HoundBlog

It was a sad day yesterday.

We said good bye to Lottie the Greyhound. This means that for the first time in 20 years, there is no Greyhound in residence at Kemar. Lottie turned 15 in October, but has been in failing health for some time now. It was just time to say good bye. She will be missed as are all the dogs who have gone before her.

Last night was the Greenville Kennel Club Christmas party. Despite being not much in the mood for revelry, I went with Charlotte as we had already made plans and I didn’t want to disappoint anyone by not going at the last minute even though I’m sure they would have understood. We had a nice time and for the first time I came home with a gift that I can actually use 😛 Of course I stole it to get it, but that was all within the rules of the game, so it was fair and allowed. It’s a plush dog bed that some little whippet person is going to love. I just haven’t decided yet WHICH little Whippet Princess will be the recipient.

Our resident seamstress made me a very nice cover for the back of my car to protect it from dog hair and dirt. It’s got holly leaves on it and is quite festive. Sharon is such a sweet lady and so very talented when it comes to crafts. She also bakes the most wonderful sweets for our meetings! Cookies, brownies, cakes and pies and they are all to die for! Oh and she has Greyhounds which makes her totally my kind of person!

Our company Christmas party is tomorrow. I’m sure that will be loads of fun as well since Jean is in charge of the arrangements. Last year’s party was an absolute hoot and I expect this one to be right there with the laughs and hilarity.

Our weather is rather odd. For the last couple of days, it’s been moderate temperatures (high 50’s for highs and high 40’s/low 50’s for lows) and very foggy. We did get some rain yesterday, too (of course on the drive home last night 🙁 ) and I know we still need it, but I sure wish the driveway would have a chance to dry out before the next deluge comes. I am VERY thankful that we’ve missed the bad weather that the west and mid-west have received over the past week along with the cold temperatures! I guess I should not complain at all about a bit of fog and rain.

Well, that’s about it for us. Hope you all are doing well and staying warm and dry!

Love to all,

Margaret

Ken worked all weekend so I had the house to myself. Got it fairly well straightened up for the time being. I need to seriously de-junk it though.

We met Sunday at BMW after he got off work and went shopping. He mentioned that he would like to get a new comforter for the bed as all I have for it right now is a thin bedspread and a blanket. Saw a sign for “last 5 days of Linen’s N Things”, so went in there. There wasn’t much left but we did find a pretty comforter set that had two sheet sets, two decorative pillows, bed skirt, two pillow shams and two euro sham covers in it. It was a raw silk looking kind of fabric in a sea green that is quite pretty! Even at 50% off it was $85 for the set which really isn’t all that bad.

Anyway, it looks nice on the bed and was warm.

Today was overcast and foggy all day. I’m sure glad the bad ice storms missed us.

I have a Christmas party to go to tomorrow night. Guess Charlotte is going with me as it’s the Greenville Kennel Club’s party. I managed to find something for the white elephant gift exchange that I think is quite cute. It’s a cow that the sides are like blackboard and she holds a piece of chalk in her tail. You can write things on her sides — not large paragraphs or anything, but little reminder notes. I think it’s cute, anyway.

I got a santa mantle sitter thingy for the company party that’s Thursday. I couldn’t really think of anything that would suit. There are more women than men, so it’s hard to find things that are gender negative. It’s kind of quirky looking so may appeal…who knows.

Ken’s really bummed out over the latest cuts at BMW. They’re cutting hours and making more off days next year. Nearly his whole vacation will have to be used for shut down days instead of for personal trips and such. Our dog show hobby will be severely curtailed with all of this, but that’s OK. We will do what we can and that will be enough.

If you get a chance, be sure to watch the Eukanuba Invitationals on TV. There’s a Whippet in the finals in Agility and she’s quite good! A Whippet also won a Group Two in the conformation competition, so it was a pretty good year for Whippets overall. See the current schedule for when they will air below.

February 7th, 8 PM (Animal Planet)

Repeat Airings: (Animal Planet)
February 14th, 4 PM

I guess that’s all the news I have to share.

Stay warm and dry.

Love to all,

Margaret

Poor Ken! He’s been having some issues with a tooth on his bottom jaw (the only one he has any teeth left in) being loose and causing him some discomfort. Well, it started hurting in earnest the other day and his jaw looked like he was trying to emulate a chipmunk with a cheek full of nuts on that side, so went to the dentist this morning. He was pretty sure he would lose that one tooth that was loose, but ended up loosing two teeth as the other one was broken, so that meant the dentist had to dig out the root from his gum.

He’s in a LOT of pain!

Silly man went back to work to tough it out the rest of the day….

Guess it’s soup for supper tonight….

I’ve been paying close attention to the weather today as it was VERY warm this morning and there have been a couple of sightings of tornadoes close to home. I had Judy bring in all the dogs as they panic when the weather gets bad like this. I sure hope it’s all passed by when I head home from work in a little bit.

Crazy day!

Hope yours was less dramatic.

Love to all,

Margaret

Gosh! I can’t believe I’ve neglected this blog for so long! There has certainly been enough to talk about, so guess I’ve just been lazy.

Went to Savannah last weekend for 3 days of shows, hoping to get that last elusive point on Butterfly and complete her championship before the year’s end.

Alas, it was not to be as Friday saw us taking reserve to Donna Bost’s lovely puppy girl and then the weather turned nasty (it was an outdoor show) and Saturday saw the rings saturated, muddy and full of fire ants. Butterfly hated it and so came in second in her class. Sunday AM the powers-that-be determined that the show site was flooded and canceled the show. Other than wishing they had done that the day before so I could have checked out of my hotel and gone on home Saturday, it wasn’t too bad of news for me. Of course I was only out the one night’s hotel and one entry fee. There were other people who were out a lot more than that as there were actually two more days of shows, but I had not entered Monday’s show as I had jury duty to report to on Monday.

And Jury duty was a non-event. We weren’t supposed to report until 2:00PM Monday, so I worked from home until time to go to Abbeville. Sat in the courtroom for two hours while they went through this laborious process of excusing some people, delaying the duty on others and finally getting around to choosing a jury for the case that was up for trial. My name wasn’t chosen as even a potential juror, so those of us in that state were sent home and instructed to call this phone number after 6:00PM for further instructions.

When I called, my instructions were to call the next day after 6:00PM and Tuesday’s instructions were the same. Wednesday night’s call said we were done for the week and checks for our service would be forthcoming. I expect to get a check for $7 since I was only there the one day. Big whoopee.

Ken is working Saturday and I will be taking Max, the puppy with the broken leg into the vet for what should be his last cast change as it’s been 5 weeks since he broke it. Thankfully no other dog has gotten ill or hurt during the past couple of weeks, so life seems to be flowing along comfortably for the critters at Kemar.

I’m teaching Riley to say “Merry Christmas” and Ken is teaching him to say “Phew! Mommy pooted” in retribution for my teaching him to say “Phew! Daddy pooted.” Life is fun around here, don’t you think?

Well, I really need to get back to work. I promised someone a report by EOB today, so I need to get cracking on it.

Love to all,

Margaret

Ah what a day it’s been! Our high was 35degrees today and I was cold all day long! The wind was really kicking up, too. BRRRRRR!

I finally got around to making reservations for a room in Savannah for next weekend. Ken thought I was going to leave it too late and not get a room, but the hotel said they had plenty of space available.

Another thing I left until the last minute was sending Mama a birthday card. I bought it last night and got it all ready to mail, but we were out of stamps, so I took it to work with me thinking I could run it through the postage machine at work. Well, they had let that run out of postage, so I ended up having to go to the post office to buy a stamp. I just bought one stamp and then couldn’t figure out how to get it to stick on the envelope. It didn’t have a peel off back and when I tried licking it, it didn’t get sticky, so I still had to wait in the mile-long line at the windows to get someone to stick it on. They used a glue stick and she made a note to check the stamps in the machine out. She stamped the stamp with a stamper thingy, so even if it falls off, they will know that it HAD a stamp on it and still deliver it.

Then as I was sitting at a red light after leaving the post office, I heard the screech of tires behind me. I could not look into the rearview mirror — I just sat there, trapped by the light and nowhere to get out of the way of the car that was laying down rubber trying to get stopped before sliding into either my rear end or the intersection (there were two lanes). Thankfully she was in the other lane, so I was spared being rear-ended, but let me tell you, I shook like a leaf for about 10 minutes afterwards. I’m so glad I went to the bathroom before I left work!

We’re going to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra Sunday afternoon. I think we’re going to enjoy that very much.

Well, that’s all for now.

Love to all,

Margaret

Working from home today and trying to get some housework done in between the programs running, etc.

It’s too cold to put the dogs out (or I’m just a sucker one), so I let them out in pairs to potty, then come back in to snuggle into their blankies in their crates for the day. They each have a bucket of water, so are quite comfy.

As always, there is one spoiler in the bunch.

Oscar decided to take a walk in the woods during his potty outing, so 45 minutes was spent trying to hunt him down. He ended up coming back on his own, but my day is disrupted now although since I started work at 4:30 am, the company is not out any of my time.

I’ve brewed myself a half pot of coffee and am settling down after chasing around the woods in my pajamas (yeah, I know — lazy!) for the dratted dog. If I didn’t love him so much I would have…..no  you KNOW better than that!

Well, now that you know how MY day is going, I sure hope yours is going more smoothly!

Gotta run — time to run the next script.

Love to all,

Margaret

What a week! It started off with taking Sebastain in on Monday to be put to sleep. He had collapsed on the sitter Sunday and wasn’t coming out of it. We think he was between 15 and 17 years old and it was just time.

Then Tuesday, Ken smelled something from the Max’s cast that was not very nice and so he and Tigger had to go to the vet. Poor Max! His cast rubbed a huge raw place under his arm and so they put him in a short cast and now he has to have antibiotics several times a day along with that raw place washed with Betadine solution 3 times a day. He’s handling it pretty well but we did have to put a radar dome on him to keep him from licking the sore place.

Tigger had some kind of allergic reaction to we think the cedar shavings last weekend. He wasn’t getting any better on just Benadryl, so the vet gave him a shot of steriods and put him on antibiotics, too. Between all that and the oatmeal baths, he’s looking much better.

Ken left today for shows in Concord, NC (just north east of Charlotte). I’m going to go up Saturday and hopefully be there in time to see him show. He twisted my arm into entering Savannah which is the last weekend of this month, so I’ll be going there by myself and trying to finish Butterfly.

That’s all there is for now.

Love to all,

Margaret

Hi all — hope you had a great weekend! We enjoyed our trip to Greensboro even though we didn’t win anything. The puppies didn’t totally embarrass us, so we pretty much counted that a win 🙂

I did have to come home to Sebastian collapsing and took him in this morning for a final good bye. He was a dog we rescued from Asheville about 8 years ago and he was probably between 15 and 17 years of age. He lived the “good life” with us especially compared to his early years where he was tied to a porch and left there in all kinds of weather. His owner finally gave him up to rescue when a neighbor’s dog attacked and nearly killed him — Sebastian had nowhere to get away from the attacking dog and being tied, couldn’t run away. He was a pretty good little guy who just sort of hung out with the crowd around here. He hated having his picture taken and would leave the room whenever the camera was brought out, so I don’t have very many photos of him and none that are what I would call “good”.

The puppy with the broken leg graduated to a small x-pen today, so I got to come to work after taking care of Sebastian. There were some aspects of working from home last week that I enjoyed and others that I didn’t, so getting back into the groove feels pretty good. I’ll have to take puppy in sometime this week for a cast change, but think I can do that after work one day later in the week (they said 10 days – 2 weeks and it will be 10 days on Wednesday).

We’re having a luncheon here tomorrow, so I’ll be coming in although I usually work from home on Tuesdays.

I think that pretty much catches you up on us.

Take care!

Love to all,

Margaret

Well the elections are over and now it’s just the gloating.  I can’t say I’m surprised at the outcome, but I sure have my doubts about the future of our country now. Eddie better be planning on what he’s going to do in six months if Mr. Obama cuts the military like he says he’s going to do. That will rook him out of retirement as he’s still short a couple of years of having 20 in.

Ken and I are headed to Greensboro this weekend for a show. We were supposed to show the TFT’s on Saturday, but with Max having done his swan dive, we’ll only be showing Minnie. Of course the Whippets are entered. Butterfly, Tigger and Nikki. I sure hope Butterfly can pull Winners off one of the two days. Then she can be a stay-at-home lady of leisure and someday have some babies.

Then next weekend, Ken heads to Concord, NC for a 3 day show. We only have Nikki and Tigger entered there, so he’ll go by himself and I’ll stay behind to take care of the dogs. He does want me to come up Saturday and go to dinner with him and the Boyds, so I may do that. Feed early and take off.

My boss decided he wanted me to work from home this week instead of taking vacation  due to Max’s leg. I’ll work from home until the first cast change when I think he’ll be able to graduate to an X-Pen instead of having to stay crated and leash walked. I have plenty of vacation time and I’ll have to take it before the end of the year anyway or else I’ll lose it, but he’s the boss and truly there has been plenty for me to do with two new customers coming on board this week alone.

Our weather was just beautiful today with highs in the mid-70’s. The dogs spent most of the day outside lying in the sun. I just watched out the window as I worked.

Well, you’re pretty much caught up now with what’s going on here. Take care.

Love to all,

Margaret

It was a gorgeous weekend weather-wise. Highs in the low 70’s and sunny. Saturday we had errands to run. Ken needed to pick up his truck in Easley and I needed to go to Sam’s Club for dog food.

We headed off to Sandy’s for breakfast first. Got there around 9:30, then headed to Easley to get Ken’s truck. We had decided to leave in in the Home Depot parking lot while we went on to Sam’s Club. I also wanted to go by Verizon and look at phones because the screen on my phone is gradually going away. I qualified for an upgrade in January, but hadn’t cared anything about getting a new phone as I like my pink Razar.

After we finished at Sam’s Club, we were headed to Verizon when Ken noticed the Costco and mentioned that he’d never been in one. I suggested we stop as I was pretty sure you could get a guest pass and so we took a look around and did some comparison shopping. We left and headed once more to Verizon. At a red light, a  man pulled up beside us, honked his horn and told us our left rear tire was almost flat.

Ken pulled over and we fixed the flat, then headed on. Verizon looked busy, but we got someone to wait on us pretty quickly. He showed me phones and I made a decision, then when he tried to ring it up, the system wouldn’t let him because that phone wouldn’t work on our price plan. The plan they wanted us to upgrade to was about $10 more per month, but we really didn’t need any more minutes, so it was back to the drawing board. I found another phone that we could keep our price plan and then just had to wait for them to activate it and move my contacts over from the one phone to the other. That took what seemed like FOREVER.

When that was finally done, we headed back to Home Depot to pick up the truck and drop off the tire that needed fixing. While we were waiting on the tire, we walked up to the Jack-In-The-Box that shares the parking lot with the tire place and Home Depot to grab a bite to eat. It’s nearly 3:00 pm and we haven’t had anything since we ate breakfast at 9:30. When we finished with our cardboard burgers, we walked up to Home Depot. By the time we go the light bulbs we needed there and got back to the tire place, the tire was fixed and we were ready to head for the house.

Sunday was pretty and we got up around 7:30 (standard time — we remember to move the clocks back!) and went to Sandy’s for breakfast again. Back home, Ken washed all 3 cars while I swept, mopped and did laundry. Around 2:30, we headed to Greenwood for my long awaited Chinese dinner.

The first place we stopped didn’t open for dinner until 5:00 pm, so we went across the street to the other one. It was closed on Sunday. So Ken mentioned a place that one of his friends talks about (not Chinese) and we head there. On the way, we spot another Chinese restaurant and this one is open! So in we go and I FINALLY get my long-awaited Chinese dinner.

Back home, we’re sitting watching tv and the two Toy Fox Terriers are running around and playing. Max jumps into Ken’s lap, stays long enough for kisses, then jumps down. Only he lands wrong and we’re off to the Vets where we find he has a broken leg.  They sedate him and set the leg and cast it. He’s got to stay crated for a couple of weeks, then they’ll recast the leg checking to make sure it’s healing properly. All-in-all, he’ll be in the cast about 6 weeks. He’s entered in the show this coming weekend, but obviously will be scratched. Thankfully my boss is letting me work from home all week, so I’m home working all week while making sure Max gets out to potty and gets his meds on time. He’s being fairly good about everything, but it’s obvious that his leg hurts.

I sure hope your weekend was a nice one!

Love to all,

Margaret