Tuesday, November 02, 2010

early evening

Uggghhh

Feeling cruddy, so I will finish this entry later.  I picked a bad time to quit taking drugs.

Oh yeah, but yay for Harry Reid.  I couldn’t have stood living in a state represented by Crazypants Angle.

Monday, November 01, 2010

evening

Day Two - It’s Much More Difficult

I know we were given weekends to ease off the stress of blogging daily, so we could just blog pictures or videos, but I think I’ll be fine by the weekend.  It’s today that’s going to be tough.  Dante & Mack, our two big dogs (Anatolian Shepherd & German Shepherd) decided to go out on an adventure.  They were fed outside at 1am, and then they usually spend hours and hours together hanging out after that.  None of our dogs has ever, in our 13 years together, gotten out or lost..  Early this morning when we went to take the little dogs out, we discovered the big dogs were missing.  We’d had some people come over to help us clear out the weeds from the backyard and take them to the dump in their trailer.  Well, the gate ended up not getting shut as tightly as it could have been.  It wasn’t anyone’s fault, except for the dogs, for taking advantage of it and pushing against the gate to get it to crack open (the gates were chained together and they were pushed out to leave a small gap) and leave.  We were driving around the dark dark neighborhood in the freezing cold looking for them, but we didn’t see them.  We came back home to wait until it was lighter out, so we could see.  While we were waiting, Mack came home on his own.  We’re pretty sure that Mack is the one responsible for the initial act of leaving, since we’ve had Dante from puppyhood and he’s never shown any sign of trying to get out.  Mack (who we rescued last year to keep Dante company after he showed signs of severe depression after Eli, his bestest pal died) tried to run off when we first took him home from the vet.  Fortunately, there was a guy there who could whistle really loudly, and surprisingly, Mack came running back. 

It got light out, we called Animal Control and reported Dante missing.  We posted on FidoFinder, then we started driving around the neigbhorhood again.  We met some really nice people, and one of them even went out on her bike with a clip, so if she found Dante, she could have him leashed to her.  Still, we had no luck finding Dante.  We took a walk, hoping we might find him near someone else’s dogs.  We had to wait a few more hours and then we reported him missing to our local shelter, too.  Finally, at 3p, the shelter called, letting us know that Animal Control had brought Dante in.  It was such a relief.  We still don’t know where he was, but hopefully Animal Control will be able to let us know.  Since Dante is arthritic and old, we figured that he wouldn’t have been able to go as far as Mack.  We’re assuming someone found Dante, took him in, then called Animal Control when they opened.  Dante came home in perfect physical condition (although it cost us $40, ugghh, to get him out of the pokey), but Mack is limping really badly.  He must’ve gone pretty far and at a pretty fast clip.  He’s having trouble walking when he first stands up, at first only walking on three legs.  Hopefully, he’ll loosen up over time.

Since we’d decided to take the little dogs out to take care of business right before we went to bed, discovering that the dogs were missing was a rude awakening.  We were already sleep deprived, so adding another day onto it, plus the stress of the dogs being missing, multiplied the exhaustion.  Here’s a reminder to everyone, if you’re moving, change your pets’ microchip information as soon as you have the new info and get them new collars or tags with your new info.  Both dogs had collars and microchips, but the microchips had to be updated.  Our moving experience was so awful that we’ve kind of just been recovering since then and feeling pretty lousy.  But, that was no excuse for not updating the info.  We got lucky that we moved to a small town with dog-friendly neighbors who probably weren’t afraid of our kids.  The houses are far apart, there is very little traffic near where we live now, so all it came together for a happy ending.  We never ever want to go through this again though.  It was truly awful and I feel terrible for people who have had to go through it with worse outcomes.  It’s so hard not knowing where your pets are and if they’re okay.  So, everyone, if you don’t have updated info on your microchips and collars, update it RIGHT NOW.  It will bring you some peace of mind.

terribly early in the morning

Day One - It Begins

I won’t feel much like writing a real blog entry today, as we’ve had really crappy sleep, and we have people coming over to pick up our old patio cover pieces, bring the dryer vent hose, and help us clean out the storage unit we needed to get because somehow the new house seems to be missing 300-400 sq ft.  The house and the garage were/are totally full, and we’ve already gotten rid of some of our bigger items.  It’s good that we bartered away our big screen tv (although, I do miss the picture), because it wouldn’t have even fit properly in the house.  The house is supposedly only 300 sq ft smaller than the Vegas house, but there’s really no possible way that’s true.  Someday we’ll have to get a true measurement.  At least we know the 1+ acre yard is actual size.  We also realized that when you have a much bigger yard, the dog poop is a lot harder to gather.  We can walk miles in the yard just picking up after the dogs.

Speaking of the dogs - they’re sooooo happy here.  Well, at least three of them are.  I think Phoenix would prefer to be at the old house, where she could go outside alone, take care of business, and find her way back to the back door alone.  Here, she ends up stepping in stickers from the tumbleweeds or other sharp weedy things and then she doesn’t want to walk anymore.  Her eyesight is pretty much gone now, so until we set up the chain link kennel in the back yard, she has to be watched every minute she’s out there.  Somehow, she always manages to wander off in directions of our weed piles or where there are holes in the ground.  It never fails, it’s like she has an obstacle detector and it sends her straight into them.  So, that’s the doggie bad news.  The doggie good news is that Cricket has been underpad trained her whole life, but when we moved here, she absolutely refused to use them and now goes outside with the big dogs.  That’s a big money saver, although it’s a bit more work for us because we don’t have a doggie door.  Mack has fallen in love with the Jack Russell next door and enjoys running up and down the fence-line with her.  Unfortunately, he still hasn’t fallen out of love with me and still has separation anxiety, so he doesn’t stay outside with Dante as long as Dante (and we) would like.  Dante loves patrolling the yard, making sure the other neighborhood dogs know he’s on guard.  I think the dogs next door have finally made peace with our dogs, now that their new neighbors on the other side have just brought in three goats.  The goats seem to drive the dogs nuts and vice versa.  Luckily, we can’t hear it most of the time.  Ever since the people across the street with the ten dogs moved away, it’s become much quieter here.  Now, it’s mostly just our own dogs who annoy us, not anyone else’s.  I guess that’s good, since we can usually do something about it.  Well, unless Dante has seen or smelled an evil boogeyman and won’t shut up.  That happens occasionally.

Okay, that’s the doggy status update of the move.  Frank is moaning and groaning to get his breakfast, so I’ll leave the cats to another day.  Right now, Frank’s annoying me and I don’t want to take it out on the other cats, who are, of course, perfect angels.