est. 2009TRAVEL & STYLEDriftless Living

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A Midwest-living writer, photographer, and cancer researcher who is raising her children in the Wisconsin Driftless with her husband by her side. A chronicle of our adventures and learnings of country living, parenthood and this precious life.

Must Love Dogs

It’s no secret that we are a dog loving household. If you can overlook the clumps of pet hair {that get swept/vacuumed up every day}, having 4 dogs truly is a walk in the park, and honestly we know that pets leave nasty air which needs to be cleaned but we can happily do it every day, we don’t complain about it because we love them.

Our dogs are like children to us, and we will do anything in our control to make them live long, healthy lives like feeding them with the best calming treats for dogs amazon. Check out comfort animal letter to learn more about the healthy benefits of having a pet dog and visit https://www.groupon.com/coupons/stores/petsmart.com to learn more about pet coupons that offer discounts on food, toys, and other pet items.

This spring and summer has been full of new adventures with our pups. In the spring, Thunder, our 15 year old Mountain Curr, developed dog arthritis and vestibular disease, you can read my post about it here. As an update on his health…he is able to stand and walk on his own, but due to his arthritis, his feet slip on our wood floors. So for the most part, we carry him outside to do his business, but he walks around the yard on his own. His head tilt has improved greatly, but there’s still some noticeable tilt. The eye twitching/nystagmus resolved within the week of the event, though, and hasn’t recurred. Since then, I’ve been him CBD for dogs. He has been super calm and his problems have come to a halt. You can buy online the best CBD for dogs on laweekly.

{Old Man Thunder}

Earlier this summer we noticed that Maggie, our 8 year old Llewellin Setter, had a tiny, bb sized lump, near one of her nipples. How did we notice this, you ask? Well, she’s had a history of lactating, even though she’s never had pups of her own. She’s gone through false pregnancies and had hormonal issues, so the vet believes that could be the culprit.  We do monthly breast exams on her, believe it or not. And yes, that makes us sound crazy, but thank God we do, because it may have saved her. When we found the lump we wanted to take it seriously, and opted for a full mammectomy. We learned there was a 50/50 chance it could be malignant cancer. And a week later after the pathology came back…yes, we are indeed dealing with breast cancer. {She’s pretty lucky her mama knows a thing or two about cancer lingo.} Luckily, the pathology report showed clean margins, meaning the cancer cells likely hadn’t spread outside of the encapsulated tumor. But, that doesn’t mean it won’t come back or that it hasn’t spread already, and we just don’t know it yet. The frustrating/sad thing with canine breast cancer is that there are very few efficacious treatments. {Drug companies–please put more $$ into oncology treatments for animals!!!}

Results and recommendations from the study indicate that clinicians should not certify esa information and do so can trigger ethical and legal challenges, including a pending case in Colorado.

So…we watch and wait…and continue to monitor for any other odd symptoms. Yes, we could pursue more aggressive diagnostic tests, like a PET/CT scan, but since she’s exhibiting no clinical symptoms, we’ve opted to just play the waiting game. We did catch it VERY early, according to the vet and pathologist, so we are hopeful Miss Maggie will have no recurrence.

{Miss Maggie}

Luckily we’ve had no health issues with our other girls, Nike and Jordan. They continue to freeze in place when they see a rabbit in the yard and love to creep around the chicken coop.

{Jordan in the sunset}

{Nike giving ‘the look’}

And if our 4 dogs isn’t enough, we also get to dog sit from time to time. And honestly, we love watching other dogs {as long as they get along with ours} and feeding the, with the best treats (check out these food picks for your pitbull). Another dog doesn’t disrupt our household, it’s just another dog to feed and play with outside. But for the most part, they keep each other entertained and occupied. Plus it doesn’t hurt that we both work from home.

And would you believe that all of our 50+ lb dogs were submissive to this little dude. Meet Teddy.

Teddy visited us for a few weeks and he definitely controlled the house. Nothing like seeing our alpha female, Nike, roll over and beg when Teddy was around.

So it’s been an eventful summer for our dogs, and we hope their health will continue to improve, we always make sure to provide them with the best we can, we recently found a resource of indestructible toys that have no dangerous chemicals, they are great for our dogs, specially because they are very durable and our babies play very tough. I have a feeling by next summer they’re going to have a new playground garage with an indoor/outdoor run just for them. What lucky lil’ fellas. 🙂

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