Lady is still doing fine

It's been almost 36 hours since Lady's seizure and she hasn't had another one which is a very good sign.

Hopefully that will be her one and only episode, although I did follow the veterinarian's instructions by writing down the date of her first seizure and a description of what happened. Thank you to everyone who expressed their concerns.

Lady gave us a scare

Last night I went from praising Lady for squeaking a toy for the first time in her life to rushing her off to the vet within five minutes.

Somewhere in between Lady abandoning the toy in favor of my attention and me turning my back for a second, she started rubbing at her face and holding her paw up. Her leg she was rubbing with was jutted out so far at the shoulder joint it almost looked like it may have been out of its socket. Her mouth was also contorted and quivering, as if she was in pain.

When I picked Lady up her body was very stiff and ridged. I couldn't find any immediate injuries so I rushed her to Animal Emergency Center to see if they could figure out what was wrong.

She was back to normal by the time we arrived and all her vitals were good, so the veterinarian believes she had a seizure. She's never had one before that I know of, and the vet said she could never have another one again or she could have five more today. It's just not something they can predict.

If she is going to have another one, it's likely going to happen within the first 24 hours of the first one, so I was up until 3 a.m. with her, and had her sleep in the bed with us, hoping I'd wake up if she started to have the strange body movements again.

So far she's been fine and we've already received a follow up call from our regular veterinarian. We're supposed to bring her back in for tests and medicine if she does have another one. My husband works second shift, so there will only be about 30 minutes today that she'll be home alone while our work schedules overlap which is good.

Happy Birthday Einstein

Einstein's birthday was Sunday, or rather the real Albert Einstein's birthday was Sunday, so that's the day we picked for our Einstein's birthday since we don't know when it is.

When we got Einstein last year, the shelter thought he was seven. A vet estimated his age at four when I took him in for a pulled muscle in his leg over the summer. Then a couple weeks ago our vet said that judging by the advancement of tooth decay, Einstein was probably closer to seven than four. So long story short, we also have no idea if Einstein is five, eight, or somewhere in between.

We think he's toward the younger end of the span because he still LOVES to play, but he does get tired easily, so who knows. We love him no matter what age he is, especially considering part of my argument about why we should adopt Einstein in the first place was because as a senior dog, his chances of getting out of the shelter were slim.

How many of you have to guess how old your dogs are and decide when their birthdays are for them?

The dogs missed me last weekend

When I was growing up we had a black cocker spaniel named Princess. Whenever we'd leave on vacation and Princess didn't come with, she'd snub my mother for a few days when we returned. It was almost like she was letting my mom know that she was not happy being left behind.

That is not the case with my brood. I spent the weekend at the Mississippi Valley Quilt Guild Retreat, leaving the dogs at home with my husband. He did request that I stop at home to feed the dogs on Saturday when I came back into town, because Lady refused to eat breakfast that morning. But otherwise the dogs did well in my absence and were elated when I returned on Sunday.

All three dogs climbed in my lap and Einstein gave me big kisses, a treat he usually reserves for Adam, his favorite. Sophia and Lady wouldn't let me out of their sight the rest of the evening and they all got really excited when we got their leashes out to take them on a car ride to check out some houses.

But I really knew I was missed when Einstein went to bed when I did, instead of staying up with Adam which is his normal routine. Instead he cuddled with me.