Tuesday Morning

Honey's doing really well this week. She's bouncing around and doing her berzerker mode happy dance and bounding up and down the hall every chance she gets. There's been very little arthritis limping and lots of happy Hun rocketing around barking madly or laying on her back on the bed or couch licking our faces while her tail goes thumpthumpthump. Her radiation start date anniversary is February 5th - and this week last year she had a biopsy and we sat in a vet's office and were offered a choice between agressive and palliative care. I don't think I've ever cried harder. There was one moment I remember really clearly, she was trying to play fetch and couldnt breathe through her nose, it was the saddest thing, an old sick dog bringing the ball and then going to get it at this slow walk. She was standing right in front of me and looked at me with this awful hangdog look and i reached out and touched her nose and said 'its going to be ok, we're going to fix that thing' and her entire countanince changed. she cocked her head and her tail started wagging and her ears went up and it was like a different dog stepped in to finish the game of fetch. We weighed her the other day and she's a solid 57 pounds, heavier than she was before cancer treatment.

2009 - year of the Hundog

Sorry, it’s been a while. I had laundry to do and accidentally spill bleach on, cell phones to hurl across the room, break and reassemble, dishes to wash, dry, shatter and clean up, and holiday dinners to make, fingers to burn, flu’s to catch and the entire country to drive across. Twice. I’ve been busy, people! First things first, the cytology only showed inflammation and a course of antibiotics cleared up the swelling, so I guess it was an infection. Honey had a blast on the cross country trip. We put her memory foam bed in the back seat and she napped from LA to Tallahassee. The drive took 3 days (LA to Fort Stockton TX the first day – 1,055 miles, to Baton Rouge the next day and Tallahassee by 2 pm on the third) each way (on the way back it was Houston, Lordsburg, LA) and we stopped a few times every day to play fetch and sample local beef jerky. Honey got to meet cam’s parent’s dog Fiona and my parents dog Susan, I really expected Hun to dislike Susan, but by the end of the trip they were napping side by side on the couch. Really cute. She also got to see her extended family and get thoroughly pampered. The weirdest part of all of this is that it was warm almost the entire time we were home. There was one night that was cold enough to have a fire, but other than that it was total jeans and t shirt weather, so Honey got to nap in the sun in the back yard and didn’t have to wear her sweater. The only bad thing happened the last night, in Lordsburg NM. She got a UTI at like 2 am and demanded that she be taken out NOW, which I did without realizing it was snowing. So I’m standing behind a hotel at 2 am with a pacing uncomfortable dog in a snow storm wearing a t shirt, jeans and flip flops. That was no fun. By the next afternoon we were back in LA though, and went directly to the vet before we went home. We got new furniture last weekend, but other than that it’s been pretty boring around here. Lots of fetch, cam and I cleaned the house and I cleaned out my closet. Honey doesn’t like anything moving around and we kept having to coax her out of the bathroom, which is her hiding place, while we were cleaning. Some duck jerky reassured her we weren’t moving, just killing the horrid orange couch and getting an actual grown-up model. She’s a fan of the new couch now, so it all worked out for the best. I’m posting some pics of her on the trip. My dad took a studio portrait of the three of us, but I haven’t seen it yet.

Hun in the sun

Waking up on day 1 - in Arizona

Honey with her cat Arlo