Pets are expensive…

I took Annie Belle to the vet today for her yearly check-up which included listening to her heart, lungs, palpating her body for any signs of lumps, bumps and visibly pain. She weighed in at a whopping 50 lbs., down 6 lbs from last year. (Maybe I should feed her more) We talked about fleas and dew claws and how much of a sweetie she is. She got her blood drawn for a CBC and heartworm test, got a DA2P-P and a Bordetella booster. I bought a 6 month supply of Sentinel Heartworm pills and a 3 month supply of Vectra (a topical drug for fleas and ticks).

Grand total: $304.96…isn’t that amazing? I can hardly believe it. If dog care cost this much when I was 30 years younger, I would have had to get rid of my pets. Oh, she needs her teeth cleaned too…that’s another $404.00, all because she has greyhound teeth. I know she’s a collie, but her teeth are terrible and we (Vets included) jokingly say her teeth are like greyhound teeth. Apparently greyhounds are fed a restricted diet when they’re young, or maybe it happens before they’re born, which makes their teeth decay easily. Annie’s gums in the back of her mouth are inflamed, so they want to take some x-rays and maybe put in some antibiotic to help. That upped the cleaning $130.00.

I know this is a lot of money to fork out for my dogs teeth, but I sure would hate to have her snout get infected because I didn’t get her teeth cleaned, and then develop something even worse and costing much, much more. (been there, done that)

Anyway, we went to the Vet today to get a Bordetella booster because I’m dropping her off at Downtown Dogs on Wednesday before work for an evaluation. I’m going to use them for boarding when we go out of town now that Kira will be in Arizona. Kira happens to be the best pet sitter around. I used to have my sister watch them, but not anymore for reasons I will not mention here. I’ve heard all about Downtown Dogs because of Kira working there and I have faith in them. They were all very nice at the Halloween party, oohing and awwing over her.  I will feel much better knowing Annie is well cared for and having a blast, not to mention getting lots of hugs and kisses from everyone that works there, because face it, how could anyone NOT give her hugs and kisses!! (except for her family members who only like to yell at her and tell her to get away, you stink!) It will cost more that I would have paid a family member, but this way I won’t have to worry about Annie, I won’t have to stress out that my sister is being overworked, I won’t have to worry that I’ll ‘hear all about it’ from her, and Annie will have fun. So gee, what’s a little extra money well spent?!!

Grizzlies and a campsite…

For bear awareness week, the MN Zoo set up a couple tents, a backpack and a cooler in the bear exhibit. At 10:00 sharp, the bears were let out of their overnight digs and out into their transformed outdoor area. They spied those tents and went right after them, sniffing and pawing and finally walking over them trampling them flat. They ripped open one and found a big exercise ball (which they were not interested in at all) and a bunch of branches with some especially tasty leaves. Two of them sat down and started snacking on the branches. The third bear was off at the other campsite stomping on a cooler. He was jumping up and down trying so hard to get the cooler open and when he finally succeeded, he lost interest. I couldn’t see if there was anything in the cooler although we did notice apples near it, but they may have been in the tent. Last of all, one got after the backpack and shredded that to pieces. All together, it took them about 15 minutes to destroy everything, but only about 3 minutes to get the tents apart.

So, a word of warning, make sure your campsite is bear proof if you are camping anywhere near where bears are.

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Audio books…

I just discovered that I can download books from the library that are compatible with my iPod!!!

I’m so excited, now I can download a couple of books that I will be able to listen to on the train ride from Cincinnati.

Ahh, so many books…so little time.

Moon…

A mini storm front just moved through. There was the flash of lightning, the rumble of thunder, the drumming of rain, not to mention the frantic panting of my crazy collie Annie. David got some calm tabs and I stuffed them in her mouth then I went around closing windows and along the way grabbed a banana…yum! Once back upstairs, it started to hail, well we have a 1950’2 tub, toilet and sink on the deck and we were concerned they might get damaged, so we covered them up with cardboard and a rug. The Hibiscus plant got to stay on the porch tonight too. On the way back upstairs, I grabbed another calm tab, just to make sure she doesn’t have a heart attack or something. I looked out the window towards my mom’s because something colorful caught my eye…they have color changing lights!! Wow! They look pretty cool from here. While I was admiring the lights, my eye was drawn to this bright light in the sky, the moon. It’s not a full moon anymore, but pretty close. It’s tinted yellow and huge and just absolutely beautiful. South of my house is all clear sky, stars and a huge moon, while north of me is thick patchy clouds, clear sky and stars. Hmmm, strange night!