cool

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We still have her go in the crate when we leave, but we keep the door open and she can roam free while we’re gone. She knows the drill and goes in on her own most of the time.

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Yep, it’s been snowing here in Colorado.

Yesterday we shoveled about two feet of snow from the driveway to get a car back in the garage. Today, we shoveled another three+ feet of snow from the driveway. Some of that was windblown, but I think it’s safe to say we got a solid 3-4 feet of snow in about 24 hours.

No mail or package delivery the last 2 days - which I’m guessing means a few things that were expected to arrive before Christmas may not make it.

Since I work from home, being stuck inside for a couple of days isn’t the worst thing in the world for me. And the dog loves being able to go out and romp around in the drifts; some higher than she is. Check out the photos, isn’t she cute?

Unfortunately, the timing of the storm is pretty bad. With the Denver Airport (DIA) closed for nearly 3 days, and high traffic holiday travel days at that, folks coming and going have had their travel schedule turned upside-down on them.

My parents were due to fly in today, they were able to re-book and will now be coming in mid-day on the 25th. My in-laws were due to fly in tomorrow (and had even checked in online), but even though the DIA will be open again when their flight is due to arrive, their flight was cancelled.

The plane for their flight is stuck in Denver and won’t make it to Minneapolis in time for their flight’s departure. Unfortunately, they were unable to re-book their flight (the first available was after they were due to return), so the entire visit has been postponed. We’re very disappointed.

There are a lot of folks who are worse off than we are though. Steve O’Grady ended up scratching his return to Denver before his trip home for the holidays, and way too many people were stranded at the airport or are unable to get home.

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Bathe Noonan at 9pm

into the Quick Add box. Google Calendar saw the ‘noon’ in there and set up an appointment to ‘Bathe an’ at 12pm (noon) and set ‘9pm’ as the location.

Kinda funny I guess, since it’s easily fixable by editing the event. Definitely something to watch for if you’re creating events through SMS though.

Yes, I took the time to send in a bug report.

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I played golf in short sleeves on Sunday - a beautiful fall afternoon. Today, we get our first snow of the season. I’ve talked about the weather more since moving to Denver than I ever did before.

Here are a few photos… the dog is completely unfazed by the white stuff.

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It was nice out, so I decided to prop open the back screen door so the pup could come and go as she pleased. 15 minutes later, there was a bird in the kitchen, flying into the windows as it tried to get out.

Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea after all…

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It’s been a while since I posted any photos of Noonan, here are a couple recent shots.

She’s doing quite well, though today she seems a bit bored and is coming in to play every 5 minutes or so. I need to go run her a bit a lunch.

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My poor pup got sick last night. She doesn’t like thunder storms, so we aren’t sure if it was stress from the thunder storm last night while we were out or perhaps a bacterial thing from swimming in the creek last weekend. Either way, she was one sick puppy last night. The good news is that she got a clean bill of health today from the vet.

The vet gave me two helpful tips for checking to see if a dog is dehydrated:

1. Lift up the skin on their back between the shoulders, if it snaps right back - good, if it stays up or comes back down slowly, they need water.
2. Feel their gums, if they feel slick and wet - good, if they feel dry, give the dog water.

Overall though, she’s doing great - learning more tricks and commands all the time and generally being a great addition to the family. Here are a couple of photos from the last few months. I need to get back into the habit of taking photos more often.

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Took the pup up to the park today at lunch to run, run, run with an Italian Greyhound named Sophie. Noonan at full speed can keep up with Sophie, but Sophie probably has another gear I haven’t seen yet. Regardless, she’ll sleep well this afternoon.

Sophie’s owner is also a photography buff (much more experienced than I am) so we brought our kits up with us and took a few shots today. Here they are in action - run Forrest!

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The pup went in for her population control surgery on Wednesday and we brought her home again yesterday morning. She seems to be doing quite well recovery wise. The incision was about 1.5 inches long and is closed with three layers of internal dissovable sutures - no stitches that need to be removed. Her belly is shaved, as is a spot on her left front leg where they put in the IV. The nurses at the vet hospital put a little bandana on her - cute!

The only problem is that while staying overnight at the vet hospital, she got the runs. The guess is that this was probably due to stress (of being away from home) and will pass quickly - I hope it does.

Here are some photos from the last month or so. She’s in that gangly teenager stage right now - kinda funny lookin.

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1. Lie down
2. I put a liver treat on each of her paws
3. I tell her to leave it
4. She sits there in agony, finally turning her head away from the treats - waiting for about 30-45 seconds
5. I tell her ‘OK’
6. She scarfs up the liver treats with abandon

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On a tip from another Aussie owner, we put a service bell by each door and were teaching Noonan to ring the bell when she needed to go outside. This went pretty well the first couple weeks, then she decided that the bells were great toys. Instead of leaving them by the door, she carried them around the house and played with them.

About 2 weeks ago, I put them away to see if she’d lose interest over time. 3 days ago, I put them back and found out that the interest was definitely still there.

While we were eating dinner a few nights ago, the pup went and got one of the bells to play with. She’s done this quite a bit, so it wasn’t really anything I thought twice about. Partway through dinner, I looked over at her and saw that she was playing with something that looked like part of the bell. Hmm, perhaps not so good.

Sure enough, she’d somehow gotten it apart. I found 3 pieces of the bell but could find the fourth - the threaded top that holds it all together. Yep, she’d probably eaten it.

I got the other bell and screwed the top piece out to get a better idea of what was in my pup’s stomach. It didn’t have any real sharp edges, and I figured the best thing to do would be to let nature take its course - but I decided to call the vet just in case.

My vet’s office was closed and the recording had the number for a local animal hospital, so I gave them a call. I spoke with an assistant who also thought it probably wasn’t a big deal, but then got a call back from that assistant a few minutes later.

Apparently she had spoken to a doctor there who said that there was potential for zinc poisoning (if the piece of metal contained zinc), and that we should make the pup throw up. To do this, we had to feed her a 1.5 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide - yuck!

We did it and sure enough, in about 10 minutes the pup emptied her stomach for us. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any metal in what came back up. I called the animal hospital back and they told me it was imperative that I bring her in right away. Ok, on our way.

The lady on the phone had told me that they would give her an IV to make the pup throw up - which made little sense to me since she’d already tossed her cookies when we gave her the hydrogen peroxide. I showed the vet what she’d swallowed and vet kinda looked at me and told me it would probably pass on its own. Ok, good to hear - but then why were we told to rush in?

The vet offered to do an x-ray so we could see if the metal was indeed in there before we discussed what to do next. Funny how well metal shows up on an x-ray.

So the little metal object was in there, but it had already passed through her stomach into the top of her intestine. That meant that the only option to go get it was surgical. Yikes! The vet recommended, and we agreed, that it would be best to let it pass on its own.

At no time during the visit were we told how much anything was going to cost, and to be fair, I didn’t ask. However when we got the bill, I was still a little taken aback.

The $180 for the x-ray ($60 to read the x-ray, c-mon) was a more than I expected, but it was the charge for the physical that really irked me. Noonan had a physical when she got her final shots the day before and certainly didn’t need a physical, nor had I agreed that she should be given one.

I came out of there very glad that the pup wasn’t in any real danger, but very frustrated by the conflicting stories I’d gotten from the lady on the phone1 and the vet2.

Sure enough, the little metal piece made an appearance around noon the next day and the pup was no worse for wear.

This was by far the most excitement our pup had put us through. I guess it was an expensive lesson for the new dog parents (it was certainly frustrating), but all’s well that ends well - right?

Maybe the excitement is just beginning. Today, while taking the pup on a walk as it was starting to snow, she decided to take her first swim in a little pond in a nearby development.

1. Who told me how I needed to bring in the puppy right away.
2. Who clearly didn’t think there was any real danger, and was inclined from the beginning to just let it pass.

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Noonan got her last shots today, we can now take her to the dog park, etc. Very cool.

The vet says that most dogs will grow to be twice the weight they are at 16 weeks. A mini-Aussie is normally between 15-25 pounds fully grown, but our pup was 14.4 pounds today (at 16 weeks, 3 days). I guess she was the biggest of her litter.

She’s learning well - we’ve got sit, lie down, shake, fetch and give pretty well covered. We’re still working on consistency with come here and stay. She’s also become very social and outgoing in most situations - she was running up to everyone at the vet’s office.

I need to take more photos - I’ve been too busy w/ work lately.

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