Happy 15th birthday, Huggie!  I love you!

Love,

Mom

It’s our right and obligation.  Do it!  Soon it will be over.  Well, hopefully, remember Florida?  At least I’ll stop getting calls from Hillary and Bill and the flyers will stop.  LOL!!! 

Now, it’s that time of year again!  Time to make Holiday graphics and design cards.  Here’s a little something that I made up.  I hope you enjoy my little penquin and his best friend.  I am having a little difficulty getting over the red, white, and blue theme but give me time.  I am sure that I’ll get more holidayish as time wears on! 

I’ve not seen the aerobic antics unless you count hanging upside down on my cockatiel’s cage so she can shred the wood trim off my wall.  She does fly very well.  She swoops around the house and is quite agile and aerobic.   She can land on my head with the greatest of ease.  Back to the friendly part……..when someone other than my husband enters the room, she flies away and hides somewhere.  She stays motionless and silent.  My job is to shoo away the intruders and then go find her.  Once found, she happily coos and chortles.  You’d think she would call out and help me find her.  Nope.  She just waits. 

Indigo does have the iridescent quality to her feathers.  She’s breathtaking.  The pictures only give you an idea of how pretty she is.  You can’t really know unless you see her or another blue-head in person.  Of course, you will never see Indigo in person because she will immediately hide when you walk into my house.  I made a stained glass graphic featuring Indigo.  I designed it from a picture of her as a juvenile.  I think it captures her expression quite nicely.  Until having a parrot, I didn’t know that they had expressions.  Parrots most certainly do and I can assess Indigo’s moods fairly accurately from her expression and her body language.  This is her “cupcake” pose.  

I have read that Pionus Parrots are cuddly and snuggly.  This is true in Indigo’s case.  She is cuddly when she wants to be.   Pionus can talk, but Indigo prefers to talk in Pionus.  She mutters her sweet nothings and curses in a language that I can’t decipher but I know what she means.  She loves to shower.  When I am at the sink and run the water, she hops onto my shoulder, runs down my arm and plays in the water.  My least favorite part is after she is drenched, she shakes the water from her feathers which lands all over the kitchen and me.   Indigo always gives me an excuse to clean the kitchen. 

 http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-raid1001-cn,0,6435039.story. 

This is where Cooper, our chihuahua is from.  http://www.asiapapillons.com/blog/dogs/cooper-james/  I am heartsick.  How can people be so cruel?  This guy has the audacity to call his kennel, Almost Heaven.  Is that because most of his animals are near death?

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-dog-1002cn,0,660925.story

http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-kennel-raid,0,1587020.story

Another source of fascination for me, is that the Gennasus Papillons will use their cot for the purpose it was made for. I bought similar cots for my dogs to lay on outside. I had their yard paved and I didn’t want them laying on cold brick pavers so I bought three little cots for them. Those cots are made of pvc with a mesh fabric. Purveyors of dog cots proclaim that “they keep your dog off the ground in ultimate comfort. Raised beds help protect your dog from the cold ground and avoid drafts.” My little sweethearts are steadfast in their refusal to try out these claims. They stand on them, run across them, launch themselves off of them, and they pee on them.  They rarely lay on them. Go figure. 

Mora and I went to Valley Forge Kennel Club yesterday. She has another point toward her championship! I also saw her littermates. I hadn’t seen them since they were tiny puppies. They are beautiful! I hope Mora has most of her points before they come out. They are going to be hard to beat when they do.

Afterwards, I had a nice lunch with my good friends, Mike and Donna and their lovely daughter, Gia. Though Donna and I keep in touch by phone and e-mail, it’s so much better in person.

Aren’t the kids cute?

When I saw Cooper for the first time all I could think was this puppy is not going to be around for very long. I didn’t have the heart to tell my daughter who had fallen in love with the tiny 1 lb. puppy.  He had one eye that went one way and the other eye went another.  Sometimes, I swear, they spun around in his head.   He was such a quiet inactive puppy.  I asked Jordan if he played and she said she did.  Whenever I saw him, he was asleep.   I thought that if he did live, he would be mentally stunted.  But he was still ever so cute in his little rolly eyed - see through his pink skin little way. He reminded me of a newly hatched bird or of Bartok, the bat.

We made an appointment with the veterinarian immediately. Not surpisingly, he had a cough and diarhea.  The ‘breeder” had given Jordan a bottle of amoxicillin for “just in case”.  This is your first clue.  If the puppy comes with a bottle of amoxicillin bigger than he is, well, realize, that just maybe, the breeder suspects the puppy is not well.  “Breeder” also recommended that one pound Cooper should be given 5 ml of Amoxi twice a day! I believe at that dose, Cooper’s liver could have become compromised at the very least.  Cooper was diagnosed with mange, kennel cough and worms.  Just a few days later, Cooper went into hypoglycemic shock.  That’s not a surprise in such unhealthy puppy.    We rushed him to the vet and I kept checking his vital signs.  By the time we got to the vet office, Cooper was unconscious and was not responding. It took awhile but my vet finally brought Cooper around. The techs still talk about how surprised they were when Cooper survived.   Cooper was a fighter!  Not only was he a fighter, he has a personality that is way bigger than he is, all four pounds of him today! 

My worries that Cooper wasn’t mentally normal were needless.  He is very bright and very manipulative.  He has us all wrapped around his little paws. He adores my daughter. He usually enjoys dress up. He prefers people-like clothes such as t-shirts. He does not enjoy being dressed up as a  pumpkin. He can be stubborn, territorial, and hates new people. He must meet someone three times before he decides they are okay.   IF he ever decides they are okay. A little food goes a long way to changing Cooper’s mind.