Low Key

Things have been pretty quite and low key for us. Temps outside have remained rather cool so we are hibernating. I planned to post videos of the pups opening their presents on Christmas but the slow internet connection is unfortunately not allowing me to do so. :( They were rather cute about tearing up the wrapping paper though.
Our cat, Misty, has found a new favorite sleeping spot. As you can see below, the hounds don't mind. She has become quite loving. Her personality has changed over the last six months. In September just before we went on our beach vacation she had a blood clot form. She was not able to use her back legs and was dragging herself around with her front legs. It was awful. We had no idea what had happened. She was walking around fine all day and then all of a sudden she started crawling. It was scary. We rushed her to the vet. The vet was able to give her an injection of Heparin to help move the clot and luckily it worked, but she did have loss of use of her back legs for a few days. It was very sad to watch her going through that. :( She has since made a full recovery with movement in her legs. Upon that vet visit, she was diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy and Hyperthyroidism and is currently on daily medication. The meds so far seem to be helping her maintain a good quality of life. Two months after starting the meds, she had follow up visit and blood work which looked good and indicated that she is on the correct dose of medication. She will go back in April for another check up. Fingers are crossed that the medication continues to help. :)

Booyah likes to ball his blankets up and then lay on them. He is a goofy boy.

Cueball prefers to lay on our bed and use a pillow for a head rest.

Maggie was having good dreams. Content and happy.

We will be putting our house on the market next weekend. We are hoping to move closer in to the Richmond area. We have been living out in the country for the last ten years. It has been good, but it is time for a change. We did not have any luck last year with selling. We went on the market in Feb. and took the house of the market in Nov. We had several people who wanted to buy our home, but they had houses to sell and that did not happen. We also had a young couple (jokingly known as "our friends") who submitted three offers to buy our home. Unfortunately, they were all low ball offers and it was a no deal for us. We did counter offer and gave them our bottom line price also. They wanted it all, but did not want to or could not afford to pay the price.

We still feel we have a lot to offer though. We have a 3+ garage with partially finished attic for storage, large storage shed, 6.49 acres of land, a 1988 square foot cap cod (built in 2000 and open concept), refinished deck, large patio, fenced rear yard, etc. The process of selling can be frustrating. We have a good real estate agent, we learned a lot last year through the experience and are hoping for better results this year.

In the meantime, we refinanced to take advantage of the low interest rates and reduced the years on the mortgage. Through the refinance we now have a recent appraisal which indicated that our asking price was reasonable (it was a sigh of relief to know I was not crazy and our price was a good price). The appraised value was $7, 000 above our asking and $11, 000 above assessed value. Although we wanted to move very badly, we were not willing to give it all away, and I am glad we did not. It is a new year and I am staying positive! This will be the year we sell! I will keep the readers of this blog updated on our progress.

Hope everyone is having a great 2011 so far!

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.