Wednesday, January 29, 2014

More about the Puffaroooooo 01/29/14

So you now know about my sad beginnings so lets continue on:

After the rescue group threatened to take me back from my humans, momma pointed out to them that I had a host of medical issues that they never took care of or disclosed.

As I told you earlier, I had to have my teeth cleaned the very day momma took me to the vet because they were so bad and lets just say my breath was not nice.  My teeth were coated with black gunk and the vet said if they were left untreated I would probably have to have them pulled. 

That wasn't my only issue.  The hair on my body was so thin and sparse that when I was wet it looked like I didn't have any hair at all.  The hair on the tip of my tail was totally missing so it looked like I had a rat's tail: this was due to a thyroid condition and all I needed was some medication to resolve it.  All of these issues seem minor considering how I also have liver failure.




                                                    I was a scare and skinny pup


                          Coco and I checking each other out on the first day in my forever home

Momma switched vets soon afterwards and started taking me to a different one who was closer to home. 

Many months went by and then one day when she got home from work I came running to greet her and she noticed that my left hind leg was now turned upward with the pad of my foot facing the ceiling.  Momma panicked, swooped me up and went running out to the garage where daddy was.  Momma wanted to take me to the emergency vet because it was after normal vet hours but daddy being daddy, said to wait and see how I was in the morning.  I was still running and jumping like nothing was wrong but my leg was sticking at a horrid angle and twisted upward.

The next morning, momma woke up and immediately checked on me.  Nope, no difference, my leg was still twisted.  Momma went to work and daddy took me to the regular vet with instructions from momma that if I was in pain and there wasn't anything they could do for me, then they were to put me down.  She would rather me be out of pain and not suffer.

Anyhow, the vet said I had a spinal injury and the only way to correct it would be surgery, but with my liver problem, that would be impossible.  Daddy then told the vet that momma had said to put me down, and immediately the vet came up with another option.  She would give me a pain and a cortisone shot along with instructions to crate me and bring me back the following day.  Daddy knows how much momma loves me so he opted for the second option.

When momma got home my leg was still twisted so after potty break and dinner, I was once again put into the crate.  The following morning when the humans let me out of the crate, I came staggering out but low and behold, my leg was back where it was supposed to be.  That little 18 dollar shot saved my life!  I do not walk "normally" as I kind of have a swagger, but that's okay.

Now fast forward a year or two, and I have yet another injury.  My left leg, the one that was twisted now has a knee cap that pops out.  This injury is genetic and can be resolved with surgery, but because of my liver issues, surgery will never be an option.

This photo isn't very good but you can see me dragging my left hind leg.
 
                 I was in a lot of pain from the popped knee cap and momma was comforting me.

So back to the vet I went and this time it was a new vet because we moved from California to New Mexico.  Momma and daddy took me in and momma was crying (she cries when she thinks she is loosing me).  The vet looked at me and said," there are plenty of three legged dogs, he will be fine on pain medication" so I now have some human grade pain stuff that I only take when the knee cap pops out.  The knee cap does not stay popped out it tends to go in and out at will.  It has happened twice now and let me tell you, IT HURTS LIKE HECK each time it happens.

So do you think I have enough health issues?  I do too, but I also have a large cancer growth on my front right leg that is about the size of a nice chickie egg.  The vet is aware of it and since it hasn't been molested in any manner he is just going to keep an eye on it.  This growth is close to my front elbow so sometimes walking is hard, but hey, that's life. 

My humans know when I am in pain and dole out the pain medication as needed.  Right now  I haven't been taking anything except for my thyroid pills and feel pretty good. 

I've learned to lay on my back and kick my paws up at Coco when she plays rough with me.  I snip at her with my teeth and paw her in the face.  She seems to enjoy it and it protects my back and hind knee from getting hurt further because she concentrates on attacking my head instead of my body.  I love Coco but she can get rough at time.

So that's my beginnings.  After the long road I finally found my forever home which I love. 

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Puffy's sad beginnings - 01/26/14

I was a discard.  Yup, for reasons unknown to me, I found myself with four different homes before I was even 5 years old.  I do know that the last home the human male had taken myself and my Yorkie sister to an animal rescue group and told them he was going through a divorce and wanted them to find new homes for us.  My Yorkie sister got adopted right away, but, sniff...sniff, no one wanted me.

I stayed in a kennel with a nice Labrador until my forever humans saw me on the rescue site.  They had been thinking about adopting another small pup to keep Coco company, so arrangements were made for the rescue group to come and inspect our home and yard and then to do a play date with me and Coco at the house.




                                                            Look how scared I look...

Coco and I got along very well so the rescue lady took momma's money and left me there with them.  I ran all through the house crying and in a panic because I was so scared.  The very next day, momma took me to the vet and even though the rescue group had given momma shot records the vet insisted that I have the shots done over or else they would not allow momma to join the health plan, so momma allowed them to re-do the shots and clean my teeth because they were so bad.

When the rescue group heard about me getting my shots over again, they threatened to come take me away from momma (they did remove my picture off of the "successful" adoption page - BOL.

So, here I was still a fairly young pup, afraid and as far as I was concerned, alone, again.  I cried and shook and there was no consoling me.  After two weeks momma told daddy that she thought they had made a mistake adopting me, because I was so unhappy, plus, I was piddling all over the place - BOL.

Within one month, I finally stopped  shaking but would still cry if I was left alone.  Someone had to always be in the house with me our I would panic.  Luckily for me Coco took me under her paw and told me that she was the boss and as long as I left her cookies alone she would help me out.  Since I am a stuffie pup, that arrangement worked out just fine.

                                                 Yup, these are just some of MY stuffies

Well that's enough about me for right now.  I'll tell you more some other time.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Let me tell you a bit about myself

Hi pals, Coco Rose here.

I think I should take some time to introduce myself to you and give you a brief history:  Run to the kitchen and get yourself a cookie and please, please, PLEASE, don't forget to bring some back for me...

Anyhow, I was born on March 20th, 2006 to a family that had a small girl in the local 4H club, or so they said.  As always there is usually a runt of the litter and that happened to be me.  I was a tiny little pup all black except for a white blaze on my chest.  When it the time came for my birth humans to find new homes for the litter, all that was left was one brother and myself when my current humans came to look us over.  I was sleeping because I had just come in from playing with my brother: my brother was still running all over the place like a fool so the new humans chose me thinking that I was more mellow - BOL, BOL.

My new human momma was very much in the grieving process as she had just lost her Old English Sheepdog named Logan Benwizzen.  Logan was two weeks shy of being 10 years old when he passed away.  Three days after his passing momma and daddy adopted me. 


                                               This is a picture of Logan

Anyhoodle, I am a very self reliant gal so I didn't really need much.  Momma would hold me and cry into my hair and I would make soft grunting noises as I licked her tears away.  As time went on, we developed a bond that is very strong.  To this day, I still make soft grunting noises for momma and lick her all the time.  Daddy says I never do this for him.  All I can say is it is a special thing I do for my momma.

I can remember right after momma brought me home she took me to the human society to have me micro chipped and the person who was doing the paperwork insisted that I was black.  Momma being the stubborn person she can be, pointed out to my white blaze and said I was black and white.  Well the poor lady finally gave in and put my coloration down as black and white.  So guess what happened a few months afterwards - my white blaze turned black - BOL, BOL.  Apparently the lady doing the paperwork knew a whole lot more than momma did - BOL, BOL.  So now someplace I have paperwork that says I am a black and white pup, when in fact, I am a black pup.

    This picture was taken one day ago and notice there is no white blaze on my chest - BOL, BOL

I like to play rough, but ever since my furbrother Puffy hurt himself, he does not play with me as much anymore (I'll let him tell you all about himself tomorrow).  I am the leader of the pack and what I say goes.  You can play with my stuffies but don't even think about playing with my rubber chickie because I will come after you and take my chickie back.  IT"S MINE!!!!!

Another thing, I love my cookies!  Yup, those are MINE too so go away and leave mine alone.  And, if you should happen to have a cookie and put it down someplace, that cookie becomes MINE also. 



                                                                I love my cookies

Once, daddy was eating a saltine cracker and I wanted it.  I actually tried to bite him as he reached down to take the cracker off the plate (I was on the bed with daddy).  My manners regarding food are not nice, or so the humans say. 

I hope this helps you to get to know me.

Hugs and kisses,

Coco Rose

We did it! 01/24/14

Puffy here -

I'm writing this entry in the wee hours of the morning while Coco is sleeping.  It seems that is the only time I can grab the computer.  Anyhow, momma was having issues copying my Dogster pages and she didn't know what she was doing wrong.  She followed Abby's daddys instruction correctly, but for some reason, the pages just would not copy.

Finally, momma had a stroke of genius, or at least the fog lifted from her brain, and she thought the problem might be that the "C" drive was too full so when she tried to do the copy this time she told it to send the information to her "D" drive and it worked!  The pages were copied quickly and now we are headed off to bed to get some sleep.

Good night everyone.  Sweet dreams.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Daddy's Birthday

Hi pals,

Momma has been working to make daddy a quilt for the bed as his Birthday present, but due to the unexpected Dogster closing and then starting the blog, signing up for the forum and even copying of Puffy and my Dogster pages, she didn't get the quilt done in time.  Yup, it was another case of Puffy and me coming first before daddy - BOL. BOL

Momma was supposed to work on the quilt again last night but ended up trying to copy Puffy's Dogster pages.  We don't know what is going on with them but they didn't get copied even though momma tried and tried.  Momma had trouble copying my pages also, but on the third try, they got copied.  Puffy's come up with all kinds of errors and it refuses to download.  The problem might be that we do not have high speed internet (heck, we live in a very rural area and can't even get cell phone coverage), so we are lucky to have the slow connections.  If that wasn't enough, our internet provider only allots so many hours of service a month.  Momma is afraid she used up most of our allotment trying to do the downloads.  The provider told daddy that using the internet after midnight does not count so momma is going to stay up tonight and again try to do the download. 

Hugs and kisses,

Coco Rose

PS - My last diary posting on Dogster will be on March 1st.  For those of you who are on Dogster please plan on stopping by my diary as we are going to have a memorial service for them.  Everyone is invited and there should be lots of MEATZ and other refreshments afterward. 

Monday, January 20, 2014

Where are all my pals? 01/20/14

Hi pals,

After having deleted our first two tries at this blogging thing, we discovered that we can't seem to friend anyone - now what did momma do?

Example: We went to Scootersquarepants.blospot.com and couldn't find a button that allowed us to friend them.  Help!!! We are lonely.............

Dangers lurking in our yard

Hi pals,

We had some really good photos that were taken in our yard or in our general area that we thought we would share with you.

 This is a picture of a Turkey vulture that was sitting on a fence post down by the cattle ranchers pasture.  Since there were several of them around we figured the rancher probably lost one of his calves to a wild animal.

 Here we have a hungry Coyote stalking a crow.  This picture was taken from our kitchen window that's how close the Coyote was to the house.  Yikes!  Coco and I better be careful when we are outside.
Here is the same Coyote - the crow flew away and the Coyote didn't get a meal.

We also have bears, mountain lions, bobcats, rattlesnakes, deer, elk and who knows what else here.

Puff Darby

The pretty sunset from our house

Hi pals,

My friends from Dogster are aware that daddy and momma, well, mostly daddy, have been very busy for the last two years building us a house in New Mexico.  Daddy moved out here first and was living in a terrible and small trailer while he and a hand full of helpers "helped" him with our house.

Our house is a 2200 square foot steel building and we have a tad bit smaller steel building that is the garage/workshop. 

Last year we got lots of snow so there wasn't much we could do on the house because all that snow and coldness made us want to stay under the nice electric blankets - BOL.

Anyhow, this year we have only had a dusting of snow, nothing that prevented us from really doing anything. 

We have had some wonderful sunsets down our way and I thought maybe you would like to see one.


This is the view in our front yard - pretty isn't it?

And here is another photo that momma took right before the cold weather came in of a sunflower in our yard.


Here is a pretty sunflower with a lady bug and bee - don't let the bee sting you cuz it will hurt - BOL

I hope you like our pictures.

Coco Rose and Puff Darby

Third times a charm 01/20/14

Hi!  My name is Coco Rose


I don't share my cookies with anyone!  I tend to hoard them until they are aged just right before I eat them.

This is my furbrother Puff


He likes to follow me around and steal, yes, that's right, STEAL my cookies so I have to carry them around so he can't take them.

Puffy and I are Dogster orphans as we needed to find a new place to play after Dogster announced they were closing their community pages.  We are lucky because some of our pals have also started their own blog pages so we can still stay in contact with many of them.

This blogging stuff is new to my human momma.  You will find as you get to know Puffy and I better that momma does not have computer skills.  In fact, this is the third blog we started in two day because things kept on going wrong.  Daddy tried to help momma with her blog issues today and managed to wipe out the first two blogs - BOL, BOL,  It's funny now, but it wasn't funny when it happened, in fact, momma was close to tears. 

Please be forgive us if you have problems with our blog as it is a whole learning experience for the humans.

Oops - I forgot to tell my pals that our address has changed.  Look for us at CocoRosePuffy.BlogSpot.com (they wouldn't let momma use CocoRosePuff as they said it was already taken so momma had to add the "Y" on Puffy.

Hugs and kisses,

Coco Rose