Goodbye Hooch

 This has been a terrible week for us as our wonderful Hooch  dog didn't survive his battle with the tick born disease Anaplasmosis.  The disease went to his neurological system and on Monday his system started to shut down and we had to have him put to sleep on Tuesday after it continued to get worse.  Poor thing he was hurting so bad and went into continuous seizures.  Couldn't let him suffer like that.  Now he's in heaven with Steve's parents playing frisbee with Grandpa Carl and no doubt Grandma is fixin him eggs every morning, like she used to do. 

Odda is doing okey.  The medicine seems to be working for her.  We're not done with it yet, but will keep on checking her closely.  I'm sure she misses her buddy, and when Connie and Gene came over the other night with Chance, she had fun running and playing.  She doesn't fetch like Hooch did, but maybe Chance will teach her how!

2008

Hooch

2000 - 2011

Thank you everyone for your kind words,

A Valentine Card!

 We got our first card for this Valentine season!

Isn't she just the cutest pup!   Leah, Steve and Amanda got a new puppy yesterday.  Leah is our oldest daughter, blog site: livingitupcountry.blogspot.com, and they had several pets and horses.  They lost a beloved pet Rudy, and this little girl just happened to become available, so a new member to their family, and of course, they visited this morning to meet Odda and Hooch.

Pretty soon, she'll be larger than Odda!  She is so soft and cuddly.   A different kind of hair than Odda.  Of course, she has her puppy coat, so I wonder what it will be like when she gets bigger.   She liked our dogs, so I'm sure we'll be visiting often!

I'm busy getting food and stuff ready for our card party.  Will post some pictures tomorrow. 
Have a great evening.  Our day has been wonderful here temperature wise.  It's in the high 30's!!!!!   whoopee!!!

Dog Ball!

Hooch has us kick a ball for him to fetch - every time we go outside, he comes to us with this ball in his mouth.  Drops it at our feet and waits until we kick it.  Odda runs after him and gets in the way!  Hooch then wrestles with the ball to get a good bite on it.  The ball isn't a hard rubber one.  It 's suppose to have air in it, but it deflates easily.  The hot sun makes it stay inflated, but when it gets cold out, like now, it collapses!   But he's still in the game mood, and wants us to kick this stupid poor deflated ball!   Will have to wait now until spring - and we'll get you a new ball Hooch!

Goodbye Halloween 2009!

It snowed yesterday and last night, and woke up to this...........

Later this afternoon, as it was warming up a little, the sun tried to peek through. Forecast for next week is looking better.

Some of our trick or treaters!



We had the normal number of kids come, and our last visitors were Vivie and Gabby - they walked right in and made themselves at home!

We had a good visit with them, their father and grand father. I wonder if they already had enough sugar in their system. Look at those smiles! The girls played with Hooch, and shared their suckers with him. He sure liked that!!!!

The bottles of candy were hits with the kids, and the kids had a good time trying to figure out how to get the candy out! Most of them were small enough to think that all they had to do was to take the cap off.

Vivie and Gabby helped themselves to our other candy (less for Steve and I to eat later) and they had Hooch doing tricks for dog treats. They especially like the trick where he is sitting on hind haunches and front paws up in the air with a dog bone treat on his nose, sitting for a minute, and when we tell him to "get it!", he tosses the treat up with his nose and then catches it. He was in good form tonight and crawled on the flower, rolled over, danced and played dead when they shot him!

When they left at 9:45 pm, there was frost on our wood patio out the front door. It was slippery! So as the temperature gets lower tonight, I'm sure the roads may be a little slippery. Glad I'm home and not having to go out in the cold. Hope the snow melts off tomorrow.

Now we wait for another year til next Halloween.

She's Still Growing!

Odda - Our Bernese Swiss Mountain Dog now is now 6 months old. She got bigger the week we were gone - we sure could see the difference, she's filling out more.

Each day I let her inside for awhile. I want her to know what she can do and can not do inside. She does behave very well. Today I had to comb out some burrs that were in her tail and a couple by one of her ears. Don't want those nasty things to get a head start on me and our brushing her. We've had to deal with cutting them out on one of our other dogs years ago, and I hate doing that. Odda now has the upper hand in size over Hooch (Jack Russell), but Hooch can still put her in her place! Hooch is the boss....




Odda can look over the kitchen table, and we'll have to make sure there isn't food there when she comes in. She had to back out this time - instead of walk right through! Not enough room with chairs in the way. She used to crawl through the chairs too --not any more!!

In the mornings she is so excited and happy to see us, but then in awhile she settles down. Sometimes when company comes, she can be a handful too. Hopefully that will settle down as she gets older. She really likes company, and loves to see the neighbors come over with Chance (border collie) -- except the last time Connie came, Chance wouldn't get out of their vehicle! Odda just likes to play a little too rough for Chance. Chance does love Hooch tho. When they're alone to run and chase the ball or frisby, they're both in 7th heaven!