Poor Roxy

This last Saturday Roxy was coughing and hacking a lot. We took her into the vet and turns out she has kennel cough. She WAS vaccinated against it, but the vet said dogs can still get it. The good news is the vaccination helps to make it less severe and not last as long. She's on antibiotics and doing better. Sunday night she had a really rough time, coughed a lot, even so much she made herself throwup a little. Poor girl! But as of this morning she's doing a LOT better. And thankfully it looks like none of our other dogs picked up the cough. Whew!

Sunsets

Three versions of the same sunset. The top is the original which was made up of 8 photos (I used Photoshop CS3 to create the panorama). The middle is after I played with it in Photoshop. In this case I bumped up the blue too much but thought it looked cool. The bottom has better color and I added the moon. This was fun. :)

Frankie and our Vet

I hadn't mentioned it to a lot of people because it was hard to write. A week ago Frankie passed away, he was 12. He'd been battling cancer for several months and actually lived about 3 months longer than anyone thought he would. We had him on some medication and other than laying around a lot he seemed to be doing pretty good.

The morning he passed he seemed fine - well, fine for how he'd been doing. He came down the stairs, went outside, ran to the fence and barked at people going by, ate, took his pills, he was fine. We went shopping and did a few things, came back around 7pm. When we called him to come in he just sat there next to the deck. I thought he was just having troubles so I went out and helped him in. He walked in very strange, like he was really tired. I called Marci to look at him. We tried to give him his medication but he didn't want to take it, and that's rare. We'd always give it to him with peanut butter which he loved. We took him upstairs to lay in front of the fan as he liked. He tried to get up to go get a drink of water and collapsed. Marci yelled for me and when I got there I could tell he wasn't doing good. We'd been trying to get ahold of our vet for about 30 minutes and finally did. He said to bring Frankie in asap. I got dressed, Marci asked me what she could do and it hurt terribly to say, "Say good-bye...". I hopped into the car with Frankie who wasn't doing well. He didn't seem to be in pain, just like he was having a hard time breathing. I could tell he was going. While I was driving there (which is about a 2 minute drive), I pet him, told him we love him, and calmly told him it was ok, he could let go. Shortly after I got to the vet's office he was gone. The vet showed up a few minutes later, took him and took care of everything.

I don't think he suffered or was in pain at all, he just didn't seem like it. It was like he was just closing his eyes and letting things go. I also feel that he waited until we got home so we could all say good-bye together. Why? Because it was a matter of minutes after we got home and got him inside that he started going.

He was our first dog. A very good dog, one who was always there for us, would protect us against anything and anyone no matter how big the other was. He was very loving and excellent with our kids. One time when he was younger in our other house, we heard him barking strangely. It sounded funny, but we were busy in the garage. A short time later he came walking into us with one of our birds in his mouth. The bird was completely un-hurt and we realize he was trying to let us know earlier that one of the birds had fallen off the cage and couldn't get back (we clip their wings so they can't fly but then can flutter down gently). He did that one other time, didn't hurt the bird at all, just gently carried her in his mouth to us. He sure was fun and fantastic and we will miss him.

Yesterday we got a card in the mail from OSU's Veterinary school. Our Vet had made a generous donation in Frankie's name to them! Wow. That was sooooo cool of them! Both Marci and I cried a little. This guy knew Frankie could go at anytime and gave us his personal - his PERSONAL! - cell phone so we could call him anytime. When we did call they were closed and he was at home doing a crossword puzzle. How many Vet's would do that and not be mad when you called?

If you live around the Bethany area and want the best Vet in the world, look up Dr. Norman at the Bethany Family Pet Clinic, you won't be sorry.

So now we are left with Johnnie who still has trouble walking but actually seems to be doing better, Tiffany who's doing better except with food (she takes ours all the time), and our two great puppies, Zoey (who's working hard to be the top dog) and Roxy. Having puppies in the house certainly makes coping with our loss easier. It's strange to not see Frankie laying in his usual spots and to not call his name when we call the dogs. We do miss him but he's in a better place now, where he can run and play with other dogs - and Rio and Lola.

Ashmead 2007 Christmas Party

What a great party! It was at McMenamin's Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. The food was a buffett and really good. Then we went to another room where they had a live band who were awesome! This was our first Ashmead Christmas party and we're already looking forward to next year!

This morning it was strange. I got up before everyone else (as usual), came downstairs and the house was clean! Man, what a nice feeling to wake to a clean house. Then another 45 minutes before Marci woke up. It was really quiet and really cool.

Busy Saturday

Marci and I spent all day cleaning the house, finally got done around 4pm. Now we are getting ready for her Ashmead Christmas Party at McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. Marci's sister Wendy is coming over to watch the kids so it's going to be a very rare night out for just the two of us!

It's going to be so weird not having the kids with us.... haha