Bandage Change and Gaga Land

I went to have my bandage changed today and for some reason they gave me a "light" sedative which actually didn't kick in until I got home - Mom said I was GaGa Land - I am not sure what she meant by that but I must admit I was feeling a little goofy - can you believe Mom not only took a photo of me in that state but then she would post it on MY blog !!!!!   It only lasted about an hour and I was completely back to normal. The good news is the dogtors say my foot is looking VERY good and healing really well. I have another bandage change next Thursday and then the Tuesday after that the stitches comes out. They leave the stitches in a full 14 days in the feet because they need it to be really well healed due to the pressure of walking and such. Today I just have a smaller and lighter bandage - no minions :) Mom says the hard thing is going to be keeping me from bouncing around on my foot - I still want to race outside and bark at the geese and do the happy dance when Dad comes home.

They all ADORE me!

My dogness - I have had 5 phone call this morning - 2 from the surgeon checking on my progress and three from my regular vets. His staff "the girls" as I like to call them - called to check on me and then he called himself ! What can I say - they just all totally adore me and know how 'special' I am  :)

I am doing good this morning - I had a big breakfast then drank about half a bowl of water - I have been outside a couple of times and even done a little sun puddling. Mom of coarse is always hovering nearby making sure I am steady and don't walk to much and I am getting lots of extra little treats which I am quite enjoying. The Dweeb too is hovering which of coarse Mom thinks is cute and which I think is ssssooooo annoying - he is following me around like a little lost puppy ....... (I may even have to resort to pretending to growl at him so he gives me some space).

I am home !

Mom says I am 'drunk as a skunk' or 'loopy as a loon'  but I am home :) 

MOM - Mr Reilly is home safe and sound - he is still a little groggy and wobbly but he had a little bit of dinner and something to drink and is now fast asleep. They gave him a "Dave' the Minon bandage and he has a special boot to put over it for when he goes outside. He is on house arrest for the next two weeks (no walkies at all) - he will go back on Friday to have the bandage changed and then in two weeks will have the sutures out. Hopefully by next week we will have the results of the biopsy.

An Update on Mr Reilly

The vet just called to say Mr Reilly is doing really well. He said the tumor was very well defined which meant it was easier to remove and he is 99% sure he got it all. It was a bit bigger than they thought due to being in his pad and on top of his foot but thankfully it wasn't affecting his toes so he didn't have to lose any of them. He said it all sewed together beautifully and hopefully it will heal quickly. I will be able to pick him up in a few hours and then he will need to go back Friday for a bandage change and we should get the biopsy results hopefully next Monday. Thank you everyone for the Power of The Paw - we know it made all the difference and know Mr Reilly will be back galumphing on the beach in no time :)

Mr Reilly's Foot

We went to see the doggie orthopedic surgeon today and Mr Reilly will be having surgery tomorrow to remove the tumor from his foot. He is hoping he will be able to get it all without having to remove one of his toes so please keep the big dog in your thoughts. We will have a little break while Mr Reilly recovers - the dogtor thinks it will take about 2 weeks for his foot to heal providing there are no complications.

Happy Earth Day

Today is Earth Day - a day to take the time and just enjoy the world we live in. We are enjoying our lanai today and having beautiful sunny 84 degrees temperatures :)

Really Mom !

Preening Pelican

Can you believe Mom went to the beach without us  AGAIN. Needless to say she had some excuse about it being on those evil parks that doesn't allow dogs on the beach - so why would she even want to go there?

If that wasn't bad enough - she then came home all HAPPY because King Neptune was feeling generous and had left lots of goodies for her to find. And check out this guy - Mom says he was sitting on the railing of the ferry - just happily preening his feathers - oh how we would of loved to have barked at him but did we get the chance - NOOOO ! Anyhoo - you can check out Mom's goodies although personally I think you should boycott this post because is doesn't contain any pictures of us!

Some kind of tree root

A sample of the shells she found

Lettered Olives

Sea Urchins

Crab Shells and baby crab

Pretty Barnacles

Florida Prickly Cockles

Wentletrap

Wordless Wednesday

Birthday Present and Beach

Mom felt so sad that she couldn't give me any
yummy treats for my birthday so she went out and bought me an orthopedic doggie bed - now normally I like the cold floor to sleep on but I must say I LOVE my new bed - it is so comfortable and has that nice pillow edge for my head. It also help support my joints. Mom also took ME and Reilly on a short walk on the beach - we are both still on limited walkies because of our leg and feet problems but we loved sniffing and Reilly had fun walking in the sand dunes. We also saw this Kestrel trying to carry a huge fish (you might need to click on the photo to see it better) Mom is thinking she needs to train one of these Kestrels to catch fish for her and just drop it at her feet (which would be silly really because Mom doesn't like fish - but we sure do so maybe one could catch it for US :)

Denny's Birthday

It is ME - the Denny dog and today I am turning 5 years old. Happy Birthday to me - Happy Birthday to me :)  Sadly -  I am on a special diet now due to my arthritis so there were no treats but Mom did let me play ball a little today which was lots of fun and we have been having lots of extra cuddles.

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Mom finally relented!

YES - Mom finally gave in and allowed us to have a short walkies on my beach today and while we were busy sniffing Mom and Dad were watching this coming in - It is a USS Jackson LCS-6  which is a Littoral Combat Ship. This particular ship will call San Diego it's home port but for 2016 it will be based here at Mayport undergoing sea trials. This was officially commissioned on December 5th 2015. Mayport is going to home port for 8 of these types of ships with the USS Little Rock being the first one to call us home in December 2016. The rest will come over the next 4 years as they are built and you can read more about them here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship. The good thing is - Mom was so busy watching this ship she forgot to take any pics of us which means we got lots of undisturbed sniffing in :)

Revenge is Sweet :)

Mom decided to go to the beach today WITHOUT ME!  The skies were looking dark and cloudy (not every day is sunny in Florida) but they weren't forecasting rain until this afternoon - (as if the weatherman EVER gets it right!) The wind was also gusting between 20-30 mph and even the birds had the sense to ground themselves rather than trying to fly in it. The Mom bravely forged on - heading over to the breakwater first - to see all the pelicans and gulls that were gathering there.

She also got to watch a shrimp boat heading back into dock and the ship "City Of Hanoi" which according to VesselFinder is a container ship built in 1997 and currently sailing under the flag of Cyprus.  Then as she walking away from the breakwater she heard the blast of a horn and turned around to see the USS Mahan (DDG-72) leaving. This ship is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and  is the 22nd Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and the first Flight II variant. Like her predecessors, Mahan is named for Alfred Thayer Mahan, a naval theorist on sea power. She is the fourth U.S. Navy ship to bear the name and her home port is Norfolk, Virginia.  Mom thought it looked so funny in these pictures - more like a ship of the desert traveling across sand rather than a ship of the sea :)

Anyhoo - just after she took these pictures the biggest ever rain cloud band appeared and Mom got well and truly drenched - serves her right for going without ME! She looked like a bedraggled rat when she got home :)

Life is so boring !

My muscles are atrophying, my blood pressure is rising and I am all depressed and I am soooo BORED - and it has only been a day without a walkies - woooooo is me!!!!! 

Can you believe Mom says I am being MELODRAMATIC !

Doesn't she understand how important my bark ranger duties are? I am sorry Mom - but driving around the park with the windows down just doesn't cut it - how can I see if the Kitty Cartel are up to no good, what if my sand is disappearing again,  what if there have been strange critters on MY beach and it's the start of turtle breeding season and I have to make sure they are safe when they come up on MY beach.

I even tried the "Oh my poor foot" move - trying to convince Mom the grass was too scratchy on my poor injured paw (see me holding it up) and that it would be much better for me to walk on the sand. Alas - all I keep hearing in "No Reilly - it's for your own good" - sigh !

Wordless Wednesday

Mr Reilly Update

Hello all - it is me the Reilly dog - after a day of being - tortured taken care of the vets yesterday - today I have just been taking it easy at home - even though I have done my best to convince Mom I NEED to do my bark ranger patrol and that a little sand wouldn't hurt me at all.

My foot is looking so much better this evening - the antibiotics and Mom cleaning it every couple of hours (which I must say I do not appreciate at all) has worked wonders. The swelling and redness have gone down a lot and the bleeding has stopped - sorry to gross you out with a photo of my foot but Mom wonders if anyone has seen anything like this before. My dogtor did some smear slides to look for any infection and also took a sample of the lump to send off to have some cytology work done on it - we won't get any results back until Thursday or Friday.

Now if only I can convince Mom that a weeks rest the dogtor suggested is is NOT needed.

POTP for Mr Reilly

Yesterday the lump on Mr Reilly's foot swelled up like crazy pushing through the top of his foot and split open. It wasn't an abscess - just clear liquid came out and not very much but it has left a big opening and the whole area is very red and sore looking and it is bleeding a bit...... so Mr Reilly is at the vets for the day for them to clean it up and see what they can do. We are thinking he will need to go see the Veterinary Orthopedic Surgeon sooner than his appointment in two weeks but at the moment we just have to wait and see what his dogtor finds. Please send my special boy some power of the paw if you can. The good news is Mr Denny's medication change has helped him a little and he is not limping so bad. We just seem to be going through a bad patch with feet and legs at the moment.

Shell Treasures

As some of you may have guessed - Mom is a bit crazy about shells so we thought we would share some of our finds and what Mom has been doing with them. Yesterday I found this awesome giant Florida Cockle Shell for Mom - it measure 5.5" across. I was digging at it to try and get to the dried up shrimp underneath it and Mom came over to see what I was doing - she was soooooo happy I found the nice smelly shrimp shell for her. Then Mom found this shell which we found out is called a "Paper Fig". We are surprised it survived the surf as it is... as the name suggest.... paper thin and very delicate. Mom has also been busy painting "Lucines" most of them she does with sea creature pictures on them but he also did a set that has Viking/Celtic designs on them too. Mom leaves these on the end of the boardwalks for people to find and has given away over a 100 of them now. Remember you can double click on the picture to see them bigger.

Giant Cockle Shell

Paper Fig

Lucines - Blue

Lucines - Brown

Lots of colors - Lucines

Viking/Celtic Design Lucines

Update on Denny

We had to take Denny back to the vets today as his limping was getting worse - today they did Xrays which found he has severe osteo/degenerative arthritis in both his front elbow joints - the right one is the worst of all. They have increased his medication and added a second one and we will be taking both Denny and Reilly to see an Orthopedic Vet in 2 weeks time. Mom is very sad as Denny will be 5 in a couple of weeks and shouldn't have to be dealing with this already.

I found TREASURE

Mom and I went off to the beach today and can you believe some one is stealing my sand AGAIN. Just look at this ridge left behind - I bet it is that Cat Cartel again - you just can't trust them kitties.

While Mom was looking for shells I was off sniffing around some tuffs of grass and I found my very OWN treasure. Mom looked up to see me shaking something and she called to me - I came running over all excited to show her my treasure and her only response was "Oh gross Reilly - DROP IT!" It was so delightfully smelly and what could be better then some dried fish to nibble on?

Cowspotdog Pond

Life is quite busy in our backyard Cowspotdog pond at the moment. The first baby Canada Geese have hatched - six of them who we have name Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe, Larry and Ethel :) Last year our 3 Geese families had 6, 4 and 2 babies - it will be interesting to see if they do the same again this year. It looks like they are on track already :) The turtles have also finally come back - last year during summer our pond dried up and the turtles all went over to the bigger lake on the other side of our road. Mom says she thinks these are red eared slider turtles. We also had a cormorant visitor - not sure what he was doing there as there are no fish in MY pond but we guess he was just drying off his feathers.