Six Months

In my lack of posting of late, I neglected to mention that Yara and I passed our six month anniversary last month. (Also, how did it get to be July already?) I’d been expecting a follow-up evaluation, but have as yet heard nothing regarding it. When I called Fidelco, Des admitted they’re a bit backlogged with follow-ups. Oh, well. I’m sure they’ll get out here eventually.

The food saga continues. I actually postponed the vet visit until this coming Tuesday in part because of this. She is doing better with consistently eating for the most part, but honestly if I had to guess I’d say she’s probably lost more weight. It’s incredibly disconcerting. She’s not exhibiting any signs of being sick or infested by anything, but we’ll see what the vet has to say.

We went to the fireworks last night at the Empire State Plaza and they were very lovely. Yara was very good with all the distractions and only mildly alarmed by the fireworks and the noise. Her biggest issue was that anytime there was a lull in the show, she kept figuring that meant we were going home and she’d get up and be all silly. It was very cute.

And, finally, as promised the long awaited photos I keep being too lazy to post! First up are some of the “outtakes” from the portrait shoot back in May. I have the right one (second photo) framed on my desk at work, though, I’m a bit disturbed that I only now just noticed it kind of looks like she’s licking my chest in it!

Yara nuzzling my face, hiding from the camera Yara looking at me with her tongue hanging out

Anyway, here’s a picture of Yara with Dolly’s rejected birthday gift ginormous bone:

Yara chewing a HUGE bone!

And last, but certainly not least, some puppy pictures sent to me by Tom and Patty:

Yara sleeping in her crate

Yara and Denby

Yara in a big pile of leaves

Uhh. . . .

I kind of neglected this site for a bit. Oops. Things have been a tiny bit on the crazy for the last little while and I kept meaning to post a proper update and then never did. And this isn’t really one, but thought I’d pop in quick and nip any rumors of my demise in the bud.

Work’s been, well, stressful. Yara’s doing well. She has her follow-up vet appointment next week to get weighted again, and I’m pretty sure if anything she’s probably dropped more weight. Until yesterday afternoon she was doing really well and eating all of the crazy amount of food I’m supposedly to feed her. But she’s basically refused both meals since then, which is absolutely the most frustrating and aggravating thing ever. Trust me.

In totally other news, I’m adopting a kitten. She’s a ragdoll and absolutely adorable. I’m very excited. I’ll probably be bringing her home sometime near September, which works out well as I’m thinking of taking the last week of August off work as I’ll be starting class. Oh, speaking of, I registered last week, so everything’s all official like. It’s quite thrilling.

Will post a much more proper update (and pictures!) soon, promise!

Quickie Update

1. I’ve been sick for two days now. Thankfully, not with another migraine, which is shocking as I broke my only pair of sunglasses last week. My back hurts. And I have the hiccups. But enough about me. . . .

2. Yara has been eating somewhat better. She’s rather consistently eating her entire six cups of food daily, but she does sometimes refuse some or all of breakfast. I don’t know why. Yes, I’ve tried pretty much everything known to man to entice her to eat.

3. That said, I don’t think she’s gained any weight. My wallet is praying this is true because feeding her has become exponentially more expensive given the amount I’m feeding her now. Either way, I’m convinced she’s not going to “fill out” anymore and have already requested Fidelco to give me a smaler harness body piece because she literally jumped out of the front of it Monday. Her vet appointment is next Tuesday, so we’ll see what the official word is.

4. Patty and Tom have been emailing me puppy pictures of Yara and they are so adorable it’s almost painful to look at them. Also, I have a bunch of other photos to post, including some more from the photo shoot at Penney’s. These will have to wait until another time, though.

5. Bed time; night!

Portraits

Beautiful profile shot of Yara's head

Yesterday, I picked up the prints from the photos we had taken a few weeks back and they are quite stunning. I’m sorry to say that my scanner seems to have some serious issues and there is an extremely huge amount of grit that showed up on these images that is most definitely not present on the prints themselves. [EDIT: The scanned images have been replaced by the much higher quality — and grit-free — digital images.] Anyway, below are a few of my other favorite pictures:

Full body side-view shot of Yara in harness Headshot of Yara, smiling with her tongue hanging out a bit

Yara sitting next to me looking quite attentive

Thank You! :)

A very big “thanks” to the wonderfully thoughtful person who sent me the Gargoyles: Clan Building TPB for my birthday! However, I’m left wondering if this gift was meant to be an anonymous one . . . because there is a profound lack of evidence as to whom said generous soul might be.

Successful Upgrade

Yes, I know I’m very late with this, but I have finally upgraded WordPress to version 2.5.1 and it is very strange. Everything in the admin panel is very different. Anyway, everything appears to be functioning properly, but if you run into any issues or errors let me know.

The Continuing Food Saga

Last week at the vet’s and this past weekend at Fidelco, I was told to increase Yara’s food. At this point I’m supposed to be feeding her about six cups a day, which is a lot of food especially given she’s on EVO Red Meat. Of course, no one seems to believe me when I say the dog just refuses to eat that much food and it doesn’t matter how enticing I try to make it.1

Over the weekend, she was eating all of her food, but now that we’re home and there isn’t a feeling of competition with five other dogs she has gone back to just picking at her meals and eating maybe 2/3 of what I’m being told she should eat. I think part of this might have been because I’d added the Provi-Tabs vitamin to her food and she isn’t very fond of them. Either way, it’s frustrating and I am truly at a loss other than to think that she is just meant to be a very lean dog.


1. Right now I’m feeding her five cups of dry mixed with a can of wet food . . . and there have been several people who’ve commented how good her food smells so I’m taking that to mean it must taste pretty good, too!

Walk for Fidelco

Yara and I had so much fun this past weekend! [Note: Very lengthy and image-intensive post to follow. Big thanks to Patty, Tom, Raechel, and James for sharing all their photos!]

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Happy Birthday!

Flowers from Nanny Flowers from Nanny

Happy 29th Birthday to me! :)

Yes, my grandmother sent me two sets of flowers. It’s kind of an involved story that isn’t nearly as interesting as you’d think.

Home Again!

Yara crashed out on her bed amidst many toys

Yara and I have returned from our weekend away. More details and tons of photos to follow after we’ve both gotten some sleep.

Little Miss Photogenic

Any of you who know me beyond this website1 are keenly aware of how much I loathe and detest packing. I’m not really sure why given how much of it I’ve had to do during my life what with all the moving about I’ve done and traveling between my parents every week when I was growing up. Still, I’m never one to turn down an opportunity to procrastinate when their is packing involved.

So, having said all that, I’ll get to the point of the matter. Yesterday I had some photos taken of Yara and I at JCPenney’s Portrait Studio.2 Yara was an absolute angel and I don’t mind saying that there were a number of beautiful shots the photographer got of her. One in particular is this breathtaking profile of her head that I love so much I ordered a 10×13 print of. She did get just a teeny bit stressed out and started panting pretty heavily — leading to a bunch of cute photos of her with her tongue lolling out of her mouth. And at one point she got incredibly silly and started rolling around on the floor and trying to hide behind me which was quite funny and produced a number of “candid” photos.

All things said and done, I was very pleased with both Yara and the photographer. The pictures were really very adorable and I ended up choosing several prints. In fact, the photographer was so incredibly taken with Yara that she asked if I’d let her hang a shot of her in the studio. In the end, she had just as much trouble picking “just one picture” too and she’ll be hanging up four or five different prints, including a multi-shot print of the two of us. I’m totally flattered. She says the photos should be up by the time my prints are ready so I plan to bring my camera and take a picture of the display, as strange as that sounds. I’m also supposed to be getting (very low resolution) copies of all the shots in the next few days via email, but either way I’ll definitely scan in the prints I ordered to share here. :)

Anyway, I should get back to my packing. My train to CT arrives at 8:05 AM and I’ve lots to do before then . . . including getting some sleep!


1. And probably very many of you who do know me only via the Internet.
2. Think what you might, but (a) it was the first place that didn’t gripe about taking photos of a dog when a “pet photo special” was not currently running and (b) I had a 20% off coupon I found on the Internet.

First Time at the Vet

Yara has what I’ve come to think of as a chewing OCD. Behold the proof, wherein she is so focused on chewing a knuckle bone I’d given her one morning that she actually forgets to lie down:

Yara standing up while chewing a rather large bone

In fact, that particular day at work she spent quite literally the entire day chewing on said bone. At one point she chewed it for three hours straight without one single break even. Luckily for me the coworkers near my area don’t seem to mind the pretty obvious sound of my dog gnawing a bone, even when she gets so involved in it she actually starts breathing heavily. Really, it’s quite amusing.

In other news, Yara had her first visit to the vet’s yesterday. You’ll all be happy to know she is in perfect health; although, she has lost an incredible twenty pounds since first arriving at my home! My vet, who has a long history with Fidelco dogs having grown up fostering a breeding bitch and several career change dogs, didn’t seem overly concerned. She said it’s quite possible Yara is just very lean, but she was quite amused to have the rare opportunity to tell someone to feed their dog more food. To be honest, I don’t really see that she’s lost weight, but I did have to ask Fidelco for a new chest strap since hers had gotten so loose. Anyway, I’m to add another cup of food daily to Yara’s meal and we’ve got another appointment on June 10th to weight her again . . . and also get her AVID microchip1 implanted!

This coming Friday, we’ll be taking the Amtrak to CT for Fidelco’s graduate dinner and walkathon fund raiser. So, please don’t be alarmed if there is a lack of posting or replying to comments here. Though, admittedly, my excitement over the trip has more to do with meeting Yara’s fosters, Patty and Tom, and spending the weekend with Raechel and James and their horde of dogs! But regardless, I’m sure we’ll have a grand time, even though the forecast looks like it’s going to be a pretty soggy weekend. I will do my best to both remember my camera and actually take some pictures to share. ;-)

And with that flimsy promise, I leave you with two more rather adorable photos:

Yara on her bed using a pile of toys as a pillow

Yara lying on the kitchen floor, watching me


1. One of the many membership benefits of IAADP, to which I gratefully thank Wendy.

Six Stars for EVO

I would like to say the discovery of this review makes me abundantly happy. Sadly, though, this section of said website is nothing short of appalling and yet certain guide dog schools who shall remain nameless might do well to take a look.

This Post Was Not My Idea

Please do not feel obligated in any way to read this post, but due to rather aggressive prodding from not a small number of people I am forced to admit my birthday is coming up. And as such, I have been ordered to link my very infrequently updated Amazon wishlist.

So, there you go.

Treats and Biscuits

I’ve so many things to post on, including some rather adorable photos of the gray pooch, but lest I forget to ever mention all this I wanted to make sure there was a post on it.

Since the beginning of our partnership, I’ve posted quite extensively about Yara’s food issues. I mentioned awhile back that I’d changed her food to EVO and until recently I was on the fence as to whether it was a sound decision. Granted she enjoys this food so much more, but I was growing increasingly concerned at her poop. Of course, my first thought was that she was having a reaction to the new food, but I was rather sure that was unlikely. The other thought was that she was stressed given that the timing of this transition occurred along with the new job and the move.

Anyway, to make a long story much less lengthy, while I was dog-sitting Dolly I noticed that Yara was seeming to be doing much better. Turns out Yara is allergic to wheat which is far more common in dogs1 than you might think; a discovery I made due to the fact I had cut out all her treats over the course of Dolly’s stay. (It was enough of a chore just giving them their meals, let alone trying to hand a single girl a treat.)

Thanks to the very awesome Raechel I’ve now restocked my supply of dog biscuits and treats with completely wheat-free alternatives and Yara has been doing quite phenomenally. We haven’t tried all of the different varieties that these two incredible companies make, but I’m quite impressed by the fact that Yara has yet to turn her nose up at anything I’ve given her.


1. And people for that matter.