We were finally able to make a road trip to see Jillian. The planning had to wait until we found out when Ken’s bees were coming and that turned out to be on April 28th. He’s was excited . . . me too! Working around Grandpa’s babysitting schedule we decided to head out on Saturday the 22nd and come back on Tuesday the 25th.
As with all plans, there can be something that could potentially throw it all off and this time it was Annie. Just like kids, I think pets seem to know when you have something planned out of the ordinary. I remember Ken and I had planned a special night for our anniversary one year and Carie started feeling sick that day. Well, at least I felt she was sick enough that we needed to cancel our date. I just didn’t like leaving the kids if they didn’t feel well. There were other times too, but oh well, no big deal.
Anyway, Annie hadn’t been eating much since Monday (the day after Easter) and as the week progressed she just wasn’t being her usual self. She wasn’t constantly running around and taking off to hunt by herself. She did eat a little gravy left from Easter one day and a little bit of spaghetti on another day, but that was it. No dog foodl. We thought maybe one of the kids had given her some chocolate candy at Easter. Or Evie had found a nest of eggs in the barn and Ken started feeding them to the dogs. We didn’t know how old they were. Or Ken had put the flea and tick stuff on them. We always use the Front Line but we had seen on TV a new flea and tick killer that had so many side effects, I thought maybe that could have been a problem for her if Front Line had changed at all. Finally, on Friday, I made an appointment to take her to see Dr. Lothrop. He was concerned because she had lost 7 lbs, which when you’re already a skinny bony dog of 42 lbs., losing 7 lbs. is huge. He thought it was either kidney infection or lyme disease. He gave her a couple of shots and a big dab of this high calorie goo. He sent me home with a bottle of pills, the rest of the goo and a couple cans of prescription dog food. He said if we didn’t see any improvement by Monday, bring her back for a blood test. When we got home I gave her some of the prescription dog food, unfortunately that came back up after a while. So we decided that with the prescription and having to make sure she ate, we needed to take her with us to visit Jillian. It’s been a long time since we traveled with a dog, since Rachelle as a matter of fact, but we were looking forward to it.
Ken put a dog bed behind his seat in the truck and then the cooler in the middle with our clothes bag, box of other stuff and our coats behind me. Annie slept on the bed for a while and then decided she liked being on top of the cooler. I think she like being there for two reason, she could see out the front windshield to see what was going on, and to be closer to Ken. With a few stops for both Annie and me we made it to Aurora in pretty good time.
Of course, when we got there Loma was on guard duty because Jillian was still at the clinic. After a little coaxing and calling her name she let us in the front door. Good girl!!
I forgot to mention that we took out a truckload of horse manure for her garden. Sunday morning we went to Church while Jillian mowed her yard. After unloading the manure, we got to talking about how a big garden could be more than she could handle right now with school, work and Loma so she decided to plant the rest of the open area to grass. Other parts of her yard needed some help too so she wanted to over-seed them. She bought some top soil that we spread in the back yard open area and then Ken fertilized and seeded it.
Apparently people don’t over-seed in Colorado because the closest place she could find an over-seeder was in Kearney, NE. The next best thing would be two hand rakes. Monday, we went to Paulino’s to get some seed and fertilizer.
We worked on the front yard, raking and digging dandelions. Annie and Loma were in the back yard and they could hear us so Annie jumped the little fence into the newly planted area which was a big no no.
Ken fertilized and seeded in the front. Jillian put up a little fence so that people wouldn’t walk on the new grass. We made a trip to Home Depot and while we were there Jillian picked up a thatching rake that worked really great. We used that on the backyard and got that all finished up.
We wanted to get Jillian a tree for her front yard, a birthday/belated house warming gift. She thought a Linden would work well but we didn’t see any at Paulino’s or at Home Depot so we made a trip to another garden center called Nick’s. Since the dogs couldn’t be in the backyard while we were gone, we took Annie with along with us. Country dog in the big city! Loma was at home on guard duty again. I tried to get a picture of Annie sitting beside a dog statute but she wouldn’t sit still very well.
We did find a Linden and got it planted that afternoon. A tree really makes a house look like a home.
I did get a picture of her and Ken sitting on Jillian’s front stoop.
Annie thought she was pretty special getting to sleep in our bedroom with us.
We left early Tuesday morning and by then Annie was feeling much better. She was eating the Moist and Meaty dog food that we brought along and running and playing some with Loma. Again, I’m sure Annie knew it was time to go home, because when we got up she started talking to us . . . doing her rau rau rau. She even talked to Jillian.
It was really great to see Jill and spend some time with her and Loma.
We said our goodbyes and Annie jumped in the truck ready to go. After a while she was back on the cooler.
We decided to take Highway instead of Interstate and thinking she could use a break we stopped at Swanson Reservoir between Stratton and Culbertson in Nebraska to let her run and do her jobs . . . which she did. A good sign that she really was feeling better.
Here’s a picture of the dam at Swanson. Might have to stop by and fish this sometime.
