J and Riley (and Luna)'s Blog (22)

This past Friday we said goodbye to our beautiful Luna after a 2 month battle with Lymphoma.  

We are heartbroken but we knew it was time to let her go.  Since Thursday morning she had been unable to keep food/water down and she was listless, restless and very sleepy.  In the last few weeks her tumors made a "comeback" and overwhelmed the Prednisone she had been taking to buy us a little more time with her.  We are so thankful that we had these last few months to enjoy her and…

Oh dear... DH has puppy fever.  Bad.  We've always felt like we are a 2-dog household, but now is not the time DH.. our 2-legged baby is only 2 months old!  Here is a shameless picture of our cutie:

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DH isn't the type to run out and buy a puppy on a whim thank goodness.. but he has started researching breeds!  He seems to have maybe settled on a mini Australian Shepherd.  He's even "settled" on a brown one, something like this. …

Our little family has gotten larger!

Sophie was born 11 days late weighing in at 7 pounds 14 ounces.  Thankfully she wasn't the 8.5 pounds predicted by ultrasound... my epidural didn't have time to work fully so I had an accidental semi-natural birth.  I guess she was too eager to come meet her family. :)

Luna is cautiously checking her out and is starting to show more interest in her (Sophie got her toes licked today during a diaper change... she didn't mind!).…

Luna and I enjoy our morning strolls.  The temperature is lovely, not too much sun and it's nice and quiet.  It's even better on weekends when daddy can join us!  We stop to enjoy the countryside, smell some flowers... it's generally a relaxing start to our day.

Today we were out for a stroll... and bonus, Luna found one of her friends at the park at the start of her walk!  There was much joyful greeting and some rough housing.

All of a sudden Luna…

Luna would like to announce that she will be a big sister in August…to a little sister of the 2-legged variety! 

My husband and I are expecting our first (human) child in August.

We had our anatomy ultrasound yesterday.   The little lady is officially “half-baked” at 20 weeks gestation and is a healthy 10 oz. – about the size of a skinny…

So.. Luna's coloring makes her look a bit like a lion and one day one of my students saw a picture of her and thought her paws looked like lion paws.  

Luna paws:

Lion paws:  (I think I see the resemblance but Luna's are of the dainty princess size)…

I just have to say how proud I am of Luna today.  

We had about 30-35 people at our house for my niece's birthday party and we decided to give Luna the run of the place with everyone there unless she seemed as if she couldn't handle it.  We were a bit worried she might get overwhelmed, since there is just my husband and myself so we normally have a very quiet household.

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Since Luna has been housebound due to her allergies, she has been driving us a little crazy with her extra energy... and lately, her exuberance has turned into LOTS and LOTS of barking. 

It's like she has decided that since she's mostly confined to the house, the world needs to know she's still in the neighborhood... 

She's been barking at strange shapes blowing in the wind in…

It was Luna's second birthday yesterday... and I decided to make her a special birthday treat.  She has a sensitive tummy, so I stuck with things that haven't caused her any troubles in the past.  

First, I took some of her favorite fruits and some peanut butter and blended them until smooth.  I then added a small container of low-fat vanilla yogourt (didn't have any plain).…

Luna has always slept in a wide variety of places, but ALWAYS near us.  It always amazes me the sleeping spots and positions she chooses.  I love watching her sleep and wonder at what her little doggie dreams are about.

Her favorite place to sleep is ON my husband:…

I've been noticing more and more doodles at the dog park... and so I've been asking people what types of doodles they have. However, lately I've run across a lot of people who seem to know very little about just how varied the different types of doodles are.  It always amazes me how varied and unique all our DK doodles are, which is what makes them so wonderful.  …

I have never owned a cat... but from what I can tell Luna has a lot of cat-like qualities.  I know a lot of these are just hunting dog qualities, but I've never had a hunting-type dog before so I find them really amusing!

The evidence (A bit Laurie-style with pictures!):

1. A fascination with birds…

So... last night Luna started excessively licking her lips and making hiccupping/gagging noises... and her tummy felt a bit tense.  My first thought was "OH NO, it's bloat!".  We rushed her to the local vet E.R. (5 minutes from our house!)

After a thorough check (and $170) she was just having an upset tummy (she's a bit of a garbage can - probably ate something on a walk that didn't agree with her).  The vet "prescribed" us to go get some Pepcid AC from the drug store and feed…

We bought our house for a great price because it came with an unfinished basement.  We are now renovating it and we've come to the point where we have to pick paint and furniture colours.  We've already purchased laminate wood flooring (beech), which closely matches the hardwood in the rest of the house. 

Here is the basement as it is now (about to put in sub-flooring)…

Luna absolutely knows when it's a weekend.  Dogs seem to have pretty strict routines and Luna is no exception!

Weekdays we're up at about 6 AM - Luna lies on the bath mat while I brush my teeth etc. She then has her morning food + time outside before we go.

Weekends - sometimes she sleeps in until 8:30 (if I do), but sometimes I wake up earlier (7:30).  If she wakes up too early, we just say "go to sleep" and she does a big sigh…

Luna is definitely a dog who LOVES winter!  Her Winter antics are an endless source of entertainment.

You know your dog is a snow dog when:

- When her paws get cold she plops down in the snow, chews the snow out from between her pads and resumes playing

- After a new snowfall, she runs around the back yard like a maniac,…

Tonight I have a heavy heart, my family dog Yoshi crossed the rainbow bridge after a wonderful full 18.5 years of life.

I think the best place to honour her memory is here - where I am among people who understand how much I loved her.

She was our first and only family dog.  To me she was my friend, my constant companion, my shadow.  We used to call her "velcro dog", because wherever we were... she was there.  She helped me through many hard times with her calming…

Here I am merrily preparing for work this week... and Luna is whining her head off at me for the last 30 minutes.

I finally realized why - it was daylight savings time as of today, and she thinks it's about dinnertime!  I guess I had better make her wait, or she will be starving tomorrow morning.

This reminds me of our visit to the vet Friday, and how the vet was very impressed with Luna's body condition and overall health.  She wrinkled her nose a bit when we said we…

Most of the time when people see Luna from the back I can understand why they would think she is a duck tolling retriever (nickname "toller").  She has very similar colouring and is almost the same size as one.  Most people are very nice about it, and when I say she isn't one they ask about what she is and are surprised to hear she has poodle in her.

That is the second most common comment other than the "wow is she a full retriever?" or "someone shrunk your retriever in the…

The recent discussion in the food group about feeding scraps got me thinking about this past weekend.  Luna is never fed while we are eating, and she only gets food that is prepared for her.  She also doesn't get anything if she is begging.

A few months ago, we actively started trying to make sure "Leave it" is a really solid command with Luna.  Our neighborhood is full of kids and there are a lot of stray pieces of toys, candy wrappers and other doggie hazards out on…