24. November 2014 · Comments Off on Ranger: Definitely Part of the Family · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

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Ranger has made great progress integrating with our family. After a couple weeks of separation anxiety issues, we’ve found a great system of crating time with two days of “Doggie Day Care” per week does the trick keeping him happy and healthy. In the picture above he’s lounging on our brand new deck that just finished last weekend: the original deck was rotting and becoming dangerous to use.

We’ve had several medical issues with Ranger; so much so that we were pondering whether it was the right decision to keep him. First of all he was seemingly eating everything in sight. One day, he got into the kitchen trash can, and within a few hours he was acting very lethargic: not eating or drinking. That resulted in a trip to the veterinary ER to get his GI system X-rayed to rule out any stomach or intestinal blockages. Then a couple weeks later Ranger sliced his paw DEEPLY on some metal landscape edging in our backyard and he needed several stitches. That required the “cone of shame” for several days. More »

12. July 2014 · Comments Off on Meet Ranger, Our New Family Member! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,
Meet Ranger!

Meet Ranger!

I have a solid 6 weeks worth of adventures to write about, but for now, meet Ranger, the newest member of the family (pictured here).

It’s been about 3 months since we lost our beloved Howie, and the house just isn’t the same without a four-legged friend to keep us company.

He’s a ~2 year old smooth-coat border collie, and he’s so smart! He was found as a stray in Garden City, KS and was rescued from a rural Kansas shelter in mid-June. He had been fostering with a Denver family through the Western Australian Shepherd Rescue since then.

More »

This is a work in progress, but I’ve been consolidating Howie photos from my Google photo albums into one location. For those photos that are already in Google, this has been quite simple. Select the group of photos, and select “Copy into New Album”. However, I didn’t start using Google photos until 2007, halfway through Howie’s life. So we’ve been going down memory lane looking for the pictures of him right around when the boys were born.

These photos are approximately in chronological order. You might find an event or two that’s backwards, but hopefully that’s the exception and not the rule. Also, some of the captions might seem odd, but that’s because they were taking from an album that was probably telling a story in its original context.

Enjoy!

21. April 2014 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
Howie lying in the snow, one of his favorite places to be. This was taken on April 13th. The last picture I took of him.

Howie lying in the snow on our back deck, one of his favorite places to be. This was taken on April 13th. The last picture I took of him.

This past weekend was very sad for our family. We lost our beloved family dog, Howie. He had developed a liver tumor that grew incredibly quickly. We first discovered it in February while he was getting pre-dental blood work done. On Saturday morning, after 36-48 hours of not eating, he had grown so weak he needed immediate medical attention. Our vet was open on Saturday mornings, and she was able to quickly take an x-ray and determined that the tumor had completely overtaken Howie’s liver, and was pressing his lungs, stomach, and intestines up against his abdominal cavity.

It had to be so painful for him.

He seemed okay last Wednesday night, walking around, taking the stairs, and even playing with his stuffed animals with Dave and the boys. This all happened so quickly. More »

07. June 2013 · Comments Off on Happy Birthday Howie! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,
Happy Birthday Howie!

Happy Birthday Howie!

I’m over a month late, but better late than never!

Happy 13th birthday to our dear Howie. He’s still going strong, ironically, his latest medical ailment was an infected hot spot on his tail, of all things (that’s for another post).

I was in the middle of Operation EAT WHAT WE HAVE, so I made a butter cake from scratch and used homemade frosting and some of the tubed blue icing to write the words. I didn’t have much blue icing left. Feel free to compare my cake with Harry Potter’s:

My cake.

My cake…

...versus Hagrid's cake for Harry!

…versus Hagrid’s cake for Harry!