The new foster

He's a blood hound, our newest foster. Young adult male, recently neutered. He's suspicious of men, he likes women and other dogs. He's got ears and jowls for days, and quite a good sniffer, I'm sure. He needs a name.

 

Chester and Duvel

The deluge may finally be coming to an end. There's still a little rain in the forecast but it's spotty now, not the massive downpours we've been having. I'm not sure what the total is, but my wheel barrel was almost full and I've emptied full dog dishes more than once. My pond is far outside its intended boundaries; I'll have to make sure the floating plants return to the pond when the water begins to subside. The sun actually broke through the clouds on a couple of occasions this afternoon, enough to really make things hot and humid. Welcome to summer in the south. 

I have the pleasure of dog sitting former fosters Chester and Duvel for less than 48 hours. They live down the street and I just pop down there occasionally to feed them and let them outside. They are such good boys. Duvel was very lucky to have Chester (lab mix) as a big brother as he was growing up because Chester is a sweet, even tempered dog and he raised Duvel to be a giant sized dog with the temperament of a lab. 

Here are some pictures of our dogs, the neighbors' dogs, and a few plant pictures too.

Both boys have window viewing spots that work best for their size.

There are a lot of toys in the neighbors' house that would be a big pile of stuffing in our house.

Duvel is probably smelling his mother Della on my pants.

Chester has a sweet face.

You can have a lot of color in a shade garden without a lot of blooms.

Paisley always moves in and shares this bed in my office with Elvis.

He doesn't seem to mind it and even uses her to his advantage.

This orange tuberous begonia is full of blooms right now.

A wet and sucky Solstice

It felt like the longest day of the year for sure. Between work and rain I hardly ever got my butt out of my chair and away from the computer. The dogs stink and consequently my house does too. I had them out as little as possible, but they still wanted to eat and they still needed to poop and pee. And some of them were rather indifferent to the rain and had to coaxed to come inside. Not the best of days but my grass was all cut ahead of this rain and it should make my flowers really take off, assuming the sun ever shines again.

The good news is that the puppy weights were up again today, momma dog is eating and drinking well, still enjoying the cottage cheese along with dry puppy food and water laced with chicken stock.

The dogs are probably as bored as I am, but here's a few pictures of them passing the day indoors and having dinner.

Kirtley's disappointed look pretty much sums up the day.

Elvis is happy to sleep the day away and Paisley doesn't really mind getting wet.

Maya knows it's just one of those days and it will pass.

Della probably got the least amount of water on her of anyone all day.

She doesn't like getting wet and she goes out only when really necessary.

Cosmo is good indoors but he would wander around the yard in the rain.

He has so much fur that the dog underneath never really gets wet.

Daisy dancing at the door.

And doing a nice sit when I asked.

I took the dogs out two or three at a time for feeding. We have seven here in the house currently, plus the momma dog and three pups. Eating locations were varied a bit from the norm, but no one was too bothered by that.

If the door to the food locker is open, Della will stick her head into her food bin and help herself.

Visitors and puppy problems

We have a couple of returning visitors with us for a couple of days. Cosmo, a/k/a The Big Hairy Beast, came on Monday and he'll be going back home on Wednesday. Another short timer, Daisy, arrived today. We'll have her until Thursday or so. Kirtley is new since Daisy was last here so they met for the first time. I ended up leaving them in the dog yard together for a while Tuesday evening and will put them in adjacent crates in the kitchen for the night. 

Momma dog and her puppies have been giving me some grief, but I think and hope that it's resolved. She was having some pretty consistent diarrhea. I gave her some Imodium and a probiotic, and stopped the hotdogs and cheese I had been feeding her. I also switched her dry food, away from the puppy food she had been getting. The diarrhea resolved and she had some good poop, but then she stopped eating. 

She wouldn't eat hotdogs or cheese when I offered them, she wouldn't eat canned food although she had been doing so the day before. I thought she had been drinking a lot of water before but then that pretty much stopped too. The pups had been posting pretty consistent weight gains, and one of the boys had about caught with the girl in size. The smaller boy was beginning to close the gap between him and his littermates, but when I weighed the puppies Monday night they had barely put on any weight in the past 24 hours. 

I wasn't going to go into a panic just yet, but I knew it was a situation that needed to be addressed. Erika suggesting adding chicken broth to her water. I switched back to the dry puppy food she had been eating consistently in the past. She wouldn't touch canned food any more but she was interested in cottage cheese. She began eating again Monday evening and she put away a fair amount of puppy food, cottage cheese, and watered down chicken stock on Tuesday. 

I just came in from weighing the pups (Tuesday evening) and taking more cottage cheese and puppy food to the momma dog. All the puppies had solid weight gains, and the larger of the boys has now overtaken his sister! Raising puppies is all about taking care of mom. 

Cosmo

Daisy

Kirtley and Daisy

He has a nice sit.