Bad Dogs and Leash Laws

This critter is the main reason why I have been missing from the web for the last week or so.  I live out in the county where there is no leash law.  Dogs are allowed to roam as they please.  They are only required to have a collar and rabies tags.  My neighbor got a puppy about a year ago and sometimes lets him loose.  Consequently there are times when I walk out my door only to get this greeting.  This was taken while I am still on my front porch. This photo was also taken last fall and the dog is now bigger and meaner.

Anyway about a little over a week ago I checked for the dog (something I don't feel like I should have to do) and since he was nowhere to be seen and the owner's car was not there; I went outside with my dog, Rascal. Rascal was a proper puppy and on a leash. Unfortunately this dog and another of the neighbors dogs came around the side of the house and came after Rascal and me; both of them barking and growling.  I was able to control my dog as he was on a leash, but in doing so I wrenched my arms and shoulder, sprained my knee and sprained my fingers.  I was able to keep my dog from getting hurt, however Tom had to come out to chase the dogs away.  He heard the dogs and came to my rescue, for which I was very grateful.  I ended up in the ER from all the jerking around (I only had strains and muscle pulls but by the next day I felt like I'd been beat all over.  I hurt all over.  This also caused a fibromyalsia flare which just added to the pain.  I was unable to lift my laptop, set it on my lap or type without pain so no blogging, no facebook and little visiting of other blogs.

Spalding county used to be made up of farms and houses on acrages where the lack of leash laws made sense.  This is no longer the case.  I guess I am going to have to get politically active and try to get the county commissioners to change the leash laws.  I now have a couple of movies of the dog (the photo is one frame from one of them) and medical bills to show them.  Wish me luck.

Johnina  

LOL Christmas- Greeting or Warning

Merry Christmas, my dog might eat your face.

Emily had her tonsils taken out this morning.  How's that for a Christmas present?  Come home from college for Christmas and have to have your tonsils removed.  Boo Hiss. Poor baby.  But while she was sleeping I was trying to do something quiet and came across this photo.  Hope you

Enjoy

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺

This is why I love Amazon.com

Going back to my post on what do we owe our pets you might remember my concern over the high cost of medical care for our pets.  This is a shampoo that will hopefully keep Rascal's skin infection under control.  The bottle on the right came from the vets and cost $50.  Since Rascal needs to be bathed with this shampoo twice a week, minimum, for the rest of his life, the cost could quickly add up for this one medicine alone.  I decided to look elsewhere to see if I could get it cheaper elsewhere.  I checked out 1-800PetMeds and did find it for $28 on sale plus shipping.  Better but still quite expensive and shipping was expensive, too.  I didn't think Amazon would have it but decided to try it anyway.  Wow they had it for $12 plus shipping, which turned out to be minimal.

It came from one of their independent dealers, which is why it had shipping charges.  I ordered on Saturday and received it yesterday (Monday).  Wow priority mail without extra charges.  Amazon does an excellent job of monitoring their independent dealers so they can be trusted.  As you can see from the pictures the medications are exactly the same except the one from the vet has a prescription label.  The expiration dates are even the same so I didn't get old stock the dealer was trying to get rid of.  Great prices, great service, and easy to use.  When you decide to use Amazon please go through my blog.  Use the tab on the upper right and you can just click on go and it will take you straight to Amazon.  They have a terrific associate program where I earn a percentage of the sales that go through my site and all it costs you is an extra mouse click to go to my blog first.  Save and

ENJOY

☺☺☺Johnina☺☺☺

Got to walk the dog

I got my flu shot last Friday.  I know that since the shot does not contain the live virus that it is not supposed to cause any reaction or flu symptoms; it did with me.  every year when I get the shot; I get the symptoms.  They may be less then getting the actual flu, but they still make me feel cruddy.  Aches, chills, fever (100.6) and high blood sugar, (all signs of illness) but when you own a dog, no matter how you feel, the dog still needs to be walked.  Tom normally does this for me when I don't feel well, but he wasn't around, so we went for a walk. 

I decided since I was outside anyway I would bring my camera to catch the last of the summer color.  I have taught Rascal to hold still on command when we walk and that is what he is doing in the picture above.  Good dog! 

This is the space for my garden in the making.  This year we put up this hanging space for my tomatoes.  Put up hangers for my Nasturtiums and put a raised space underneath for my squash and cucumbers.  It is in the middle of this photo (click on picture to enlarge).  Eventually there will be other spaces with walkways and raised spaces, so I can garden in spite of my handicaps.  Little by little as we get the time, energy and money it will be added to.   Fortunately we live in the south where you can garden almost all year long.  Summer is actually the hardest time to garden here due to the heat, so more progress will be made now that the temperature has dropped.  Eventually there will be flowers, herbs, vegetables and a picnic table in this spot.

One last photo of the filterd sunshine in the woods across the street from me.  Rascal and I walk by it every day.

Hope you enjoyed my walk as much as I did.

Enjoy your day

♥☺♥Johnina♥☺♥

Doggy Love

I found another photo sharing site that I really like: to view more press the ink below:

More from my walks with Rascal

Walking with Rascal

View through the trees

Rascal in the trees

Wood sprite

Morning lit

Splashes of colors

Rascal and I are working on the command 'be still' so I can take photos when I see something of interest and still get a nice crisp image.  As you can see Rascal is learning rather quickly.  Good boy.
Johnina :^A

Rascal takes me for a walk

Rascal walks me

Yesterday I woke up in the morning in horrible pain, but in spite of it I was in a good mood after a wonderful weekend of being spiritually feed by watching the LDS conference on TV.  If you want to hear some of the best Christian teachings go to lds.org then go to general conference; there are plenty of talks to choose from.  Right now they are all available to listen to; by Thursday they will be done with transcribing them and they will be available to read.  I like to copy them to Word then highlight in yellow, add my thoughts in parenthesis and in red and add the scriptures.  Actually you can add the scriptures that are referred to by clicking on them before you transfer to Word.  If you would like to do this and are confused by my directions here, please e-mail me at johninayoung@yahoo.com and I will give more complete directions.

 Deer Trail (yes we get deer on our property)

Every morning Rascal asks to be walked by me; even if  he has just come in with Tom from doing his business.  He just likes me to walk him where he can sniff the air and investigate to his hearts content.  If you watch 'It's Me Or The Dog' on Animal Planet one of the things the trainer stresses is taking your dog for a walk and not just for doing their business.  It makes for a calmer, more contented dog.  For me it works out the morning stiffness and makes sure I get some exercise.

 Beautiful poison

I did real good till about noon and then the pain started to wear me down.  I can override the pain for a while but eventually the pain drains me.  Curling up and crying sounds good when that happens.  I went to Wal-Mart as a distraction instead.  It didn't work.  I was surprised that it had been so long since I had been out of my neighborhood and how much the trees had changed color in town.  There are more decorative trees in town that change color sooner than the trees out in the woods by where I live.  I'll have to go into town with my camera.

Splashes of color

I've been trying to post every day, but the pain yesterday in spite of a good start just got to be to much.  There are days like that when you have fibromyalsia, especially when the weather changes and we had a cold front move in. When I have a bad day like that I just have to keep in mind there is always tomorrow.  Like the song from the musical 'Annie' 'the sun will come out tomorrow....'
Johnina  :^A

This is why

I am not afraid or lonely when I am all by myself.  This is Felicity and she is the reason that the UPS man hesitates to come up to the door.  She is very big; 100# and has a very deep voice.

 This is Rascal  and though he is smaller about 65#;  he still intimidates with his loud deep voice.  Between the two of them they make an excellent alarm system.  It is a very loud alarm system.  At this point I am very glad they are learning to distinguish and ignore; the mailman, the garbage truck, and most of the neighbors.  They only bark at the next door neighbor when he comes in with the windows down and the music blaring; can't blame them for that, the music most definitely covers up the sound of the car.  They also recognize our cars but the alarm goes off anyway; I guess it's their way of greeting us.

We also walk the dogs several times a day so the whole neighborhood knows we have large dogs.  Nobody bothers our house.  In fact some people have a hard time visiting and we have to put up the dogs although once introduced there is no problem, but they have to be introduced.  My biggest fear is getting sick and having to call 911(I keep my cell phone on me all the time just in case)and not being able to get the dogs put up and the dogs being so protective that the EMT's can't get to me.  I guess all things have good and not so good points.   

Felicity is an Akita and I do believe that when one gets a dog one needs to look into the breed or breeds of the dog that one is getting.  I have seen enough pure breeds and mixed breeds where I knew the breeds that I have come to realize how important knowing about the breed is.  

Akitas are big, strong, intelligent, independent dogs.  They are not dogs for first time dog owners.  They kind of remind me of cats in big dog clothing.  The vet loves Felicity, the only Akita in her practice that she was not afraid of, because she is so well socialized but in discussing obedience training she said Good luck Akitas are very hard to obedience train, but a well socialized Akita makes for a real nice dog.  They tend to be independent like a cat and sometimes I have to go look to see where she has settled herself.  They also tend to be a one person dog and unfortunately Emily is Felicity's person.  She tolerates and socializes with us but when Emily is here she sticks to Emily like glue.  We owe Felicity a great deal as she got Emily through her sister's teen years and her own teen years.  I really wish we could find a way to get those two together again, but circumstances change and Emily would not be able to care for her.  I would like to always have a big protective dog but like I said circumstances change and I am no longer able to train and take care of a large dog.  Felicity is getting old especially for an Akita and when she is gone that will be the last of the large dogs for us.  SIGH :^C

Rascal is my constant companion; unlike Felicity that I have to go look for; Rascal is always in the same room as me and he's kind of like having a clingy toddler and follows me to the bathroom and waits for me outside.  Once again I can't even go to the bathroom without being followed.  We rescued him but payed attention to his breeding.  He is part Australian Shepard and part Lab.  I wanted to train him for a service dog.  I needed the build, size, friendliness and soft mouth of the Lab and the herding instincts of the Shepard.  Once again circumstances changed, the kids who promised and were in their late teens and capable, fell through on the training.  Rascal never got big enough and has also had many health issues which has kept us from taking him out in public.  Even though he did not turn out to be as useful as we had hoped; he has turned out to be a terrific companion for me.  Very helpful since I spend a lot of time by myself.  Even if Jeremy is here, he holes up in his room and I would still feel alone.  With my dogs I never have to feel lonely.

 

This is a photo from Wikipedia one of the places you can go to get info on dog breeds or go to bing and you will get several options. These are Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.  I would always like to have a dog; I think having a dog is good for me, but circumstances do change and I'm not sure I'll always be able to take care of a dog.  However due to the change of circumstances my choice of dog breed has already changed. No more big dogs.  These are little guys around 15#.   A size that I could easily take care of now.  They are lap dogs and right now a lap dog for company sounds good.  Rascal is too big for a lap dog which is too bad and he never got big enough to be a service dog. But even with the change of circumstances I still love Rascal and plan on keeping him.  These little dogs are also good with other dogs, friendly with strangers although they do bark at strangers.  They are very good with children of all ages and with 10 grandchildren that is very important, especially since one has autism.  They can also be trained to lay still up next to you which in effect makes them a living, breathing, hot water bottle.  With fibromyalsia that sounds good to me.  We'll see if this kind of dog might someday join our family.

 

Scene while walking the dog

I think quite often we take for granted the beauty around us everyday.  While walking the dog and enjoying the early morning sunshine with it's dappled shade, it occurred to me that I had gotten out of the habit of sharing everyday pleasures.

I am also a firm believer that when you put good out you get good back.  I just got finished reading Dan Brown's "Lost Symbols" and the scientist in it was working on proving that people can influence the world around them by their thoughts.  Dr. Wayne Dyer also puts forth this idea in his books and the title of his book that I am currently reading "The Power of Intention" really puts forth his belief in the power of one's thoughts to influence one's life for good.  I have put some of his principles to work in my life and seen the results and delightful they have been.  I also believe that just putting out good thoughts and sharing the good in one's life bring good into one's life.  Serendipity in principle and action.

I have also found that the good that comes into one's life also comes when you are ready. In finding the book on vitamin D ("The Vitamin D Solution" by Dr. Michael Holick) not to long ago I would have ignored it, because of all the things listed on the front that it was supposed to cure or help.  It sounds to good to be true and things that sound to good to be true usually are. However, I have had so many experiences lately with one hormone or medicine helping or throwing off lots of different parts of my body that I was willing to read it.  I have learned a tremendous amount from this book and one of the most important is the fact that vitamin D is not a vitamin but a hormone and a type of steroid at that; which is why it effects so my systems in one's body.  Since I know I am indeed deficient in vitamin D I am doing my best to follow the suggestion in this book.  Right now I am sitting under a UVB light so my skin can produce vitamin D. Even finding out I was vitamin D deficient was a matter of serendipity,  finding the info when I was ready and having others ready to help along the way.

 

 

 

I hope you enjoy some of the beauty I found while walking the dog.

Please leave a good thought or experience from your life in the comments so you can join me in passing good around the world.

Johnina  :^A

 

Silly dogs

Actually I think this post should be called poor Felicity. Even though she was not feeling well it was so hard not to laugh.  I got up the other morning and Tom had been working outside already and when I sat down to eat I noticed this red on the carpet and thought "sigh" that the good ol' red Georgia clay had been tracked in. It's a nuisance and hard to clean.  Then I realized that the color was not quite right and on looking closer noticed there was no dirt just red so I went in search of who was bleeding.  Found Felicity and she had broken a nail, BAD.  I stopped the bleeding and started cleaning the mess, called the vet get Jeremy up to help with her, she is over a hundred pounds and doesn't like getting in the car.  By the time we got to the vet she had taken off the bandages and completely chewed off the rest of the nail all the way off and into the paw.  It had to have hurt.  If I think about it to much it kind of makes me a tad ill.  But the vet fixed her up and put on one of those wonderful Victorian collars.  Poor Felicity didn't know what to do as it was wider than she was and when she tried to go down the hall or into a doorway she would hit something with that collar.  We had to help guide her around.  And when she finally settled down she was afraid of putting her head down, so she was laying down while holding up her head up.  I know it sounds like we should have pitied her and we did but it was still so funny to watch her.  And we laughed, quite often.  She did eventually get used to it and could relax and lay down and she healed real fast thanks to that collar so it was worth guiding the silly dog around.  I did make me think about how some times we laugh when things go wrong and need to show sympathy instead.  Why is that?  Think of how popular Funniest Home Videos is.  Personally I've never liked the show, but on the few occasions I've watched I have to admit I would sometimes laugh at some of the accidents.  What makes us do this?  I have no answer.

I have taken to having my camera with me even when I walk the dog in the morning.  The morning sun shining down through the trees is so pretty as I walk by the woods.  I was also feeling like I was missing shots of the birds and the squirrels; I'm still missing getting the photos of the little critters, but I am getting some real good shots of the lights and shadows in the woods.  Rascal is not so happy about it, judging from the look on his face.  Kind of like he's annoyed about having his morning constitutional interrupted.

On the way in he shows a rather peculiar infinity for my sunflowers.  I have to drag him past the pot and as you can see he occasionally chews on it as I get the door open.  I had no idea that sunflower was doggy catnip.  Silly dog.

A Pleasant day of rest

A pleasant day outside not really sunny, but pleasant. Nice temperature, slight breeze, just feels nice. Slept in this morning and when I got up and looked out my kitchen window; my backyard was alive with movement there was all these little birds in the grass eating away. They were well hidden so mostly all I could see was movement and an occasional bird; it was kind of magical to watch them appear and disappear. A pleasant way to start the day.
I've brushed the big dog and with enough Milk Bones (what dog won't behave for a Milk Bone) and a leash and good brush; it can be very relaxing.
Now I've just doing what I want on my computer watching an old Disney movie on the Hallmark channel. I haven't seen the Gnome Mobile since I was a kid and am quite enjoying it.
My little dog, Rascal, is on medication that makes him have to go outside about every 2 hours or so, so I'm real glad it's nice out plus it keeps me from getting stiff. I've kind of overdone the last couple of days trying to make up for the time in the hospital and moving slowly cause I didn't feel good so I pushed too hard and really needed to rest up in preparation for the next couple of days.
I'm feeling better now and I'm grateful to be feeling well enough to enjoy it. I wish you, my friends, a Happy Holiday this year. ENJOY!!!!!

The dog ate my homework

This is Hiedi.(Sorry could not get picture to upload, I'll try for the picture tomorrow). She was my dog when I was in elementary school and she really did eat my homework and the English book it was in and the bookbag they were in and my glasses that were also in the bookbag. I had plenty of proof that the dog did indeed eat my homework, but that did not change the fact that I didn't have my homework the next day. I did get off a little easier than if I hadn't done it at all. No nose on the ring on the chalkboard (can you imagine that these days). I still had to make up the homework, pay for the book, go without a bookbag and go without glasses till they could be replaced (no one hour back then)and endure my parents rath at having to replace the glasses. It was not the easy way of getting out of my homework in fact it would have been much less painful if I had just taken care of my bookbag and put it where the dog could not get it.

Today I do not have home work but I do have Fibromyalsia and multiple other medical problems. If I do not heed the advice of my Doctor and my BODY and take good care of myself then I end up paying a greater price just like I did when I didn't take care of my bookbag. Today if I push to hard, do to much, get lazy about meds or eating right or the many other things I need to do; I end up by my body slowing down with more fatigue, pain, brainfog and all the other complications that come with my medical problems. Well I have gotten to excited and done too much and am now paying for it. For a few days not as much will be done, I haven't been on MSS or Facebook as much for a couple days, haven't been sleeping as well, but in spite of " the dog eating my homework" I'll get going again and once again try to learn to put balance back in my life.