First Day Home...

On Monday night after work, I came home to a HORRIBLE smell, and right away knew Echo had pooped somewhere - the sad thing is, he was in his crate all day... Getting upstairs to his room, the smell got worse, and I just dreaded what I was about to see. But I had no idea what was about to hit me.... There was poor Echo FIGHTING the crate to try and get out with his nose - so much so, that he rubbed it raw an bled everywhere. But that's the not the worst part. There was shit and blood EVERYWHERE! It was the most horrific sight that I've ever seen. Absolutely disgusting! Poor Echo was COVERED in it. The poor guy had a bad case of the shats and just couldn't hold it anymore, I felt SO bad for him. When I opened his crate to let him out the built-up crap on him went everywhere - all the way down the stairs to the back door where he was itching to get out. UGHH!! Nice first day back!?
It took me and Marnie about 3 hours to completely clean the mess up, including bath Echo - Thankfully he jumped right in the tub this time - I guess he knew it!

His room still stinks a little, so we're going to either rent a steam cleaner, or hire someone to come in and do it. We've been meaning to get thee carpets done anyway. I think we'll get the stain protector too!

So after that whole nightmare, this morning I wake up at 5:45AM to the sounds of Echo barfing at the end of our bed! WTF is going on with him?
He horked out a huge chunk of his blanket that he had eaten some days earlier, I guess, right over a pile of laundry waiting to be washed. The smell was unbearable - even worse than Monday night if you can believe that!

The little "green machine" we purchased just before we brought him home has really been getting a work out this week - but I don't think it was made for Great Dane messes....
The Scotch Guarding couldn't come any sooner - I'm sick of this!

On a side note, I'm glad we've been keeping him in his crate during the days. I don't want to imaging were Mondays mess might have ended up - but that might have been a good thing, actually.

1st Cruising Experience

In a word... great! We had an awesome time filled with a lot of eating, relaxing, and many great memories. I'll let Adrienne fill in the stories, as she's a much better story teller than I (and has done many already). To reply to her comment about getting my pics/video to her - same to you! I have them burned to disc already, but waiting to send them out on the Truck along with our presents.

As Adrienne has already mentioned on her blog the water into and out of Bermuda was rough, and along with Madison, I wasn't feeling great for some of it. I didn't ever feel like I was going to be sick, but I did lose my appetite for a while that first day at sea. Since then, though, I was fine and I'm now looking forward to our next cruise! :) No plans yet, I'm just sayin'.

While I think of some stories or memories, here are a few of my favourites in a short 5 minutes.

St. Maarten sunset at the port beside the Grandeur of the Seas


My favourite part of the trip ; catching and holding a Stingray!


Marn and Parker enjoying the sun at Orient Beach, St. Maarten.


Cruisin' in Bermuda!


Marn on the deck before dinner; see that little speck in the background? That's Jamaica... or so we were told... Yeah, I don't see it either.


In Curocao, Den and Parker waiting for Maddie's hair. I caught parker with a really cute smile.


In Aruba, Madison was enjoying her sand mustache and looking goofy with her goggles - which we lost in a huge wave - proof is on video, but not posted here.


Not the best outcome for Adrienne and I on this attempt to surf...


And again, not a great outcome for me, but Marn had a good run!


This video makes us howl - just listening to Adrienne laugh at Madison's mis-timed body surfing attempt.

Echo's legs

Echo's "travelling lameness", as I'll call it, is now gone and he's back to his normal self. We stopped the Aspirin last Friday as he seemed to be pretty much all better.
This week he is definitely himself - crazy puppy at times, especially after work when he's hungry! He talks a lot if you sit down with some food for yourself, as witnessed by Dad on the phone ... pretty funny.
Anyway, the technical name for what we think he had is called Panosteitis - basically lameness in the limbs that travels from limb to limb with sudden onset for no apparent reason. It occurs in large breeds during their growing stage, but Echo is pretty much done growing and past the typical age bracket for that. Without an X-Ray, it's just a guess, but the symptoms fit almost exactly. There should be no side effects from this, it just comes and goes after a while. This is a huge relief for us since we'll be away for 2 weeks, and won't have to ask Jay and Sarah (Friends who are house and dog sitting) to look after him, or worry about it. We'll still have them keep an eye out for it, but it appears to be gone now.

today...

Today is one of those days that you just want to stay in bed. Cold, wet, freezing rain, windy, snowy.. in other words, yuck! It's the kind of day that you just wish you were in, say the Caribbean, and not have to worry about it all. Thankfully in 2 days, we will be!!! For a whole two weeks!

Don't ask me if I'm packed - that's Friday night's work... ;)
But, last night we started "officially" getting ready - bought 2 packs of anti-nausea patches and some gravol, among other things - just in case!

Air Miles = Fun Toys!

After years of collecting, it took days to diminish... But it was all "Free", so we're happy about that! But on the sad side, our Air Miles count is exactly ZERO.
The other week we used air miles to purchase our round trip flight from Toronto to Baltimore for the cruise - that actually cost us money because you have to pay for the airport fees and taxes. Just the flight costs are covered.
Then we purchased a tiny digital camera to take with us on the trip (as well as the good Nikon) and some two-way GMRS radio's so that we can keep in touch with A and Den while on board, or between us if we split up during the day. Both free - no tax, no shipping.

As I was ordering those, I noticed that the Air Miles site had 2 PlayStation 3 model for sale which they didn't have before... So I calmly suggested to Marn that we should get that as well for "our" Christmas present. To my surprise she said, "OK - if we have enough after the radios and camera, you can get it". Whoa?? (To fill you in, I had been workin' her about getting one for a little while - especially since they released a cheaper version a few weeks ago and made price drops on all models.) The selling point for her was it'll replace our DVD & CD Player currently in the cabinet and it plays Blu-Ray (high definition) movies! That was a huge selling point for me too, but also for the games, which she doesn't care about.
Anyway, we didn't have enough to get it at the same time. We were about 1000 miles short...
BUT I just happened to look the other day and they changed the Air Miles pricing on it (probably to coincide with the recent price drop), which meant we were 1 mile away from affording it. So I said to Marn the other night that we were only a couple miles away and should get it - and she agreed! You'll understand WHY she did in a minute.


Two minutes after saying yes, she puts on an angry face and says "you bugger! You said we were 1000 miles away from getting it!". I told her that they must have changed the price because we WERE. Well, it turns out that she was "secretly" stashing cash away to purchase it for me for Christmas! She had it all planned out.... I was going to purchase the new Pirates of the Caribbean for her on Blu-Ray, (an earlier conversation we had to not invest in DVD's anymore in anticipation of having to save up enough Air Miles to get the PS3 to watch movies in High Def), then she was going to act all sad that we'd have to wait to watch it... then Candace and Dave were going to get me the game Guitar Hero 3 for the PS3 (hey, it's just not happening in real life, so I might as well be a guitar god in a video game!) and then Marn was going to surprise me right after that with the PS3. It would have been a great surprise!

Another side story about her stashing cash away - she didn't want to purchase it on our Master Card because of last year - I saw the charge from Long & McQuade Music store and correctly guessed about a week before Christmas that she bought me a learn to play guitar book - her only would-be surprise for me. She wasn't very happy about that calling me a snoop and spoiling the fun because she waited as long as possible to purchase it - I just happened to check our transactions the next day!

Well I didn't get to posting pictures of the "new" garden. Not a big deal - picture it a little wider and longer, wrapping around the back of the yard. There, that's it!
We did get some poppy seeds from Marn's parent's neighbour and spread those around the back, so hopefully we'll get a lot of those in the spring - but just in case we don't, we saved a few which I'm going to try and nurse in the basement over the winter. My first time trying that, so we'll see.

We also picked up a composter to put back there. It'll get lots of use, I think. We seem to throw out TONS of kitchen scraps that could easily be used in that. It's not really the "time" for setting one up, but I think we'll do it anyway, just to get it in our heads that one is back there. We're contemplating getting a "doggy composter" as well -- basically a mini septic tank for the doggy mess. These can be made from any old garbage can with a lid, or you can buy them - we're going to buy one. It's basically a plastic can with a lid and filter (supposed to be non-smelly) that you bury 2 feet down with about a foot out of the ground. Just drop the waste in there, add a little water and "activator" and it decomposes and seeps harmlessly into the ground. After a little reading, this is supposed to be the "best" way to dispose of the stuff. I'm just not sure how well it'll work with our fairly heavy clay soil. They say not well, but even if it takes care of half of what Echo produces, we'll be happy.

Speaking of Echo...
Last week he started showing lameness in one of his hind legs. We didn't think much of it at the time as he sometimes hurts himself running around in the yard. But we hadn't been running around the yard, and haven't been to the dog park for a while, so it was not caused by over exercise.... the next day, I noticed that he started favouring his front leg. Strange, I thought, but didn't do much about it. That was Friday morning. By Friday night, he was really limping on it heavily. So much so, that he didn't really want to get up much. On Saturday it was even worse. He laid around the house, was kind of down and not himself. When going outside, he was all business where usually he'd want to play and sniff around. None of that - pee and back in, immediately laying back down. That was the worst night too. He would be laying there while we watched TV and he'd let out a loud yelp or cry for no apparent reason. That night I gave him 1 aspirin to see if that helped his pains, and Marn and I contemplated calling the vet the next day. He kept us up until 1 or 2 am because of his random yelps and cries... it was hard to hear him in pain like that and scared us out of sleep!
Sunday morning we gave him another aspirin (the Internet said 5mg per pound, but I didn't want to overdose), but he seemed to be no better that day. We were still trying to decide whether to call the vet, because we were thinking that he hurt his leg, and what would they be able to do other than charge us for an after-hours visit and expensive meds...
Well by Monday, he wasn't any better, but not worse, which was good so we decided to call the vet to see if there was something else going on. She had us come in right away as I explained the symptoms and onset.
Well, we still don't know what's wrong with him. We had the option of doing an x-ray (for $165!) to make sure, or just treat the symptoms. She thought that it might be a bone problem in growing dogs, but was weary of that because he's a little old for the prime age group that this affects, and he's been adult size for a while now. The other theories were less assuring; small fracture, or another disease that has less than great outcomes.
We decided to treat for the symptoms for now to see how he does.. and 2 days later he's doing much better. Still limping, but not nearly as apparent and no more yelps and cries in pain. She wanted to give us a different pain killer, but since we had already used Aspirin, we are staying with that for now (for different reasons). But the dosage went up to 3 pills twice daily! I was giving him 1 every 8 hours. So his improvement could be due to that rather than he's getting actually better...
Anyway, we don't have a for sure diagnosis yet, but at least he seems to be getting better. His spirits were up last night now that the pain and slight fever that he had are down as he ran out the door when I let him out after work, grabbed his ball and ran back to me to play with him. That was nice to see as the Echo from 3 days ago was depressing and sad, but I still didn't let him play! (I know, bad owner).


PS: 9 days from now we'll be on vacation!!!!

Here's a photo of Cora (Chris and Carey's baby) discovering Echo from 2 weeks ago:




She was pinching his cheeks while he laid his head on my leg... cute!