Nikki is 5 Months Old!

Well, it's official. My little Nikki turned 5 months old today! We celebrated this momentous event by taking lots of pictures and videos of her, which hopefully I'll be able to upload tonight to my website. Even got a clip of her running in the back yard, which is something she loves to do, especially after I water the grass.

This is supposed to be the beginning of the "difficult" times, the teen years. The problem is, she was never a hugely obedient puppy so I can just imagine what I'm in for!

Yesterday, I took Nikki for a ride in the car so I could get some errands done. I thought she'd enjoy it. Nope, doesn't appear that she did. I had to get out of the car briefly (3 minutes or so) and that set her off. When I came back, she had twisted herself all up in the harness and seat belt! Her leg was caught in it! It was very hard to untangle her. After that errand was done, we drove to a couple of other destinations. She ended up throwing up, eating a "hot meal" as my aunt calls it, and then snarled herself back up in her harness and seat belt! All in all, not a red-letter day!

Callie Update

Just heard from Dr. Malo, Callie's vet. Her bloodwork and x-rays look great so we're on to the next step, the biopsy. I need to bring her in Tuesday AM before 9AM, so no food after midnight. And then we'll go from there.

Callie seemingly is fine. She's her usual adorable self, so that's good. She was jumpy when I first brought her home - I think she kept thinking I was going to take her back to the vet. I'm so glad that I brought her home and didn't leave her there. They didn't get the test results until today. Can you imagine her sitting in a cage at the vet for several days? Too traumatic! Pets - especially cats - should stay at home as much as possible.

DOG COUGH GOING AROUND

HEALTH ALERT: Nikki's trainer told us that there is a dog cough going around, especially at dog parks, training kennels and kennels in general. I don't know if this is limited to Orange County or if it's also true for Los Angeles County, but it might be smart to keep your dog away from these places for now.

Nikki's 2nd Training Class

The photo to the left was taken last Monday. I'm sure she's even bigger now. She's 19 weeks old.

Nikki had her 2nd puppy training class at PetsMart on Saturday. There were only two puppies this time; Nikki and the other Golden, Dakota. Nikki and Dakota were delighted to see each other and wanted to play right away. But first, we had class. Nikki was SO excitable, that it was hard to get her to calm down. What finally worked, might you ask? Hey, if you saw the video of her in her last training class, you already know the answer! Give her a treat and she'll do almost anything. So we worked on Sit, Down, Stay, walking on a leash around the store. Very interesting! It's a lot for me to remember ... palm up when luring her to Sit, palm down when luring her to Down .... We have lots of homework!

The puppies got to play. We kept the leashes on this time, but pretty soon couldn't hold on to them. Nikki was having a wonderful time and played like an old pro! She would leap over the much smaller puppy and pretty much had the upper hand. Suddenly, for a short period of time, it reversed, and Dakota chased her around like he did last week. But that didn't last long. I brought the camera again but didn't use it.

I found out that this PetsMart in HB on Edinger is the only one that has an enclosed area for training. So we're lucky that way!

After class, while I was trying to juggle her, the equipment I haul to class and the treats that I was buying, people were coming up to her, making a fuss over her and petting her. She loved it, of course! A couple came up to me and cooed over her, telling me that they had an 11 month old Golden - or was it 13? Anyway, they asked me, "Aren't they just the best dogs?" And I of course said, "Yes." They turned to each other and said, "Isn't she cute? Do you remember when our dog was this small?"

I wanted to laugh - or was that cry? Nikki is a pretty big dog already. It was interesting to hear her referred to as small! I guess it's all relative. :-)

Callie Cat Goes to the Vet

As some of you may know, I've been worried about Callie's health for several months. She's now 11 years old (that's a guess as she was abandoned by her former owners 10 years ago) and is a senior cat - but don't tell her that! She's perky and playful and gets along with Max again, although Joey Bear tries to be macho with her, the little brat.

I took her in to the vet today and I was happy to hear that she had gained weight - about 8 oz. She's back up to 10 lbs. (I can't remember what her original weight was - I used to call her my little chubette. Very cute.) Callie does have something up her right nostril which the vet tried to remove. Even though she didn't put up any fuss at all, he couldn't get at it. It could be a foreign object (like a piece of cat litter), a fungus or a tumor. So I had a big decision to make. Work it up (expensive) or play a wait-and-see-what-happens game. I decided to do the work-up. Callie had blood tests and a chest x-ray today; I should get the results over the weekend. The x-ray was to make sure that if it was a tumor that it hasn't already spread to her lungs. The vet offered to keep her overnight at no charge but I said, no, I'll pick her up. Callie is sitting on my desk as I write this - very happy, I'm sure, that I brought her home! When I picked her up, one of the techs said that Callie was so docile that she could do her x-ray without any help from anyone else, I guess which is not the case in over 90% of kitties!

If the tests come out clear, we'll go ahead and do a biopsy. If it is a tumor, that is NOT a good place to have it, and options depend on what type of cancer it is. If it's a foreign object, no problem! If it's a fungus, there are pills. So think good thoughts for Callie!

I posted a new video of Callie on my website. Long download but she is just adorable in it.
http://southcoastdesigner.com/web-content/videos/callie_825.mov

Nikki ... Flowers

As many of you know, Nikki is now 19 weeks old. She's seems to be quite big for her age - and she was the runt of the litter! My three cats have not warmed up to this bouncing, joyous pup so, for the time being, ours is a segregated household. She had her first training class last week, so now I just have to keep up with the homework! Soon I hope to introduce her to the ocean. That should be very amusing!

Love this photo. I had discovered other features of my digital camera so had lots of fun taking tons of pictures the other day.

Yes, I enhanced the picture in Photoshop. Besides removing the blue color cast and lightening up the shadows, I also tried some other "tricks" to enhance the flower's beauty.