It's been a helluva past few days

It's been a helluva past few days.

This past Thursday, I dropped Olivia off at the vets office before going to work as she was getting her teeth cleaned. It was difficult, emotionally that is, to withhold food from her that morning. I felt so guilty!! She stood in front of her food dish wagging her tail, looking at it, then at me, then back at the dish. I wanted to cancel the appointment just so I could feed her. And then I felt as if I totally deceived her when it was time to leave. I put Phoebe in her crate and Livvie went to get in hers, but then she saw me grab her leash and she got so excited! I'm sure she thought it was going to be going to a nursing home for a visit and get fed lots of treats, so no doubt she felt duped when I took her into the vets office. **GUILT**

She growled at the tech that came out to take her from me, so I ended up walking her back to the kennel and closing the door on her. Leaving her at the vets office was the 2nd hardest thing I've ever had to do... I'm sure you can figure out what the MOST difficult thing(s) were, and most of them took place at that very office as well.

Phoebe had an appointment there that afternoon to get her yearly vaccinations. She did very well, no growling, and is up to 108 lbs. (Livvie is up to a whopping 118 lbs. Needless to say, she's going on an immediate diet to get her back down to 110-ish.).

I was happy to get both girls back home where they belonged.
Friday morning, Olivia had a touch of diarrhea which I figured was a residual effect of the anesthesia. She didn't act anxious or as if she felt bad, and it was a pure loose stool, sorta half loose-half chunky (tmi??) So I didn't give it much thought when I put her in the crate and headed off to work.

Needless to say, I should've called in sick and stayed home with her.

When we arrived home that evening, poor Olivia had had an accident in crate earlier in the day and been forced to lie in it, waiting for us to get home.

The crap was everywhere! All the blankets had to be taken outside and hosed down before I'd even put them in the washer (it took 4 loads of laundry to get all the stuff she'd soiled clean), her mattress was covered, the wall behind the crate, the blankets that were lying outside of the crate, of course the crate itself, and most importantly, poor Olivia...

Friday was one of the few cool days we've had of late and unfortunately, she got a cold bath. She wasn't happy, but there was NO way I was going to put her in the car and haul her someplace to give her a warm bath. It took forever to get everything clean. Poor Phoebe had to be kept shut up in her crate during all this, and the girls dinner was much delayed that evening. John and I had had plans to go to a fish-fry for dinner, but needless to say, after cleaning up all that sh*t, we decided to stay in.

I gave Livvie some Immodium that evening and again Saturday morning, and by that afternoon, her poop was back to normal.

So as if all that wasn't bad enough...
Saturday morning I was pressed for time as I went to the dog show bright and early, partly to cheer on my friend's dane in the show ring, but mostly because I wanted to shop for some doggy items... more on that in the next blog. I left there and rushed to a quilt show before finally heading out to the farm.

The farm is down several horses over the past few months. Three have passed away and three more went to live elsewhere because they were never going to make good therapy horses. Very few horses come into the barn anymore, so chores are light without a bunch of stalls to clean or horses to move around, and only a couple are getting fed grain. We're normally out of there within 2 to 3 hours, and that's just because we take our time. This past Saturday was to be quite different.

Our area has barely had a winner season and we've practically gone from cold temps right in to summertime temps, with not much of a spring to help us adjust to the temperature changes. So when it has all of a sudden hit 80+ degrees, it's thrown everyone for a loop, including the horses who haven't shed out their winter coats yet. One pony in particular was suffering in the heat, with labored breathing and some blood running from nose. Okay, try not to panic!

Got him to the barn, the vet was in route as was the farm's director, got him hosed down and some meds in him to help reduce the fever and then all we could was stand there and wait for what seemed like an eternity for the vet to arrive.

Ever notice how when you're in a desperate situation like that, every minute that passes seems to take an hour?

The bleeding had stopped, but the vet had to sedate him in order to put a scope up his nose. He never got the chance to look into the scope as he didn't get it inserted but just a few inches when the blood started pouring out. And it ran and it ran and it ran. I didn't think it would ever stop bleeding. Every time it would just about clot and slow to a trickle, the pony would snort and all this clotted blood would come spraying out and it would start all over again. The aisle-way in the barn looked like a slaughter house by the time he stopped bleeding and we got him into a stall.

The vet had a more pressing emergency back at the clinic, so he had left, but not before listing several possible causes for the bleeding. I'm hoping it was nothing more than a hematoma(sp?), but fear it could be a tumor. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Sunday morning, he got shaved. He'll be much cooler now.

Enough stress in my life, I needed to come back to work so I could relax. ;)

Twitter & other stuff

As you may have noticed, my blogs keep getting further and farther in between. Life is busy. I'm still not doing the facebook-thing, but I am on Twitter and that has become my source for getting the local & national news and my outlet for what I'm thinking at the time.
I haven't quite figured out why some of these people keep following me. Maybe they think my thoughts are interesting, maybe they are twitter-stalkers and have no life, maybe they just "collect" people to follow 'cause it makes them feel important.
It's for sure there are a lot of pathetic and needy people out there, always begging for "RT"'s (re-tweets). I can understand if it's for a charitable cause, but just so there begging-post will show up under a tweet from somebody famous? Gimme a break! Get a life!!!!!
I had signed up for my twitter account about a year ago and never did anything with it, as I really didn't understand it. It's only been in the past month or so that I've gotten back on there, I still don't fully understand everything, but I'm learning. A lot of the messages are somewhat cryptic, as you're very limited in space for posting your message, 140-characters I think.
I don't read every message I get, as I get waaaaay too many. Some people tweet about anything and everything they are doing or see. I just scan thru it, basically I'm becoming a speed reader, and if I see something that piques my interest, then I'll read the whole thing or click on the link that's included.
There are a few freaks out there that have tried following me and I block them right away. I could set my account up as private and have to approve everyone that requests, but I don't object to strangers following me, in general. What I do object to is all these freaks (and thus far, it seems to be all women) that have XXX or other porno language in their names or descriptions that follow me. WTH??? Sorry, I don't understand why these people degrade themselves that way. I don't need that kinda crap in my life.

So far I've done good not tweeting about things and people that really upset me, like my job/co-workers, or family members. I haven't named names, unless it's been in a good way.... so far.
Let's hope I can stick to that personal rule.
Some of the people I follow are friends from school or family, some of the local news/weather, some charitable organizations I associate with, and definitely some famous people. It's fun to listen to some of their banter with each other. Sometimes it's actually informative, other times a few have annoyed me with just how vulgar they are on a regular basis that I've lost respect for them and stopped following. Not mentioning in names here J.R.
It would appear that some people never sleep as they are tweeting non-stop all day and all night. I did reconnect with an old cyber-friend from Australia, so it's nice keeping up with her again.

So aside from Twitter, life is pretty good right now (aside from the job). I emailed a contractor a LONG list of repairs we need done to the house. I dread him coming to the house and the estimate we'll get, but some stuff has sat un-useable or in disrepair or half-assed repaired for too many years. Sorry honey, but you're no handy-man.

I've recently resumed horseback riding and am having the time of my life. We have plans to go to the Apassionata show at the end of April and I can hardly wait. If you don't know what I'm talking about, google it. It's awesome!!

Both Phoebe and Olivia are doing well. Phoebe still won't go potty on a leash when we walk her, but insists upon only going in our backyard or in her crate. Strange child!! Both girls are going to the nursing homes now and doing very well. They are such polar opposites. Olivia with her gently, aloof demeanor that has to be coaxed in with food to be petted, and then there's is Phoebe who could care less about the treats, all she wants is to be loved on and "In Your Face".
But the residents/patients/staff seem to love both of them when they visit. I just with I had more time to take them both out to more locations.

So that's about it. If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, just log in there and search for my id: imagr8daneluvr that will take you to me.