life without Phoebe, almost two months later

It's been almost two months since Phoebe went to her new home, and the changes in our household have been dramatic.  Before I get into them, however, I will note that Phoebe is doing very well in her new home, she's loving being an only dog with a fenced yard and two people to fuss over her.  She has several chairs to sit in, windows to watch the squirrels through, trips to quilt guild and other fun events to socialize, and soon a visit from grandbabies to entertain her as well.  Phoebe has never had it so good, and her new owners just adore her.  I'm so happy that it's worked out so well, it's a much better situation for everyone involved.

Jadzia has shown the biggest change, which I was expecting but not quite in the magnitude that has occurred.  The stress of living with Phoebe was apparently far higher than we realized, and now that the little dog is gone Jadzia has just blossomed into an active and interactive dog again.  Instead of spending her evenings hiding in my office, she snoozes and plays in the living room with us, and for the first time ever she's chewing on the antlers that litter the living room.  Jadzia is not nearly as anxious as she was, and in fact when her last scrip of clomapramine ran out we elected to not refill it, and she's doing just fine without it.  She's gleeful at times, bouncing and capering about the house, jumping up for hugs and bringing us toys, and it's a delight to see.  I do feel a bit sad and guilty now, for not realizing just how much Phoebe had affected her behavior and quality of life so negatively, but at least things are much better for Jadzia now and we are enjoying her newfound happiness right alongside her.

Sadly, we still can't leave Jadzia and Ezri in the kennel outside together while we're gone, however.  Phoebe was apparently not the catalyst there, it's your bog-standard bitch disagreements that end up with both of them with little bite marks where they've been tussling.  I'm pretty sure Jadzia barks at something, keeps barking and won't shut up, so Ezri tries to shut her up and assert dominance, and bam they scuffle.  So in the interests of keeping everyone in one piece, Jadzia is still spending her days in her crate inside the house, where I think she's happier anyway without having to worry about things outside of her control.

Curzon is still being his amazing self, despite the new tumor that appeared in his chest in January and may be growing over time.  We've had a rough couple of weeks, mostly unrelated to the tumor, with a kennel cough scare from a tournament with infected dogs, goopy eyes that are itchy and bothering him, and a slightly tweaked back last week from overenthusiastic yoga ball practice.  He's had his days of being off his food, mostly involving refusing any chicken meals and preferring beef instead, so we're currently running two different flavors for most meals (beef for him, something else for the girls).  Even when not wanting his real food, however, Curzon has been happy to have other things to eat so overall he's doing just fine.  And as of this morning, we're at several days of eating a full meal of something every time, so that's fantastic.

Thanks to our teammate who is a vet, Curzon's back is healing up nicely after a chiropractic adjustment, massage, and ongoing red laser therapy.  When she checked his back at practice, the pain reflex was so strong it almost made me cry - and he was still trying to run and play with that much hurt!  Last night and this morning showed no pain reflex, just some residual stiffness in his back, so that's very exciting for us.

Two weekends ago we got our first taste of spring, with sunny weather in the high 60s, so off we went to the park to play in the water.  They had such a good time romping around, although the winter (and possibly the city) have changed the main part of the creek so that there's not a good deep swimming hole anymore.  Oh well...

Things have been quiet and amazing in our house recently, I can take the dogs out to the backyard and play chuckit for fifteen minutes and never say a word, but that's soon to change.  Two weeks from today Chris and I will be flying out to Chicago to pick up the newest member of our family - Ignited's Order of Kahless, call name Martok.  He is a blue merle border collie, likely a smooth coat, born from a Singed x Fetch litter on February 27, 2013.  Singed is Ezri's older 3/4 sister (and Indigo's littermate), so Martok will be Ezri's nephew!  There are six puppies in the litter, two boys and four girls, and both of the boys will be coming to Seattle to live - which has meant a new friend for us!  We will actually bring back both of the boys when we go to Chicago, as the other boy (who will be called Sirius) is going to someone without the extra vacation day to travel to get him.  Hopefully that will make the plane flight easier on them both, but we will see!