The last best days of summer



Daphne

Bremo and Trooper

Summer may have just started, but it has already peaked.  Tuesday was picture perfect, blue sky, a nice breeze, 80 degrees, no humidity.  Days like that are rare this time of year and I would bet that we don't have another one this nice until fall.  It's due to heat up starting Wednesday and we are about to July, so there is no reason to expect anything other than heat and humidity for the rest of the summer. 

I started a fire in the firepit and burned out weeds and accumulated debris.  I mowed a lot of grass, having three working mowers again for the first time in a while.  And of course I got the dogs out to the pasture for a good romp.

 

Gigi wasn't really looking
at anything, she was just
showing me her best side
for photographs.

Hank loves Lana

I've decided I'm not taking in any new dogs until at least three of the current batch of long term fosters have moved.  But we did take in Daphne today; she just visiting for about 10 days while her mom goes out of town.  Daphne is cute, sweet, and easy.  I cleaned out the upstairs crates for her arrival because she came with her own clean bed.  She fell into the routine very easily and is getting along with everyone indoors.  She brings us up to eight indoor dogs, our five, plus, Vince, visiting Cooper, and now Daphne.  But everyone spreads out throughout the house pretty well, except during a thunderstorm, then most of them want to crowd under my desk.  I can have two or three outside most of the time throughout the day, and Vince is pretty content in his crate most of the time. 

Zachary still has a beautiful movement.

We've been fighting Gigi's digestive system since I first wrote about it.  I did my usual 24 hour fast and then started her back on a reduced amount of food.  As soon as she had food in her guts again the diarrhea came back, so she's been on another fast, for more like 48 hours.  Monday night she had some yogurt and a probiotic called FortiFlora, along with some immodium.  She made it through the night without accident and even without needing to go out in the middle of the night.  Today she had more yogurt and FortiFlora, and then I cooked her chicken and rice, followed by more yogurt late this afternoon.  She's hungry and has a good appetite, the big question of course is what will come out the other end tomorrow.  She's energetic and playful, seems perkier today.  When we get back to dog food, I think I'll switch her to Zachary's grain-free Taste of the Wild.  She always seemed more interested in his food and would just sort of pick at the other food I was feeding, which is what Bremo and Trooper eat.  Cabell's special kidney diet dog food makes for three different kinds already.  At least if I can get her onto Zach's food I wouldn't have to buy, store, and feed a fourth brand of dog food among our own five dogs.  But of course I'll do what I have to do to make her happy, and regular.  She does seem to be afflicted with German Shepherd guts.

 

Radley and Lana

Nose down, tails up, that's the way we like to hunt.
(Without apology to 2 Live Crew)

Dixie, always on the move

Max among the daisys

Cabell (front) is slightly taller, Cooper is slightly bulkier.
Cooper has white socks, Cabell has a curly tail.
Their coats are identical in color and texture.

This is Cooper,
 he looks so much like our Cabell.



Gigi and Cooper

Bremo still does pretty much everything he ever did,
just not quite as fast or for quite as long.



Hank and Lana probably make the best use of their pasture time.  They run and run.