moonlightopal

While taking my dog out for a walk, we came across a stray dog, who clearly had been underfed and poorly cared for. He followed us home  and James and I decided that we would try to find a shelter for him. well after trying to do that all morning, we both came to the conclusion that Australia sucks in terms of shelters. They were either full or no one there because it is a weekend.

Att his point, we discovered that the stray we picked up was throwing up and that he had a few skin lesions. So James and I bit the bullet and took him to our vet. We got him so antinausea meds, and some deworming tablets and some flea meds.

He needs a bath and several good meals as well as needs to be fixed. He is a shar pei  x staffy mix and will probably need surgery for his eyes since he gets the rolled over eyelids and he might have a skin condition for the rest of his life...

But we are also already getting attached to him. James has taken to calling him Atlas. And the dog has sort of taken to me already as well.

The thing is, we were worried about finances back when we first got Tiburon. Since then, we have become much more financially stable, but we don't know if we can afford another dog. Especially since we were talking about having kids within a year or so. Also, my mother in law will probably hit the roof  if she finds out we have two dogs. 

But he needs TLC and is a real sweetie and has suffered enough. I'd hate to see him put down, or returned to his neglectful owner. 


Now... I sort of have an idea as to who his owner is or at the very least as to the house that he is from but I know for a fact that he is being neglected there. He is underfed with no collar or microchipping and no desexing. He has fleas and skin problems and has not been socialized very well with other dogs. (People he is okay with) He sort of adapted to Tiburon though

Here are the two boys: Tiburon being the black and tan and ... the stray (Atlas) being the starved brindle shar pei mix. 

Okay. I've had it with LJ being crap. I try to post something over 15 times and it wouldn't post. So for all intents and purposes, I am going to be moving my journal more or less permanently to Dreamwidth. I will still check my friend list daily and keep up with posts and communities but from now on, I will no longer be posting journal stuff here. It is just too frustrating and annoying to have to put up with and I shouldn't have to, especially since I was a paid user for so, so very long. 

Let us see how long this will take to post. 

my journal on Dreamwidth is SIlvermoonshade if you're curious. Otherwise you can get ahold of me separately at Silvermoonshade@yahoo.com or via Facebook as well via the same email addy. 

Edit it only took me 8 attempts to post this!

So I was cleaning up the backyard of last night's puppy playdate and I made two very annoying discoveries. The first is that Tiburon intoduced Kaser to his new fun and exciting activity of shredding up the foam padding for the carpet we are throwing away as we are replacing it with wooden floors. The back yard was littered with bits of foam padding everywhere. 
After cleaning the worst of it up, I then made my second discovery while doing the rounds with the pooper scooper. One of the puppies, (most likely Tiburon) seems to have gotten into something they shouldn't have which resulted in hard plasticy crap in their poo. Not certain what it was but there was green yellow and orangy bits in the  poo and it was all broken up so it was hard to make out what it might have been. Tiburon has been off his feed a little bit the last few days on in that he hasn't been as gungho about eating everything in 30 seconds flat, hence my thinking that it was most likely him with the upset bowels (as well as the poop being smaller than what I've seen Kaser produce).
Either way I informed our friend of the potential plastic in poo and am watching Tiburon just in case. He appears to be fine, running around and wanting to play like a nut as usual but seems to be keeping up his practice of eating his food at a slightly more sedate pace. Regardless I am now watching him closely. Thus far, the two times I have seen him poop today, he has been going like normal, so maybe the danger might have passed.
I just wish I knew what it was that had been eaten so that I could know who did the devouring. It really didn't look like anything Tiburon might have access too, but then he has been digging in the yard and chewing on lots of random stuff lately. 

He really is living up to his name. I am kind of glad we didn't name him Loki. 

Sometimes I feel as if life is one big dream that I am walking through and every so often, I stop to ponder that thought. 

Usually when I bake something, be it cupcakes or brownies, I usually follow a box recipe with minimal effort put in. The food is always delicious and there is very little mess to clean up, so it is all good. 
When it comes to my dog however, I turn into a crazy pet mom. I ran out of dog treats for Tiburon a few days ago and decided that I should just make some of my own as it would be a treat for both of us and rather fun. Unfortunately I was out of pretty much any major ingredient I needed depending on the recipe. I had to wait until today to go to the store to buy all the things I was missing for the dog treats (mainly peanut butter, wholemeal/wheat flour and milk).
Although it is an easy recipe, it was still a DIY. I think the last time I used a rolling pin was back when I made sugar cookies for Christmas with my mom when I was 12-13. Thankfully my mad baking skills are still ingrained and I managed to remember all the steps required to rolling my own dough and to keep it from getting too sticky. (I wonder if I could have put it in the bread mixer to mix the dough faster than my paltry attempts with the hand mixer that kept getting stuck?)
The result so far? Pretty tasty looking dog treats that smell of peanut butter!
My only regret is that I didn't get a cookie cutter, so my dog treats are funny shapes since I can't cut a straight line if you drew it for me and we don't have a pizza cutter. It is cliche to use the 'doggy bone' cookie cutter for dog treats, so I am thinking of either getting a heart shaped cookie cutter or maybe a dog shaped one for the next batch of treats. Might even rock a star or something. 

The recipe by the way is:

So Today was the second time I took Tibby to the park to play with other dogs. I got there early and walked him, sort of in an effort to get some of his nervous energy out of him and also to have some one on one social interaction with him. Today was only Maisy a kelpie mix and Bella a german shepherd, there but it was fun for Tibby even though he was being rather shy and a total momma's boy. 

While I was still walking him, I came across a white lab that I've seen near a series of homes next to the heron reserve. The last time Tibby and the lab met, Tiburon went nuts trying to get the lab to play while the lab was reluctant at best. This time around, the lab instigated the play and I ended up having to fish Tiburon out of the backyard that is apparently the lab's home. (I later learned that the lab's name was Carla from Bella's owner)

The group meets every evening and the dogs play for an hour or so. It's all good fun and it is great for Tibby to get some extra exercise since I'm not a runner or a bike rider (old knee injury).

One kong chew toy + treats + peanut butter = one occupied dog for an hour now. 

To celebrate our birthdays and our housewarming, James and I had a party. Unfortunately it was not as much fun as it could have been (for me at least) as I spent most of the night wrangling the dog and keeping him boxed up in various rooms (I'd take him out to drink, eat and go to the bathroom) I finally had enough or torturing my dog and just brought him out with his leash and harness. At first it was attention overload and he was jumping on people and licking and being mildly annoying, but things got better for him as the night progressed, and the people not afraid of our excited puppy actually took time to pet, socialize and meet him. 

I can understand people being afraid of dogs and I can understand people not liking being jumped up on or being licked, but we will never break these habits unless he is socialized and taught not to do those things. He needs to know that lots of people or a new person is not a big deal, and I think e will get it over time.

Eventually Tibby got to the point where I just let him off the leash and let him mingle after he had calmed down a bit. To my immense relief, the worst dog phobic person left soon after and I think Tibby actually calmed down a lot from that. He had a bad scare or was hurt pretty badly or something when one of our friends  left and shut the front screen door in his face or on his paw or something. He freaked out big time and yelped and carried on for a good10-20 seconds. At the moment he is shy of our front door and event he livingroom. 

It wasn't all bad for him however. He got lots of pets from dog friendly people as I said before and even bits of bread given to him in the guise of training. I felt horrible hearing him yelp like that, and I expected to see a bloody paw or a nose or a broken toe the way he was carrying on. However he is fine and sleeping perfectly content on his blanket in the office. (Yes he has a blanket in the office and one in the bedroom as well)

Because our friends come in a large variety of people from James' highschool friends to people we met online, obvious little cliques began to form after awhile, which annoyed me, especially when people decided to 'escape the party' by disappearing into my spare room to 'escape the annoying people'. My spare room was cluttered, messy and full of clothes that needed to be folded and that I was int he process of sorting before the party started, so I was less than amused at the cavalier use of my house. 

One friend pretended to be drunker than he was, just to annoy the people who eventually disappeared into my spare room and another friend ended up being far drunker than anyone thought when he decided to be ill in my kitchen, my toilet and in my backyard -.- Currently, he is sleeping off the worst of it in the same spare room I kicked people out of (yay for futons).

While the night sounded negative, it actually was pretty enjoyable. I got to see a few old friends of mine who made the night automatically better for me, the dog was super relaxed after awhile and the night ended fairly well.  

I also forgot to mention that Before the party started, I took Tibby for an evening walk which is something  normally don't do because his car chasing  starts to get progressively worse, anyway, while I was out, I met the local social dog group! Tiburon was really shy and awkward at first, but I think seeing the group will help him become a much better dog, especially if he burns off some excess energy running around with a bunch of other dogs. 


I want to get a sign that says 'Dogs welcome, People tolerated.