Gettin' ready for Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Bri

Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Bri came up a couple of days after Christmas, so we had to get the house back in order and ready for their visit.

This included a bath for Izzy (not because she needed one, but because I needed a half hour without interruptions!  :)

Lemmy has staked his claim on the recliner

photobomb by Rosie

They brought an absolutely ridiculous amount of presents.  The whole back of Dad's truck must've been filled with these.

And Izzy LOVED opening more.  In this photo, she's wearing the leotard that I fixed at the hotel in Fargo, along with slippers and a santa hat.  Adorable.

This is a tradition I have with my Dad.  Every year, without fail, I get him 2 boxes of chocolate-covered cherries.  He knows I'm always going to get them, and knows exactly what box they're in.  No surprise, but a fun tradition

Izzy got some 3-D book, and was trying on the required equipment, which Auntie Bri found hilarious.  Do you know how hard it is to explain 3-D to a 4 1/2 year old?

And proud little Rosie was as happy as a clam

CHRISTMAS!!!

FINALLY :)

Santa was good to the Trunk family this year...he even got Lemmy a mini-condo!

little snugglebutt wanted to get in on the action

Yes, she let us sleep in (thank you iPad) 

Santa got her a Tag reader because Izzy is so ready to learn to read now :)

Rosie and Murphy also received some gifts.  This is a little racoon-thing that has a plastic water bottle in it  for that crinkle sound.  Sadly, that didn't last long with this dog...

Dec 25 2012 - Murphy protecting his toy from Jenn Trunk on Vimeo.

I had a pen made for Joacim by the husband of a friend of mine that I worked with at Eli Lilly.  It's a hand-carved wooden pen with a bullet casing at the end and a real trigger action to activate the pen.  It's beautiful and amazingly intricate.  He loved it ;)

Santa got Pappa an eyepiece for his Swarovski binoculars to replace the one that was lost on our houseboat trip this past summer

I got Izzy a Wii game, Just Dance 4, because I think it's time for her to be able to play.  She has to stand on the sofa in order for the Wii to "see" her, but she didn't mind.  

Just Dance 4 is HARD.  I was exhausted after one Carly Rae song (yes, Call Me Maybe), so we played carnival games like skee-ball instead.

And Santa's reindeer DID partake of the food

See all of the deer prints?

I told you it didn't last long.  It lost an ear after the first hour, and a couple more later it was without a tail.  By the end of the day I had to get rid of the pieces..poor poor racoon :)

We had such a great day just hanging out, playing games, and truly enjoying every second of it!

Yawn

A lazy day in the Trunk household includes a LOT of yawning...

How cute are my dogs?

I'll tell you....FREAKING ADORABLE!!!!

Rosie's Rehab

Rosie started rehab last week. I have to say that she's doing remarkable well, considering what she's been through. The first couple of weeks she was bearing very little weight on the leg, but after the first rehab session we can already see a difference. If she wants to get somewhere fast then she hops on 3 legs because...well, it's MUCH faster for her right now.

She'll have rehab every Wednesday for the next six weeks, and I'm sure she's going to be her rosy (ha! get it? Rosie/rosy?) old self again. We can already see her personality back, and she's been released for some moderate play with Murphy, and that's made her VERY happy.

I just wanted to share a few videos of her first rehab session to show you all what it's like. I'm very impressed with her surgeon and the facility...would recommend Circle City Vets to anyone, and especially Dr. Kate Fitzwater. Thank you!

This is a video of Rosie and the underwater treadmill.


And here's Rosie taking a little break. She was working really hard!


A floatie was being used on her good leg to try to force her to walk on the leg/hip that had surgery


This was cute because Dr. Fitzwater had said that Rosie would probably cock her head to the side when she heard the water drain, and that's exactly what she did :)

Rosie and her surgery

Our little Rosie was diagnosed with hip dysplasia at the beginning of the year.  Since her decline was pretty rapid, we took her to Circle City Vets on the north of town to see if she was a candidate for surgery, and thankfully she was!  So yesterday, Rosie had a femoral head ostectomy on her right rear leg.  She had to stay overnight, but I picked her up this afternoon and she's doing MUCH better than I anticipated!  She's not putting much weight on it, but that's all we're going to work on for the next two weeks....slow walks and pressure on the leg.  Then we'll go back to the vet, get her staples removed and start physical therapy, which includes an underwater treadmill, which is EXCELLENT therapy for this type of surgery.  There'll be some exercises that we'll do with her at home (like dancing...hmmmm...better create a playlist for this :) so it'll be a lot of work on our part to make sure she heals properly.

I'm very thankful that Joacim's can take Rosie with him to work to keep an eye on her, since I've been out sick this week and cannot afford the time off.  We've got to ice her 4 times a day, keep her on a leash at all time, try to get her to put pressure on her leg (even if that means putting a piece of tape on her left foot) and make sure she's comfortable.  She back to wearing the e-collar, and she looks absolutely pathetic...reminds me of the reason I fell in love with her on the Humane Society website :)

Here's Rosie seeing Murphy when I brought her home.  I had to keep them separate initially because I didn't want them to get wound up and play like they normally do...kinda sad, huh?

poor poor Rosie

This is absolutely breaking my heart.  We found out right after Christmas that she has hip dysplasia, which was awful news.  We thought we'd have some time to figure out what to do, but she's rapidly declining.  I watch her do the bunny hop around the house, especially after she's been outside to play or if she's been sleeping a lot.  What's GREAT is that she still likes to play...I mean, put her and Murphy out back and let the games begin!  But more often than not lately, we're seeing her limp.  And the last week, as she's been lying down, we've heard her crying, and we realized tonight that it's because she's in pain.

We're been giving her pain meds and fish oil pills, and just started her on glucosamine chondroitin today, so hopefully we'll see some improvement.  We're also going to go see our friend's vet that we met at the EFRC charity auction last week to check her out.  Then we can get a prescription for some Adequan, which is an injection that we'll have to give her to try to alleviate the pain.

We've got a few options.  We could get her entire hip replaced, which is stupid expensive.  There's another surgery where they essentially cut off the "ball" part of her ball-and-socket, which will eliminate the bone-on-bone contact that's causing her pain.  We could amputate her back leg, or we could get her some of those wheels you see dogs with.  All options suck.  I told Joacim that there's no way I could put her to sleep over this.  I just want my cute, happy, energetic little Rosie back.

Another expensive mutt

It seems as though we MIGHT be keeping the streak alive with expensive animals.  Little Rosie started limping on Christmas Eve, so we took her to the doctor on Tuesday to have the vet check her out.  He examined her and didn't find anything, so he took some x-rays of her next.  They didn't think they'd be able to get the shots they needed of her awake, but they said they'd try.  They just didn't know what a model patient our little Rosie is!  She laid there as she was instructed to do, got her x-rays, and then a treat :)

The vet came in and showed us the x-rays.  I don't remember the specifics, but I do know that he's concerned that she may have some hip dysplasia.  He's going to have a specialist read the x-rays and get back to us probably next week.  In the meantime, she's got some tasty painkillers, and they seem to be working because we haven't noticed a limp yet.

The FUNNIEST thing that we say in the x-rays was a tiny little staple in her butt.  Yes, I said butt, and it was plain as day on the x-ray.  Lucky for us (or I should say Joacim) we found it in her poop a couple of hours after we got home.

As the tech at the vet said, there's a reason we get animals like this.  It's because no one else would do the things we do to make sure they're healthy and happy!

Last beautiful day of Indian Summer

I'm so glad that there was at least 1 warm day this weekend.  It has SUCKED sitting inside my cubicle this week knowing how absolutely gorgeous it's been outside.  I DID finally get to take one of the top panels off my Jeep one day, and I think I'm gonna like this feature next summer :)  After we had breakfast and walked the dogs, we went outside to rake leaves and enjoy the weather.  It was weirdly warm outside, but it felt fantastic. 

Here's that smile again...big grin and squinty eyes :)

And here are the dogs on lookout

Here she is gearing up for a big jump!

I think she was having a pretty good time, and so was I just watching her

And could there BE a cuter face?????  Now you might understand why she gets away with so much ;)

This IS the Animal House...

I'll admit that I'm tired of stepping on/over/around little furry creatures that are always underfoot.  I'm tired of cleaning poop/pee/vomit.  I'm not exactly a fan of cleaning kitty litter or dog hair either, but I LOVE all of these little furballs....

Lemmy loves his Tower of Power....he rarely leaves his perch

Murphy and Rosie play-fight like this ALL THE TIME....it's constant, which is great, except when the do it in the tiny are between the coffee table and sofa :)  They aren't exactly the size of chihuahuas or anything..

He still loves soccer balls...looks like a bucking mustang when he plays with them

Rosie's getting a little better about playing tug with Murphy

See what I mean?  How could anyone say no to this face?????  I can't.

Izzy sometimes takes it upon herself to give the dogs treats....which usually ends up being the entire bag

especially when she takes the bag out and empties it on the floor....good for doggies though

and when Lemmy DOES come down, this is what happens.  And now, Murphy and Rosie are ganging up on Lemmy. Murphy thinks he can play with Lemmy like he can with Rosie....I think Lemmy can hold his own still...

I got this blanket at Jill's silent auction at the 5K run/walk, but Rosie's adopted it as her own...

They keep us VERY busy :)

Little Rosie

Looks like we're going to go through THIS again :(

But LOOK AT THAT FACE!!!  I'm finding it nearly impossible to be mad at her for more than 2 seconds.

Rosie Rosie Rosie.....

Poor poor Rosie.  It seems as though she's developed an infection at the site of her spay, so a $300 trip to the vet (I SWEAR we can't pick a cheap mutt :) and a fancy elizabethan collar, and we're back in business.  Thankfully she's pretty familiar with the collar...



OMG..did you SEE her face at the end?  Melts my heart.



Clearly, she's not too restricted by it ;)

Question: How do you stay cool in this heat???

Answer:  SLIP 'N SLIDE!!!!

Man, I loved these when I was a kid.  Is it me, or do they seem so much smaller than they did when we were little?  :)  Maybe it's the fact that Bri is so tall that she doesn't really seem to slide very far before she's at the end.

Izzy isn't all that sure abot the slip n slide yet..she has a lot more fun watching Bri

Ah Rosie...such a CUTIE!

And likes to eat bark.

And LOVES the water...

We get this face a lot lately :(

I love her smile here :)

I think this is such a great picture.  To see how these two interact is AWESOME, and this photo really captures it!

Izzy eventually went on the slip n slide, but here were the results :)

she didn't seem to mind too much!