Rain!

It's a wet, grey day in Phoenix! It's raining on and off, and it's supposed to continue that way for the rest of the day and into this evening. It actually makes a nice change, really. Most of the time it's warm and sunny with blue skies, so a grey drizzly day is quite refreshing!

We had a lie-in this morning, Suzie woke us up at 6.30 so we put the dogs on the bed with us and they eventually went back to sleep. We got up at 9.40 - positively late for us, even for a weekend! It was nice, but I do feel a bit groggy now because of waking up and going back to sleep a couple of times. Oh well! It's not as though we're doing much today. I think it might be a movie day - there seem to be a few decent-ish movies on TV, so that'll keep me occupied for a little while!

I need to go to trusty old Target at some point, poor Gracie has allergies at the moment and she's scratching lots. She's on Benadryl 3 times a day (luckily we got the Target own version which is exactly the same, only $4 for 100 so that's great!). Anyway, we're also having to put shirts on her to stop her from scratching herself too badly - her skin was getting raw where she was scratching, so it does help to put a shirt on her. I think I'm gonna buy a pack of baby shirts from Target, she's gonna need a few because all the scratching inevitably results in holes. There's no point spending $15 on a dog shirt, when I can probably get 4 or 5 baby shirts for around that price. Well, I haven't looked into the prices, but I'm sure they're a lot cheaper than dog clothes anyway! She probably needs either a 12 or 18 month size, I'm thinking the 18 month will be better because it'll fit looser. Pugs are hard to buy clothes for because they're broad shouldered and dog clothes that are meant for their weight range and length are usually too small around the shoulders. Ordinarily it wouldn't be an issue because we don't dress them very often, but Gracie seems to feel the cold a lot more than Suzie and with her scratching because of her allergies, it's the only thing we can do to help (apart from the Benadryl of course). Gracie actually seems to love wearing clothes too, she gets all wiggly and happy when we get them out for her. Suzie? Not so much. Apart from the gorgeous pink polka dot dress she wore to our wedding, she loved that one!

:-)

Gosh, the past few days I've spoken to lots of my friends... Wednesday I talked to Taj, who arrives here on April 22nd, and I also talked to my Mom and Dad for a while to tell them about the house and my unexpected tax rebate. My Aunt Dorothy also called, so I spoke to her for a bit too. Thursday I talked to Tamzin, Debbie and Rochelle. It seems to happen like that - I don't get to speak to anyone for ages and then in the space of a couple of days I speak to loads of people. I kinda would prefer it to be more spaced out but hey, what can you do? I guess it just happens to be when people are free - I'm free most of the time, but they're all busy!

Oh - good news, the government shutdown has been averted. Hopefully there will be no disruption while Taj, my Mom and my stepdad are here! :-)

A day in the life of a housewife... again!

This morning I got up at 5.35, made breakfast and coffee, walked the dogs and fed them (Gracie wouldn't eat anything - that pissed me off!). Then I did the dishes, did some laundry, changed our bed linen, dusted, vacuumed, mopped and then cleaned the bathroom. I also cleaned the dogs' water fountain. I cleared the yard of dog poop too. Then I made us lunch, and now I need to do some more dishes and put the other ones away. I'm tired!

We're going to look at some more houses today, there are 4 we're supposed to view this time. Hubby is finishing work an hour early (he didn't take his lunch break) and we're meeting the realtor at one of the houses right after that. Then this evening the in-laws are coming for dinner. It's 92ºF right now and it's going to be 97 later - it's too hot! It's going to be hot for a while, I think. We're in April now and it's not going to cool off now, not much anyway. That means walking the dogs early every day, before it gets too hot for them (and me!).

Last night I had another driving lesson, it was my first one since Sunday. It went really well, I ended up driving for about 4 miles on a main road and didn't do anything wrong! I shifted gear fine every time, I obeyed the speed limit and I didn't drive too far to the right of the lane! Hehe. I also had some traffic lights to contend with, and stopped behind a car without getting too close. I also got a good start when the lights changed, so that was good. I didn't get all stressed out - I think I'm getting the hang of this driving business! :-)

I drove us to our local supermarket on the way back, and parked in the lines albeit at a funny angle! Then I drove us home, the long way, so I didn't have to make any left turns, haha! I enjoyed it, it was a good confidence boost because I did good and that was by far the furthest I've ever driven on a "big" road so it showed me I can do it and everything is fine. :-)

We might finally be getting somewhere... Maybe!

Hubby got an email from our realtor last night, she now has her computer back virus-free and found hubby's emails which had somehow gone into her junk mail. Hopefully we might be able to look at some houses when hubby finishes work today at 3... Fingers crossed, anyway.

When we went to get our mortgage pre-approval, it was based on 20% down which is what hubby wants to do. Our realtor has now said she doesn't understand why we don't want to just put 3.5% down, like most first time buyers. Well, that'd be because we'd end up borrowing a lot more and our monthly payments would be higher, and hubby has saved up so what's the point of not putting down 20%? It makes more sense to us to put more money down and have lower monthly payments - otherwise the mortgage will be crippling us! 3.5% is fine for people who haven't got savings, but it seems daft to only put that down when you do have the money there!

The dogs had a fight this morning, it was the first time in a while. Neither of them was hurt, hubby grabbed Suzie as soon as she started and then I got the spray bottle and used it on them both. It didn't have any effect this time but I think it's because I didn't get it in time - it was on the dining table and I was in the living room area, so it took me a little longer to get it. All's well now though, thank goodness.

I took them for a short walk just before 9 a.m. - it was already 70ºF then, it's going to be 83 today, then 86 tomorrow, 92 Thursday, 95 Friday... yuck! This is spring? Damn!

I'm not exactly looking forward to summer in the desert, it'll certainly be an experience... =/

A long one!

On Friday my Dad emailed me so I called him. He said he would call me sometime this week, so again, we'll see. I think if/when he doesn't call, which is likely given his past history, I should just ignore him and not bother telling him again how annoying it is when he does that. I'll just wait to hear from him in another 3 weeks or so, and keep it inside. I mean, I've told him enough times now how much it upsets me when he doesn't call me when he's supposed to, so if he continues to do that then I'll just assume he doesn't care that he's upsetting me.

Also on Friday I was involved in the rescue of 2 dogs found wandering in my neighborhood. I was walking Suzie and Gracie just after 9 a.m. when I saw these 2 dogs walking towards us, and a guy walking a bit behind them. I assumed they were with him, but he asked me if I knew whose dogs they were. He'd first seen them at 8 a.m. in his street, and he'd been tracking them ever since. He'd called the Humane Society and they said they would send someone. In the meantime I kept an eye on the dogs and he went knocking on doors to see if anyone knew the dogs. We thought they'd maybe escaped from someone's yard or something. The guy brought some dog food and water out for the dogs, but they wouldn't go near either of them. Basically they were really skittish and you couldn't get close to them. Neither dog was wearing a collar. They were 2 shelties, they looked pretty well cared for and I don't think they'd been loose for very long. I borrowed the guy's cell phone to call my hubby, and he came to get our dogs to take them home. He also googled a bunch of different shelters and rescue organizations and started calling around, with no luck. At 10.15 a.m. I called the Humane Society again, and asked when someone might get to the dogs. The guy I spoke to was pretty rude and informed me that they would "try to be there by 3 p.m." - I told him we were trying to keep the dogs away from the 2 very busy main roads, and the dogs likely wouldn't still be there by 3 p.m. and he said, "What do you want me to do about it?" - I said that we didn't want the dogs to get hit by a car and he asked if they'd been hit yet so when I said "No, not yet" he also responded with "What do you want me to do about it?" - well wouldn't it be better to rescue the dogs before they got hit?! What the hell?!

The guy who'd found the dogs originally had to leave to go to work, so I stayed to keep watch over the dogs.

Hubby got in touch with a different organization at 11 a.m. who said it would be 6 to 8 hours before they could come. Brilliant - it'd be getting dark by that point! He also called AZ Sheltie Rescue, and left a message.

A lady rode by on her bicycle and I stopped her and asked if she recognized the dogs - she didn't, but she stayed with me to help. She called her sister and she came along too. We were trying to keep the dogs in a safe section, away from the roads. One of the women called the cops to see if they would send anyone, I ended up speaking to them over the phone and they told me someone would be dispatched very soon, as in it would be the next call to be dispatched. They took my (hubby's) cell phone number (I had his cell by that point) and they called me right back to say they wouldn't be able to send anyone after all because the dogs weren't attacking anyone. I was gutted.

One of the women who just moved in to a house opposite where all this was going on brought me a bottle of water out, because I'd been there for ages! Hubby brought me a sandwich, some chips, a Pepsi and a bottle of water too. I hadn't eaten breakfast because I'd been planning to have it after our walk, which would've been around 9.30! I was pretty hungry by that point.

Around 1 p.m. the dogs started trying to make a run for it, we tried to stop them but they got away. They were so scared, it was awful. I wished they would just realize we were trying to help, but obviously they didn't know us and had no reason to trust us. They ended up running right across one of the main roads, and almost got hit by traffic. The ladies on the bicycles followed them but I was on foot and didn't know what to do. I ended up walking around the neighborhood once more, not expecting to see the dogs again but hoping they might return to the area. I spotted one of the ladies on her bicycle and one of the dogs was there too - yay! I kept an eye on the dog, watching him go up and down the green belt. I tried throwing him pieces of my sandwich, thinking he might be hungry, but he ignored them. I walked all the way down towards where the dog was, under a bridge that goes under the road. I saw another neighbor and talked to her for a bit, we watched the dog from a distance. I got a voicemail from AZ Sheltie Rescue, saying they'd send someone local out to our location. Hubby called them again to tell them our current location.

The dog then moved back the other way, to where the 2 dogs had been originally. I'd left the rest of my sandwich by a tree when I'd started following the dog, and he stopped by the tree for a while so I figured he was eating my sandwich - he ate the whole thing, which was good, at least he wouldn't be hungry. Then he ran off again. At that point I couldn't really do anything so I reluctantly went home, defeated. I was really worried about the dogs, they were now separated and probably panicking like crazy. When I got home I realized I had pretty terrible sunburn - my face, apart from where my sunglasses were, was really really red, my arms were too and so were the backs of my legs. When I'd left the house the UV index was low, and only planning to be out for 30-40 minutes I didn't put any sunscreen on. Damn! I was pretty upset about the dogs, I really thought they'd get hit by a car or something, and the fact they were no longer together really upset me too. When I got home hubby called AZ Sheltie Rescue again to let them know the dogs had bolted and we didn't know where they were now, and he called the Humane Society and Animal Control to tell them the same. No point having them spend time coming out when the dogs were no longer there...

All day Saturday I kept wondering about the dogs, hoping they'd be rescued by someone else. I didn't see any posters in our area, I half expected to see a "missing dogs" poster but didn't. If I had, I'd have rung them and told them what had happened, and that a lot of people had tried really hard to help but to no avail.

Then on Sunday we took the girls to the dog park and lo and behold, there were 2 posters saying "Found - 2 sheltie dogs" !!! Yay! I took the details (Craigslist listing and email address) and checked it out when I got home - and it was those 2 dogs, and they were both together and safe. Thank God! I emailed the woman and it was one of the ladies who'd been helping me out, the ones with the bicycles (sisters). She told me that they'd got one of the dogs cornered in one of their neighbors' yards, so trapped it in there, then a few hours later around 6.30 p.m. they'd found the other one too and taken it back to the same place to reunite the dogs. I was so happy to hear that! The lady whose yard the dogs were in kept the dogs overnight and in the morning Animal Control came to collect them. The women who eventually managed to catch the dogs got in touch with AZ Sheltie Rescue and they've agreed to take both dogs once they've been evaluated at the shelter (standard procedure). That evaluation takes about 3 days. Neither dog had a microchip and as they had no collars there's no way to identify them. Poor things. I suspect they'd been abandoned, nobody so far has come looking for them and it's been 4 days now so you'd think if they have an owner they'd be frantically searching for them.

Anyway, it's good to know the story of these dogs will have a happy ending - someone will love them again, hopefully they'll get re-homed together and have a lovely new family. It's nice to know my 5 hour effort wasn't in vain, too! :-)

On Sunday we took the girls to an APARN fundraiser, PugStock 2011! The theme of the event was, of course, hippie! We went to a farmers market on Saturday and a lady there sells loads of tie-dye stuff, she didn't have anything for dogs but she had lots of baby T-shirts. We asked if we could try one on our dog and she was happy for us to do so - we ended up with 2 shirts for the girls, both 18 month size! They fit great. Only $10 each, too - much cheaper than "proper" doggy clothes!

We had a great day at PugStock, and I think APARN will have made quite a bit of money. They adopted out 7 pugs that I'm aware of, hopefully more adoptions will follow soon. The lady who'd been fostering Gracie before we took her was really happy to see Gracie again. She said they had another 6 pugs being surrendered that day, it's so so sad. They can't adopt them out quick enough - it seems as though for every pug they adopt out, they get another 3 or more! I wish we could take another, but we can't. We're having trouble with Suzie at the moment anyway, she's getting quite aggressive with Gracie at times and we've had to break them up a lot lately because Suzie's trying to fight Gracie. It's horrible, but we're hoping it's a phase that will pass. We took Suzie to her agility class last night and she started acting up there too, with the trainer's dog! How embarrassing... The class finished at 7 p.m. but Wendi, the trainer, stayed behind with us for 45 minutes helping us with Suzie. She showed us a few techniques which really seem to work well, we've been using them since we got home last night. We're going to sign Suzie up for an obedience class too, we'll sort out the details next Monday when we go back for the agility filming session. It's embarrassing because Suzie is so cute but she can be really nasty at the moment, and it's really not cool. She's never shown any aggression towards other dogs, or people, and for it to start now is just horrible. Wendi was saying that she's at that age where things like this do start to happen - she's 19 months. We need to nip it in the bud ASAP, which we're trying to do. The obedience class should help too, we'll learn a lot. The situation with Suzie and Gracie is escalating, it's making Gracie reluctant to eat again and she was doing so well - last week I noticed a big improvement in her general attitude, she seemed to be settling in well and she seemed happier generally. Wendi agreed with me that this could be part of the reason for Suzie's aggression - before last week, Gracie was depressed and very submissive, so Suzie probably didn't feel at all threatened by her, but now Gracie's coming out of her shell so to speak, she does perceive her to be more of a threat. This morning when I gave them their breakfast, Gracie took a while to start eating (long enough for Suzie to finish eating before Gracie had really started) and then Suzie went for Gracie so we had to remove Suzie from the situation. Gracie was really worked up by it, though, understandably. I couldn't get her to eat after that, I tried for 25 minutes and she wouldn't eat. Poor Gracie. It's so frustrating! We just need to persevere with Suzie, making sure she knows we're the boss and not her, and we just need to be consistent. She's turning into a monster!

House hunting!

I've been meaning to blog for a while now but never got around to it. I guess I didn't really have anything that important to say!

The saga of Gracie the night monster continues... Last night was horrendous, she wouldn't stay in bed and she was pacing around our room, so hubby let her out (again) and she went potty. She hadn't done anything when he took them out before bedtime, though - how annoying! Then she seemed to settle, but at 2am she was whining and scratching on my side of the bed. I let her out again - she peed. Again, why she couldn't have done that either of the previous two times we'd let her out, I don't know! Then again she woke us at 5am. Jeez! I don't know what her problem is, but she definitely doesn't like night time. She just won't settle. We have a problem virtually every night and it's doing our heads in! I would put her out in the hallway overnight but she would still whine and cry and then she'd start scratching the bedroom door, so it wouldn't help much. It's infuriating! She wakes us probably as many times as a newborn baby would! (I'm not comparing having dogs to having children, by the way - I know it's completely different but at least you expect a baby to wake you through the night!)

Yesterday we searched online for houses for sale within about 10 miles of our area. We made a list of some of them and went to drive by them, to see what the areas were like and if the houses looked worthwhile making an appointment to view. Of course, you can only tell so much from the exterior, but it was more about location and whether the areas had a good vibe about them. We've ruled out one house for definite, because in order to get to it you have to drive right by loads of really run-down trailer parks and boarded up houses - it didn't exactly feel safe round there! The house itself and its surrounding neighborhood seemed nice enough, but it was almost as though the housing estate was built in amongst all these dodgy trailer parks! It just didn't have a good feel to it. So we didn't waste our time - at least we've ruled some in and some out, which is what we expected to do really. It's going to be a learning curve, that's for sure. We're pretty sure we know what we want, for the most part - our main requirements are as follows:

- 4 bedrooms or more

- 2 bathrooms (or 1.5, 1.75, whatever!)

- 2 car garage

- good air conditioning

- nice location with good access to the freeways and good amenities nearby

In addition to that, I'd like to have a laundry room as we do now and it's really nice not to have to do laundry in the garage (in Phoenix it's way too hot in the summer to spend much time in the garage, since they generally don't have A/C!). The laundry room isn't absolutely essential but it would be nice!

We saw one house which looked nice but it was literally 3 doors down from a big elementary school - that kinda put us off. I mean, we're wanting to have children soon so for that reason it would be good, but traffic would be crazy at school start and end times and there were signs up saying no parking between 7am and 4pm - so you couldn't even park outside your own house! That wouldn't be so much of a problem for us because we'd park in the garage or on the driveway (depending on if we had 1 or 2 cars and if we had enough space in the garage for both) but if we had guests that could be very problematic. We ruled that one out.

There were a couple of really nice neighborhoods we looked at and we want to make appointments to view those houses, so we effectively ruled some houses in! Quite a variation in prices, going from literally as little as $85,000 to $135,000. We could go higher but we figured we'd start out low and see what we can get - in this economy there are a lot of nice houses going for cheap, so we may as well try and get one for as little as we can. We don't need a flashy house, after all! The 4 bedroom requirement is partly because hubby works from home so he needs an office, we need a bedroom, we'll need a nursery when we have a baby and it would be nice to have a spare room. Also, we're planning to have at least 2 kids so when that happens maybe we'll forget about having a spare room and they'll have a room each. We'll see! Neither of us wants to move house again for a long time, so we need to make sure we buy the right one and one that's going to be big enough for us and our expanding family! :-)

I got a message on Facebook this morning from hubby's sister in Florida, asking if we're going to be attending her daughter's high school graduation in June. Maybe it's because I'm not American and I don't "get it" but really? It's over 2000 miles away! It's a high school graduation! I spoke to hubby about it and told him that since his sister didn't come to our wedding, I don't see why we should go all that way for a high school graduation! I'm pretty sure that weddings are a bit more important than graduations, right? Surely they are! Anyway, I've never met his sister and although I would like to, we're not going to be able to make it regardless. Hubby's vacation time doesn't re-set until July, he only has a few days left at this point and he's wanting to take them soon; we're wanting to buy a house and so him taking unpaid leave isn't really an option; I looked at flights and the cheapest I could find was almost $1000 return for the two of us, which is significant when we're going to need a deposit for our house and moving fees etc. Hubby's parents are going, he said they'll probably be driving - so we could go with them if we had the time, but if we were going to go it would have to be by air because we don't have enough time to drive there and back! Also, we'd have to find someone to look after the dogs and they'd probably have to go into kennels for a few days - I'm not keen on that idea, and it adds more expense! A couple of people we know from the dog park offered to look after Suzie if we went away, but that was before we got Gracie - with 2 dogs I'm sure people would be more reluctant to make the same offer! Plus, I couldn't impose the night monster on anyone - how mean would that be?!

So anyway, I told hubby's sister that he doesn't have the vacation time and we're trying to buy a house so taking unpaid leave isn't an option right now. I still don't see why we should make that effort to go all that way for a silly high school graduation when she didn't make the effort to come to our wedding.

Good News!

My green card arrived on Saturday! Yay! Not bad really, 9 days after my interview - can't complain at all! It feels great to have it, it's a big milestone. Now we can relax until November 2012, when we'll have to apply to have the conditions removed. Because it's a marriage-based green card, they only issue the card for 2 years - then you send in more paperwork to have the conditions removed, and you get a new, 10 year green card. In 3 years time from now I'll be eligible to apply for citizenship, so I'll most likely do that when the time comes - it'll save a lot of hassle!

The weekend was a bit miserable weather-wise, really. We had a short hail storm and quite a bit of rain Saturday, then yesterday it rained again. It's pretty big news here when it rains - it still makes me laugh. By UK standards the rain really wasn't that big of a deal, but for the desert I guess it was a lot!

I cleaned the whole house on Friday, then hubby's brother came round for dinner so I cooked pasta. The house looks a mess again now - seriously, having 2 dogs rather than 1 makes a big difference to the state of the house. I'm gonna clean again tomorrow I think.

Tonight we're taking Suzie to her first ever agility class! We got the idea last week, that she might enjoy it and it would be good for her. I found a class and emailed the people who run it, and there's a class starting tonight which is a 5 week course. It's only for an hour each time, on Monday evenings. I think it'll be fun! We'll probably get laughed at by the other people there for bringing a pug to an agility class, but I don't see any reason why she couldn't be good at it. She's clever and she learns quickly, and she's got lots of energy. It'll be cool to see her do that! I'm taking my camera along, of course. :-)

We haven't been sleeping well these past 2 or 3 nights - Gracie has been acting odd, barking at something (no idea what) and getting out of her bed constantly. She comes to the side of the bed and whines, and when she's not doing that she's going under our bed. Weird! Hubby got up early this morning at like 4 a.m. to try to let her outside, thinking she needed to go potty - nope! I don't know what her problem is!!! I'm knackered now, and I'm sure hubby is too. I might take a nap, actually!

Drama at the Dog Park - again!

I emailed APARN and told them that we hadn't been made aware of Gracie's health issues, and the lady apologized profusely - it was some kind of oversight. I can see how that kind of thing could happen, but at least now they might just be extra careful to make sure potential adoptive 'parents' know of any issues a dog may have before they go ahead and adopt.

I joined a pug forum and got some pretty good info from people on there who've experienced the same problems with their pugs, and they recommended starting Gracie on joint supplements called Cosequin DS. I searched around online and the best price I found was $39.99 for 132 chewable tablets. Petco have the whole range on sale if you buy online, but even then they were charging $44.99 for 110 of the exact same chewable tablets, and $52.49 for 132. It was worth the extra time to find them for less, especially as the regular Petco price for that pack size is $69.99!

You're meant to give one a day for 4-6 weeks and then you can reduce it to half a day after that initial period. That means 132 tablets will last for at least 7 months, so it's worth the expenditure. Especially if this stuff is as good as everyone says it is - it's meant to be great for dogs of all sizes and ages. If it helps Gracie's knees then it's worth it. Her patella did actually luxate for a short time last night, she jumped off the couch while we were eating dinner and started limping. It went back in after about a minute though. She didn't yelp or anything, but I can't imagine it would be a comfortable sensation! If this stuff is as good as it's meant to be, then hopefully it will help to prevent, or at least delay, the onset of arthritis. It should arrive either tomorrow or Friday hopefully, I paid for 2-3 day delivery.

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Yesterday when hubby finished work we took Suzie and Gracie over to the dog park. We arrived at the same time as one of our friends, who has a pug and a French bulldog. All was well until Jester, the Frenchie, got mauled by a bloody pitbull. The most horrific thing about it was that nobody could get the damn pitbull off of him - it had half Jester's head in its mouth and it was shaking him like a ragdoll. The pitbull's owner was screaming "choke him!" to the guy who was with her, because despite screaming at the dog and hitting it to try and get it to let go, it wouldn't. I didn't actually really see the attack because we were a little way away and there were loads of people gathered around, trying to get the damn dog off of poor little Jester. To be honest I was trying to locate Suzie as well, for a short time I couldn't see her and I was panicking like crazy. Gracie doesn't venture far from our side so I knew where she was. When the dog finally let go, poor Jester had at least 3 or 4 puncture wounds to his head, neck and shoulder. There was one at the base of his ear that I think had gone through the skin of the ear. It was awful. Considering how prolonged and vicious the attack was, I think he actually was very lucky. The pitbull could've ripped his ear off, he could've even killed him... It's just so scary.

Our friend was in shock, she was pretty calm but you could tell it was the shock doing that to her. I'm not surprised - I'd be a total mess if that happened to one of our girls. The fact that there was nothing she could do probably made it that much worse, too. Luckily someone had some peroxide in their car, so he went and got that to put on the wounds. One of the guys there called the cops, and there was a huge commotion with a lot of people yelling at the people with the pitbull because a dog like that doesn't belong in a dog park! Especially when the dog park is in 2 separate sections - small dogs and large dogs. Well, Jester certainly belongs in the small dog side. The pitbull should never have been in that section - in fact, he probably shouldn't even be on the big dog side. At least if it had attacked a bigger dog, the dog being attacked would have probably had more of a chance. I'm still shocked about the whole thing, really. It's just so horrendous. Our poor friend, she must still be in shock over it. I'm glad I didn't really see the attack - the sounds were bad enough. I knew it must be really bad if the owner was yelling "choke him!" - you wouldn't say that if it was minor, would you? The fact that nobody could get the dog to stop is the scariest thing - I know that not all pitbulls are bad, of course; I know they get a particularly bad rap - but when they start attacking there's really very little you can do. I'm seriously considering carrying hubby's baseball bat with me when we go to the dog park from now on - there's no way I'm going to stand by helpless if a vicious beast goes for Suzie or Gracie. I was angry enough on the two occasions that little bastard pomeranian attacked Suzie, and although I think that dog is capable of doing some serious damage (particularly to her prominent eyes) it's nothing compared to a pitbull. At least you can grab the little fucker and throw him if you need to - he's a nasty piece of work but he's small and light enough that you can pull him off relatively easily. A pitbull is a completely different entity and it really doesn't take much for one to severely maul or even kill a dog, big or small. The people with the pitbull's owner were trying to justify the whole thing - well, I'm sorry, but there is no justification. Jester was no threat to a dog that weighs at least 5 times what he does - he's 23 pounds for fuck's sake and he's not vicious! I'm just glad that Jester is OK. I'm sure he'll be in quite a bit of pain, and there's gonna be bruising under there, but the bites themselves look fairly superficial. I guess that being alive and not too severely injured is a good outcome when you've been attacked by a pitbull, anyway.

When the cop eventually arrived, after what must have been around 30 minutes (even though the dispatcher told the man who called that it was a 'priority' call!) the people with the pitbull had long gone. I asked the cop myself what you're legally allowed to do if a dog is attacking your (or another) dog, and he said, "Don't even worry about that, just do whatever you need to do to stop it" - good! So I think the baseball bat idea is probably a good one. I know it's more likely to be effective in a situation like that than shouting or hitting the attacking dog with your hand, anyway. I'd hate to have to hurt any dog, but I'm sorry, if it's attacking my dog, or another dog, then I damn well will.

Funnily enough, on Monday (the day before the attack) there was a man in the dog park with a handgun in a holster on his belt. At the time I thought it was a little odd, only because he's the first civilian I've actually seen to carry a gun even though I've been here over 5 months now, and also because I thought it was strange to carry a gun to the dog park - well, we could've used him yesterday! I don't like the thought of hurting a dog, but really what else could you do to stop such a vicious attack? The other thing is, that there were some little kids in the dog park yesterday - I know people say pitbulls only attack other dogs, but with a dog like that which nobody could control, how do you really know? I bet the police would've arrived quicker if it had attacked a person - of course they would. I hope those stupid people never come back to the dog park, and if they do then that bloody dog best be in a muzzle or left at home. I said as much to the owner - I told her that if her dog had attacked one of my dogs, I would not be as calm as our friend was. I said that dog does not belong here, and if you're going to take it out of the house it needs to be under control and have a muzzle on. I didn't shout at her, she was hysterical too, but it's something that better not be repeated because I swear, if that had been Suzie, and they tried to justify the attack to me like they did yesterday, I would go ballistic. It just doesn't bear thinking about, I'd be devastated if Suzie was attacked like that (I say Suzie rather than Gracie because Gracie doesn't go far from us, but Suzie does, and I think Suzie would be more likely to be in the situation Jester was in yesterday - but of course, if it happened to Gracie I would go crazy too).

I don't want to stop taking the girls to the dog park, because I know it's good for them (especially Suzie, because she plays and runs like crazy every time we go) but it's made me quite reluctant to want to take them without hubby being with us. I already was reluctant, actually, but now I'm even more so. If anything like that were to happen to Suzie or Gracie, I'd never forgive myself (even though it wouldn't be my fault!).

An Update

OK, so we took Gracie to our vet. He doesn't think her patellar luxation is anywhere near bad enough to consider surgery. She walks normally and he said grade 2 luxations aren't that bad. He did say she might get arthritis later on because of it, though. He couldn't say with certainty that she won't progress to grade 3 luxation, but I didn't really expect him to be able to - he doesn't have a crystal ball, after all.

With regards her eye, he likened pigmentary keratitis to how the world looks to us wearing sunglasses. He said it would drive a person crazy but dogs just get on with things. We have some steroid eye drops for her, which we need to give her twice a day every day for the rest of her life. Luckily they were only $17 - although that's obviously going to end up costing a lot over the course of her lifetime! At least they're not like $50 a time though. That's what I thought they might cost. The vet said that the drops should stop her condition getting any worse, and hopefully will prevent her good eye from developing the condition too.

I'm still annoyed that we only just found out what APARN already knew - it doesn't seem very fair, really. I'm not sure how to broach the subject with them, obviously we're keeping Gracie but I think they ought to be aware that they should have told us what they knew. It was quite stressful to see that information last night, out of the blue. At least if they'd told us we would've known, and we could've got more information.

You know, I think Gracie knew something was up this morning because she hardly ate any of her breakfast (I mean, she ate maybe 15% of it - that's 15% of about a third of a cup, so really not much) and on the way to the vet she was whining a lot in the car. She doesn't normally do that. The difference this time was that we left Suzie at home. I wonder if she thought we were going to take her somewhere and leave her there? I mean, like her previous owner did when they surrendered her to APARN. In the vet's office she was shaking like a leaf. I just kept cuddling her and eventually she settled down. Poor little girl, I hate when she's scared like that.

It's such a relief that we can keep her - I really was starting to think that we'd have to give her back, we don't have thousands of dollars lying around for really expensive surgery; we're hoping to buy a house this year! Hopefully Gracie will never need surgery on her knees, if we're lucky they won't get any worse. As long as she has a good quality of life, that's the main thing.

Would've been nice to know...

We didn't end up going to see the in-laws on Saturday, as hubby was called for work at 3.30 p.m. and ended up having to work until after 11 p.m. We went over yesterday instead.

When we got home I had an email from APARN - Gracie's paperwork. We were pretty shocked to find that she has 2 pretty serious pre-existing conditions which we knew nothing of. She was seen by a veterinarian the day before we first met her, and they wrote a report stating that she has bilateral patellar luxation and also pigmentary keratitis in her left eye which is gradually making her blind. It's a condition where the cornea becomes covered in a layer of filmy pigment and causes blindness - so far, her cornea is 40% covered so she's effectively almost half blind in that eye. The patellar luxation is in both of her hind legs and is currently grade 2 - I've been researching it and apparently surgery is the only treatment option, and even after surgery there's a 50% chance of some degree of luxation recurring. Oh, by the way, surgery costs between $1500 and $2000 per leg - so it's not exactly cheap. The pigmentary keratitis is something that apparently can be treated with eye drops or ointment - but it won't be cured. I've read some articles that say the progression can be halted or slowed down, but the drops are very expensive.

So what the hell do we do now? We've had Gracie for 10 days. She'd been messed around enough before she came to us, so we'd feel terrible giving her back. None of this is her fault, obviously. However, APARN knew about her problems and they did not tell us about either one. If they had, we could have made an informed decision about whether or not to adopt her. Pet insurance is out of the question - they don't cover pre-existing conditions. We're taking her to the vet at 11 to see what they say. We also probably need to get her vaccinated against rabies and kennel cough, too - there's no record of either being given, although she must have had the rabies shot as she was licensed. I'm guessing we'll have to get the rabies shot again, otherwise we can't get a license for her. It was a different county she was licensed in before, too.

I just don't know what to do. I feel so angry at APARN for not disclosing this pretty important information. I mean, do you not think we deserve to know that she has 2 chronic conditions that are only going to get worse? We signed the adoption agreement thinking that she was in very good health. They had this information before we met Gracie and didn't tell us until 9 days after we adopted her. I know we could return her and cut our losses (we'd lose the adoption fee) and they would take her back - but as I said, we'd feel terrible doing that. Poor Gracie. At the same time though I don't think we can really afford all of this - we wanted to buy a house this year and if we're going to have to spend thousands on orthopedic surgery and eye treatments then that will have to wait. We also want to have a baby and they're expensive.

Obviously Suzie could be diagnosed with a problem like this, and we'd have to sort it out. We wouldn't consider giving her away. But this is something we should have been made aware of prior to adopting Gracie, it's like they deliberately hid it from us. We could've made an informed decision about whether or not to proceed with the adoption. You know, we would've adopted a pug anyway, just maybe not this one. I hope I don't sound awful but it's the truth. There should be full disclosure of any medical issues they're aware of. They can't say they weren't aware of them, because the vet report is dated January 28th and it has the name of the woman in charge on it as the person who took her there. The same woman we spoke with for ages on the day we met Gracie - and the same one who was emailing me regarding the adoption. They had plenty of time to tell us about her issues, and they didn't. It took them 9 days to get that information to me. Fucking hell!!!

Finally got some sleep!

Last night we went to PetSmart and got a new doggy bed for Gracie. It's the same as the one we got for Suzie last year, but green instead of blue (like it really matters!). Suzie settled right away, but Gracie took a while to settle - she wanted to be on the bed with us. I felt really bad for her because I know she's sad right now, but we had to have the bed back to ourselves for our own sanity! We were hardly sleeping at all before. With both of the girls in their beds, we weren't disturbed by Gracie's snoring - what a relief! The girls probably slept better too, they have their own space in their beds and I'm sure when they slept on our bed we were waking them whenever we moved, or when we were trying to get Gracie to stop snoring!

We also got the girls a toy each - Gracie played properly for the first time last night! It was so nice to see! I think she's maybe feeling happier now. Yesterday evening I did have trouble getting her to eat, though. I spent half an hour with her, coaxing her to eat. At first she only ate a few little bits, then she wouldn't eat again for ages. I was about to give up when she started eating again, and she finished her dinner eventually. I hope that's only going to be a temporary thing - I'm sure it's because she's a bit depressed, with having been given away by her original owner. It's completely understandable. I do think she's a little underweight, so I really want her to eat more. I guess we'll just have to work on that. It's not much, maybe a pound or two. As long as she eats twice a day and eats most, if not all, of the food we give her, I'll be happy. When she doesn't eat I feel really bad. I know it's not our fault she's unhappy, but I really feel for her - especially when she looks at me with such a sad look in her eyes. I know people think pugs look sad all the time, but they really don't - they have very expressive faces. Gracie looks happy sometimes, like when we're getting ready to go for a walk. When she's refusing to eat, she looks so sad. The look in her eyes breaks my heart.

Anyway... hopefully getting her to eat breakfast won't be such an ordeal!

My patience is wearing thin with some people!!!

Remember when my friend T stood me up yet again for our Skype chat on Friday? Well, I left it a couple of days and didn't hear anything - there was no apology in my inbox, no message on Facebook, nothing. So, I decided to email her yesterday. I kept it simple - I basically said this:

"Hey, what happened to you on Friday? I waited on Skype for half an hour but didn't see you!

Hope you're ok." [read: Huh, you messed me around again. What's your excuse this time?]

I got a reply later in the day, which basically said this:

"I'm so sorry, I fell asleep after dinner. I'm rubbish aren't I? :-( [Yes, very. Consistently rubbish in fact, to the point where I can't be bothered with you right now despite our 23 year friendship]

I've been to London this weekend... [I didn't even really read the rest of that - I don't care, you could have at least apologized before I asked you what happened!]

I'll get on Skype tomorrow night after work, I'll even set a reminder on my phone!" [Wait, you'll even try to remember?! Oh no, I couldn't ask that much of you, really! Don't be silly!]

I wasn't sure how to reply to that, because I was still kinda mad about the whole thing seeing as she consistently lets me down. So after thinking about it a while, today I replied to that email. I didn't address any of the "apology" stuff - I wasn't about to tell her it's fine, because frankly it really isn't fine at all. Once would be alright - repeated occasions of her flaking on me are not fine! I just said that this week is a bit crazy, I have my AOS interview and we just got another pug. I said, "Maybe we can talk sometime next week" - although I doubt it very much, because even if I make plans with her, I think we're all aware that the chances of those plans coming together are approximately 10% right now.

Our mutual friend, R, says I'm too nice to her and I should tell her how rude she's being. She said: "The way T is, is rubbish and down right rude. Who does she think she is? I think the next time you speak you need to make it clear that you're angry about it or she'll keep doing it. She's taking you for granted."

To be honest, I couldn't agree more. I don't really want to have a confrontation about it, but I don't want it to keep happening. Now it's got to the point where I don't even want to make plans with her because it's pointless and all it does is annoy me more when she doesn't show. Maybe R is right when she says I'm too nice to T - nothing will change if I don't say anything, will it? She just expects me to be available whenever she dictates, and then she doesn't show up herself. At least if she would apologize within a reasonable amount of time, it wouldn't be as bad. I shouldn't have to go fishing for answers. Two days was plenty of time for her to send me a quick message explaining. A couple of months back, she did the same thing and I refrained from getting in touch with her - I wanted to see how long it would take her to apologize. Answer: 5 days! This, from the person who's "always connected" because she has an iPhone. The fact that it would be so easy for her to just get in touch makes it all the worse, doesn't it?

On this note, how about my Dad? Well, he still hasn't called me. He was meant to 2 friggin' weeks ago. He emailed me on Saturday to tell me he's getting a rescue dog. I emailed back, saying that's funny because we'd just got our rescue pug. He knew nothing of the possibility of us adopting another pug, because he hadn't kept his word and called me. I also put this in the email:

"I thought you were going to call me last week? Give me a call when you get a chance."

He replied again, but no mention of why he hasn't called or even if he will call. So, I'm still not calling him. He can afford to give me a call every other week at least, it's not like I'm expecting to speak to him daily for goodness' sake. Since I moved to the US 5 months ago, I've grown really tired of many of my so-called relationships with people back in the UK being so one-sided, with most people making little to no effort to keep in touch with me. The worst offenders? My Dad, T and my cousin. Funny how I still haven't heard anything from him. Funny also how he was on Skype a little while ago while I was on, and I typed a couple of messages to him with no response yet again. Yet he has the audacity to send me a Skype message when I'm offline, when he knows I'm offline, saying he hasn't seen me on there for ages! I guess you haven't checked your inbox for at least 3 months, then - if you did, you'd see about 4 emails from me, one from the other day saying that I've been emailing you and heard nothing back since November.

Maybe it's time to cut some people out of my life, if all they do is cause me hurt. I don't want to do that, but how much more should I really take? I mean, I've tried and tried, and what's the point? It really does upset me sometimes how people who are supposedly meant to care about me just clearly don't give a fuck. If they do, they have a very strange way of showing it. How long does it really take to reply to an email? How difficult is it to pick up the damn phone and dial my number? Why make plans with me and repeatedly allow them to fall through, leaving me sitting here like a fucking idiot? I don't understand these people at all.

I was thinking about the whole thing with my cousin... how I've always gone out of my way to see him and his family, how I spent a pretty penny on his and his wife's wedding gifts, how I bought loads of nice gifts for their baby when he was born in March last year, how I took them out for a pre-baby meal. When hubby and I got married in October, did I get so much as a card from them? Nope. What made it even worse is that they were actually in Florida at the time, and they could have bought and sent a card for less than $3. Really, it was too much effort? I can tell you now, if it was my cousin who had emigrated I would have sent a nice card at least. Maybe that means I'm a mug, then? When it's their baby boy's first birthday next month, I will probably go to the trouble of buying him a nice card and mailing it. Maybe what I should do, if I haven't heard from my cousin by then (which seems pretty likely at this rate) is write him a letter and put it in with the card. I could write that it would've been nice if he could've bothered to at least attempt to keep in touch with me, given that nowadays it's not exactly hard. I know he's on his computer a lot, because he's often on Skype and it tells you if the person is on their cell phone (which it doesn't say for him). Not one reply to any of my messages on there, and no replies to emails for 3 months? Shoddy.

I only wish it didn't bother me so much. Perhaps I ought to just move on, I have a new life here with my wonderful, gorgeous husband, our two lovely pug girls and not to forget our fishy! I didn't want to lose touch with people back in the UK, and I tried my best to make sure that didn't happen, but there's only so much one person can do. How many emails should you send with no response whatsoever, before you give up? I think I've reached my limit with my cousin now. As for T, well, I don't know. I don't hate her or anything, but I hate the way she's been treating me. I just don't get it - it's like she has no regard for me whatsoever. I know I'm not working, but that doesn't mean that everyone can just mess me around. My time is still important, and I do have things to do. Now we have Gracie, I have more responsibilities with the pugs - feeding, potty breaks, walking, grooming. Gracie is difficult with food at the moment, she has to really be enticed to eat. I have to feed Suzie, then put her in the office with hubby while I feed Gracie in the hallway with no doors open so she's pretty much stuck there with me (otherwise she just goes off). She's getting better but it's been a little stressful. I know she's still adjusting to us and she's probably still missing her original owner(s) so she's probably sad. I can completely understand that, of course. I expected it, but I still need for her to eat so she can stay strong. It's less than 72 hours since she came to live with us so I'm sure in a little while she'll be more settled, but I just want her to be happy. She sometimes looks so scared and confused and my heart breaks for her. I know she must be so sad that her original owner effectively abandoned her - I know they didn't actually abandon her, but I'm sure that's how Gracie feels because she doesn't understand. I wonder if her original owner is missing her too. Apparently their reason for surrendering her was that they couldn't afford to keep their dogs - if that's true then I'm sure they're really sad about it. I know I would be. All Gracie really knows is that she spent virtually her whole life with that person, and all of a sudden they drove her to a stranger's house and left her there. Her foster mom told me that she cried actual tears and stared at the door that whole night, she was so upset. How heartbreaking is that? And some people think animals don't have feelings.

You know, the way a lot of my friends and family have treated me since September makes me love my pugs all the more. They're always here for me and they always will be - unlike some people I've mentioned. Even Gracie, who as I said has been with us less than 72 hours, is already way more loyal than they are!

Sleep? What's that?

Wow... We had a terrible night's sleep last night! Hubby and I woke repeatedly because of the pugs: Suzie was lying right against hubby (she's like a hot water bottle when she does that, so he kept waking up as he was too hot). Gracie snores so loud I'm starting to think we should've named her Nora (The Snorer!) and she was right next to me. I lost count of how many times I woke up to get her to stop snoring! Hubby left the bedroom at around 4.40 a.m. and went to lie on the couch; I followed him 10 minutes later and told him to go back to bed, and that I would move to the couch with the girls. He can't sleep on the couch, and he has to work at 7 a.m. I can sleep on the couch normally (although it turned out not this morning!) and I don't have a job, so it was only right that hubby could have the bed to himself. We've also decided that no longer are the girls sleeping on the bed with us. Even when it was just Suzie, we weren't sleeping that well. I like having them on the bed with us but I don't like the lack of sleep, and it's not something we should be doing long-term if it's impacting negatively on our lives! Tonight we'll go to PetSmart or Petco and get a nice big comfy dog bed that they can share. They'll still sleep in our room, but at least we'll be comfy in our (very comfy) bed and actually sleep. Gracie will still snore like a big fat man, but at least it won't be right next to our ears!

I feel really bad for hubby, because he's going to feel like absolute crap all day now. I'll make him a nice breakfast and some coffee - maybe I'll make extra coffee today, I think we could both use it to be honest! He's on-call all of this week, which usually means he gets called at like 4 a.m. and he has to get up and get on the computer to solve whatever the problem is (he's a programmer). His on-call weeks are always shitty, but at least if we have the bed back to ourselves then we'll have a better chance of sleeping well until he's called. I hope he doesn't get called on Thursday morning, because we have my AOS interview which is important and I don't want us to be like zombies. I hope the girls will be OK when we're gone, we haven't left them alone together yet but we'll have to do a trial run before Thursday and see how they are when we're gone for an hour or so. I think they'll be OK, but you never know do you? If they're not OK then we'll have to crate Suzie while we're out on Thursday morning, but I hope it doesn't come to that. We shouldn't be gone for too long hopefully, maybe 2 hours or so including travel time. The interview is at 8.40 a.m. so hopefully it'll be on time - they can't open much before that, maybe the first interviews would be at like 8 a.m. It's not like we're near the end of the day or anything - hopefully they won't have had time to get behind by my appointment time!

God, I am so tired. So so tired. You should see the very dark circles under my eyes - shocking! Thank goodness I don't have anywhere to be today - it's times like this I'm even more grateful to be a housewife!

We are now a family of four!

I was right when I said that once we got approval from our landlord to have a second dog, everything would move very quickly! A nice lady from APARN came round to do our home check at 7 p.m. on Friday, and she phoned the lady who was fostering Jessyka to let her know that everything was great. We went to collect her right after that!

Today is our second full day with her, and everything is going really well. Suzie (our first pug-pug) was so excited when we brought Jessyka home, she seemed to think it was the best present ever! Suzie hasn't been jealous much, so that's good. We're very conscious of making sure she doesn't feel at all excluded. She's doing so well. Jessyka didn't respond to her name at all, or any variations of it (Jess, Jessie). We've renamed her Gracie, and she responded to it pretty much immediately. I think it suits her a lot more and she seems to like it!

Right now Suzie and Gracie are playing - it's cute! I don't think Gracie is used to playing the way Suzie does, but every so often she'll try. I'm sure she'll get used to it. There hasn't been any nastiness between them yet, so hopefully it'll stay that way.

Gracie walks really nicely on the leash, which is great. She doesn't seem to know "sit" though so we're trying to teach her. She'll do it sometimes, but you have to say it lots of times first and even then she won't always do it. I'm sure as she gets more comfortable with us she'll come out of her shell and be more amenable to training. I'm so impressed by how she's settling in though, she's great!

The lady who was fostering her is so lovely, she gave us a zip-lock bag with some food in it (Gracie was eating a different type of food to what Suzie eats) and she gave us some treats for her too. She also gave us Gracie's favorite toy, a santa teddy. She didn't want her to go without that, it's so sweet of her (it wasn't Gracie's toy originally, it belonged to the foster mom's pugs but Gracie loves it). Gracie also had a little stripey purple and white shirt on which says "CUTE" on the back - too true! Foster mom wanted her to take that with her too, which is sweet. APARN people are so lovely and they do such good work.

Here's a pic of Gracie - she's such a pretty girl! And it looks like she's going to be a Mommy's girl, which suits me just fine (Suzie is most definitely a Daddy's girl!)