in Which Daisy Goes Swimming

First, thanks for the good wishes for Lucy-Fur - she's doing well, and so far, we are all surviving!  Mom is a HUGE fan of Lucy-Fur's suit (as are the rest of us who don't have to deal with being attacked by a crazed puppy in a lamp shade!).

In an attempt to keep Daisy from bouncing off the walls (or attackling me!) while Lucy-Fur recovers from her Big Girl surgicals, Mom has been doing different things with Daisy to wear her out.  Yesterday, Mom took Daisy to The Dog Dive, an indoor swimming pool for dogs (as you might guess from the name) for her first swimming lesson.

Mom had been in the place a couple of times before, but never with a doggie before.  Anyway, from what Daisy said to me later and what Mom said, Daisy had a good time, and Mom was very impressed with the whole process the owner had getting Daisy comfortable with her surroundings and then getting her interested in the water, and then finally getting her into the pool, and making sure she was comfortable before she started swimming.

Of course, Mom took a bunch of photos of the whole thing.

"Hi Mom. I don't know what we are doing here, but I'm excited!"

"Uh, Mom? This is sort of crazy. I'm on an elevated platform and there is a bunch of water right there. I'm not so sure about this...."

"Oh? There are toys in this big pool of water? Hmm.  This might not be so terrible..."

"Yeah, probably a good call to lower me into the water..."

Once Daisy got comfortable in the water and with Angela, she was floated to the end of the pool.

"Hi Mom! Lookit me! I'm totally not freaking out here!"

Once Daisy got used to floating around a bit, she did her first assisted swim (assisted because Angela didn't want to let go of her life jacket and have her get totally freaked out).  The first attempt involved a bunch of splashing as Daisy realized that her feet couldn't touch the bottom of the pool...

"Eeeieee!!!"

"Eeeieee!"

But, she quickly got the hang of the whole swimming thing, and the amount of splashing diminished rapidly.

Much less splashing as she figured out that she was a natural at the doggie paddle!

Angela still kept a hand on her, just in case.

"I'm good - I'm getting the hand of this whole thing!"

"Ooooh!  A tennis ball!!!"

"No, seriously. I'm getting this whole swimming thing!"

"Lookit me! I'm flying solo! With a frisbee!"

"Wheee! This is fun!"

"Hi, nice Angela lady!"

"I'm a master of this whole doggie paddle thing!"

"Yep, I can swim for squeaky toys!"

"Okay, this was pretty seriously awesome! I'm a tired and happy girl now!"

The swimming adventure was such a success (and once Daisy got the post-swim endorphins out of her system by doing a few zoomies around the yard, she conked out!) that Mom and Daisy are going to go back to the pool on Friday.  Mom thought the whole thing was such a good experience that I'll be going for swimming lessons, too.  (Depending on when my eye surgicals are, I might have to wait until after that is done - we'll see.)  Apparently swimming is good for more venerable doggies such as myself, as it is good exercise and doesn't put any stress on my joints. Angela is also certified in canine massage therapy, so if I'm lucky, I might get a little massage with my swimming, too!

While Daisy was conked out after swimming, Lucy-Fur is clearly starting to feel better, and the youngsters are engaging in some unauthorized bitey-face (although they aren't truly wrestling yet, so I suppose it's okay - they are definitely into showing off their pearly whites!).

As for me, I am enjoying having Mom around to give me scratchies and snooter kisses while the kids are being nutty kids.

Stay tuned for more posts!

*kissey face*
-Saint Fiona the Patient, Crazy Daisy, and Lucy-Fur

Lucy Had Her Big Girl Surgicals!

For those of you who might be unfamiliar with these highly technical veterinary terms, she got spayed on Friday.

So, Lucy-Fur is now officially a Big Girl! She had her surgicals on Friday, and now Mom has the extremely challenging task of keeping Daisy amused while Lucy recuperates.  I am not one to bother a girl when she is recovering from a surgery.

Instead of going with the standard 'cone of shame' (something about how I was a hazard with a cone on, and may or may not have put dings in the walls and bruises on the back of Mom and Dad's leggies when I had a cone on, years ago...) Mom decided to try a Surgi recovery suit.  The idea was that she wouldn't be able to get at the incision site on her belly, Daisy couldn't get to the incision site, and the suit would protect the incision site from grit on the roads when we go on walkies. So far, so good.  And she looks rather dashing in the suit!

The suit covers her bum, too, but for, uh, certain outdoor activities, Mom can un-velcro the bottom part.

It's a very slimming suit, too!

Again, inside, the suit covers her butt and her tail sticks out a little hole - sort of like a doggie swimsuit - if we needed such silly things!

For the next week, Lucy is not supposed to engage in any activities more strenuous than walkies.  Which means, none of this:

Or this.

And most definitely none of this!

Of course, I can chase frisbees (although so Lucy doesn't feel left out, I chase frisbees when she is inside, because I am nice like that!).

And Mom has some activities planned for Daisy to help keep her busy this week - no doubt there will be photos!

Mom is hoping there will be lots of this:

This was the night before Lucy's surgicals - a little sisterly bonding.

I will keep you posted on the excitement, and Lucy did well with her surgicals - you'll probably see more photos of her in her suit, too!

Until next time!

*kissey face*
-Saint Fiona the Patient, Crazy Daisy, and Lucy-Fur (who is now a Big Girl!)

The Eyes Have It

Well, apparently one of my eyes has 'it'. Where 'it' is a "uveal melanoma" (I had Mom look that up for me).  It sounds bad, but apparently it is benign, but if it isn't zapped, there is the possibility that I would lose that eye.  Which doesn't sound too good to me. Not that there is anything wrong with one-eyed doggies, but if it is possible for me to avoid the pirate look, I would just as soon not have to go around with a parrot on my shoulder.

Naw, I don't think I'd look good with an eye patch. Or a parrot.

Anyway, I am on some antibiotics for another issue (nothing serious) so when I am done with those, the ophthalmologist (Mom now knows how to spell that!) vet will laser the melanoma thingy and I can get on with things. I will keep you posted, but hopefully it will be No Big Deal! (And Mom is hoping that our next visit to the vet in Salt Lake will not then entail a drive home in a snowstorm during rush hour....)

I just don't think I can pull off the pirate look!

And this laser zapping procedure shouldn't affect my frisbee activities.

Which is a good thing, because clearly Daisy isn't going to be a Frisbee-catching queen.  (And Lucy has No Idea what to do with a Frisbee in the air...)

I keep trying to tell her to keep her eyes on the Frisbee, but does she listen to me?

This is not *exactly* what I mean about keeping her eye on the Frisbee... Apparently Crazy Black Dog is a Literal Black Dog...

I don't even know what to day about this one.  *sigh*

As I said, Lucy has no idea what to do with the Frisbee when it is in the air, but she's very photogenic once she gets the Frisbee off the ground...

Daisy and Lucy-Fur can spend hours and hours and hours (and hours and hours) playing bitey-face inside, but when they get outside, they apparently forget how to bitey-face.  (Well, Lucy does - Daisy is perfectly happy to bitey ME...)  Instead, they like to chase each other (I stick close to Mom during these events, as 100+ combined pounds of zooming beasts is a little terrifying).  Usually with frisbees.

When Daisy doesn't have a Frisbee, she likes to show off ALL of her white teeth, just like she was part of the Osmond or something!

The do like to tug the frisbees around (you will notice that we have some new frisbees - while the youngsters haven't killed any frisbees lately, they have managed to bury several in the snow, as neither seems to remember that they are both part retriever...).

Maybe they should be wearing helmets for this...

Is it me, or does Daisy have an 'uh-oh' look here?

Yes, Daisy, Lucy-fur won. Again...

I think Lucy might be trash-talking here. 

And I think this is what Daisy has to say about all of this!

Pfffth.

Heehee.  Seriously, I think Lucy-Fur's middle name should be Karma.  Because all of this makes me giggle!

Have a great week!

*kissey face*
-Saint Fiona the Patient, Crazy Daisy, and Lucy-Fur

In Which We Get Some Snow

And by 'some', I mean about 16 inches when it was all said and done.

The youngsters, as expected, behaved like crazy nutters in the snow (although I was a little worried about Lucy getting lost out there...)

I mean, her leggies are getting longer, but there was A LOT of snow out there!

The two crazies took it upon themselves, of course, to play tug-of-war and lose several frisbees in the snow...

"Hi! I'll try not to lose this one for at least another 20 seconds!"

Where was I during all of this? Avoiding the crazies and trying not to get snowballs between my toes!

Dad wasn't exactly loving the snow....

Because of the snow, a crazy dog lady that Mom knows through the interwebs was stuck in Salt Lake City as she was driving east with her crazy dogs, and so this afternoon Mom took the youngsters down to the park at the bottom of the neighborhood to meet the crazy dog lady (who is, apparently, nice and not too crazy!).  Mom did get to meet an interwebs celebrity, Big Carl.  As you can tell from the photo, Big Carl isn't physically big, but like my Great Uncle Billy, Big Carl is big in spirit. In fact, I think he was a little disappointed that Mom hadn't brought a moose for him to harass.  (Big Carl and his family used to live in Alaska, and he was used to taking on mooses!)

I didn't really want to deal with more crazy dogs, so I stayed home and kept Dad company while Mom and the youngsters met with Big Carl, Arlo (the brindled doggie) and Mesa, who is not a young pup, but loves her frisbees. I think if it had been a little warmed, I would have really liked Mesa!

Arlo!  You wouldn't know that this boy almost lost one of his leggies in an unfortunate encounter with a car.

Mesa, at 11.5 years young, enjoying a borrowed frisbee!

Big Carl, staring with disdain at everything!

Snow zoomies!

Frisbee tug-of-war (yes, I've seen this movie before!)

Lucy wasn't quite sure what to make of Arlo!

Daisy wisely chose not to try to take the frisbee back from Mesa - us older gals don't like people messing with our frisbees!

The youngsters were fascinated with Big Carl, who was wildly unimpressed with them!

Daisy couldn't quite figure out how to play with Arlo, but she loved the chase!

Lucy, cute and clueless!

We are all happy to have snow, and Mom and the youngsters thought it was quite fun to meet some doggies who have only existed on the computer until now! Heehee!

Have a great week!

*kissey face*
-Saint Fiona the Patient, Crazy Daisy, and Lucy-Fur