Dju

I got these really strong symptoms a few weeks after I got Hugo. At first I lost my voice completely, it just didn't work. There was no pain whatsoever or anything like that, but ever since then, I have started having lots of coughing fits all the time. Sometimes I cough so much that I'm afraid I'm going to puke out a lung. We have linked the coughing to Hugo as I have never had these sorts of symptoms before (so I'm betting it's not just regular "Summer is approaching" hayfever), but now I'm coughing every few minutes and it's really started to bother me. I guess what I'm asking is whether there's anything to lessen the affects of animal allergies? There is no way we are going to give up our beautiful Hugo as he has done wonders to our mental health, but I'm worried about my physical health deteriorating at the moment. Has anyone else suffered these sorts of problems and if so, do you have any suggestions?

It's good to know that we aren't starving him then. The trainer at the puppy preschool told us that we were spoiling him with a menu every time he wants to eat and that was bad bad bad! :rolleyes: Today was Hugo's first day at puppy preschool! He was freaking out a lot in front of the other dogs and our trainer told us that behavior was definitely not normal and it was that kind of behavior that led to an aggressive dog. He was so loud, just barking and barking and barking and barking, he was acting like a little nutter. What made me pretty sad was the trainer's comments about basically how unfit we were for such an "overly intelligent breed" like Hugo. I felt really disheartened when he said that. He showed us a calming technique (basically pushing the dog to sit between your legs and restraining him until he lost all will to tantrum?), and he did a little better, but I swear it was like he never saw a dog before the way he was acting. Hugo was being noisy during the class and actually the first one to be a test subject for "the hold", and boy did he freak out and start squealing. In the end he settled down. Throughout the lesson even, our trainer didn't help the situation by pointing out all the things that me and my mother were doing wrong/badly and negatively affecting his learning, reinforcing bad behaviors, etc etc. God knows how long that's going to take to correct now that you've taught him that he can get his own way all the time, he says to us. Hugo had no idea how to play with the puppies, he was actually pretty aggressive when we let him. It is basically an area where two trainers watch over a small group of puppies and when it gets too rough, they get pulled into the restrain hold and sit like that for a minute or two before continuing with play. Hugo got put into that restrain hold so many times I lost count. I was starting to get a bit upset, they were just giving me these looks as if to say "clueless girl, look at how she's messed up this puppy" or something like that, I was heaps embarrassed that Hugo was behaving like that. My mother was fretting really bad about her poor Hugo-poo and actually one of the trainers pulled us aside and told us that maybe it would be a good idea to not bring my mother back next time because she was acting agitated and making Hugo agitated as well (she was acting a bit overprotective, but not come back, really?). During the whole day though, it was the comment about Hugo not being the right dog for us that made me really upset though. We love Hugo so much, he's our heartdog!

PATCH the spaniel got more than he bargained for when he jumped up and grabbed a kebab from the edge of the family barbecue. The Swords family, of Roseville, thought he had pinched a sausage, reports the North Shore Times. They didn’t realise he’d gulped down the chicken kebab - and its 15cm metal skewer. Three weeks later, when the 13-year-old cavalier king charles spaniel was sick, they took him to the vet. “They did some blood tests and he went on antibiotics for a problem with his liver,” Rosemary Swords said. When the problem didn’t go away the vet did an X-Ray.” This revealed the skewer - and a check of the Swords’ kitchen utensils proved one used on the barbecue was missing. The skewer, swallowed blunt end first, had pierced Patch’s oesophagus, ribcage and shoulder. Joe Daley, of The Ark Veterinary Hospital, said Patch needed 80 stitches after the skewer was removed, and was lucky to be alive.

You mean there are people who turn their computers off? ;) I like the idea of the motion sensitive recording, will have to use that when our pup goes outside! I'm as big a computer nerd as the next person but dude, I have a beast, if I don't turn it off at least half the day, my powerbills would be ridiculous I wish I could set up a live video stream to my phone. Sometimes when I'm at work and I've left him alone all day, I get so worried about what he's doing, if he's escaped somehow, ingested something he shouldn't and died while I was out, etc etc. I can think up some really terrible scenarios!

We have learned the wonders of random objects as playtoys now. Hugo's absolute favorite outside toy at the moment is our Big Red Ketchup Bottle. Hugo goes ga-ga for the ketchup. As I mentioned before, Vikings like the color of blood so it's only natural that he goes ga-ga for the bottle because it is his favorite color and reminds him of his ancestor's days on the battlefield, destroying those damned Frenchmen and spilling their delicious offals all over the battlefield which they would then eat and then terrify everyone with how manly they were and so on and so forth (this is real history, this is, I promise). You can see the murderous look in his eye when he sees the subtle tribute to his ancestors, shining brightly in the sun with all its rosiness. Look at that face, that beautiful, naughty face. Hugo is becoming very good at playing fetch, though he will only do it a maximum of ten times before he gets sick of it and starts to glare at you. So we play a mixture of that and a mixture of "kick the bottle around the yard and behave like a lunatic". He gets very bitey during the loony stage, so we often have to stop and calm him down. I am already beginning to see what Corvus means when she tells us about how Erik can get over-aroused! I wish I could do that massage thing on him but he's much too little at the moment, with his loose skin, so loose even that when I firmly rub down his back, his facial features gets misplaced and ends up on his arse. And then I need to go through the effort of fixing his face back on. It's quite a bother actually. My mother says it's because he's "skin and bones". I agree that he looked a bit fatter when we first got him, but he was also much smaller back then as far as the pictures tell me. He was a squishy boy, yes he was! Anyways, back to playing fetch; I'd sit in the shade and toss the bottle down the yard to him, and he'd dart off after it. As you might be able to see, the back yard is divided up so that the chickens can have their own space, and he's not allowed in until we can fully trust him. I'm not sure how the fence would work for Hugo. Either it would tantalize him, or it would desensitize him to the chickens. We're hoping the latter, but there's no real knowing until he's grown up a bit more and we can try introduce them personally. Sometimes Hugo sits there with the bottle because he thinks I'm going to take it off him, which is true I guess, I mean, we are trying to play fetch and if he never lets go of the bottle, there's no playing is there? But he looked too cute to pass up the photo op in that situation so I let him, before eagerly calling Hugo back--"Bring it to mummy, bring it to mummy!!!" It's so comical to watch him waddle back to us with that huge bottle in his mouth. Sometimes he grips it by the handle but sometimes it's a bit too hard for him so he grabs the lid. He has not yet managed to grab it by the barrel, but he enjoys licking it though. So that's basically what we did all day, play with that bottle! Gosh he loves bottles. He really likes his water bottle full of kibble as well. Mostly because it's hard to have a grip on it and it makes exciting noises when he attempts to and just ends up kicking it around his pen. We want to get him the Bob-a-Lot toy because we heard good things about it, and he seems like the type who would really enjoy that sort of activity. Because we do have to leave him alone in the house for a few hours when we're at work/uni, we don't want him to get bored and resort to boredom barking. We've installed Vitamin D software onto my computer so the next time I'm at work, I'll leave the PC running, and the webcam, and we'll capture anything he does. With any luck, he'll just be sleeping all day but we want to see how agitated he becomes, if at all. If we see that he's barking up a storm, we do have to deal with that somehow--our neighbors aren't the most tolerant of people! I will update his journal when we try the experiment, could be Monday maybe before we try it out, as I work on Monday and my mother goes off to TAFE. I leave you all now with another picture of one of Hugo's favorite hidey-holes, the... barbecue plates rested up against the side of the house. He likes licking it. I think he can still taste some remnants of meat or oil on it or something. He doesn't do it obsessively, he prefers hiding under them rather than licking them. And hiding his toys under there too. You should see him try to cram a 2L bottle of ketchup under there!

When Elbie was very wee, we used Vitamin D. I did a post here so you can see what kind of footage we got. It just detects movement so you don't end up with oodles and oodles of empty video of nothing. We use the free version so have no sound and can just use one camera, but if you buy the software, you can have sound and also use more than one camera. I believe that there's also the option of having videos/alerts sent to you by phone. when he was very young always makes me laugh because if we had got home just 5 minutes earlier, we could have saved that dog cushion! So you kept your computer on all day??

It's a real shame. I'm a Labor girl, and a lot of that article sounds great, i.e. the compulsory desexing of pet shop pets, extending the amount of time animals can stay in a shelter in hopes they'll be adopted, and so on, but it's really sad that there is just one or two lines that present a really horrible outcome to ethical breeders. Perhaps they should be amended rather than scrapped? Something like only registered breeders are allowed more than three bitches for breeding or something? And that thing about the RSPCA is scarym ability to seize dogs whenever they please? Yikes!

Ahh, I can only dream of the day that Hugo will love having his paws touched . The bugger is shedding a lot, o em gee! I'm not sure how to deal with that as he's a puppy and a coat king would.. destroy his coat, and he also has this thing where he likes eating the brush which has completely shattered my dreams of brushing him until kingdom come when he's an adult. We're hoping he grows out of that stage though. We're sure he will, yes. Last night we gave him my mother's childhood teddy bear to play with and he loved it! I was a bit sad for the bear because it was so old and Hugo really did love it enough to chew it all over (I have a soft spot for all my childhood soft toys as they were so loyal to me when I was a child!), but luckily Hugo doesn't feel the urge to rip it up, which is wonderful. So far he only mouths it and snuggles against it, as shown in the picture I snapped up of him sleeping besides it last night. Do tell me that isn't the most precious thing you've ever seen. In relation to the abundance of pink around him.. er.. uhm.. Hugo is a ...viking.. and their favorite color is ... BLOOD. And pink is just diluted blood. Yes, we'll stick with that explanation. Because Hugo wants me to let everyone know that he's really manly and buff and awesome and that the is not an ounce of femininity in him. Absolutely not.

What the hell ;) I have no idea what he meant by that either :D We're not so savvy about the vaccinations we need to give him, but I mean the guy is living in the past and clearly has little clue about anything modern within the last ten years, so after Hugo gets his next shot and we can walk him outside and stuff, he'll be going to a better, less obscure veterinary practice about 30 minutes walk away instead of 15.Though I think he's picking on me because Hugo is just too awesome. They keep saying I made the wrong choice of breed, but they have no idea how happy we are with each other ! Hugo is perfect and you are the perfect breeder Cassie Keroppiyo, at first we tried filing his nails with a normal human nail file and he was okay with that but I think the clipping experience has made him so against having his paws touched now, period, so we'll firstly have to go through and desensitize having his paws held! Whenever we touch his paws now, he either (gently) mouths my fingers, or pulls his hands away and tucks them under his neck, lol! I'll be uploading some pictures soon. We spent all day playing together and we got him some new and exciting toys to play with as well!

Well Cassie told me that they should be clipped every 2 weeks, especially since we don't really have any pavement/gravel for him to play on, there's only grass and carpets on our property! I think she told me that if I can hear them clicking on the floor, they're too long?

Hello Sharon, just popping in to say :: are we? ;) Today I did a most terrible thing to my poor Hugo. I accidentally clipped his nail too far. Oh my gosh shock and horror, we were trying to clip his nails which he always most strongly objects to every time we try so consequently they're getting far too long.. Anyways. He was thrashing about, and I was just trying to get one more done when he kicked his foot, and me, being in a hurry to get it over and done with so I could stop torturing him, blindly clipped, and just caught the very tip of the quick. Well he screamed and walked away from me to grumpily sit in the corner and I see that his toenail is bleeding. Dear dear me. Cassie told me not to react if I do accidentally hit the quick (I think it was a matter of trying not to foster him being afraid of the clippers, although if that's so, we're way too late to curb any phobias he has of those things), so I had to walk out of the room and it took everything in me not to scoop him up into my arms and start crying and apologizing to the heavens about how terribly sorry I was that I hurt my little baby!! It was very difficult to restrain myself and I got a good yelling to from my mother who couldn't believe that I drew a single drop of blood from her pookie pudding pie. I really need to start desensitizing him to those clippers, he's downright terrified when they come near him, but clipping his nails is a necessary evil and must be done apparently, so I just hope that I can do it! On another note, as we were discussing canine yearly preventatives the page before, I finally figured out the system I am going to use to shoot my boy up with chemicals designed to kill any foreign lifeforms that enter his bubble. Advantix: $56.50 (halve the dosage for the 10-25kg pack, given every month) Valuheart: $8.35 (given every 3 months) Intestine: $8 (tablets that are from the vets and apparently cheap or I shall bother bother bother Toujour for some ) Total: $72.85 The larger Advantix tube is 2.5mL and the smaller breed one for dogs Hugo's size comes in 1mL, so I figure if I use a syringe I can perfectly halve the medicine up and it should be pretty much exactly the amount he needs, month to month, if not a bit more than he needs! Valuheart I have read is a good alternative to Heardgard, my only regret is that it's in tablet form and not yummy chewable, but it seems silly to pay $40 more just for the added benefit of real meaty goodness when I can just shove a pill in a chicken neck or something. They contain the same active ingredient which is fantastic, only Valuheart doesn't control intestinal worms but my intestinal wormer will do that anyways, so not a big deal. The reason why I noted down that I'd give the medication every three months is because I have done quite a bit of research on heartworms in general and apparently they take 4 months to fully mature.. and they only actually fully mature if the temperature is above a certain amount blah blah blah. In fact, if Hugo gets infected December 1, I could treat him March 1 or April 1 and he would still have heartworm protection as when I treat him, the worms wouldn't be fully matured enough to be immune to the active ingredient in the heartworm medication! I will still talk to Cassie about this just to see what she says, but we're both fans of "treat as necessary", so I doubt she'd be angered by my musings. :D The intestinal tablets, I mean, if they work as well as Drontal and so on, then they're a keeper. All in all, I'm pretty satisfied in what I have there. I have all round protection from heartworm, intestinal worms, ticks and fleas, and it's at a good price which means my wallet won't be hurting at the end of the year and I can afford to save more for Hugo's emergency vet bill fundage too . Because everything that I don't spend on yearly preventatives just means more money to buy him something else he needs, like those juicy cuts of meat Hugo goes ga-ga for . Or I can continue to build up his emergency funds for if he ever needs an emergency surgery or something like that. But I know what Hugo wants me to buy him. You can see it on his face, haha!

In Hugo-related news, since I've driven this topic way.. off-topic as it were--Hugo is too smart for his own good and we're considering sticking a crayola up his nose to rectify this situation. A short while ago, we started to treat him after he did potty outside, and quickly enough, he's caught on that pottying = treats, so he tries to potty all the time, whether it's in the right place or the wrong place. Just today, we let him potty and brought him back inside, only for him to pee himself again once his feet touched the ground inside his playpen. No treats for you mister! Not sure how to rectify that problem, I suppose we will have to be giving him no treats when he potties because we can't have him holding half in and going again once he's put back inside. Hugo's potty issues have been all over the place actually. Recently, after I slept in past his whining (which is weird since I am a light sleeper and whenever he shuffles about in his cage, I can hear it in my sleep), he couldn't hold it in any more and peed on his bed. After then, even though I've been setting an alarm for 4am in the morning to take him out, he still pees in his crate. It's super frustrating, we've had to wash his bedding five times already in a week! My vet says his crate must be too big but I think he's just forgotten that bed = clean place.

Ahh I see! I was looking up that stuff online and I found this: http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2008/...tworm-scam.html I don't think I want to research any further

I am curious to know whether they have the same ingredients and everything. Since I use generic medication myself when I'm sick because there's no difference between brand and brandless. There's no use throwing away money for someone to put a pretty label on a box, you know?

Yeah I was thinking that maybe the medication wouldn't be evenly dispersed through the meat chew so it would be safer to scrap that idea.. Wondering about generic brand medication though, and how that works in the dog world.

You'd have to be pretty well-off to buy your own house at that age, don't you though?? I can't see myself actually owning a house until I'm like.. 50. Anyways let's not get into that :p With the heartguard tablets, to be even more super penny pinching, what about cutting the large breed dog tablets in half? Would that work or is it just wishful thinking? :p Or even something like using a generic brand of heartworm prevention like Valuheart or something? I always buy myself generic medicine and it seems to do the same thing but I'm thinking it works differently in the dog world, maybe?

I hope those dogs didn't die I'm not really sure how the whole thing works with ticks, I know you're supposed to check your dog for ticks all the time by running your fingers through his fur but so far, Hugo is nice and clean! Asides from the flea dirt on his ears. Which we got rid of when we gave him a bath after the flea treatment. Lovely soft ears once again! And thanks for the offer Toujour, we'll check our vet first

I was just doing a silly estimation in my head, I did not actually research that far into it. I was actually thinking back when I did that calculation that I could was Hugo with $20 tick/flea shampoos or something. I'm very.. careful with my spending. Our family is kind of.. not so wealthy so we try and do the best we can with what we have. I hope I don't look like a terrible person counting all these pennies, Hugo's wellbeing is really of the greatest concern to me and I want to do it the right way, but I also want to do it in a way that doesn't hurt my wallet.

I believe we have a winner! Pet Products on the Web: Advantix: $99 Heartguard: $52.50 Worming pills: $8 Total: $159.50 This is all hypothetically assuming that the worming tablets will cost me the same as what they cost Toujour though

Hrm hrm hrm, I shall do some calculations (this is what happens when you're Jewish, you become so tight with money looool). Vet Shop Australia: Advantix: $122.97 Heartguard: $56.90 Worming pills: $8 Total: $187.87 and for Priceless Pets (everything is x2 doses because they only sell 6-packs): Advantix: $110.00 Heartguard: $53.20 Worming pills: $8 Total: $171.20 I must be missing something here. What do you mean your provider, do you get a member discount or something?

Actually scratch that, I just figured out that both my method and your method would cost pretty much exactly the same, Toujour I do like the idea of less stuff to give him though. I know it's not technically less, but it's less that I have to remember to give him! I also asked the vet about tick cases coming into the office in a week and he estimated about three. Is that a high occurrence? edit: $150? Where are you getting prices from? edit again: Oh probably Priceless Pets lol I've been looking at a different website! edit yet again: Wait, no, it's still more expensive if I go by there, so where did that price come from?

Haaang on where did you see intestinal wormers for that price?? Our Drontal puppy will probably only last three doses and that cost me $20. If going by your calculations, it would cost me about $200 and a bit a year as well. Hmmm... Provided that the Spectrum stuff does work, which I must do more research on because my vet scared me with his "that stuff was invented 30 years ago and only put on the market 6 years ago because it was so crap" talk, I like the combination of Advantix and Interceptor Spectrum. Should total $180 for the whole year and cover everything

I might end up using Advocate actually.. it's the most price-efficient, by the looks of it. I mean out of the things it covers, there's heartworm coverage, and those tablets cost $30 by themselves! Same with the allwormers too, another $30. And the decent flea treatment costs $40+, so I'd be saving enough buying Advocate to buy something else for ticks separately. I dunno, I'll figure something out before I run out of worming stuff.

Raincheck after raincheck, the day was finally here for Hugo to get his vaccination! There was a slight hiccup as we all arrived about one hour early and then had to go home and wait for our turn, but Hugo had gotten quite used to driving in the car so it wasn't a big issue. On the previous times he'd be riding in the car, I think Hugo was a little scared as he went all rigid and sunk down into my lap. I can thank my lucky stars that he's not the type to get carsick or lose control of his bowels! On this day though, at home, Hugo was blissfully unaware at what horrors await him at the vets surgery. Check out that expression. Have you seen a happier puppy? Well an hour after we initially set out, we went back again and finally we got in! Success! Firstly he needed a bit of a checkup before his vaccination though. It was a bit late, I admit, but some things couldn't be helped! He was a little bit shy coming in, and the vet and his assistant kept calling Hugo "she", which I'm sure is what made Hugo so shy as he does not like to be confused as the wrong gender by people, since he is a Viking. All in all, he was pretty brave as they checked his heart, his tummy, something at the back of his knees, his eyes, ears, teeth, etc etc etc. Hugo weighed in at a healthy 4.1 kilos. At least I hope it's healthy. My mother thinks he's much too skinny, but I think she's going to keep thinking he's "too skinny" until he's about as large as a barrel. The last part of the checkup that Hugo needed was.. a temperature check. I must say, rectal thermometers don't exactly bring the best out of humans or my stepmother's cats for that matter, but Hugo was surprisingly placid. He didn't do so bad, I thought that I would have to restrain him so I was gently resting my hands on his head scratching behind his ears in an attempt to calm him, but he was very brave and it wasn't needed at all. Although I have to say after the experience, his tail was shoved so far between his legs that I thought he'd suffer a spinal injury! The vaccination went well as well, I mean, he is a Viking and they are quite brave in the face of pain whereas me, a mere mortal, who needed a chickenpox shot a few months ago cried like a baby at the thought of it. Hugo barely noticed the needle going into his neck! What he did notice though, was the instrument being stuck up his nose to receive what I was told was the Canine Cough counterparty thingy or I dunno, something like that. All together, the vaccine cost us $96!!!! Wowza! My mother asked in shock, because she's never had a dog before, "Why is it so expensive??" and the vet felt the need to question our choice of breeder and said something along the lines of "Your breeder got the bare minimum vaccination, if she had gotten a better one with more coverage, then Hugo would not have needed so much during his visit here". No idea what that means. He got a C3, I was like.. a C3 is a C3? We also told him about the flea infestation Hugo was suffering a few days ago. He kept pushing "Comfortis", but I haven't really heard amazing things about it so I didn't want to buy anything like that until I did more research into the matter. Still clueless, still don't know what to buy. I might by one of the "Adv" brands, (that is, Advantage, Advantix, Advocate--why must they confuse us with the names???), but I still don't know what the difference between them is and which one does the best job. The vet also told us that the Capstar tablets I bought a few days before was an utterly useless invention made by the inventors of the spectrum stuff (sentinel and what have you) because that product didn't cover nearly enough. I don't believe that Capstar doesn't work since I have heard good things about it from people who have actually used it, so I'm not sure I should believe him about the spectrum stuff, but I'd better err on the side of caution and opt for the Adv brands instead anyways. Thoughhhh having used Capstar the day before, I'm not entirely sure it's cured him of his fleas, because he's still biting and scratching every now and again, albeit after his bath, the flea dirt from his ears are gone, which is nice, they're all silky smooth now. The Fido's Concentrate and Heartguard arrived in the mail--I think I might wait until the first of December to use the Drontal and the heartwormer together, because it's easier to remember than a random number like 24th of the month or something like that. It sucks because I think Hugo's worms have come back! He might have to hold out for a little while longer, it's only a week more to go, so he'll be fine, hopefully! As I write and look over to Hugo, he's doing this weird twitching thing in his sleep. He's been sleeping a lot today apparently, I think they may be the side-effects of the vaccine. I'm thankful that the side-effects don't include throwing up or diarrhea though; sleepiness is easy to deal with! Just need a blankie and his teddy and he's all good.

Suuure, "getting him used to trimming". Yeah let's say he's getting used to it? I'm actually just back from wrestling with him for his foot. As soon as Hugo gets wind that his nails are going to get clipped, he shoots away as far as possible from me! I have to hold him in like some sort of vice grip, with an arm looped around his middle and the other around his shoulders while I somehow figure out how to use both my hands to hold his paw and clip at the same time. Meanwhile, he's squirming like a contortionist and biting everything he comes into contact with. My lesson for the week--His biting hurts less when I don't struggle or yank against it and just let him chew on me . Then again, he can break bones with his mouth so maybe going limp isn't the best resolution.. either way, difficult stuff, he won't let me trim them at all, I only got two done today! And he was struggling so much that I accidentally clipped off more than I intended to (about two millimeters). No blood though, which was good, but the more length I took off the nails, the more my poor Hugo hated me for it. I was trying to do the "clip-treat-clip-treat-clip-treat-etc" routine but the problem was always the clip. He did not care at all for the treat, just the struggling, and the sinking his teeth into human flesh, and the screaming like I'm mortally wounding him.. He's still quite bitey. Now when we're running in the yard, he treats me like cattle and when he reaches me, lunges in the air and snaps at my (often bare) legs. Of course at this point, I have to jump up and start running away from him again. Good for my waistline, bad for training. Oh, my waistline, sheesh, I never expected I was going to be doing so much hardcore exercise from the start! That wombat has legs on him. Luckily, he's pretty good with playing fetch and I usually make him do most of the jumping and running around. I am starting to wonder whether it's any good for his joints, letting him be so active. We've been slacking on the training though, it keeps slipping my mind to do that because I'm not sure what to feed him as a treat. I remember a friend was using some really dry jerky-ish stuff that I have no idea what it was but it was nice because it wasn't soft and squishy and get my hands smelling like meat afterwards, but forgot to ask what it was. He's pretty good at sitting and "down" though, which is great. He's still got a short attention span so we're thinking maybe it would be best to do some hardcore training when he's a leeeettle bit older. Now, some bad news on my front, I think.. I am developing an allergy to Hugo. Recently, I've been coughing all the time, especially so when I'm in the same room as Hugo, and sometimes it gets a little hard to breathe as well. I am hoping that it is just a bug of some sort (I lost my voice a few days ago and the cough sprouted from there), but other than that, my deadbeat father promised to install floorboards in my room to replace the ancient dusty carpet but I have yet to see any sign of him, so it's safe to say I probably won't get my seventeenth birthday (floorboards.. some present, right?) until I'm seventy. My mother on the other hand--she is feeding Hugo like no tomorrow. Remember when I was worried about Hugo not eating enough? Now he eats too much. He is starting to get a beer belly. And my mother loves it and thinks it's cute and continues to feed him like a woman possessed. Whenever she goes into the room to coddle him, he wags his tail eagerly, looks at his bowl and back to mum maybe 20 times or something, and you just know he's expecting it to magically fill up any second now that she's arrived in the room. I get sloppy seconds on the lovin', because apparently the way to Hugo's heart is now his stomach and so the traitorous bastard only does his really excited tail wag routine for my mum. This is Hugo, looking for more food in his bowl. We took him to the vets earlier this week to get his injections but unfortunately, because of the diarrhea, the vet refused to vaccinate him. Luckily he didn't charge me for his time, but that was about the only thing I liked about that vet. Is it too much for me to expect them to be outfitted at least semi-professionally and not wear pink shorts and a tacky Hawaiian collared shirt while he's on the job? I hand out bloody scratchies at the mall and they insist I wear a white collared shirt and black slacks/skirt. He also said that the three-yearly-vaccinations hype was "rubbish", and insisted that I detick and deflea Hugo on the month every month, regardless of whether he needs it or not. Me and Cassie are big supporters of not over-treating and filling the dog's body with chemicals that it doesn't need. Among lots of other things, that's what makes Cassie awesome, not just blindly going for the treatments just because the packet says so. Since Hugo's diarrhea has cleared up, we're taking him back for his shots tomorrow, and yes, to the same vet. Until Hugo gets big enough for walks and he's fully vaccinated and/or I get a car soon, we're not going to go to another vet, because I have to carry him there in my duffel bag and it is a pretty hot sweaty experience that I'd rather limit to a nine minute walk rather than a twenty minute walk to the next closest vet (possibly 30). Hugo will be okay, he just needs his shots, it's not like I have to entrust my vet with my dog's life any time soon, so it's alright for now. Before I forget, here is another photo of Hugo to show you guys how his facial markings are developing: He's an absolute stunner. I was looking over that stunning body of his tonight during grooming and my eyes zoomed in on his butt. Not for any romantic reasons because that would be gross, but because I saw something more that wasn't his usual happiness wiggle. I saw.. A FLEA! A FLEEEEAAA!! Rang Cassie in a panic, and luckily she said it was okay to do that because it was quite late at night and I think she was busy lol! So she basically recommended a few products to me that made me confused about which one to get. She first said Fido's Concentrate (apparently it's some sort of bath), but it only lasts for two weeks and I'm not sure bathing him that often is reeaaaally good for his skin. Then her friend interjected and recommended Capstar tablets for small dogs, but then they recommended Frontline Spray. So three products, I'm not sure which to use. Seeing since he's already been caught with a flea, I think it's safe to say that my yard is a flea area and he will probably need the monthly treatments for it. I might switch to Advantix a bit later when I see how he goes with ticks, so I can combine the treatments. Argh, so much to remember, I really need to start writing down when Hugo needs to be treated for what! Let's see, his second shots at 11 weeks now and then ....two or four weeks later, I forget, his next worm treatment at 12 weeks and then at 14 weeks and then at 16 weeks and so on until he's 6 month old or something, his flea treatment at 11 weeks and then what, every month for the rest of his life? I dunno, too many numbers to remember. I soooo wish that Cassie wrote up a table or something for me, because I'm as clueless as they come!