8 Fabulous years

Morning. Yesterday our beloved Ranger suddenly passed away. :-(  Words can't even express how sad we are, butI think mostly shocked since we weren't expecting it. That is the part I can't even express is the shock. Life sucks sometimes! 

Ranger is the BEST dog you could ever have. He was my fur baby from the get go on my birthday 8 years ago. He was like a third child in our home and always with the family. Not a person would meet him and not fall in love with him. Always so gentle and friendly, unless you are the UPS man then he barks to tell you just leave it at the door. ha ha!  A beautiful dog, great companion, and such a part of my heart. I am gonna miss you puppers. R.I.P.

We were all looking through pictures and videos on our phones and camera so I thought I would share a few while I try to remember he was so loved and loved us so much. 

Rangers hard day at work

This is our beautiful Navijo Globe Willow tree. We had two of these in the yard yet one blew down a few years ago. You can see peeking out of the right here the Maple tree that is sitting in its place. Slow growing stinkin tree.... anyways with the winds we have around here every other year we have to thin out our tree by the professionals. We do the trimming what we can from the bottom and keeping branches trimmed up. This was our week to do just that. You can see one of the boys gathering some of the branches we cut off already into a pile.
Ranger thought he would come and help. Yea..... his idea of help is tread through all the branches, bite them in half (which is actually helpful) and then....

Roll around in them and make noise. ha! He really does enjoy rolling around, biting the branches and running in a circle. We call these his mad minutes as they last about that long and are just hilarious. Ranger is doing great for those that have asked. His medication was lowered a bit to get him completely level and normal which worked. The odd thing is we have had some thunder and lighting storms lately and he is all freaked out by them. Now they never bothered him before and all of a sudden he is crazy with them. We finally had to let him up on our bed the other night just so we could get some sleep. He is not allowed on the beds or the furniture as you can imagine a queen bed with two adults and a 90 dog isn't that comfy. ha! But he finally calmed down and we got some sleep. I am going to try and read up to see why all of a sudden this would start to bother him, very odd.
Stamping is going to be pretty sparse for the next few weeks as canning season started. This year I am doing green beans, pears and stewed tomatoes. The one thing I don't like about canning is the picking, especially green beans! ugh. Talk about back breaking work this is it. The end result is worth it yet the work is manual labor at its peak. ha! Thanks for stopping in with me today. I hope you have an awesome day!

Happy mail for Ranger

Is this not the cutest card ever? This is from Wally and Lulu and I think their mom has a great influence on the crafting they do. ;0) This is from my sweet friend Leslie who is the proud mom of Wally and Lulu. Check out this digi she has of Wally. One of Leslie's blog readers named Alexandria created a few digi's of the puppies. You can see one of them HERE and HERE. Is that just not the coolest? I am now the proud owner of this beautiful card, or should I say Ranger is the proud owner of this card. hee hee
Ranger is doing great today. We will need to lower the medication on Monday just half a pill as he is still not as playful as normal and his walking is a bit wobbly still. Over all he is doing wonderful. Thank you again for all the prayers and well wishes. Enjoy your weekend.

Update on Ranger

Good news and not so good news. We got the blood test back and his EOS levels in the blood were high. So they wanted a poo sample, I really can't tell you how GROSS that was. The kids thought it was fun, go figure. Anyways, we brought that into the vet and he said a couple things.EOS levels were high and could be from a parasite. There is a specific parasite that dogs can get and it can cause neurological issue which would explain the seizures. However very hard to get rid of and you really don't want your animals to have it. This also could very well be a situation where he will never have another one again, sort of a re-boot to the brain and with the medication we stopped it from learning the behavior.
The test for the parasite came back and come to find out he does not have any parasites, which is GREAT. The levels were high more than likely do to pollen or something to do with allergies, but we are parasite free and the vet was very pleased with that. Me not so much as now we are dealing with leaving Ranger on this medication.
The vet said his organs and everything looks great from the blood work. He was very pleased with the information. By this Friday he should be back to his playful self and acting normal with the level of medication he is on. If he is not then we will slowly back it down to a level that is normal behavior. Being that Ranger is only 2 years old he said that he wants to keep him on the med's for 6 months and then slowly take him off of it and not risk taking him off now until his body adjusts. He says the risk is too great if we try it now so he recommends the 6 month mark. DH and I agreed yet I am still a little leery of him on med's. I am not a huge fan of medications so this is a learning thing for me.

Ranger as you can see from the photo I took last night, wants to play and take his walks as usual which is great. Yet he still walks like a sailor home off leave for a few days. ha! Short walks it is as in 2 blocks and coming from our normal 2 mile walks this is huge. He is pretty tired after the walks so I know we are going far enough right now. Hopefully by Friday he is back to his normal furry self and I will feel a bit better. Thank you so much for all the prayers. A few of you have emailed me with helpful info and I do appreciate all of it. Let's hope that this is a case of one and done for both Ranger's sake and my own. :0)

Scary weekend

Good Morning. I am sure you are wondering where my House Mouse and Friends blog challenge card is? Well to tell you the truth I had my card done, yet didn't have time to get my post ready for today. Our family had a rather scary weekend. I took this pictures in May when I was outside with Ranger just playing around. He doesn't sit usually for pictures, rather he comes over and licks the camera instead. Here he was sitting and I snapped a photo quick.

So about our weekend. As some of you know my SIL wedding was Friday night. We started decorating and getting stuff ready on Thursday. Well Friday morning the church was our main focus at the reception area etc. DH was going to walk Ranger before we left to the church and I was going to run to his parents for a second. As I was driving I came along side them walking and noticed Ranger was walking funny acting strange. Just as I stopped the car DH noticed and that is when it started. Ranger was on the ground in a full on seizure attack. I have never seen something this scary before. DH was trying to keep him from banging his head on the cement, he is foaming at the mouth and not responding to us. DH picked him up the best he could, I then helped as he is 90 lbs and flopping around and we put him in the back of the tahoe and rushed to the vet. One of the boys was in the back holding him so he wasn't thrashing around and hurting himself while we got to the vet. The ride to the vet took about 4 min as DH drove faster than any law would permit (no one tell on him) and when we got there the seizure had stopped.

The vet drew some blood for a panel of his organs etc. Did an exam on him and nothing was out of the ordinary asked all sorts of questions. Did he get into any chemical, did he sniff anything like lead, did he injest any dead animals etc etc. Nothing. Ranger is healthy, active and on a routine daily. Nothing I mean nothing so odd. Vet said this could be a once and no more thing. He went on with some other info and all just a heads up thing. He said if there is another one call us etc. We went home at that point and Ranger was acting like nothing ever happened, took percaution and kept things calm and low key for him just in case.

We then had our weekend begin as he had another seizure, not neither as violent or long thank goodness. This lasted about a minute, yet after he seemed very confused and dazed not like the first one. Immediately went to the vet and from then it was coming and going they would not stop. They were giving him med's to try and stop them and it wasn't working. Ranger was awake and pacing for 16 straight hours, this is not normal for a dog let alone for him. He would not sit down, they tried to get him to sleep as the med's are either a downer or upper depending on how you respond to it. Well neither was happening other than it slowed down how often they were happening. Finally got it down to about 2 hours between the seizures.

Come Sunday morning he had not had one in about 10 hours and he finally laid down for about an hour at that point and slept. If anything from pure exhaution I think. The waiting game we were playing gave us time to research about this and what was going on. Lots of info out there and not uncommon in shepherds, labs, retrievers and other big dogs. This is a degenerative gene that can stay dormat and never appear down the line or appear. Some its a major head trama or accident that will release the dormat gene. Some its totally healthy and then one day seizure. Some never have it again, some are on med's have it controlled and live long happy lives. We contacted the breeder to make sure no others in the litter have called about similar things. The parents of Ranger do not have them or up the line etc.

As of now we are home and waiting to get the blood results back and to see if anything comes up there. From what we read it will be negative and won't show anything. The vet will be going over what our next step is with the med's Ranger is on as to slowly take him down and off them and see what happens if anything. Our prayer is that he is fine and nothing happens. That it was a fluke and now he will be fine. If he infact has to be on the med's it will be a matter of what dose, how long etc. We have a lady in town that the breeder knows of that her shepherd started with them about a year ago and is doing fine on med's. Hers is 5 years old and from a different breeder.

This was taking a few weeks ago in May also. I thought it was so cute as he looking like he is winking at you. Well my hair was actually tickling his eye. hee hee So he is telling us he will make it through this and be okay. Never have we been so scared. This fur ball is so much apart of our family I can't imagine him not with us. I was never a dog person persay, I liked cats more. So when we wanted a puppy we prayed about if for a year and researched what type of dog we wanted etc. The minute we brought Ranger home I fell in love. He is my pal through out the day. I walk him rain or shine, we have quite the bond. Not to mention DH and the kids. Thankfully God is with us and gave us his strength through the last 72 hours and I know he will be with us through the results and options today at the vet. Thanks for reading and if you could say a prayer for this fur ball we love and adore that he will be 100% completely healthy for years to come.

Play Off's Baby....

WHOHOO....Yes this is Ranger in his Colts jersey and collar. He is cheering them on with me today. Please excuse the look I have. We just got back from a walk in the cold and my braces were giving me fits and well no makeup makes for a honest photo. bawhahaha... DH thinks that Ranger has a look of get me out of this thing. I however think he is waiting patiently for the games to start today. :0) Enjoy your Football weekend!!!

We got snow....

We got a lot of snow today and its still snowing, the kids had a 2 hour delay even. Ranger got to play in snow for the first time since he was born. He LOVES it. Oh my goodness does he ever. You should see him playing around in it. ha ha I finally got him to sit down and let me take a photo. He likes to dig his nose in the snow and sniff. Ofcourse he then comes up sneezing from the snow in his nose. LOL I got lots of video of him running around and rolling in it. So fun. Off to play some more. Have a great day.

Such joy.....

I can't even begin to tell you how much joy Ranger has brought to our family. Here he is at 19 week. Isn't he just darling? His one ear has leaned over a bit but it will go back up soon. Talk about a wonderful puppy, he is so mild tempered and just fun. His coat has lightened up quite a bit however we have read that they will darken and lighten a lot till they are about a year and then they will have their final color. Yes that is a Colts collar he has on. :0) A wonderful gift from some friends, he is right there next to me watching the games too. hee hee learned a lot with this puppy such as your slippers are wonderful to stick your nose in and fall asleep, cats and dogs can be friends and play or atleast the kitty cat next door and Ranger play just fine together, 2 am is NOT the time to want to play regardless of what he might think, sleeping with your legs in the air hugging the wall is comfortable.... for a dog. ha ha I could go on with things I am learning. :0)

Lots of things going on lately which has been why I am so quiet. I am barely getting my posts done the night before hence why there haven't been a whole lot. We put our house up on the market so that means keeping the house spotless (not that it was bad before but now we are talking spotless) all the time, making sure the kids room is always picked up that in itself is a day's work, then trying to run out the door when a realtor calls with the kids and puppy in tow is not easy. So I am taking a wee break from stamping sorta. If you don't hear from me much you know why.

Moving in the same area just needing a bigger house if we can. Found the one we want to build if the one that is about ready sells before ours does. That means we might be living with the In-Laws for a bit. GASP... I know... I know... Hopefully that house will still be available when this one sells. hee hee Nothing like having your own space.

Sneak peeks for Clear Dollar Stamps start on Thursday 28th! Thanks for stopping in and see you later this week with my sneak peeks!

Meet the newest member of the family

Ranger! Isn't he just adorable. His first day has been quite eventful. Hopefully he sleeps great tonight. I got a few photos of him, I got a lot of video that I might show later this week. Here he is sitting in the grass. he loves the grass. His one ear sticks up a little and the other is dropped down still. I just LOVE it! Too darn adorable.

Here he is where he fell asleep for a little nap after all the playing with the kids. I think they would of kept going if we didn't tell them to stop. They are so excited and just love him. Wonderful birthday present! :0)

Don't forget if you missed it Flourishes Pre-Challenge is just below this post! Have a great day!