Thankfully, the only "Going Postal" around here turned out to be Prachett's

Woohoo!
After a tour of the east coast, the ornaments made it back out to Iowa and were delivered!

The Postal Service may yet drive me POSTAL!

I recently finally finished painting my charity dog ornaments and sent them out to the person who had ordered them in Iowa. They're actually painted to match her current and deceased dogs.

Here's a shot of one of the completed ones.



However, the box seems to be taking a very INTERESTING route on its way to Ogden Iowa.

Acceptance, February 03, 2010, 4:14 pm, GLASTONBURY, CT 06033
Processed through Sort Facility, February 04, 2010, 12:25 am, SPRINGFIELD, MA 01104
Processed through Sort Facility, February 04, 2010, 10:45 pm, DES MOINES, IA 50395
Processed through Sort Facility, February 07, 2010, 6:56 am, SPRINGFIELD, MA 01152
Processed through Sort Facility, February 08, 2010, 10:45 am, JERSEY CITY, NJ 07097

I did call customer service to see if I can find out what is going on.
Actually talking to a living person on the USPS's customer service line is an odyssey in itself.
They say I should call again tomorrow if it doesn't get to its destination, so they can document it.

Quite helpful.

ARGH!
If they lose those, I am going to FREAK!

One Year Later

Most of the ONB English Shepherds are in new homes, and adjusting to life in the "real world".
About 40 are still in foster.

Article from the Billings Gazette.

Rear end suspension...again.

Chan did something to his hips running away from a doodle on August 8th.
He hasn't been getting much better so I took him to a canine physical therapist yesterday.

She was quite nice about my tale of woe, although there was a miscommunication with my vet, and she was a bit surprised that Chandler was not an Old English Sheepdog. *long suffering sigh*

So far, she is the only person who has been able to lay hands on Chandler and say which muscles are bothering him. Apparently his pectineus, iliopsoas, and lower back muscles in the lumbosacral area are all really owtchy.

We've got homework to try to get his muscles back in working order.

1. Steep hill walking. Go up and down a steep hill 3-4 times, every other day.

2.Exercise ball work, and not of the kind Chan likes. This is going to take some +R training. He put his front paws on the ball a few times, and then decided we were totally bonkers! I'm going to be borrowing one of the "eggs" from a friend, so he's got a delay before we try it again.

3. Daily leash walks, and I'm supposed to apply an ice pack to his hips for 10-15 minutes after we get home.

4. Backwards walking. Whee! More R+. Chan will at least be liking the treats. His "back" command is all rusty since my Mom uses it all the time without making sure he actually backs up. She's fine as long as he gets out of her way.

5. Absolutely no playing fetch, fence running, quick turns etc.
(Urgh...managing him in NC is going to be FUN!)

6. Come back in about 3 weeks for a recheck.

I have to do some veterinary research.

I took the cats in for their yearly check up today.
They're both looking great at 14 years of age, although Ash does need a dental soon.

I had been expecting to get their three year rabies shots, but apparently they are no longer giving the three year shot and only offer the one year version.

Supposedly the three year version has some additive that irritates tissues and was causing vaccine sarcomas.
The vaccine that does not have the additive supposedly does not last longer than a year.

Now, I don't want to risk the sarcomas (hugs to Tango, who is fighting a similar problem),
but I also don't want to be constantly stressing out the immune systems of my two 14 year old cats.

(I'm sorry to say I've had some past bad experiences with vets that make me less than trusting.)

So the questions are:
Is the one year version really safer?
Is the three year version safe?
...and where the heck do I find this out?

*sigh*

Montana English Shepherds- Final Sentencing

According to the judge, Kapsa can have:

3 altered dogs
3 altered cats
20 chickens
4 horses
10 goats
2 cockatiels

She'll be under state supervision for 20 years to make sure things never get out of control again.

More information can be found at the Billings Gazette.

Spay/Neuter day for the Montana ES!

The spay/neuter clinic went well.

More from Heather over at Raised by Wolves blog.