught mail thieves, did yard work, raked leaves, took stuff to the dump, helped build things, celebrated special occasions, dressed up and passed out candy at Halloween, and snuggled with my people.

I spent my last couple of days eating turkey, vanilla bean waffles, fish and chips (minus the chips), fried chicken, pizza, my favorite pureed canned dog foods, canned cat food, vanilla bean cheesecake, the bacon from 2 Sonic bacon cheeseburgers, 1/4 of a Sonic root beer float, minnows, Bonito flakes, birthday cake, liver, kidney, and my body weight in treats.  I went for a ride along some of my old walking routes.  And I got loved on by my people... a LOT!

I promised I would tell you about what is happening.  It's why I haven't made many updates lately.

March 24, I went for a walk and was all normal.  I got home and didn't want to eat my food or even my favorite treats.  I slept a little and ate some cat food and half a can of dog food.  My breathing was high, my heart was beating too fast, and my heart started to have a really funky beat.  It was beating really hard and was beating with a normal rhythm then really fast.  It would sometimes make a really hard beat that would make me jump.  I went to my vet and they took chest x-rays, checked me over, and took some blood.  The x-rays showed I had aspiration pneumonia again but my heart was normal and beating normally by the time they saw me.

My blood work came back with me having too much calcium in my blood so I had to do another blood draw on March 28 where I couldn't eat anything for 12 hours before.  They had to send my plasma and serum to Michigan State University to do some tests to see how my parathyroid gland was working.  We found out that the lab couldn't get something they needed to run the tests so the tests would take longer than expected.

4 days after my blood was sent in, we found out that the vet tech who did my blood draw didn't read what she needed to do for the blood tests so she didn't send in the right samples.  So I was going to have to fast and get blood drawn again.  My people were really mad that the vet tech didn't bother to read what needed to be done for the tests and she didn't even act sorry about her mistake.

My vet rescheduled my April 4 pneumonia recheck for 8 am so I could get my exam and my blood draw all at the same time.  I wasn't wanting to take one of my antibiotics and my lungs sounded good enough that she was fine with me finishing the 2 weeks of that one and staying on the other antibiotic.  I was losing weight because I wasn't wanting to eat much and my vet thought I'd eat better without the one antibiotic.  We also found out that the vet tech who screwed up my 1st blood tests also charged us twice.

My test results from MSU came back on April 14.  The test results showed my blood calcium was still too high and it wasn't a lab error but it also showed that it wasn't high due to something called "Primary Hyperthyroidism." 

The other test was called Parathyroid Hormone Related Protein and normal results for that are less than 0.5 and my results were 7.  High levels of this have a few causes like come chronic infections, way too much Vitamin D, and certain cancers.  My vet doesn't think chronic infections are a cause or too much Vitamin D.  I go in for an abdominal ultrasound to see what is going inside me next week.

I had another pneumonia recheck last week and had my lungs x-rayed again.  They were clear so I just finish out my one antibiotic and I'm done.  Good news was I have gained some weight.  My appetite almost doubled once I got off the one antibotic.

I celebrated my 15th Barkday earlier this month.  I had treats, cake pop, extra bacon / extra chicken / no sauce keto pizza, fried chicken, and hot dogs.  I got lots of toys.  I got to go for as long a walk as I wanted and got to be outside all day.  It was a really good Barkday!

We also had SNOW after my barkday.  It was really weird because we don't usually have snow in April.  It wasn't much so I had fun walking in it.

A lot of stuff has happened.  My woman said that should be an update for another day though.

My vet called last weekend and said the pee she stole from me grew a few bacteria so she gave me an extra week of antibiotics.  I finished those yesterday!!!  Now that I'm all better, I thought I would catch you up on my December.

My December was pretty good until the week before Christmas when I got sick with pneumonia.  I already told you about my pneumonia.

I was almost out of the treats I really like and we couldn't find them anywhere except Amazon where they were 3 or 4 times the price they should be.  My woman ended up finding them at a farm store in the extreme far western part of the metro area.  She ended up getting me 6 bags.

My woman found me a cold laser that I could use in between at-home sessions.  I really like it.  It makes me feel good and it helps me not have as many issues between sessions.  My people talked to my vet that comes to my house and does my acupuncture and cold laser about doing chiropractic too.  I had been getting really, really, really stressed at my rehab vet.  It was a little bit the work done but mostly the amount of time I had to wait for the vet to get to me.  There was one time, I had to wait 75 minutes for them to see me.  So at my next visit, she came to my house and did acupuncture, cold laser and chiropractic.  I wasn't stressed and my people noticed that the changes she made lasted longer than they did when done by my rehab vet.  We decided that I didn't need to see my rehab vet anymore.

We had a furnace inspection and our furnace was dying so we had to get a new one.  We decided to get a new air conditioner too because it wasn't much more than just getting a furnace.  It was really cold when we got it so we didn't have heat for 2 days.  The dogs across the street loaned me their portable heaters so we stayed really warm without a furnace.  The only thing I didn't like was I couldn't go sit on my front porch because it was too cold and the portable heaters wouldn't be able to keep up.    Our new heater is something called a "high efficiency" and is really super quiet.

I went swimming before I got sick and had a lot of fun.  I also had to go pick up an eye med refill before Dogmas and they decorated my bag up for me.  Even though I was getting over pneumonia, I had a really good Dogmas.  I had Prime Rib Roast, Yorkshire Pudding, and Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee.  I got lots of toys and treats. 

It started snowing Christmas night and snowed every night for a week.  It got warm enough each day though and the snow would melt so the snow never got too deep and it didn't get too slick for me to have problems walking.  My people set up an old infrared heater on my porch so I could sit outside in the cold air.

I was going to tell you all about how my December was but I have to tell you about my latest health problem. 

Sunday morning I went for a walk with my people and everything was fine.  I marked all the good sniffs like normal.   I was still marking all the sniffs even though there wasn't much pee left in me.  Then my people saw blood on my legs.  I wasn't acting like I had an infection but my woman called several emergency vets to see how long I would be waiting.  We ended up at one that wasn't very far from the Washington border because the ones closest to us were either full or up to a 12-hour wait once we were in the parking lot.

These people took me away from my people and said it would be a couple of hours before the vet saw me and put me in a cage!  I was really, really upset and so were my people because they knew it would make me have really bad health problems for a while.  One of the vets was talking to my man about giving me an injection to try to calm me down when I peed in the cage.  So my people said to test that even though it wasn't the best way to test for an infection.   So I was back in my car within 20 minutes of being taken!  I was having really bad breathing problems when I came out because of the stress of being caged.  My woman decided to back out of the vet's parking lot and park in the one next door.  My people thought I might need my rescue inhaler but my breathing got a lot better when we left the vet.

It took about 45 minutes to get the results, talk to the vet on the phone, and check out.  I spent the whole time eating treats and the Stella and Chewy's patty that my people brought.  If my man wasn't fast enough with the treats, I'd whack him a good one with my paw.

The Sunday vet didn't think it was an infection so Tuesday I went to my regular vet for an ultrasound of my bladder.   I was still having blood but still only when my bladder was empty and I was trying to mark things.  Because of this, my vet only did my bladder because I was able to be on my side instead of my back which is better for my trachea and esophagus.  If she checked my kidneys and stuff, I'd have to be on my back for a long time.  And both people got to come in with me to give me love while they did it!  My man carried me into the exam room because I wasn't supposed to pee before she did the scan and they knew I would probably pee on the sidewalk but I wouldn't want to pee in the building.  I shook a ton but my breathing never got bad the entire time!

My vet didn't see anything bad but said she saw stuff that could be crystals or bacteria so she stuck a needle in my bladder and stole my pee.  I also got weighed while I was there and I gained 0.4 lbs. since January 3 when I had my last x-rays.  Everyone was very happy.  I got to go out and pee and wait on my car while the vet looked at my pee under a microscope and they ran something called an "in-house urinalysis."  She said they couldn't tell if I had a urinary tract infection or not.  I didn't have any crystals and they couldn't tell if they saw any bacteria or not.  So the pee that she stole was sent to a place that will see if anything grows in it.  We all decided to give me antibiotics until the test results come back because there was a chance that I have a super mild infection that is causing me to pee blood sometimes but no other symptoms.

I took my 1st antibiotic after we got home Tuesday night and the 2nd one Wednesday morning before my walk.  I didn't have any blood when I peed on Wednesday.  I also didn't have any blood today!

We should know next week if I have a urinary tract infection.  If I don't, then I I have something called sterile or interstitial cystitis.  This is inflammation in the bladder but without any infection.  An infection is easier to treat.

December 19, I went to bed and was completely normal.  When I got up early on the 20th, I wasn’t myself.  I still wasn’t normal by the time I would want to go for a walk so my people called my vet.  I wasn’t interested in anything and my breathing wasn’t right.  The vet people said to bring me in by 9 when my vet came in.

I got checked in and they came out to get me.  My vet was waiting for me inside the door.  When she brought me out 20 minutes later she said I had aspiration pneumonia again.  My people expected that was going to be what was wrong.  The good news was my collapsing trachea hasn’t gotten any worse than it was when I had aspiration pneumonia 25 months before.  

I got 2 kinds of antibiotics, 1 that I had to take once a day and the other that I had to take twice a day, and I got to come home.  I wasn’t interested in my regular raw food so my woman got out a can of dog food that they had for me to take my medications in and I ate some of that.  I had to go into the hall bathroom later that day after the shower had been on for a while so I could breathe in the steam. 

The 21st, I woke my woman up to go for a short walk and I was able walk around without panting or having rattly lungs.  I was super interested in my cat food that had antibiotics hidden in it and ate most of my regular breakfast.  Since I was showing interest in canned food, my woman went to the local pet store and got me a bunch of canned food.  My vet said I was too thin which my people already knew and shouldn’t lose any more weight, and should gain weight if possible, so my people wanted to have canned food in case I stopped eating my regular food again. 

As I got better, I did a couple more steams and my woman figured out what to set my cold laser to to help my lungs clear up.

I stopped wanting to eat my breakfasts again and my people realized it was because the raw chicken was too sticky and I didn’t like how it felt with my megaesophagus.  Before I got sick, my woman had picked up some freeze dried Stella and Chewy’s raw patties to have for emergency food.  So they started giving me some of those patties plus my regular raw dinners and canned dog food.  The canned dog food gets pureed using a stick blender so it doesn't cause problems, even the ones that are pates.

For a week, I ate 4 Stella and Chewy's patties, a can of dog food, my full dinner, and all my normal snacks.  Then I stopped eating it all so my people gave me fewer patties and less of my regular food.

I had my 2-week follow up x-rays on January 3 and my lungs were completely clear of pneumonia.  My vet kept me on the antibiotics for 3 more weeks to make sure there wasn’t anything left.   

My people have kept adjusting what I eat, how much I eat, and how often I eat.  Now I’m eating 4 Stella and Chewy’s patties, ¾ of a can of dog food, half my normal raw dinner, plus my normal snacks and extra treats.  And my people say I’m starting to very slowly gain some weight.

I got sick in December and my people have been helping me get better so they haven't been helping me with updating my website lately.  They've had to change how I eat, what I eat, and how much I eat.  We seem to have everything under control now and I'll be making a lot of updates soon and sharing lots of pictures!

The weather was really nice so my people decided to do Howl-O-Ween.  We carved pumpkins and decorated the house.  They set it up so I could be on my bed behind the Jeep and the kids couldn't come up to where I was.  I had fun seeing all the kids and I even slept quite a bit.  The kids thought my "towel monster" costume was cute.  Howl-O-Ween was also the 1st leaf drop off day.  I like going to drop off leaves so I had a really fun day!

Every night before bed, I get a dropper full of something called "Rescue Remedy."  I like it because it's the one for pets and kids so it is sweet.  I ran out and my woman found out that all the places were out of it.  She went to several stores and no one had it.  She found a substitute that I like even better... Vanilla Flavoring.  It is like vanilla extract but made with the same stuff my Rescue Remedy is made with instead of alcohol so it tastes like sweet vanilla.  She ordered Rescue Remedy from the place that makes it so I had vanilla at bedtime for a week and, ever since, I've been getting a mix of half vanilla and half Rescue Remedy.

My man had the whole Turkey Day week off.  I got to go help pick up the turkey and spent all day outside the whole week.  On Turkey Day, I got to sample the turkey before anyone else, got to eat the raw turkey liver, ate a bunch of turkey before dinner (my people said feeding me turkey was really scary), and I kept going into the kitchen to try to get more turkey!

The day after Turkey Day I went to a local pet store and got freeze dried minnows, freeze dried chicken, and canned foods to mix my meds into!  I even found a treasure... a rawhide type treat that has no hide!  I kept going up to the basket that they were in and sniffed around in the basket until I found the one I wanted and grabbed it.  I slept with my treasure in the garage all day then panicked when it started to get dark because anyone could come into the garage and steal it.  So my man took me upstairs and helped me bury my treasure safely in the house.  I have lots of treasures buried all over the house.  Some of them have been buried for 5 years or more!
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2 weeks ago, we did some major work on my porch roof.  There is no more tarp stretched overhead.  Instead, I have panels that let in some sunlight but keep out most of the heat and keep out the rain!!!  My people said they still have to put a board on the front and attach a gutter but the hard part is done.  They worked all day on Friday and all day on Saturday to do it.  The weather people said it would start raining on that Sunday so we had to get it done Saturday.  Then, it didn't rain until Sunday night.  But my woman used Sunday to get my blinds back up and my rain shields.  She also bought some rope lights that change color and some string lights and now my porch is really colorful and bright.  She said she's looking at some really thick clear tarps to replace the shower curtains we use to block out the rain when it gets windy.  

We had our 1st wind storm of the season this weekend.  We also had some heavy rain too.  We couldn't have the rain shields down because it was so windy but not much rain blew in.  It's windy and rainy today and I'm still able to sit out on my porch!  

I've made some new doggy friends this past week.  A couple of puppies and a young dog.  The young dog always has to come up and say hi because my people smell like treats!  But the treats are mine!!!

Sunday I helped rake leaves for the 1st time this year.  Then the winds hit and you can't tell I did any leaf raking at all!  But I really like raking leaves so that's OK.  I got to spend all day outside helping do things and laying on my bed behind the Jeep.

Hi all!  Hope everyone is hanging in there!!

I had news from my rehab vet last month and it wasn't great.  She said my left knee, the one I tore my CCL 6 years ago, is now bone on bone.  That means I have none of the cushioning stuff left in my knee joint that I should have.  She gave my man some Tramadol for me to take and gave my people a prescription for me for Tylenol with Codeine.  My people still haven't given me any of the Tramadol and haven't filled the Tylenol prescription yet because they said they don't think I'm having any pain issues from my knee.  They did talk to my acupuncture vet and she is now doing cold laser on my knee when she comes out every other week.  I really like having laser done so my people are looking into either renting or buying one to use in between vet visits.  They also want to talk to my regular vet about what pain meds she thinks would be best for me with my various issues.

It was really hot the swims after we got back so I skipped going to the pool.  I got to do my 1st post-vacation swim at the end of August.  My woman was able to go in the water with me and we all had a lot of fun.  They decided to have me swim for 30 minutes instead of my normal 45 minutes and I didn't get exhausted.  I've been swimming my normal every other week swims for 30 minutes.  

We had some smoke come in from wildfires from southern Oregon.  We had to keep the windows closed and run what my people call the house fan so stuff goes through the filter.  I still have an air purifier in each room.  It wasn't bad like last year though and the air seemed to clear each night so we could have the windows open.  

We had some rain last week.  Real rain!!!  The 1st real rain we've had since June.  My grass is starting to get green and it doesn't crunch when I walk on it anymore.