Jaida's pup-pal, Chance!

Jaida here.

A nice lady sent me a letter and some pictures of her baby MAL-A-MUTE, Chance.
Chance is very much like me on account of his frickin' cuteness and handsome-ness. Also, he has one oh-so-fabulous scrunchy-dangly leg and ONE GOOD LEG, just like me! Or, well...ummm...well, like I USED to.
Chance has a very nice mom who is taking him to see a nice Dr. who is taking xrays of his scrunchy-dangly leg to see if there is anything that can be done to make it a little less scrunchy. His leg is growing differently than mine did, it's more like hypoplasia/agenesis (moms taught me those big words!!).
(He looks like he's thinking about being NOT-TEE in this picture, huh?)

No matter what the nice Dr. says about his leg, Chance is going to be an oh-so-gorgeous and handsome guy and will get along JUST FINE. His mom is going to let me know what happens with the Dr., so I will keep you posted!

In the meantime, simply admire his cuteness.

A long-overdue update.

Crystal here.

I just realized how long it's been since we posted...sorry!!! (Jaida wanted me to point out that this was not her doing at all, she always has lots to say...)

So. Updates. Jaida's incision boo-boos are thankfully doing much better. The hairy one (ew) seems to have healed on it's own (thank the gods)...she's no longer licking at it, Gracie is no longer sniffing at it, and there's just a little grey-coloured patch where the scab used to be. Hooray! The bumpy one is still bumpy. Not bigger or anything, though, so we'll just keep watching that one. So, all in all, things are good and I'm really happy about Dr. Kitchen's decision not to do anything antibiotic-ey or anaesthetic-ey.

The girls had a wonderful Christmas, despite our best efforts. Kim and I had decided not to spend money on the dogs this year.

Yeah, right. So, two nylabones, two Dirty Rotten Kitty stuffies, two bully sticks (ew), two pig ears (ew) and two stockings from Grandma and Grampa later...they were spoiled and happy.

The girls also have a new regular playmate at our house: the neighbour's golden retriever, Daisy. A very pleased-with-herself Jaida appeared on the back porch with Daisy in tow one weekend, and Daisy now runs over to play with Jaida whenever her people parents are away. We love Daisy. How could you not? Look at this face!!!!

This is her "please let me in" look.

Gracie is amazing with her...as you know her history with other dogs has been a bit...er...sketchy. But Gracie fully accepts her. She's not enthralled with her like Jaida is. But then, Jaida's easily enthralled. They do have a wonderful time together, though...

That's it for now. I'll try not to let it go this long next time. Ta!

The old boo-boo's got a boo-boo...

Crystal here.

So, it's been five months since Jaida's surgery.

And she's STILL having problems with her incisions!!!!!

She's been licking/nipping at her chest in one spot for quite some time, months for sure...I never could see or feel anything there, and after talking with other moms/dads of three-leggers I wrote it off as nerve "zaps" and regrowth or phantom pains. Well, about two or three weeks ago I found a brownish scab there. I soaked it off, put on a little antiseptic, did the ol' "wait and see"...well last night my comfort level with "waiting and seeing" was GONE, the scab was there but rather oozy-looking, and it felt puffy underneath, plus there was this weird hard "tube".

So, off to the vet this morning. Today we saw Dr. Kitchen at Dundas Veterinary Services, who was the first vet to see Jaida when we first got her...and therefore also contributed to the removal of the layers off poo and pee from her fur. (Dr. Kitchen exclaimed today that Jaida was much bigger and considerably "less tangy" than the first time she met her...)

Well, after some shaving, local anaesthetic, forceps, big ol' squirty syringes of saline, and a VERY well-behaved and tolerant Jaida...we discovered that she had some proper skin growing under the scar, complete with 1.5" hairs (hence the "tube"). We THINK it might heal properly now that the hairs have been pulled out and the vet took a stab at pulling the skin out, but there's about a 50-50 chance we may have to excise some skin and reposition/suture it properly so this doesn't happen again.

To top it all off, Dr. Kitchen found a second lump at the top of her scar (we hadn't noticed that one before), which she drained, and a quick stain showed bacteria growing in the smelly fluid she pulled out. We're hopping that the poking there will induce an immune response and she'll fight it off on her own, but if not, it may need some surgical or medicinal intervention too.

SIIIIIGGGGHHHH.

Oh well, could be worse. She's otherwise lovely. And she is the world's best little patient, the techs kept marvelling over how tolerant and calm and sweet she was despite everything. (That's our girl).

My first trick!

Jaida here.

Moms are all excited because I learned something called a trick. Mom Crystal has been calling me a dum-dum-head lately, which is most unbecoming to a gal of my cleverness, so I decided to show her that I am NOT a dum-dum-head. (For the record, I am simply disinterested in listening, I'm far too busy with other important things).

So I have learned to SHAKE-A-PAW. This involves me sitting on my bum and giving moms my ONE GOOD LEG to hold. I don't see why it's such a big deal, but they go "AWWWWWWWWWWW, HOW CUTE" and give me cookies.

I like cookies a lot, so I can handle doing this SHAKE-A-PAW business.

p.s. it SNOWED this morning, and I got very excited about it and did crazy zoomies in the yard with Gracie. Gracie was not happy about getting her paddy-paws all cold and wet. What a grumpster.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Jaida here!

It's my birthday, yup, yes it is!!! I am a whole one year old today, I think that makes me a big girl now! Moms better spoil me rotten tonight, as is fitting and right for a three-legged gal of my gorgeousness and fabulousness!!

Happy fall!

Jaida here.

My gorgeous three-legged self and the fabulous Miss Gracie want to wish everyone a happy fall!

The very small person.

Jaida here.

The very small person, Jacob, visited us again for the day. He has many toys that have a lot of fun-ness in them, but moms say Gracie and I are not allowed to play with them, no fair. But he is just a BAY-BEE and doesn't know about the niceness of sharing yet, so it's o.k. Besides, he is very interesting even withOUT his toys. Gracie especially thinks so...Moms told Jacob that it was time to go sleepies and put him in a wheelie bed, and he made noises that said he was not happy. I was a little worried about the noises, but he did go sleepies so I guess he wasn't THAT sad.

(That's me looking worried up there...those sad BAY-BEE no-sleepies noises are worrisome.) I hope Jacob comes back soon!