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A little sunshine, happy critters, one gimpy girl


Great news!  The sun is out, shining like the burning ball of radiation that it is.  Harley, for one, is loving it!

Terrible news.  A home highlighting project attempted Friday morning has gone horribly wrong.  I've got this Bozo the Clown meets Bride of Frankenstein thing going on there.  Not good. Hats.  Now that's an invention I can get behind.  Where do I send my money? 

My poor little Hoppsy is struggling these days.  She's had shaky back legs for months.  Years even.  They've never bothered her.  Vet couldn't find anything wrong.  Now, her back legs are stiff when she walks.  Worse is what's happened in the past few days to her front legs.  About a month ago, she developed a stutter step.  We thought she was doing this to adjust to the weird gait of her back legs.  Now, however, her front left paw is dragging slightly on the ground and occasionally knuckling over, tripping her.  This just started.  We were at the vet last Wednesday hoping for a definitive diagnosis of arthritis, which we didn't get.  She started taking prednisone, with the hope that whatever was pressing on whatever was due to inflammation and would shrink to improve her symptoms.  No change.  In fact, she's noticeably worse.  So now this new dragging/knuckling development will have us back at the vet tomorrow morning.  I'm not sure how much they'll be able to learn.  There is no MRI for dogs in the state, although the vet did say on Wednesday there's a Hospital on O'ahu that has recently been accepting pets.  That, however, would require a plane ride.  I've done lots of research on what might be causing this and none of it is good.  It's likely emanating from her Brachial plexus, cervical spine or cerebellum, with the likelihood of a tumor in either of those locations.  Of course, I'm just a layperson with a computer doing medical research (a very dangerous beast), so I really have no clue.  Could be a benign tumor.  The would be the best case scenario.  Still, she's hanging in there, as they all do.  She's my girl.  And she still chows down like there's no tomorrow, gooses the kitties, licks their faces after they eat and tries to steal their food, takes her brother chewy bones and loves me more than anything or anyone in the world, so that's heartening.  Here, Hoppsy and Doc pose for the camera.  Actually, they think I have a biscuit for them.  I don't know why.


Speaking of things heartening, I happened upon a website for an amazing place in Montana called Rolling Dog Ranch.  Check it out.  Watch the video.  They take in disabled and handicapped dogs, cats and horses, then care for them for life if needed. So awesome and inspiring.  Someday, I'll send them a big, fat check.






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