LIFE IN THE SHAGGY SHACK: A Happy New Year...

I MISSED YOU!!! :(

Awww shucks, I am soooooo sorry. I got a little sidetracked there....promised to come back and split for two months! Actually, I was just a wee bit embarrassed. As you know, I have my three long-term fosters, Laeah

with the cancer history, Tippi aka "Ol'man" the sickly old chi and Cuddles the biter. Well, right before Thanksgiving, I agreed to take two more fosters under the rescue group RSVP run by a wonderful woman for ten years now. I originally just called to let her know how good Tippi aka ol'man was doing on his herbs for his liver (truly a miracle) and she asked me about fostering a 7yo 7lb chihuahua at the Manhattan ACC. I said I would think about it and I thought about it and called the next day, but he was gone. I should have let it go right then and there, but then the woman at the shelter started talking about these two other sorry cases. An 8yo obese chi/corgi and a 14 yo bichon and, get this, they can be delivered (yes delivered). The dogs who are not adopted and face being PTS are sometimes put through the New Hope Program (through the Mayor's Alliance ) where they try to place them with legit rescues- RVSP being one of them. This is where it gets embarrassing. Not the fact that I hadnt placed my previous three fosters, not that we now lived with 14 dogs in the house and not even the fact that I had spent an obscene amount already on "fostering" - I was embarrassed because they both cam

e sick with kennel cough and got ALL my dogs sick.

........................

I am not even gonna state what it cost me in total treating all my dogs for kennel cough. It was really hard at certain times and I wanted to just beat my head against the wall for being so stupid and I was just so embarrassed. I couldnt believe how I had made my iffy fostering situation into a full fledged disaster. Various medicines and trips to the vet...I even had to nebulize poor Calvin for a week, it was really awful. Here I had spent all this money on heart ultrasounds and daily meds trying to get Ol'Man in fairly good health considering his heart and liver disease and then I go and get him sick again! When I say it was just awful, believe me it was just awful. Dogs waking up every hour hacking all through the night then a "hackfest" every morning upon rising with dogs spitting up yellow sputum everywhere.....I just wanted to cry. I apologized to my dogs every half hour and every morning and every night and all day I prayed everyone would just keep eating and make it through. It was one of the most stressful things I have gone through in a long time, but we made it through the storm. It did take its toll on me though. Thankfully, to make it all worthwhile, I placed those two dogs into wonderful homes. I delivered one to his new home on Christmas Eve. When she emailed me and told me how great him and his new brother were doing, I just broke down and cried. All that turmoil was worth it, Tokyo and Tego found new loving homes.

Now that they have been re-homed, my "normal" life seems so much easier with just the 12 dogs. After a three week period of doling out meds and vet trips and nebulizing while still performing regular caretaking and then going back to just feeding 12 dogs and administering meds to only one - shwew, feels like a reprieve! I am taking a well deserved and needed break now on fostering. I am still trying to place Cuddles in the right home and well....Laeah and ol'man are part of the furniture now.

Do I feel foolish? Sometimes. Since becoming a foster in June, I have spent quite a sum of money.

Funny thing is, I am okay with it (although I wouldnt say the same for my husband if he knew!). Honestly, I am more satisfied with how I spent it than if it were a trip to Aruba for a week. I would have taken the vacation and now it would be just a distant memory whenever I wrote that ol' check to the creditors.

So THAT is where I have been. And my new year resolution is no different than most others - I have resoluted this coming year to write in my blog at least once a week, eat healthy and exercise regularly and lose some much needed weight, try to make the world a better place and maybe even SAVE some money - LOL! Unlike many others though, I promise to keep loving my twelve dogs, sleeping with six or seven and to keep telling all of you my gross dog moments of the day: Today, Razz came into the kitchen with this long (about 2 ft) slinger hanging from her jowl. Boomer saw it and

proceeded to lick at it and, as I grimaced, half of it then attached to his jowl and he left the kitchen with Razz's slinger now hanging off his jowl - ewwwww!

Here are a few cute pics I snapped since Thanksgiving. I see a lot of cute things going on around here and everytime I think it couldnt get any cuter, I am pleasantly surprised.

Laeah loves to sleep in warm laundry and goes out of her way to do it, too:

then I saw this! and had to draw the line. (although this only lasted about two days when he accidentally tumbled off the coffee table, Poor Boo!)

Pixie the meerkat on the serengeti!

My Foster Dog Cuddles:
http://www.dropshots.com/crazy4ranier#date/2008-12-31/14:27:35

http://www.dropshots.com/crazy4ranier#albums/Foster%2FCuddles/2008-10-22/01:55:43

And lastly, this past Saturday, this pine tree had a huge bow fall exactly where me and my dogs stand when we do "our thing." I had let out half the dogs and was planning to go out and stand right there with the rest of the little ones. Then I heard the crash and when I went out to see "what the pitties got into," they ran in all scared! Then we saw this! Boomer was freaked out the rest of the night. He kept looking towards that window (my office is there and we were all in there) where the tree is and he kept looking up - poor Boo!