We got Bread! Did you?

Yep, winter storm Bread did not disappoint and came to fruition. For those who may not know, WRVA in Richmond (Jimmy B. and the morning show folks) are naming all the snow storms this winter. Alvin, the first storm (Dec. 19th) died off and was a disappointment, but not true for Bread. In our area we saw the effects of Bread starting around 2:30 p.m. on Christmas day and continuing to snow off and on until 5 p.m. today. Total snow fall for us 7.5 inches. Yay! Hey, I would much prefer white sandy beaches and sun, but if it is going to be this da** cold it may as well snow!

I will apologize in advance, as the pictures are out of order, and blogger won't let me rearrange them. GRRR!!

Pippi was not too sure about the snow at first, but once she figured it out she had a blast.


Booyah knows how much fun the white fluffy stuff can be. This snow, so I have been told, is like a Maine snow. Fine and fluffy.

Below is Pippi surveying the yard before venturing out.

She finds her snow legs and takes a romp.
Cueball loves, loves, loves the snow. He would stay out there all day long playing in it if you let him.

One happy boy. :)

Booyah joins him for some fun.

I so enjoy watching the kids play in the snow. It puts huge smiles on our faces. Such a joy to see them so happy!

Here Booyah is taking a break to enjoy the snowflakes falling on him.

Maggie had a great time playing until she lost her cuz toy in the snow. I searched and searched but couldn't find it. Every spot I thought I had found it turned out to be a pee spot. So Mae is hoping for some sun to melt the snow so she can retrieve her beloved toy. Not sure what toy she will bring to bed in its place. The cuz is her favorite.

This pic below is from Christmas day after the snow had come down for a few hours. She was having a ball with her new cow squeaky toy.

Pippi would like it stated for the record that it is much safer indoors in the confides of a warm, toasty room, laying on a plush dog bed covered with a fleece blanket snuggling with the plushy moose toy.

We will have some Christmas day videos to share and some catching up to do in upcoming posts, so stay tuned. We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!! May your Christmas be filled with love and laughter!We are having a very lovely white Christmas here in the Ole Forge of Virginia!

Update Booyah

I am very happy to report that Booyah had his follow up visit with Dr. Blair on Wednesday. He also celebrated his fourth gotcha day last weekend, which will be saved for another post. :) Dr. Blair was quite pleased with the improvement in Booyah's eye. He does not see any need for surgery at this point, as he feels the eye is not causing Booyah any discomfort or pain. The redness is almost completely gone and he expects this to continue to diminish with time. The area surrounding the eye is no longer swollen or tender. Booyah is off of his pain meds but will continue with his daily eye drops and will follow up in six months to be re-evaluated. Of course if there are any issues before that time, he will see Dr. Blair again immediately.

As mentioned in my last post we will not be going back to our previous primary vet again. So we are changing vets to another greyhound savvy vet who is highly recommended. I should note that our previous primary vet was very greyhound savvy and is a sight hound owner herself. We, like many other greyhound owners passed by several vet's offices on our way to see this vet. Her office was not close to our home and was a 45 minute drive for us. That did not matter to us as we believed our hounds were in good hands. That is why we put our trust in this vet practice, but unfortunately we were mistaken. Anyone who personally knows us, knows that we do everything we can to provide the best care and loving home for all of our furkids. We put a lot of research and thought into choosing our previous vet and are deeply disappointed. We are hopeful that our new vet will provide our hounds with the proper care they so rightfully deserve.

Elizabeth Taylor eye

We had a rough weekend last weekend. We had nothing planned and were looking forward to having a relaxing weekend at home. All he** decided to break loose instead. In order to understand the story, we must start at the beginning. We adopted Booyah almost four years ago (it will be four years at the end of this week). He is a very sweet boy. He waited and waited at the kennel to find a home because he is a big (83lb) black male with one eye that has a genetic defect. It is blue in color, has a protrusion at its center and a bit sunken in. He also has no sight in this eye. If you look closely you can see the difference in his right eye from a "normal" greyhound eye. None of that mattered to us, we just wanted a good second addition to help Miss Queen with her separation anxiety. He is the perfect fit and cured Maggie's anxiety. All has been well with this eye and his general health for the past almost four years. That is until last Wednesday. Wednesday evening I noticed his eye was a bit red and he was squinting a bit. This has happened before when he has poked himself in the eye when walking by a tree branch. I did not think much of it and decided to check him in the morning and go from there. Thursday morning, the redness had decreased some, there was no drainage, swelling or edema and his natural blue color was present. I thought it must be getting better and opted not to take him to the vet. Things ended up taking a turn for the worse on Friday evening. His eye had changed in color to purple, was swollen and bulging. (this pic below was taken today) We went to see my primary vet early Saturday morning, who diagnosed him with having a Descemetocele, which is a formation of an ulcer that then ruptures. As you can imagine, that would be quite painful. They informed me that he will likely need surgery to either repair the eye (cut the nerve endings to the eye) or remove the eye. I was given a referral to see a specialist.

I should note here that because of this whole incident, Booyah nor will any of my other fur kids, will be returning to this vet for any further care. And here is the reason. Booyah has been seen by this vet practice for four years. The vet he normally sees was off last Saturday, so he saw the other vet. In the four years he has been seen, no one noted that there was a birth defect in this eye and what it looked like. The vet who saw him Saturday also informed me that when they saw him the Saturday prior for a regular 6 month check up and vaccine update they noted at that time that he had an ulcer in his eye. However, no one bothered to inform me of this. They had also noted back in 2009 that he had corneal scarring and an unknown mass/deformity. On 3 separate visits some issue with his eye was noted in his chart but was not discussed with me. As you can imagine, I was quite perturbed and the Vet and her staff received quite the mouthful of ugliness from me.

I am very proactive and heavily involved in the care of our fur kids and I always ask when they are seen if there are any concerns with their health. In the interest of seeking a second opinion, because I no longer trusted anything this vet had to say, I drove Booyah to an emergency vet for their opinion. The vet who saw him concluded the same diagnosis and also referred me to a specialist. Before going to the emergency vet, I did contact two specialist's office, but unfortunately none of the Ophthalmologists in the Richmond nor the Northern Virginia were on call that weekend. As a side note, if you live in the state of Virginia and your fur kid has a true eye emergency, good luck on the weekends. You may end up at Virginia Tech or NC State to receive care.

The ER vet gave us pain meds and eye drops to get us through the weekend and told us to call if the eye worsened. She also informed us that we could go to VT or NC state if he needed emergent surgery.

The whole weekend I was anxious and worried sick about Booyah. We saw the specialist on Monday. After looking at Booyah for just a few seconds and hearing his history, the vet informed me that this was not a Descemetocele. I was quite relived.

Now, it should be noted that I am not bashing the other two vets for a wrong diagnosis, as they are not eye specialists and I don't expect they would be able to properly diagnosis this issue. However, my primary vet office not letting me know about scarring, unknown mass and an ulcer in the eye is ridiculous and I am still outraged over that situation.

The good news is that Booyah is going to be okay and surgery is not needed, at least not yet. It may be needed in the future if we cannot medically manage his pain. Booyah's correct diagnosis is a Congential anomaly/blind; Corneal staphloma; Hyphema suspect retina detachment. So what does all that mean? According to the eye specialist it means this:
"Booyah's right eye has a birth defect and the bulge in the cornea is a weak area but it is not unstable. The hemorrhage inside the eye is likely due to a detachment of the retina. I suspect he had a blunt trauma to the eye and that caused the hemorrhage and sensitivity. If the eye remains painful, removal of the eye may be recommended."

Booyah is on pain meds, anti-inflammatorys and eye drops. His has remained his loving, sweet self and his tail has never stopped wagging through this whole ordeal. He is no longer squinting, so I think there has been an improvement. Only time will tell if surgery will be necessary. We follow up with the specialist on December 1st and will go from there. But for the meantime and the future, we are ans will remain in love with our big, beautiful, black boy even with his Elizabeth Taylor eye.