Archive for dogs
>Sleep indeed…
>
Ciao,
Nora
>I had noticed…
>
Ciao,
Nora
>And now for something completely different.
>Winding down…
Sleep tight.
Ciao,
Nora
>An encore…
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I took two 2 hour naps today, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I just woke up from the one in the afternoon, so I guess it was really one in the early evening. After the one in the morning, I wasn’t sufficiently done sleeping to really start the day right. I had claimed here that I was so clear and levelheaded in the morning when I first got up, but after I walked Tyke, I realized how tired I still was and laid down on the sofa for a nap. I should have just gone back to bed for a proper sleep.I don’t know why I thought that was improper for some reason, as if I was not supposed to lie in bed during the day.
My SPN called me after I had sent her the email about my grouchiness and the Welbutrin and told me not to make any changes in my medicines for 3 weeks so that I will stabilize and that they will be able to see then which medicine can be reduced or taken away completely. I begrudgingly made that promise, because 3 weeks is a long time to be grouchy, but I’m not it nonstop all day long so I guess I can live with that. You’ll probably notice it in my posts when I am, though, and pay me no mind.
I walked to my sister’s house in the afternoon with Tyke for some cappuccinos. My sister’s dog is getting used to Tyke’s enthusiasm, but doesn’t quite want Tyke to have his toys yet. So he collects them under the table and guards them. They are doing better all the time and Tyke is learning to give Quinto his space and not to be too pushy. Quinto was used to Jesker and they got along well and now he has to get used to this little curious fellow who wants to be right there the whole time and be wherever he is. They’ll work it out.
When I came back, I hung out on the computer for a while, but it was clear that I needed more sleep, so I laid down on the sofa again and was soon sound asleep once more. I’m just going to have to give into these urges to sleep during the day, because I am in a much better mood if I do and it doesn’t seem to make that much difference with how much I sleep at night.
My template is back and I hope you can all read the font better on the white background. I have no way to enlarge it. You may all have to get reading glasses. Don’t worry, I’ve got them too. There’s no stigma attached to it. This is not the original watercolor template that I started out with, this is a new one in effort to get any template to show up at all. I can’t find the unzip file with the watercolor template in it just now, but if I run into it, I will reinstall it, although I quite like this one too. I will go have a look for the other one in a minute. Maybe it is retrievable.
I need a tall glass of milk, so that’s what I’m going to get. Have a good evening you all.
Ciao,
Nora
>A hot day for springtime…
>
My sister and I took the dogs for a long walk and the sun was shining and it was warm outside and I regretted my choice of clothes and the fact that I didn’t have anything to drink with me. What I wanted more than anything was a cold Coke, but there weren’t any around where we were walking and we only passed a hardware store. When we got home, Tyke immediately went to his water bowl and I went to the refrigerator to drink a lot of cold milk straight out of the bottle. I can do that, because I’m the only one who lives here.
I wanted to change my clothes, but I didn’t have time, because my sister came to pick me up to go grocery shopping. We drove there with the windows rolled down and it felt good. Luckily, it was cool in the store, so I wasn’t too miserable. I was done shopping quickly, because I almost always get the same old things and I know my way around the store by now. I got the French cheeses and Mr Muscle Cleaner. It’s got to work as good as anything and it was on sale. I hope my domestic help is happy with it. She’s got to scrub with it.
I first put the groceries away when I got home and then took my tights off and changed my top to a tank top and that was quite a relief. Now I have cool legs and cool arms. It’s 20C and much warmer than they had predicted. The sun is shining and they said it would be 17C and cloudy. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 11C and rainy. I hope they get that wrong too. I complain about the cold, but 20C is plenty warm enough for me. It really doesn’t need to get warmer than that.
I feel surprisingly unexcited without the urge to write many posts and without the feeling that I have much to announce. I don’t feel that I need to declare myself on all sorts of subjects anyway. I’m a bit more subdued than I have been. I’m not quite happy with that, because I like to be a little more lively, with a little bit more spirit. I’ll blame it on the too much of antipsychotic that I’ve had and that is slowly leaving my body. I don’t think that was a very good move of my psychiatrist and I’m not happy with it. I’ve written my SPN an email letting her know, but she is out of the office today and won’t get it until tomorrow morning. I’m taking my normal dose of antipsychotics tonight.
I’m going to lie down and take a nap.
Ciao,
Nora
>In the long run…
>
Late yesterday afternoon, Tyke and I went for a longer walk, because many of you agreed that he needed more exercise than he was getting on his little short walks with Jesker and I couldn’t agree more. We left at about 4 o’clock and as it gets dark at 6, I figured we had enough time to wander around the neighborhood and pick the best route to follow. He thought it was great and couldn’t move quickly enough from one interesting spot to the next, That meant moving from hedge to hedge and from tree to tree and from one blade of grass to the next. He set the pace and it was fast. He was just not quite pulling my arm out of my socket.
Unfortunately, I had misjudged the weather and wore my warm sweater under my winter coat and after a while I was very hot. It was much warmer outside than I had anticipated. I was also wearing the wrong boots and had sore feet about halfway through the walk. So I lasted 50 minutes and had to call it quits. Tyke easily could have walked another hour or two. Also, my condition isn’t what it used to be. I have gotten used to the relatively short and easy rambles with Jesker and they are nothing compared to a long walk with Tyke.
Today I’m going again, but I’m not going to wear my warm sweater and I’m going to wear my hiking boots in the hope that I will last a little bit longer. I’m going to try and make two longer walks, but it depends on how much sleep I need and how much time that leaves me. I’m up in the middle of the night now after sleeping a few hours. No doubt I will go back to sleep later, but I may be up on time for a morning walk with him that’s a bit longer.
Jesker gets exhausted moving from room to room, so I’m not going to bother taking him for walks anymore, as they seem to wear him out too much anyway. I will let him do his business out back and just take Tyke for walks and make them longer ones, because there is no sense in making these tiny little walks with the three of us. They don’t do any of us any good, least of all Jesker.
I’m worried about Jesker and I don’t think he is going to hang on much longer. I guess what I’m really saying is, that soon I will be faced with the difficult decision that I have to make and that is so hard. But I hear his breathing as he is lying here beside me and it is short and shallow, as if it requires effort. I want him to hang in there a while longer, but really I want to postpone the decision until there is no other choice. Until it is the only obvious thing to do, but I don’t want him to needlessly suffer either. It is tough. I’ve had to had cats put to sleep and I felt bad enough about that. This, however, is my companion and my friend. He’s more than just a dog.
I’ve turned the thermostat down one degree so the heater won’t keep going on and it does make a difference, but I imagine that I’m much colder now, while one degree should not matter all that much. A cup of hot coffee sure tastes good then. I think I’m going to get my end of year bill in June, because that’s when I became a customer of this energy company and I will find out how much extra I will have to pay on top of the monthly payments that I have been making. They’ve calculated me for a one person household, but the winter has been cold, so I may have used more gas than was predicted. I’ve also used the computer a lot, so I may have used more electricity, in spite of my energy saving light bulbs and the fact that I hardly watch TV. So it’s all going to be a big surprise.
I just got two blue envelopes in the mail from the tax office and I thought that maybe they wanted more money from me because of the end of the year calculations, but luckily zero Euros were due. It’s such a relief when the tax people let you know that you don’t owe them anything else. It would be like plucking a naked chicken. There’s no more to go around and they ought to know best. You never know when you get a blue envelope in the mail. It can be good news or bad news. This time it was semi-good news. It would have been better if they had owed me money. That would have been my lucky day.
It’s only going to be 3C today and cloudy. We’ve had such nice weather these past couple of days, that you could almost imagine spring had arrived. Alas, it was of short duration. Next week we’re going to have wintertime again with freezing temperatures and more snow, believe it or not. Such rotten luck! I do hate that and I sincerely hope that’s the last of it, but that’s what I hoped the other week too. Drats! In the north of the country they haven’t been without snow for at least 7 weeks, so that’s much worse. Thank goodness we’re spared that.
Both the dogs are amicably sleeping at my feet as if they’ve never done anything else. There’s room for both of them. Sometimes Tyke snores. It’s very funny to hear such a little dog snore. Every time I get up to go to the kitchen, he follows me in the hope that something exciting will happen and I have to disappoint him every time. It’s not nearly time for him to eat, but he does gobble down his food when he gets it. He acts like a starving person who hasn’t had anything to eat for days or weeks. It’s gone in no time. Jesker is not the least bit interested in eating.
Well, I’ll go and read blogs. I’m behind in that and now is a good time to catch up.
I hope you all have a wonderful day when you get up.
Ciao…
>Jesker’s condition…
>
I just came back from this afternoon’s walk with both the dogs and I could see that it was a real effort for Jesker. We walked very slowly and at the end of it I was worried about him making it home. He is confused again and got stuck in a corner in the entryway by the front door and I had to guide him into the apartment. He doesn’t want to eat and I have to force his antibiotic pill, wrapped in a slice of salami, down his throat. His breathing is a bit labored as he is lying here beside me and I bet he’s got a fever again.
Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do for him, but pet him and try to make him as comfortable as I can and not leave him alone. He wants to be as close to me as he can and luckily Tyke is getting over the worst of his sex drive. He’s not nearly as bad as he was yesterday and leaves Jesker alone now for the most part. The attempts that he does make are halfhearted and I can easily stop him.When I do, he’s very apologetic and wants to make up for it as quickly as he can. That’s good, because Jesker just wants to lie beside me and be petted every so often.
For a change, I slept all night long. I think I went to bed at 11 pm and didn’t wake up until 6 am. That’s a record for me, although I think I one time slept for 8 hours. I can’t remember when that was exactly. It was last year some time maybe. Tyke didn’t get into any sort of trouble, but he did leave two surprises by the back door. At least his intentions were good, he was almost in the right place. I’ll put a newspaper down there tonight, so it will be easier to clean up. It’s amazing how easily you get used to handling a dog’s surprises without gagging.
I’m not falling apart today. It must be because of those extra hours of sleep I grabbed this morning after I had already been up for a while. Sleep is my best friend, I need more than enough of it and more than 7 hours in a night. 7 Hours is not enough for me. I can’t function on it.
This is taking me forever to write, because I have to pet Jesker and play with Tyke. It’s like having two children who both need enough attention. Then Gandhi threw some books off the bookcase and Tyke started barking about that, because he thought that was scary and not at all the way the way it was supposed to be.
I just took some time out to clear the patio and the flowerbeds of evidence of dog. The more I looked, the more I saw. It’s amazing what comes out of a small animal and what difference the sort of food makes. I have made up my mind about what I’m going to feed him now and what sort of snacks he’s going to get. It’s all a question of trying things out.
Well, I’m going to sit on the sofa in the company of my dogs. I’m sure we’ll have a fruitful time. Poor Jesker needs lots of attention. He’s lying between my feet now and I’m sitting here like a farmer milking cows.
Have a good rest of the day.
Ciao…
>His name is Tyke!
>
I am, as of 3:30 this afternoon, the proud owner of an 11 month old American cocker spaniel named Tyke. He is black all over except for under his tail, where he is white, which looks very cute.
I was very unsure about getting another dog when I found out about Jesker’s tumor. At first I thought I wouldn’t get another dog at all, but then I thought I would be awfully lonely without one and that I would very much miss the company and the routine and the loving care. Then I thought I would wait until Jesker was gone and that seemed like a sensible idea, but out of curiosity I started to visit the websites of all the local dog kennels and, of course, there were all the usual dogs there that nobody wanted. German shepherds, pit bulls, Jack Russel’s, the usual assortment. I was not interested in getting any of those dogs.
This morning I went to the website of a kennel in Heerlen, which is a town twenty minutes away from here and saw, between all those dogs I didn’t want, this wonderful American cocker spaniel. I couldn’t believe it. It was a new dog and up for immediate adoption. I tried to put it out of my mind for a few hours, but couldn’t and I kept thinking about that dog that was sitting there waiting for me. The problem was that I didn’t have a ride, but then I remembered that I could call my friend Yvonne, who is a big dog lover herself, and ask her if she would take me there to pick up the dog.
I called her up and explained the situation to her and she was more than willing to take me there. She had planned to do the same thing when her dog before the one she has now died, but he died so suddenly, that she did not get a chance to pick out another dog until afterwards. She wanted to have another dog while he was still alive to ease the pain, so she understood what I was doing. Well, what really motivated me was the chance to get a good dog and they don’t come along often. Just once in a while you see a dog like that at the dog kennels.
We drove over there and needless to say it was love at first sight. Here he was sitting in his cage with his sad looking eyes, but eager to make contact and very alert. The woman that worked there put him on a leash so I could get to know him better and he was all over me and all over Yvonne. He was so happy to be with people. I asked all the usual questions and was soon satisfied. Of course, we had to do all the paperwork and he had to get a chip in his neck with my information in it, but all in all it was a fairly painless operation.
Nobody needs to worry about Jesker not being a dominant dog, because he his. He made it clear from the start that he is in charge and that Tyke comes in second place. Anything Tyke can do, he can do better. He even steels his food and his toys, things he normally pays no attention to whatsoever. Dried dog food that he doesn’t like. Rawhide bones that he never chews on. Tyke did manage to demolish one tennis ball on his own on the sofa. That took him about half an hour, so I need to get better balls. Well, everybody needs those. The cats let him know they weren’t scared of him, so that was settled very quickly.
So, we have a new addition to the family and it will take some getting used to, but he is as cute as anything and listens well. We’ll grow on each other in no time and do some real bonding, which he is very good at. He is very enthused when it comes to showing his love.
Oh, I don’t like my template and I think some of you don’t like it either, so I’m going to change it. The only one that comes close to the toad template has an animal on it that is very slow and sluggish, which may be appropriate for me, and it carries it’s house on its back, which I think I do in the sense that I carry all my troubles with me. Also, I do like to go into hiding, just like this animal. I just hope it doesn’t turn you off. I think it is just the least bit endearing and don’t think of escargot.
Have a good evening, at least what’s left of it. I’ve got to change my template and cuddle with both my dogs.
Ciao.
>A Good Nap and Some Help.
>
The day has gone by quickly in spite of the fact that it didn’t feel like it was going to be a good day. I was on a low burner and couldn’t quite get my act together until my sister called me to ask if I wanted to go for a walk with the dogs. That was enough motivation for me to get dressed, although not made up, but who cares, and I met her at her house. We walked a ways into the neighborhood until we came to an outside path were there was lots of greenery and places for the dogs to mark each other’s spots by turns.
I kept the Überhund on the leash, because he is kind of confused nowadays and I don’t trust him not to go walking off and not to come back because he is with his head in the clouds. As far as the length of the roll out leash permitted, he was very busy, though, and ran from one side of the path to the other, being very occupied with the various smells of other dogs that had been there.
The trees and the shrubbery are getting green buds and some of them are quite far along in the process, so we got a good look at that. Walking back into the neighborhood, we saw greenery on some of the hedges and a giant weeping willow tree covered in new green leaves. It was a beauty.
When we got to the field, I let the Überhund off the leash and he sauntered ahead very merrily, while he kept looking around to see if I was coming along.We walked past the school and he is supposed to wait at the corner, but he kept right on going. I called him, but he turned a deaf ear. I quickly ran after him, but he started running too and I finally caught up with him at the next corner before he had to cross the street. So he was definitely being naughty. When we got home, he was worn out and could not even eat his Bonzo bone, but laid down with it for half an hour before he could eat it.
I looked at the state of my apartment and could not for the life of me figure out how I was going to make it look good again. It was the vacuuming that I had to do that was causing me the most amount of grief and it was a job that I just could not handle. So, I called in the relief troops.
Actually, I called the Exfactor and asked him if he would vacuum for me, because then everything else would be so much easier. He said, of course, and that he would be here later in the afternoon. Which was a good thing, because just then the electricity went off and I remembered a letter I had gotten that had told me that the electricity would be off until 3:30 PM.
Not being able to do anything, I decided to take a nap and I slept until 3:30 shortly after which the electricity came on again and the Exfactor arrived. He tore through the apartment with the vacuum cleaner and had the whole thing looking great in the shortest amount of time. I was ever so grateful. It was a load of my mind. To top it all off, he had brought me a container of my favorite dessert and told me to call him whenever I needed any help. I will take him up on that.
I am not quite awake yet, but in 10 minutes I need to take my medicines and walk the dog. Now that I know what an escape artist he is, I will never let him off the leash again.
Here are some photographs that the Exfactor took this afternoon when he was on a bike ride.