Phew!  Two weeks is too short for a vacation, too long for a business trip.  By the end of the first week I was ready to lynch some of my classmates, but fortunately the instructor was beyond patient with them.  The computer and typing skills varied tremendously so the class got slowed down by those who really didn't know their way around the ( Read more... )

I wish I had my act together enough to send out Christmas pictures.  This will need to do instead for my LJ friends, happiest of holidays to all and may 2014 bring you health and happiness.  Nothing like a $20 basket of toys from Costco to entertain the dogs.

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I did not photoshop Lucy's tongue, she managed this one all on her own, pretty much what all of my dogs think about getting their picture taken.  Gus looks appropriately mortified that Merlin is about to break his stay:


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I went down to Northern California last weekend to the SMART trial.  The goal was to get the girls qualified for Cynosport by the end of the year.  Kona needed her Master Challenge legs, she delivered and is now fully qualified.  Lucy has no PGP q's, oh well.  She may or may not compete in PGP at Cynosport, kind of doesn't matter to me.  She has ( Read more... )

Lucy and Merlin had vision testing performed yesterday.  There was a fleeting Heather sighting at Argus!  What they found was of no surprise, Lucy has binocular vision problems.  She has exotropia in the left eye and difficulty with tracking, which I already knew.  There are some exercises which we do with pediatric patients for what is called ( Read more... )

A quick weeknight post.  I've been trying to take a lot of pictures of Merlin because he is morphing so quickly.  Forget the attempt to limit activity to prevent OCD, I let him run around as much as he wants.  He's also quite unattractive right now.  There are essentially no teeth in his mouth.  I don't remember the girls being without this many ( Read more... )

Merlin got up on the bed last week.  It wasn't pretty, there was quite a bit of a windup, a lot of whining and a lot of clawing, but he was determined to get up on the bed.  He seems to have forgotten how he pulled the stunt off and is back to being tortured by Kona and Lucy, it's pretty funny.  He'll have it sorted out again by next week.  I'm ( Read more... )

I work 530 am to 230 pm on Thursdays.  The wake up is painful but getting home early is a big payoff.  We've been really busy at work, 8060 people--either newly eligible or were always eligible and never signed up--have enrolled with Washington Medicaid since October 1st.  I still fail to see how that having access to healthcare for these people is ( Read more... )

Where did my puppy go?  He looks suddenly grown up.  Other than being quite toothless at the moment he's turning into a great looking dog:


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After a few decades of dog ownership I thought I had the basics of grooming and pet care pretty well figured out.  I happened to be telling a friend the story of Lucy's erroneously extracted tooth.  He noticed that she's building plaque on the molars because she no longer has any adjacent premolars to chew with and recommended Leba III spray.  I do ( Read more... )