She's home, she's home, she's home!!!!!

YEY!!!!!

Molly came back tonight and we're playin' and playin' and playin'!

Summer put her hackles up when she saw Molly and tried to act all tough and everything - but she's always done that so mama was watching her and smacked her on the head a few times so she knew it wasn't OK to terrorize Molly. (Summer is Molly's dog mother, and she's been treating her like this since we were puppies, can't get her to explain why! Do any of you human moms out there have kids you want to kill? I dunno.)

But once Summer growled at her and bared her teeth, and Molly peed on the floor and rolled over on her back, it was all good. Uncle Nelson sniffed Molly's butt and officially decided she was OUT of season, so that's another plus.

After all those festivities were over, Mama sat down on the couch for some cuddle time- and Molly got so excited, she threw her head up in the air and smacked mama's lip into her tooth so hard Mama's gonna have a fat lip! (Setters have really hard skulls!) Then Uncle Nelson got jealous, and he started barking, and I wanted to play so *I* started barking, and Mama just gave up and threw us all out in the yard!

Later, we ate dinner, then laid around in the kitchen so Mama would trip over us while she made white chicken chili and cucumber salad. Now we're laying around watching Law and Order, so Molly can howl at the opening music!

Life is good!

Off to play some more,
Emily!

Dear Diary: It's raining again!

Does it ever stay dry around here? It's the FIRST DAY OF SUMMER FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!!!!!

It was sunny this AM and Summer and I ran around the yard for hours - but just when mama was ready to come out, play with us and mow the lawn, the skies opened up!

I WANT TO PLAY BALL!!!!!

I am so disappointed, I went down into my crate in the basement with my pawtop, and I am not coming out until the sun is shining again. Or Molly comes home. Whichever happens first.

Check back later, I will post again if the sun comes out, if not, I'll be searching the web for deals on bones.

Grumpy girl,
Emily.

Hey! My diary's featured for the day - and I'm so excited!!!!!

What a wonderful way to be welcomed to Dogster! When I got the e-mail that my diary was going to be in the big list on the front page, I just ran happy laps around the backyard for a while! Really, it's just so cool, I can't say thank you enough.

So I just thought I'd check in to update you on a few loose ends from previous posts.

Kinda been putting off talking about last weekend's show. It didn't go so well. It poured on Sat., Mama was late to the ring and the judge was so mad at her he didn't even look at me. And on Sun., I lost to one of my cousins from Ohio. Mama actually cried - not because I didn't get my championship, but because she spent gas money again and came away without the point. Now we have to continue and spend MORE money that she doesn't have. Mama just doesn't understand how we could go to Arizona and beat HUNDREDS of dogs two days in a row and get 10 points like THAT - and now we can't get one little point when it's only me and one other dog! I will never understand dog shows, and I don't think mama will either.

Still, as much of a bummer as it was, on Sat night, we were camping at the showgrounds with all the RV people in our little conversion van. Mama put up the awning, set out some camp chairs, put out food and groomed me in the setting sun. Friends came by to visit - I got to cuddle with lots of folks - and then the man next to us pulled out a set of bagpipes - and gave a little concert! People all came around him and he played for about 45 minutes! Then it got dark, and there were fireworks over in town and we could see them really clearly from right where we were! So the weekend was not all doom and gloom - we had fun in spite of the losing part.

Uncle Nelson had his staples out 2 days ago - and he is back to being himself now. He and mama are a lot closer right now. She wants him around her more, and he's back to sitting in her lap all the time. No small thing - cause Uncle Nelson still weighs a hundred pounds! Yes, it all ended well, and the only thing permanently damaged was mama's credit card.

Molly is still at Grandmas. I really want her to come home soon, I miss having somebody my own age to play with.

And lastly, I am really in the poophouse right now. I confess, I was still kinda mad over being in my crate all those hours, and when I get mad, I just can't help it. I poop in the house. And not just on the floor, no, my MISSION when I do this is to find a pile of clean or dirty laundry lying somewhere and poop right there. Putting in on the carpet is nice and all, but on clothes? Especially CLEAN clothes? Well mama just goes nutty! And she will pay attention to me for a LONG time after that!!!!! I got her TWICE today already! I've been storing it all up - I got a dirty dog blanket waiting to be washed in the basement - and then.....tada.....probably the coup of my pooping career - I got a DRY CLEAN ONLY Jones NY dress that had fallen off its hanger in the closet!!!!! Mama couldn't find that one for HOURS but she could smell it, and when she finally located the mess........woohoo, I am definitely "No, No Bad Girl" today!

Life is good!

Thank you for visiting - and drop me a line if you'd like!

Emily

When mama works too much :(

OK so I know the TV station pays mama enough money so she can feed us all and have our house for us. And I pretty much know she's gotta go there every day except weekends.

But sometimes things there get crazy, and I don't like it one bit. She says that a few weeks ago there were "layoffs" - and there were only 4 people left who do her same kind of job. She was really, really upset, because she's been through this before, and she sat down and cuddled me and told me I had to be a really patient girl. She said with only four people, that she would be working longer days, weird hours and working lots of extra days because when somebody had to take a day off, or a vacation, there was nobody to cover for them. Well, it didn't SOUND so bad then.

But yesterday, we got the first taste of what it's going to be like. Somebody was sick, somebody else had the day off, and the other person had just worked overnights. So when mama went to work yesterday, she discovered she was the only producer there THE WHOLE DAY! She got there at 9AM and didn't leave until 11PM at night. Even that was a little earlier than she expected! Because the overnight person came in early.

So I went in my crate at 8:30 in the morning, and sometime in the late afternoon, grams came over to give us dinner, and let us run around in the yard for a while, and then I went back in my crate and didn't get out again until 11:30PM! WOW! That was a VERY LONG TIME! And I missed her so much, I wanted to hug and kiss her and give her my ball to play with, but all mama wanted to do was go to bed. Gee that's not fair, I'd been snoozing all day long! I kept checking to see if she wanted to play every couple of hours. I dropped the ball on her head cause that's the nicest way to wake her up, but she was just so sleepy she was kinda getting really irritated with me.

When it got light out, I woke her up like always, and after we went outside, she went BACK to bed for an hour. And now, she's getting ready to go to work again!

Tomorrow, mama says she's working later in the day - not starting until 3pm and staying late again - then all next week she's working OVERNIGHT. When will we eat? How do I ever know when she wants to play? Do we still sleep when it's dark?

I don't like this. I am going to have to learn to be a good girl in the house so I can stay loose like Summer and Nelson. That way it won't be so lonely. But it's just so hard not to tear up books and open the cupboard doors to get to that yummy smelling trash. And I HAVE to bark at the cats when they come by!

Why can't mama just stay home with us all the time!

I don't understand,
Emily.

C-Day! Well, we'll see anyway

I, Emily, am under a GREAT deal of stress tonight. Tomorrow, we are going to a small dogshow. And if I win, I will become a champion. That alone is a lot of pressure on a little girl. Apparently this is pretty important to humans!

But that's not all. There's this thing at this show called a "Best Bred-by Competition" That means that they're going to have a show within a show - and there will be a "Best in Show" from the bred-by classes in all breeds!

Lots of gobbledy gook, I know. Long story short - the breeder has to handle the dog they bred - and they have to own the dog too! That means no champions can be part of this! And do you know, last year I was just 7 months old, and I was the best "bred by" Irish Setter - and when mama and I went into the bred-by sporting group - I took fourth place! WOW. Puppies just do not DO that.

So, this year the pressure is really on. I can't let mama down. And there's another big reason. The Best in Show bred by dog wins a thousand dollars!!!!! Holy Cow!

Lots of people don't know that you just about NEVER win any money in dog shows. They think it's like horse racing - or golf or tennis or something.....Nope. Our crazy humans do it all for a 39 cent ribbon. We do it for the treats, the trips in the van, and the showing off part!

Well if I can do this tomorrow, I will help to pay for Uncle Nelson's surgery! Is it too much to hope for? Mama says she is not expecting anything at all - just that it would be nice if I would win on one of the days. But I could really HELP if I pulled it off!

I'm gonna show my heart out! I love Uncle Nelson, and I'm so glad he's better.

Got to go get my beauty sleep - Up at 5 am, you know!

Love and licks,
Emily

Bloat: Uncle Nelson is better, and I learned to do- something really COOL!

Whew!

I have to tell you, we were really scared that we were going to be an all girl household there for a few days. But Uncle Nelson is doing great - and acting more like himself every day. He made it through the first 48 hours after his bloat surgery with no heart problems, which meant he was going to make it! He's still taking lots of drugs, and eating something called a "bland diet". He says no matter if it's bland, he's still not getting enough of it!

For a day or two, his eyelids were all droopy, and he slept a lot. But then, he started scaring mama to death by jumping up on the bed - running around, and doing pretty much everything a doggie with staples in his tummy shouldn't be doing! Besides - he's NINE! What's all this running around stuff in the first place?

Anyway, it's really good to have him home. We have somebody to protect us all again, and it made us all realize just how much we need him around here. I've been real good - I haven't jumped on him, or stolen his spot on the couch at all.

I learned a new thing this week - and it's so cool, I have to tell all of you so you can teach this to your doggies! Did you know that if you jump on the screen door hard enough, it will open and you can get outside by yourself? Really! I was so juiced about this that I went on backyard patrol all by myself and saw that the evil orange and white cat was out there. Well, there's this hole that Emmit dug partway under the fence last year, and I thought, "maybe, just MAYBE I can squeeze myself out that hole!"

And I did! I tore off after that cat down towards the dead end and the grape vineyard! And meantime, poor mama's inside, thinking all four of us are in there, safe and sound! The little girl from across the street rang the doorbell, and told mama one of us was out. Since mama didn't know if it was me or Molly ( and couldn't understand how one of us got out anyway) she was calling us both. Well I am a pretty good girl, so I turned and went back. I ran right by mama in the street and went right up on the front porch and sat down to wait for her. The neighbors were laughing cause mama was out there in her jammies, looking pretty stupid, I might add. "She knows where she lives", they said.

Mama gave me the evil eye and motioned for me to come to her. So I did, really slow, rolled over on my back at her feet and gave her the pulled up paw. It was a GREAT performance! Mama wasn't buying it, but the neighbors loved it! They're not dog people, but I think I can turn them around.

Anyway, last night mama was bringing some groceries inside with some help from another doggie friend. She had the baby gate up, but the screen door was propped open. Well, no stupid 3 foot high baby gate is keeping me in! When nobody was lookin', I sailed over it and headed right out the front door. It only took Mama 2 minutes to figure out I was outside - and she came out loaded for bear!

Geeze, I was only out on the front lawn! There was no cat to chase. So I came right back. Mama was mumbling stuff about her blood pressure and not needing this poop, and her friend made her go get a dog cookie and give it to me for coming back so nice! I like this friend.

So now, everytime mama tries to go outside, I lunge for the door! There's LOTS of cool stuff to see out there, and then when I come back I get cookies! I haven't made it out since last night, but I"m going to keep trying!

Well I have to get my beauty sleep! I have a show this weekend and I have to look my very best!

Love and licks,

Emily

Pawsitive prayers needed please!

Things are not right here at home tonight - Mama's very quiet and tired, and there's an empty place on the couch. That's because Uncle Nelson is in the hospital, recovering from bloat surgery this morning.

It was SO weird. Molly is in season, so mama asked Grams to take Nelson for a bit. He gets really upset when girls smell really REALLY good for those 3 or so days - and mama always worries that he will bloat! So off Nelson went to be safe at Grams, and guess what?

HE BLOATED ANYWAY!!!!

To make matters worse, mama's cell phone wasn't getting Gram's phone calls very early this AM. So Grams called a dog friend that lives a few minutes from us, and she drove over in her jammies, walked right in and yelled up the stairs for mama to get up cause Nelson was bloating. Some way to wake up!!!!

If you don't know what bloat is - well, it's bad. It's real big medical name is Gastric Torsion Volvutus, and it means that your tummy starts filling up with a whole bunch of gas and it can't get out. Eventually, if it isn't treated really quickly, the stomach gets so big it presses on the internal organs until they fail, and the stomach can flip over at either end, or in the middle. Once that happens, boy you're in big trouble! Many owners of dogs with big, deep chest cavities carry a "bloat tube" with them, and have learned to thread it down the throat, and not into the lungs. It can save a dog, but not if the stomach flips over. Passing a tube doesn't mean you don't need a vet, it just buys you some time.

We had to stay home, but Mama rushed to meet Grams at the ER. Uncle Nelson was in shock, but still walking. He had thrown up food a few times in the car on the way over, and that's a good sign - because it means the esophaegus is not twisted. But the xray didn't look so good. Nelson's stomach looked HUGE, mama said, and worse, there was a little stomach AND a huge stomach! What that means is his stomach had twisted 180 degrees in the middle - like what happens when you make balloon animals! Depending on how long it had been like that, the tissue there would start dying. The vets got Nelson's electrolytes back in order, got some fluids into him and did something called a "lavage" - french for "wash". They fill up his tummy with warm saline to get all the gas out through that tube, and see if the stomach will untwist by itself. It didn't. So into surgery he went.

The vet saw what was what - the stomach was bruised a bit, but not permanently damaged. The spleen was a little worse, but still not bad enough to take out. Then the vet told mama he felt a mass in Nelson's tummy. Mama said she almost freaked out then and there until the vet told her he went all the way into the stomach to see what the thing was - and it turned out to be a ball of grass and hair.

Uncle Nelson must be a cat - he got a hairball! - geeze, I had no idea !

Once everything was all fixed up in there, they tacked the stomach to the Nelson's chest wall, so it can't flip anymore. So far, so good. Now we just have to wait while he wears a heart monitor for 48 hours to make sure all that pressure didn't damage it enough to make it beat funny. So I guess Uncle Nelson isn't quite out of the woods yet, but things look pretty good, but we will take all the prayers we can get until he comes home Friday night.

Mama wants you to know a few things about how to spot bloat - in case it ever happens to your doggie. Now, she's not a vet, you know, but she HAS gone through this twice now, and always tells the puppy buyers what to look for. Your doggie may show some symptoms, just a few, or none at all!

- pacing, heavy panting, can't seem to get comfortable.

- refuses food and water

- crying or whining

- Abdomen feels large, and stretched tight, like the skin on a drum.

- Gums are whitish

- Trying to throw up, but brings up nothing, or just a little whitish or yellow foam

If you see one or two of these - RUN, don't walk to your emergency vet's office, cause you don't have a lot of time. If it happens at night, do NOT wait until the morning to see if it goes away. Your doggie could die by then! If you're wrong, the worst you're going to do is pay for an office visit and an xray, and find out that Wilbur ate an entire 8 pound bag of dog food or something. Better safe than sorry.

So please say some prayers for my Uncle Nelson. He's the man of the house, and Mama wouldn't know what to do without him. Neither would I, he plays with me even though he's nine years old! He has a page here if you'd like to see him!

Nighty night,
Emily

Training Us: Back to the Beginning

We went for a ride tonight. And this is one of those human stories where you have to go back six steps to tell the one thing you really need to tell!

We had to go pick up a bark collar. The bark collar is for Uncle Nelson. Uncle Nelson is at Gram's house because Molly is in season. Uncle Nelson screams like all intact dogs do when a girl dog is most fertile! That lasts about 3 days. You think you need progesterone tests to know when to breed? Uh-uh. Save yourself the money, we'll send you Uncle Nelson.

Anyway, Uncle Nelson is NOT happy to be at Grams. He likes it there, really, he gets to play in the yard with Zoe & Wendy Jane. But all those boys have to stay apart at night, so he's in a big crate by himself, when he's supposed to be at the foot of Mama's bed, pinning his ears back looking at Molly and drooling. So he cries. It's so funny - big old Uncle Nelson, tipping the scales at 100 pounds - making this peeping noise like a baby chick or something. Then sometimes, it works itself into a howl, and goes through that roo-roo noise all the way down a few octaves. Sure, it's less noise than he'd be making here, to say nothing of the possibility of having an "oops" litter. But Grams is worried it might disturb the neighbors.

(See how long it took to tell you why we took this ride tonight? Jeepers, the lives of humans sure are complicated!)

So mama called our friend and mentor Patty to see if she could borrow a bark collar for Uncle Nelson. ( I might point out here that OUR bark collar is on ME right now, because I simply could not be good and keep my mouth shut. But I'll tell you a secret. Mama takes the battery out, and thinks she's outsmarting us. I'll be good with it out for a while, but once in a while, Mama has to put it back in so I get the idea that bad things CAN happen when I bark too much. So Uncle Nelson isn't in much danger of getting zapped repeatedly over there. Maybe just once.)

Patty was teaching obedience class tonight, and suggest we drive over there to get the collar. So off we went, back to the dog club where Mama started doing all this dog stuff a good 15 years ago. Deja vu. There's a class full of brand new dog people just fighting that losing battle to get their first dog under control. They haven't figured out yet that it's the PEOPLE who are there to be trained. They're just working on a little control exercise - learning to stand over their dog when it gets REALLY out of control, and is about to do something VERY naughty.

Mama's chuckling. There's all the usual types. The talkers - "OK Rex, now don't move....no no Rex....please don't do that.....get back where I put you....oh no, that's not......now drop that lead.....please Rex, mama wants you to stand right here...."

There's the dog that's controlling the owner completely. And the dog that's completely repressed by the owner. The owner that's brought the 150 pound dog in with a pinch collar on. The socializer who's so busy talking to other folks in the class, she's not noticing that her puppy is wandering around at the end of an 8 foot lead, and is about to get eaten by the dog in the pinch collar! And the teacher's pet - this person has TAKEN beginning obedience before and is looking down their nose at the rest of these rank beginners - until the new puppy decides Mom needs some humiliating.

Patty's dealing with them all - just like she did with us 15 years ago. Mama doesn't have to come to this class anymore. But she's also smart enough to know that this is the ONLY class she can skip. She can train us to sit, down, stay and come. And Molly can sit up. Show off. Anything else, all bets are off.

I can read Mama's mind. She's thinking about all the hard work they did with MacKenzie, Quinn and Uncle Nelson. How they were so well rounded and the current generation just knows how to look pretty, run around a ring and forget how to be housebroken. That makes her sad. She wishes there was more time to get back to some of these things because they made Mackie & Quinny so happy. Uncle Nelson tells us about his two agility titles all the time! And I see pictures of his mama hunting - looking REALLY happy.

Mama thinks we would be so much happier if she could train us to do all those things. And she's pretty hard on herself about it too.

So I sat on mama's foot when Patty told all those other dogs to sit. It made mama smile. I nuzzled up my head under her hand and told her we should go. Then I got right up into my crate in the van without being asked. I got a cookie and told I was a good girl.

Mama does OK with us. We might not have all kinds of titles behind our names, but we are the most loved dogs on our street, maybe in the whole world! And we didn't have to be trained to love Mama back. We just do.

I did jump up and steal her sandwich out of her hand when we got home though.

HALT!

(I just thought that would sound good!)

Emily.

My Introduction to Dogster!

Hello fellow dogs and dog lovers,

My name is Emily, and I have started this diary to share the adventures in my amazing life! You'll have to forgive me, I'm just a tad full of myself at this moment.

See, I have a big long name: "Shadagee Caught Red Handed". Some of you probably know that means I am an AKC registered doggie. I am also one of those doggies that goes to dog shows and competes in something called "conformation". It seems I've done pretty well lately, because there are tons of ribbons, rosettes and other sorts of loot around here. It makes my mom happy, personally, I just want to chew it up.

Well anyway, we are trying really hard to add something to that big long name. Mom says we are only one point away from adding the letters "CH" to the front of all those other words. And THAT, my friends, is a big deal. Or so they tell me.

Last month, mom and I got in an airplane and flew to Phoenix, Arizona. (The whole plane ride thing? That's a story for another time! We don't like flying and try really hard to never do it, but if you absolutely have to take your doggie, mom has new respect for Continental Airlines) There was this very big dog show in Phoenix, just for Irish Setters. It's held once a year, and it's sort of like homecoming week, or a big family reunion. I've never been before, I'm only a year old, but mom has. She looks forward to this every year. She hangs out with her friends, sits by the pool, goes out to dinner and talks pedigrees until 3 in the morning. This time, she wanted to bring me along and show me off.

Well, you'd never believe what happened! I won! Not the very big prize for the best Irish Setter in the whole show, but for the best non-champion Irish Setter, "Best of Winners". Boy, we could tell you stories for days about this. The fuss people made was pretty darned impressive, and I confess, I really kind of liked it. You can see some photos from the ISCA National on my home page.

We will try to get that last point in a couple of weeks, closer to home, because the gas prices are really cutting into our show schedule. Dog show folks are having a really hard time making it to as many shows as they used to because of it. So we'll head down near Chautauqua Lake, and have a nice day at the Fireman's Park. There's lots of places to run there, and the Amish people bake pies to sell. Do you know, last year mom left the pie too close to my car crate, and I got to eat some by sticking my paw into it and licking it off? Yummers! Maybe she'll get another one this year!

Time to sign off for now. I have to go patrol the yard for cats, and take my afternoon nap.

Chow for now,
Emily