corgiranch

Happy New Year! Well we made it to 2014. Don’t know why that mattered so much but somehow it did. Now we can claim Maddie as ours in 3 years! She is still trying to be spunky but we can see she is fatiguing easily. And she is starting to show some mild strain with breathing if she is too active or barks too much. Her cancer is an endocrine cancer and they have not found the primary source but I suspect it is her thyroid – because of the breathing issue but also because her bark has changed. She is becoming hoarse. Like some 1930’s starlet who smoked too much as a youth and now has that slightly gravelly, smokey voice. That’s our little starlet. She chokes a little on dry cookies so is only getting chicken for treats now. I am wondering if that is what I thought I detected in her breath when this all started.

She is having trouble controlling her urine so is back in her monkey trunks. Which is no big deal for either of us (Maddie or Mike/me). This is likely due to the elevated calcium levels in her blood. Will add some pics of our little fashion plate to show you how gorgeous she is in her bikini bottoms.

Mike said I need to explain the time out pic from the last post. Well, when we first got Maddie, Moli just hated her. Tried to eat her every chance she got. It took a LONG TIME for Moli to mellow out toward her. Apparently she mellowed out at daycare much faster than at home. One day when I picked them up, Megan told me that she was giving Moli a time out and Maddie jumped in the crate with her. So they let them hang together. In a crate. Together. This morphed into a pattern whereby if one of the girls got a time out, the other just went with. They tried to NOT give the innocent dog a time out but the two have become so inseparable that if one goes in, the other stands outside and barks until let in. Or goes and jumps on somebody else’s head to get in trouble and therefore get a time out. The Play-N-Stay staff don’t even bother anymore – it is time out together for the Cain girls.

Mike got a great pic of them (below). They are sleeping together on one bed under his desk in our office. I will also attach a photo or two of her sleeping ON our desk island while we are working in the office – she just loves to be at the center of the universe. Which is where I want her too.  We have been making memories – like the footprint paver with all the dogs’ paw prints and the ornament with Bug’s foot print.  We have similar ones of Mic and Moli too.

Maddie and I have talked about it and I have asked her to let me know when it is time if she can. In the meantime, she still LOVES her chow. And still DEMANDS attention. She still shows no signs of pain so we are just trying to be upbeat and attentive. And we love her more every day.

No, she did not drink the wine. I did. Gotta log the monkey trunks.

Love the matching postures

Together

Sorry to all the Maddie fans who may have checked in for an update and not found one.  She has been having several good days and so we have been spending every spare moment snuggling or playing.

Really, she has had more good days than bad these last few weeks.  But when she has a bad day, I am such a total wreck that it is just overwhelming.  I know I am a little off my rocker.  What other nutbag in America spends all day hand sewing  a Christmas stocking for their dog with Bobby Goldsboro’s ‘Honey’ as the soundtrack in their head?  Probably shouldn’t admit to that.  Oh well.  Maddie had to share a stocking with Moli last year because I procrastinated getting or making her her own.  I was not going to let potentially her last Christmas come and go without her own stocking (still holding out for that miracle!).

Christmas Eve day was a bad day.  The Bug was very lethargic and withdrawn.  We were very afraid that Christmas Day we might have to face making that unbearable decision.  But come Christmas morning, she was a new dog.  JUMPED out of bed, raced up the stairs and did a normal walk with the big dogs.  She has been VERY demanding of food and attention.  In that order.  Every time I sit down, she is at my feet, spooned into me or in my lap woofing at me to pet her.  So the laundry is not done, the house not cleaned and this blog not updated.  And pretty much the last 3 days have been like that.  I just count every day as a gift.

In addition to the video camera we bought to capture life with Super Bug, we got a doggie cam.  As soon as I figure out how to edit those videos, I will post some shots of life from Maddie’s point of view.  When they are not giving you vertigo, they are pretty entertaining.

Thanks again for all your prayers, thoughts and support.

Maddie helping with sealing the front porch

Maddie & Moli in time out together at daycare