Since I am a first time Mom with a child that is under one year, most would think that if I were to have sleepless nights it would be because of my baby. This however is not the case. My daughter is an amazing sleeper and has been sleeping through the night since she was about 3 1/2 months old. My dog however is who keeps us up at night once in a while. She is 16 1/2 years old, and is a spunky little thing! She gets hot in our bedroom and night so we used to keep her water in our room. She would drink in the middle of the night and then have to go pee. Also, she and our other dog sleep pretty much all day and then when it’s time to go to bed around 11 PM they want to play. So my husband came up with the idea of keeping our bedroom door closed most of the day (where they like to nap) so that they are forced to walk around the house and stay active most of the day. I must say it has been working the last few days since we have started this. Now I open the bedroom door when my daughter naps so that my whole house is quiet at once. The nap when she does and I am free to relax and do whatever. Tippy lies on her blanket (that used to be ours, lol) and Stitch sleeps in his usual spot -under our night stand. They are so dang cute and are such amazing pets. My daughter loves them too. <3

I have had it with this old carpet of ours! While I was pregnant we replaced the carpet in our daughter’s room and the entire basement. This left us with old carpet in the living room and our bedroom. It wasn’t too bad and we got it professionally clean so it was looking pretty nice for about a minute…haha. When things are old, they just never get as “clean” as they should no matter how hard you scrub or how much you pay. Either way, when it comes down to it, when something is old, it’s old. I couldn’t take it anymore, the doggie mess stains on this light colored, already warn and over used carpet was really getting on my last nerve. My husband and I found a local carpet company called Richmond Interiors online. We spontaneously drove there over the weekend to find ourselves very pleased and ready to make the move. The company was advertising carpet remnants at a highly discounted price so my husband and I picked out a carpet that fit our needs… darker in color for our “doggie” situation since we have 2 dogs and one of them is very old and prone to making mistakes, comfortable, and affordable. We found the carpet right away and the sincerity and kindness of the business owner seeled the deal. The man was extrememly helpful, generous, and friendly. I am so very excited to be getting new carpet. Hopefully with the plastic runners you can find in Model Homes, this will prevent at least some of the messes my beautiful little dog may make in the future. Plus this new carpet is pre-treated therefore it will aid in preventing penetration of the stain. OH HAPPY DAY I cannot wait until it is installe dnext week. What I am not looking forward to however is all the work that lies ahead of me. Looking around this house my head is spinning thinking about all the little things I need to pack up and put somewhere in order to move the furniture. Baby toys, nick nacks, the entire bottomof by bedroom closet, etc. Not to meantion my husband and Father have to move all the furniture out of the living room and bedroom in order to rip up the old carpet this coming weekend. Saturday morning we have to bring Stitch to my mother-in-law’s house because my Dad isn’t fond of a boy dog who lifts his leg and may go potty on his expesive things… as for myself, my husband, my daughter, and Tippy, we will be camping out at Dad’s this coming weekend. Friday I will be packing stuff away and clearing shelves, and Saturday they will be moving all of the furniture and ripping up the old carpet. Hopefull it will all be done by Saturday but if not at least they have Sunday as well. Monday is the day!!!! Good thing the dogs will be elsewhere and my sister will be watching my little lady over at my Dad’s house.  A house with no carpet is no place for a baby to be crawling around!!! By the way, have I mentioned how excited I am?! Hehehe.

I took my dog to the cardiologist last Thursday. Despite the slow heart beat which we found out is called Sick Sinus Syndrome she is doing very very well. She is 15 years old in people years and the doc said she is in her 90’s in doggie years! He said she is doing excellent and her heart is in amazing condition. Good news is that her condition is not one where one day she will just suddenly leave me. However, it is degenerative so it will eventually get worse with time. She has not had another fainting episode since that big one a little over a month ago. She has been limited in her exercise but that is all the changes we have to make. They performed an Echo on her and that is how they could figure out in more detail what was wrong. It was so sad when they walked away with her! I knew she would be scared and I hated the thought of her having to be in there alone. She came out wagging her tail and she was just fine! All in all it was a pretty good diagnosis considering the problem we were already aware of. I know that I have some time with her now and I don’t have to be paranoid every time I leave my house. Tippy and Stitch are doing great and we are all preparing for our new arrival baby Lola!

Hi there! I wanted to update everyone on my dog (Tippy) that had the arrhythmia. So far she is doing well. We have an appointment next Thursday with a cardiologist. I just want to get her checked thoroughly so I know what I am facing. As of now she is the same energetic, spunky, fun loving dog she has always been. I keep saying my prayers to keep her that way, I really love her. I know I have been blessed with having her so long as it is, but I am just not ready to see a decline in her health since she has been such a phenomenal dog all around. I know she is strong and active and I am hopeful she will stay around long enough for my baby to get to know her!

I am trying to be positive about what happened last Friday. My husband and I were taking our two dogs for a walk last Friday around  7 PM. It was humid and hot and the sun was still shining. I have a 15 year old Cocker Spaniel mix named Tippy and a Cocker Spaniel-Dachshund mix Stitch who is about 4 or five years old. We just adopted him in January. As the walk was coming to an end, we were about 2 doors down from our condo when I looked back and saw Tippy lying on the cement. She was moving her arms and legs and from what I could see her eyes looked funny. I immediately started screaming and I couldn’t breathe. I bent down to her rescue and held her and tried to get her up. My husband was running in to get some water. Withing about 30 to 45 seconds Tippy got back up and she acted as if nothing had happened to her. I was frantic. This was such a scary thing for me to see. Tippy has been my dog since I was about 10 years old. I thought I was going to lose her. I recalled seeing her get a little dizzy a few times about a month ago after long walks and just figured she was hot or winded. We brought her into the house and I called a friend who I knew had taken her dogs to nearby emergency vets. She was very helpful and gave me the number and offered any assistance. When I spoke with the vet I explained the situation. She said it could have been heat stroke though dogs who suffer from that do not bounce back as fast as Tippy did. She also said it could have been a seizure. She told me to put my dog in a luke warm tun and keep wetting her belly to cool her down in case it was indeed caused by the heat. I did just that. The woman advised me to watch her closely that night but I did not have to take her in unless something went wrong. We stayed in that night and spent the night carefully watching Tippy. The next morning I made an appointment to get her checked out for my own peace of mind. When we were in with the doctor she had actually discovered that Tippy fainted due to a condition called canine arrhythmia. This is when the heart beat is too slow. She took blood from my little dog and performed an EKG on her. The blood results came back good. All levels were good and there were no signs of seizure or anything like that. However the EKG displayed the slow heart beat. It showed that ever 2 to 3 beats there was a pause. The doc said that a good sign in though that the connection of the heart was good and the fact that the pause was consistent was also good. She suggested talking to a cardiologist to see what we could do if we needed to go further with making sure Tippy is alright. So far Tippy is doing well, playing, jumping, begging for food, and being the crazy little dog she is. I spoke with a cardiologist office today after getting some numbers from the doc we saw on Sat. (By the way she was very helpful and actually got on the phone personally). She told me that this condition she has not seen too often and that is why she suggested to see a cardiologist for further information. The cardiologist wanted to schedule us for an exam and an Echo cardiogram, an ultrasound of the heart. I am all too familiar with those because I get them once a year. When I spoke to the woman at the office I explained that my dog has already had an EKG and that the vet would fax them over the results of that and the blood work. I mentioned that I didn’t really want her to have to have the echo I just wanted the opinion of the cardiologist based on those previous results. I just want to know if this is a progressive disease that will inevitably get worse over time or if she is stable as long as we don’t over exert her with walks and other activities. The lady set my appointment for just an exam with enough time in case I chose to get the echo. After talking to my mom she suggested I call my aunt who has had a lot of vet experience working with a vet and breading Golden Retrievers. I called my aunt and she knew exactly what I was talking about. She said that no medication at my dogs age would really help and she thinks that with just regulating her activities she should be ok. It just so happens that her own vet was on his way to her house to vaccinate the puppies she had so she said that she would ask his opinion. When she called back she had told me the very same thing. The scary thing is that as with humans who have this condition there is the possibility of cardiac arrest. This scares me so much and I have been crying for a few days now. I am blessed to have this wonderful pet for so long so far and am very grateful for her love and companionship. I am hopeful that I will have a least a couple more years with her just by keeping her calm and not over exerting her. I keep saying my prayers. The bright spot in this is that she is acting like the crazy little dog she has always been. I love this little dog so much and now that we have two dogs, they are so cute together! They look a lot alike and they always want their walks together. I feel so bad for Tippy right now because I cannot take her on walks it is just too hot outside. She is the smartest thing too. We have their leashes in the ottoman that slides open and she knows exactly where it is. She tries to open it up and when it’s open she knows which leash is hers. She will grab it with her teeth and drag it all the way to the front door! This dog is amazing and I love every bit of her!!!