Medical stuff

Mickey heading off to be neutered.

Lots of days in rescue are spent dealing with medical stuff, and today was one of them.

Mickey was still a little wobbly when I picked him
up about 5:30, but he slept it off this evening.

Heading home.

Clay took Mickey in early this morning to be neutered. It went well and I picked him up late in the afternoon, making it back home in time to get in a fast four mile hike with Max, Maya, and Sparky just before dark. Mickey cleaned up nicely with his bath the other day and he'll be spending most of his time indoors for the next week as he recovers from today's surgery. I noticed him doing some limping on one of his rear legs when we did all that running in the pasture last week. I'm not sure what that's about. Normal activity doesn't seem to bother him at all, but the running in the pasture brought it out, although it didn't make him stop or even slow down. When he's recovered I'll run him again and see if it's still an issue.

Sparky (right) with Barkley. I think I will pair
these guys up. Sparky needs the company and
Barkley needs to learn impulse control. 

Sparky has been barking in the mornings lately, after I've put him out in his kennel for the day. Yesterday I gave him a big bone to entertain him, but when he started barking again today after breakfast I moved him over to the dog yard with Barkley. They've been together before and got along fine and they did again today. In the process of moving him around this morning, I discovered what I thought was a big dog tick on the top of his head. I had Clay try to remove it this evening and he determined it's not a tick but an abscess or growth of some sort, so I'll call the vet tomorrow.


Summer has been starting to stink, it's that yeasty smell, so I decided to give her an indoor tub bath this evening with two different medicated shampoos. She wasn't crazy about it but she tolerated it well and she looks and smells better now. I suspect that baths will be a regular feature of her life for a while yet.

I picked up most of the ingredients I need to mix up a batch of satins balls for Summer, hoping that it will put some more weight on her quickly. She's been eating my regular dry food mix that I feed the foster dogs and she's pooping well, but she could use some extra nutrition.

Ingredients for Satin Balls. I still need 10 pounds
of raw hamburger and a dozen raw eggs.
The Dinovite is a food supplement given to me by
Felix's adopters. It's good for the skin. I think I'll
mix some of it into the Satin Balls mixture.

Summer is really blossoming into a wonderful dog. She's housetrained and crate-trained, with no effort on my part. I've even left her loose in the house, without being crated, and she's fine. Maya is the one I still can't trust being left alone. She gets along with all the dogs and has learned the household routines. She seems to have made a conscious effort to fit in around here. And she has taken a real liking to Clay. When he's home, she hangs out with him downstairs rather than up in the office with me and most of the other dogs. She became visibly distraught when he left for work on Wednesday after being home on Monday and Tuesday, and she was beside herself with excitement when he got home that night. She's a very nice dog.