Sorry for the delay

Sorry for the delay in getting you my Gotcha Day list. My mom hasn't been feeling well lately and so she's been neglecting the blog a bit - but never fear, not me! We have been doing lots of snuggling. I don't understand what is wrong with that stomach of hers. She says she has no appetite. This is a concept that is totally foreign to this Labrador! I hope she gets better soon.

Gotcha Day

Hey guys, guess what?!!? One year ago today I adopted my mom. She thinks it happened the other way around, but who is she kidding? She saw this picture of me and it was all over.

This is the first picture my mom took of me, one year ago today:

Today is also my barkday! I am THREE-ish. I think this means I should get my own car. I'm working on a list which I will present to Mom later this week.

omdog

My mom went out today and when she got back she put a funny tag on my collar. She says it's my dog license. At first I thought that was very silly, because I've been being a dog just fine without a license... but then I realized that Monday is my Adoptinashun Day and since I was 2-ish a year ago, that means I will be 3-ish. And in dog years that's 21-ish, so OF COURSE I need a license to show when I go out to the bar to drink pawtinis. Do you suppose it also means Mom will finally let me drive the car? (Not after drinking pawtinis, of course!)

Cold?

My damn-Yankee-but-a-Red-Sox-fan of a mom has been laughing lately because people in lower Alabama think it is cold outside and she is still wearing her fall jacket. I don't wear clothes, but I think the weather has been pretty nice, though the temperature does fall at night. The weather man this morning said that there will be a low in the mid-20s tonight and there will be wind, so I expect even Mom will turn the heat on to at least 68F inside and I probably won't want to go out and bark at that drainage easement as much as I usually do.

Mom says that she used to live in Alaska and when she was there, she didn't consider it cold until it hit -30F. She also says that she was colder when she lived in Boston than she ever was in Alaska, because she didn't dress as well for the weather and had to wait outside for the bus to get around.

It sounds like it's cold where lots of you pups are, though, so keep yourself and your humans warm!

Two posts in one day?!?!

I'm sure you guys all remember my mad knitting skillz but if you don't, just click that link, then come back here. I'll wait.

Well, for some reason, my mom didn't like my style of knitting and she undid all my work and made it into one of these:


(Personally, I think my Uncle Alex would have appreciated my knitting more.)

FURniture

While we were at my grandpawrents house, I was introduced to a new kind of FURniture - the chair:

It was so cozy - sort of like napping in a hug. I wanted my mom to take it home with us but she said it wouldn't fit in the Fit with me. So I think Mom should get me a chair, so I can nap there as well as on my sofa, but she says they are expensive and she'd rather get a LABseat that matches my sofa. LABseat? That sounds pretty good too.

I feel GREAT!

Hey guys! How are you? I am feeling just fine. 100%! Fabulous!

My mom has been freaking out because apparently there are some worms living in my heart, but she feels much better now that she's talked to the V-E-T. The V-E-T says that because my tests only showed adult worms and no baby worms in the blood, and because I am a young and healthy boy with lots of energy and no symptoms, we can do the slow-kill heartworm treatment, which is much less painful. Get this - it's exactly the same as what we've been doing for the last year! I just need to take that yummy Heartgard stuff and while it won't kill the adult worms, it will sterilize them and shorten their life span, as well as keep any new worms from moving in. And this means I don't have to stay in my crate for a month!

The V-E-T thinks that when I was tested last January, I'd probably just been infected so there weren't any adult wormies yet. So since I've been on Heartgard since I adopted my mom in mid-January, we've probably been killing them off slowly since then. The V-E-T expects me to make a full recovery. Mom and the V-E-T will be keeping an eye on me and if I start to show any signs of symptoms then they'll start the fast-kill treatment. But I am going to continue feeling 100% Full of Energy like I always do!

Don't panic! (I've already done that.)

Beckett's mom here. Today was Beckett's annual examination at the V-E-T, and we got quite a shock when his heartworm test came back positive. Beckett hasn't shown any symptoms of feeling anything but his usual exuberant self. His adoption paperwork shows a negative heartworm test last January, and he has been on Heartgard since he was adopted last January. The vet's office has records of me buying 12 doses and since we used the last one in December, I can't have forgotten to give him one, so I am hoping that this is a false positive.

Our regular vet was on vacation but will be back Friday, so we'll go back and get the test repeated. The test today was a snap test, and I'm going to request that the second test be sent to an outside lab. The first order of business is to be absolutely sure of the diagnosis, and there's no point in being hysterical about things until we know what things are.

In the meantime, we would appreciate your authentic positive false positive thoughts. Thanks!

Deep thoughts by Beckett

Windy trash collection days are the best. There are so many great feastables just lying on the sidewalk, waiting for me to discover them on my walkies!

I'm baaaaack!

Mom and I had a good trip back to Alabama. I was pretty tired from playing with my cousins and slept most of the way. Speaking of playing, here are some pictures of me and my cousin Carrie playing Tug. She's smaller than me, but scrappy. We had many fine Tug battles and destroyed not a few stuffies in the process.