December 2020

 December is always a busy month for us. And would be even if Christmas weren't near the end of it. We have two birthdays this month in our own home as well as a few other mixed into our extended family. Not to mention, adding in all the extra activities that come with the holidays and a trip to see family. Throw in celebrating Gotcha Day and a few other activities and our heads are spinning by the end of the year.

Our month begins with Rugrat's day.

Next, we added the second puppy we had been waiting for to our home. We had planned to pick her up after returning from our visit to Arkansas but her breeder informed us that she would be out of town until January after that Saturday that we would be gone. So, we ended up picking her up sooner than intended. 

Which also happened to be Rugrat's last day of school before her Christmas break. I had to leave her independent work and her brother monitored it since we had to travel to Tulsa  for the puppy and Hubby couldn't really drive and handle a busy puppy on his own.

Her official name is Rebel Ice Princess Leah (on the papers) however we are calling her Ripley.

She and Trixie play together nonstop and seem to be enjoying each other quite a bit.

The very next day, we left her, along with Trixie and Irene, in charge of our niece and headed to Arkansas for the weekend where we celebrated Christmas with our families.

We returned ready to spend the week relaxing and finishing up our Christmas preparations. Chick headed back to work for 2 days leaving Irene with us.

And then came Christmas.

This was Chick's favorite gift by far. She was very excited to get a vacuum. And that would be how you know your child has become an adult.

Rugrat's favorite was this stuffed toy. She had wanted a stuffed David Payne (her favorite local weatherman). This toy may have ALMOST caused Santa to curse while creating it. But her happiness at seeing him smiling from her stocking probably made up for it -- mostly.

After Christmas was a short wait until along came Chick's birthday, although most of the world knows it as New Year's Eve.

Chick specifically requested the same cake as last year -- a dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate icing. And since it was her birthday, she got it. 

And so began the new year. Hopefully it will be a lot less stressful than the last one. :)

The Cowardly Lion Goes to the Vet

Random Cat Photo With Legos

Rugrat made a tower with cars in the parking lot. But Calista decided it was a bed. So I guess she was like Godzilla -- you know,

if he had been a she

and orange

and furry

and sleeping instead of growling and stomping.


I might be stretching that metaphor a bit.

Dog Burgers - Update

About a year ago in mid July, we decided to try making Rocky's food rather than using the bagged dry food or canned food that you can purchase. That post and the recipe is here if you want to refresh your memory. After a year, we have decided that knowing what is in his food is definitely a plus!

The first thing I began to notice about him was that his hair was much shinier. After a bath, he would always look like a wet seal. It would be sleek and shiny but that quickly faded as the day wore on. BEFORE! Now he is always shiny and sleek, whether he's had a bath or not.

The next thing I noticed was the throwing up -- or rather, lack of throwing up. He used to do that regularly at least once or twice a week for all of his 8 years of age. He has always had a sensitive stomach -- he's gotten pancreatitus twice. I honestly can't remember the last time he threw up. The new food seems to agree with him much more than any bagged food we ever gave him.

The biggest thing is the weight. Despite the fact that he is eating a higher calorie food and that he is eating MORE of it daily, he has lost about 25% of his body weight and is now at an appropriate weight. In fact, on a recent vet bill (from boarding during a weekend trip), it showed his weight history. As of April 18, 2014, the vet showed him as weighing 18.8 pounds. As of July 16, 2015, the vet shows his weight at 14.4 pounds. When Hubby weighed him this morning, he showed at just over 13 pounds.

This is a picture from last July. It gives you an idea of how much heavier he was. We had been laughingly calling him Stocky Rocky as a result of a comment the vet's assistant made over a year ago. And, in fact, the reason he went in on the occasion of the "stocky" comment was because of a fat deposit that appeared under his front leg which can happen as a result of too much accumulating fat. We had to have that surgically removed -- another downside to his being overweight.

BEFORE

These pictures were taken this morning. You can see how much more defined he is. And shinier despite the fact that he is soaked in the above picture.

AFTER

 He looks good, he looks trim, and he obviously feels better too. No more 'Stocky Rocky' for him.

I highly recommend trying this dog food recipe. Rocky loves it and prefers it. Our recent addition, Yogi, is pretty happy with it too. They both dig right in.

And, frankly, I've had more than one child come down to check the pot after smelling it cooking before they realize it's more dog food.

Let me know if you have a question. I'm happy to share our experience with you.

Animal Magnet

I don't know if it's jealousy or just my natural magnetism but every animal in the house is attracted to my lap on a regular basis. As Rugrat would safe, I'm just "so soft and comfy."

Oh, well. I've been called worse. :)

Haircut

 From Mr. Fuzzy wuz a Bear

to a lot more comfy and less hairy:

And who can resist that face!?!

New Family Member

On Friday, we added to our family. Meet Yogi -- although he went by another name when he joined us.  He is 3 and very sweet. He is probably the most mellow fellow I have ever met, in fact. His family had to move to another state and was only allowed to have one of their dogs. So they put him up for adoption.

He was so excited to meet Rocky but Rocky was not too sure about him. He has been steadfastly ignoring Yogi. Callista is just now beginning to decided he's not such a bad guy. He doesn't have a probably with either dogs or cats or pretty much anyone else.

For the first time, Rugrat even seems to be taken with him. She has told us multiple times that she likes his tail. It is quite different from Rocky's which was docked before we got him and just a little stub. She also loves that he will occasionally chase/run with her outside.

She was not a fan of Rocky when she joined us and we, in fact, had to teach her not to hit or kick him randomly. She always considered him a rival for her attention and only recently had begun to accept him and occasionally enjoy him.

It was still a shock when she told us recently that she wanted a puppy. That was good because we had been kind of looking already.

I think after Yogi gets past the change of scene and has his time of grieving done, he will be a great fit for our family. But he will need some time I think. He seems to have such a tender heart from what we have already seen that I'm sure he's missing the family he grew up with. Hopefully, we can soothe that some over the next weeks.

Hope This Works

At some point during the winter, the cat decided that I brought my plants inside for her. I have caught her multiple times digging in them.

It wasn't much of a stretch to realize what her next logical step was. After all, cats like to dig for a specific reason.

Yep! She decided it was her lazy bathroom. You know -- for when she didn't want to walk to her box.

Grrr!

To avoid killing her, I decided to give this a try first.

So far it is working. She doesn't know quite what to think of the balloons.

It only has to work until I can be sure that overnight temperatures won't drop below 55 degrees at night. Then I can set them safely outside. Hopefully, that won't be too long.

I did inform Hubby that she will get spanked next time. I'm done being nice about it.

The night I did this, she sat, beforehand, and watched me walk out of the room then jumped into the planter. As soon as I ran back into the room, she jumped down and made a run for it. So I know she knows it's not allowed.

I might try getting one of those motion detecting toys that yells and moves first. That only occurred to me later.

Hubby thinks I'm a big meanie for any kind of animal discipline so I'm willing to try one more thing. But he's been forewarned.

Hopefully, this will work though.

Blasted cat! I have informed her multiple times that I am a DOG person. I don't really care for cats. So you would think she wouldn't want to tick me off.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Somebody took something that doesn't belong to her!

Cat-Dog

I have determined that we did not get a cat from the shelter a couple months ago. I am fairly certain we got an orange dog that looks like a cat.

She is unlike any cat we've owned as a couple yet. Which basically means any cat I've ever owned.

But that's okay because I'm pretty sure she is a dog.

For example, she seeks us out to get petted on. No cat I've known or heard of does that - at least not with the several times a day frequency that she does. The dog doesn't even ask to be petted or cuddled as much as she does.

She will even WAKE ME UP in the middle of the night to get attention. Anyone who knows me just said, "oh no!" in a deep scared voice. I need my sleep.

She also will push her nose under the edge of your hand to get you to pet her. Only dogs do that, right?

She will crawl into your lap to get petted and go to sleep on it.

She chases balls and carries them around in her mouth.

She likes to sleep at my feet when I'm in bed.

She DROOLS when you pet her.

She begs for our food (I know all animals probably do that until they are taught better but still).

She chews shoes. grrr

And the mother of all of them: I caught her drinking out of the toilet yesterday. Our dog doesn't even do that.

I think Rocky has decided that she must have some dog in her too. They play a strange game of tag where they take turns chasing each other. First he'll chase her into the living room, then she'll chase him into the hall. Then they switch and do it again. I have to admit it's pretty funny to watch.

I guess we chose well when we picked her. She fits right in with our weirdo family.

This One's for the Dogs

 The last time Hubby took Rocky to the vet's office, as he was checking out, the receptionist said, "There's that stocky boy." Hubby looked at Rocky and said, " You hear that? She's calling you fat." She said something about not using that particular word and they chatted some more.

But the little experience led to his designation at home as 'Stocky Rocky.'  And he has always had a bit of a weight problem. While he is full - blooded Min Pin and supposedly his father was only 9 pounds, I have had less and less confidence in the breeder we bought him from as the years have passed.

And, frankly, I think we might end up in trouble for it if we somehow managed to keep him below 10 pounds. He just seems more muscular than that. He is overweight though and by several pounds.

That is something we have been working on -- well, I have. Part of the reason he is overweight is that Hubby seems to believe he should have dog treats on a regular and consistent basis.

In addition to the fact that this makes him overweight, it also tends to upset his stomach (which is particularly sensitive -- he's had pancreatitus twice already). I got a little pushy about it a couple weeks before we went on our little trip to Arkansas for Independence day. That's why he has a little bit of a waist in these pictures.

Now that we've gotten back, Hubby and I were talking about this and we've decided to try something different.

I've lost weight solely from taking a lot of additives out of our diet so why not the four-legged members of our family as well. A couple of years ago, I remember one of the bloggers I read regularly discussing how she fed her dogs. She had done it the same way for all of their 10 years and they had only needed one vet visit for an issue (a parasite). In addition, her vet had commented on their good health and diet.

So we decided to give it a try. A lot of the recipes I've found called for raw meat but her recipe is cooked due to stomach sensitivities in one of her dogs. Sound familiar? It sounded like just the ticket to us.

We've been giving it a try. Rocky loves the food so far and would gladly take more of it. The other reason he's overweight is that he's kind of a pig.

We've been giving him 1/4 cup three times a day plus his CET chew (for his teeth). This is based on his ideal weight of 8 to 10 lbs as opposed to the 18 pounds he currently weighs.

I had to google how much he needed to have per day. I tried to use a dog food calculator that calculated his ideal weight but it was very confusing. So, in the end, I just converted her dog's weight (she is in Australia and uses metric) to pounds and divided it to come up with Rocky's serving. If he were more active or younger, I might increase it slightly or conversely decrease it for a much older dog.

We initially planned to give him 1/4 cup twice a day by using that conversion and his chew in between but he walked around staring at us like we were starving him and began banging his food dish in protest. Since he's quite a bit larger than his ideal weight right now, we decided it might be better to take his amounts down to the correct one a little more gradually. That way he wouldn't think he wasn't being tortured and we didn't have to endure his mournful looks. And we seem to have hit the right amount with the three times a day.

He seems to think that his new food is awesome and the only time he's had stomach issues was the morning after Hubby gave him two or three treats one night. I pointed out AGAIN that they are pretty rich for his tummy.

Another benefit -- one that I really like -- is that I now know exactly what is in his food. No chemicals or additives I can't pronounce.

And I'm looking forward to comparing his health once we complete our little experiment.

Once he is eating twice a day, this recipe will make enough to last just over a month. It costs around $8. The bags of food we've been buying have been about the same so knowing he's getting something better in quality is worth it.

And if it saves us just one vet bill (like the $500 one for his first bout of pancreatitis), that will have been well worth the little bit of time it takes to make this.

You can read about her experience with the recipe here, here and here. This is her recipe which we used (converted).

Appx. 2 1/2 lbs. ground beef

1½ cups raw brown or white rice

1 cup raw barley OR lentils

1 cup raw pasta

2 cups chopped vegetables - it can be whatever you have on hand but NOT ONIONS or LEEKS.

1 spoonful of Vegemite or peanut butter (optional - we didn't use it)

Water

Place all the above ingredients into a big stockpot. Cover with water and stir to break up the ground beef. Bring to the boil and simmer until desired moisture content (around 45 minutes). 

When it's cooled, place into portion sized plastic containers/portions and freeze until you need them.

One note: Dogs are omnivores so this works for them. Cats, however, are true carnivores. You would need to use something different for them. Since Calista is still a kitten, we haven't changed her diet and probably won't, at least until she is an adult. She still needs more calories as a kitten not to mention other needs as she grows.


UPDATE:  After a year of using this food, we are hooked. Check out the results here.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Calista chillin' during our recent visit to Grandma's house

Meet Calista

or Callie (as I and Rugrat are calling her). She is a little over 2 months old. We had wanted to get another cat/kitten but had been planning to wait until after our upcoming visit at Memorial Day weekend.

However, the Oklahoma City Humane Society had an adoption event on Saturday and Petsmart (how cool are they!) was covering the adoption fees for anyone who wanted to adopt. So we went to take a look.

 Because we got her at the adoption event, she has already been spayed and microchipped. We just have to keep her up to date on her shots and watch out for her little incision until it heals up. All the hard work has been done for us.

Hubby had been thinking about getting a ragdoll kitten. They like to be held, spend time with people, and don't fight you if you want to carry them around or pet them on your lap. I told him he wanted a dog then. He didn't agree.

This little kitten captured our attention while we were there. And, it turns out, she seems to be like that without the expensive pedigree. We got to meet her foster mom who was a volunteer there and could give us a lot of info about her. She seemed pleased that Callie bonded to us straight away.

We also found out that the foster mom had a dog and little Callie was the only one who seemed interested in it. She still hasn't become friends, per se, with Rocky but she doesn't seem afraid of him anymore (unless he comes at her pretty quickly). They've come to a cautious truce, I would say. She was even trying to play with his little knob of a tail earlier this morning.

Rugrat made her a little nervous too but she seemed by Sunday to have just accepted that she has a little more energy than we do. She pretty much just keeps an eye on her at this point to make sure she doesn't need to move out of the way quickly. Otherwise, they ARE already friends. And Rugrat has declared her love for Callie more than once.

Pepper

We said goodbye to our Pepper cat this morning. She has been exhibiting signs that she was nearing that time for the last year or so. She was almost 15 years old.

She lost quite a bit of weight over the last couple of months despite eating well and regularly.

She also in the last several months began walking through the house yowling at different times of day for no reason. I think we summed it up as some kind of senility thing.

Then this past week, we noticed that she began to walk a little wobbly and was having balance problems getting up the stairs or walking across the floor.

So Hubby carried her to the vet this morning.

She was a good cat, even if a little weird at times. We all have a few quirks though.We'll miss her.

Rocky Speaks

Hey, out there. Just wanted to say hello.

So.

Hello.

Life is going good for the ole family dog, I guess. I still have to fight constantly with the 5-year-old for lap time with my mistress but I've learned to take her lap when the kid is occupied elsewhere.

The two older ones, especially the girl, are pretty good about letting me snuggle up in their blankets for a nap. If the boy is around, I usually just take the futon in the game room though. His room has an odd smell sometimes. I think it's that boy thing.

The 5-year-old can be nice to me sometimes too. She has a pretty comfy round chair in her room and she'll clean it off for me if I want to have a nap there. She also slips me her pizza crusts sometimes. And I get the crusts that are cut off from her peanut butter sandwiches too. Yum! Not to mention all the food she drops -- just drops -- on the ground. I guess little humans are kind of clumsy.

Once in a great while she'll even sit with me and rub my back. So I guess it's worth having her around even if she does like to dig her fingers under my belly and push me off the mistress' lap.

The boy seems to like to take me for walks. Those are usually good. The other day, though, it was pretty cold. It took me a while but I finally convinced him to go home. Sometimes humans can be pretty thick.

But he takes good care of me -- fills my dish and makes sure I get at least one treat a day. And there's always something to bark at out the window. That cat is getting old enough that she sounds like Darth Vader when she's resting but I ignore her most of the time.

Life is good. I can't complain.

Just thought I'd update you on things around here -- you know, from the doorknobs down. Hope your life is going well too. Good talking to ya.

Cats?

I seriously don't get the deal with cats. Why are these animals a part of our lives?

What brainiac invites an animal into your life that most likely spends its day plotting to kill you in your sleep?

And what is their deal? Exactly who do they think they are? And why do they think they're so much better than you?

Hubby is crazy for cats. And I don't understand it. AT. ALL.

I even asked him the other night why he likes having an animal around that shows such obvious disdain for him.

You know what he said. Uh, nothing.

He just chuckled and changed the subject. He doesn't even know why he likes them.

So I quote King of the Hill on this subject:

 "That boy ain't right."

I'll take my dog (no matter how annoying he can be) any day.

We ALL like Thrift Store Finds

Walking along in the thrift store last week, Rugrat and I happened upon a pink chair sized just for her. Some people call them papasan chairs; others call them mushroom chairs. It was half price too -- which I liked quite a bit.

She was excited about it because it looked like Chick's bigger version in blue. She loves to 'cuddle' and 'snuggle' in it with Chick.

Along with size and color, it differs in that it also has a fuzzy, fleece like cover rather than canvas. So she has labeled it soft as well. But guess who else likes it?

Rocky decided pretty quickly that it was his new favorite sleeping spot... when unoccupied of course. So it may be that even when she grows too big for it, we can still have a good use for it. :)

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

I haven't mentioned him lately but just wanted to say Rocky is still kicking and making us giggle and occasionally grit our teeth. Though his beginning with us was pretty... well, rocky, he has gradually become a good dog. His only truly awful trait is his separation anxiety when we leave (which often causes him to destroy anything in the immediate vicinity or that he can bring into his vicinity by scooting his crate).

But vwe have ways of dealing with that. {maniacal laugh}

She's Just Taking It All In

It amazes me sometimes what knowledge Rugrat retains from our conversations or even offhand comments. She just soaks it all up. I was reminded of that recently when she brought up our little snow day from last week. This is a summary of our conversation (I don't remember it word for word):

Rugrat: Momma, snow all gone?
Me: Yes, the snow is all gone.
Rugrat: Snowman fall down.
Me: Yes, our snowman fell down. He's all gone too.
Rugrat: Snowman all gone. Snow all gone.
Me: That's right. It's all gone.
Rugrat: No yellow snow.
Me: (dramatic pause) What?
Rugrat: No yellow snow.
Me: No. We don't play with the yellow snow.
Rugrat: Doggie's snow.
Me: Yes, the doggie made that snow.
Rugrat: No yellow snow. Only white.
Me: Yes. We only play with the white snow.
Rugrat: (Nods her head and goes back to playing with her toy)

Yep. She's a sponge.

By the way, we refer to these kind of lessons as LIFE SKILLS in our house.

Filmstrip

Yeah, just hanging out here at home

Just chillin'. You know how it is.

Woh! There's a cat up there.

I think I'll go chill out somewhere else.