Escape Artist Dakota

this dang dog. She has escaped several times from my house, but I've found her each time. This time, she got out Wednesday morning sometime, and it's now Saturday. I've put up flyers. I've scoured the internet. I have friends looking out for her.  It's been such a lonely week without my baby. It takes all I have not to just cry all day. 

This just makes me wonder how parents can handle the loss of one of their children who are kidnapped and possibly never found. OMG I would die. like, seriously. This is awful.

Tonight is my mom's birthday. We are sitting around their kitchen table after eating dinner, and just starting to eat cake. I don't have my phone on me during dinner, but I grabbed it to take some pics and I noticed I had several facebook notifications. I check it quickly and, someone had tagged my name on a "found dog" post.  and i search, and lo and behold, Dakota was found in where? In a neighboring city. That's 22 miles from my house.  I immediately leave and race over to pick her up. She saw me and jumped straight in my car, but wouldn't 'talk' to me or anything. She was unsure of what was going on and leary.  Her feet were not beat up from the long walk, and she wasn't hungry.  I can only assume someone picked her up, drove her home, and she escaped their yard. 

And the kicker? The people who found her, are friends with Cody and his brother. They were actually on their way to his brother's house when I showed up.  And their house was about 1/4 of a mile from Cody's.  Maybe she smelled my scent there and was searching for me? 

Moments after she jumped in my car. See the fear in her face?

20 minutes later, cuddling with Austynn

She recognizes this bed

Just how I woke up the next morning with my baby

Ginger

Newest member of the family.

Meet Ginger. My red-furred sweet bunny. She had the entire cage as her house. I've litter-trained her. She plays chase with the dogs. And Dakota thinks she is her baby. 

*update- due to recent events and my traveling, I decided to give Ginger away sfter only a few short weeks with her. Good decision but man it's hard giving up an animal. 

ME AND MY KIDS

I enjoy working only minutes from my home.  I get to come home every day during lunch and spend some quality time with my babies.  I was able to capture this awesome moment with all of them! (can you tell, they were wanting the food I was eating). 

Dude is such a mamma's boy. He follows me around from time to time and wants to lay right on top of me. Sometimes he follows me to the bathroom and sits at my feet. 

And this picture - Sweet Maggie was so eager to go for a car ride with me. Little did she know, she was going to the Vet's office for a check-up.  She stared out the door the entire time we waited. 

Rescued Rocky

A few weeks ago we had a storm come through like none we have seen before.  It rained pretty bad, but for about 1-2 minutes (and that was a LONG 1-2 minutes!!!!) we had 75+ mph wind along with golf-ball sized hail come down.  I ended up with only one broken window from it, surprisingly. It sounded like we were in a tornado, or inside a war-zone being attacked.  me and the dogs were pacing around FREAKING the heck out.  A tornado was spotted on the ground about 2 blocks from my house, and I'm pretty positive it went through my yard too.  Terrifying.

After the storm, 2 days later, Pete noticed a dead baby squirrel on the ground.  When he went to look at it, it moved.  Of course, my motherly instinct kicked in and I went and got it, wrapped it in blankets, gave it a bath because it as filthy (and covered with maggots, poor thing), went to the store and bought him formula and bottle fed him. I loved him and held him for about 4-5 hours.  until he died.  I was very sad because Rocky would have been a great sweet pet to keep.

Dakota

Back in October, October 5th to be exact, last year, Me, Bo and the kids were spending a weekend in Austin, helping his sister and her family move. My mom was doing us an awesome favor by dog-sitting two of our three dogs, Dude and Dakota. We brought Sunshine with us, but didn't have room in the car for all three, more room in Bo's Mom's house to keep all three while we were staying with her.

On that beautiful, hot, Saturday afternoon, my mom called to tell me that Dakota, my sweet, beautiful Vizla (who looks like a Pitbull :P ) was bit in the face by a snake (turned out to be a nest of snakes t give her more than 7 snake bites). She said she is ok, but her face is swollen and it's obvious she is in pain. Mom took her to a vet and they gave her some antibiotics and sent them home. Sometime late that night, my mom noticed that both of her eyes had red liquid coming out them, she couldn't open her eyes, and her face and neck had swollen much much more.

Mom made the decision to take the dog to a neighboring town where they had a 24 hr pet hospital. They immediately admitted her in, and gave her several doses of antivenom. not konwing what kind of snake, they couldn't be 100% sure which antivenom to give her, but did their best. That Sunday evening when I got home, I went to visit her and that Monday morning I moved her from the hospital to a local vet for care and treatment.

Throughout that week of her staying in their care, frequent calls checking on her, visits every morning and evening with her, their lovely assistant staff, were quick to jump to conclusions about Dakota's fate and pass those conclusions on to me. I was first told she wouldn't make it through Monday. Then I was told on Tuesday that she will probably lose one or both eyes due to the liquid coming out. Then I was told she will need blood/platelet transfusion (for only many thousands of $$$), among other things I'm sure. I was a nervous wreck that week!!! Friday I was able to bring her home, thank goodness.

That night, she had scratched the top of her head and it peeled off a healing scab from one of the TEN (yes, you read that right) TEN SNAKE BITES on her face. Her head was filled with lots of fluid/puss which began pouring out of her head from that scab wound. The following Monday, I had to admit her back to the vet clinic for her to have surgery so they could insert a tube in her face to drain the liquids. She had to wear a cone for a week. Friday, they removed the tube and she was slowly getting back to her self.

Several months later, Dakota was still lazy and not moving as much. This is due to her white blood cells count dropping so low and her turning anemic. 

Today, she is a great, healthy baby again. She is more loving than she was before the snake bites, and just wants to sit and cuddle any chance she can get.  

furbabies

Everyone's adjusting to the new move pretty well.
Here's a small clip of my happy furbabies. Austynn was so excited the cat, Rusty, finally let her pet him that she demanded I take a picture of it.

Time for a Walk

One of my new year's resolutions is to walk my dogs 3x a week. so far, for the new year, I've only walked them once this week. but it's only Wednesday, so I am NOT worried. On our walk, my silly dog found an empty water bottle and decided it's his new toy. Now this water bottle lays around on my living room floor.