That's blind Babe on her favorite spot in winter, atop the snowbank that forms from the snow sliding off the Widget's House roof. We turn the dogs out for exercise in small groups in several different yards adjacent to Widget's House; in Babe's yard you see blind Allie the black Lab, Shiloh in the center and Libby on the right. Now, Babe is one of those dogs who would rather be wherever she's not, so the yard in front of her is always more exciting than the yard she's in. (Kind of like the "whatever is in their dog food bowl is more exciting than what's in my bowl" line of canine reasoning.) So Babe loves it when we open the gate and let her charge through.
What she doesn't realize is that she could very easily just walk across that wooden fence, using her snowbank, to get to the next yard. But she doesn't, and instead she stands there ... and often sits there ... barking at the dogs in the other yard and enjoying her perch. Maybe she just likes the king-of-the-hill feeling.
Libby, who can see, does use that snowbank to get out of her yard and mingle with the guests on the other side.
And speaking of Shiloh, he has now finished all of his chemotherapy treatments for his hemangiosarcoma and is doing amazingly well. There is nothing more we can do at this point other than wait -- the prognosis is typically for a survival period of 6 to 9 months with chemotherapy -- but so far he is physically looking really good. We know that some folks with animals who develop hemangiosarcoma don't enjoy as much time as we've had with Shiloh since his diagnosis, so we are very grateful for every day.
--
I wanted to let you know how much we appreciated the wonderfully supportive comments and emails about the very sad ending for Luke the blind hound. Those incredible sentiments meant a lot to us. Thank you!
--
Spellchecker weirdness: Just ran the blog's spellchecker and it helpfully suggested "humanism" instead of "hemangiosarcoma." Hmm. Who are those guys who program these things?
Interesting that babe knows a fence is there but not how "high" it goes. Just a good dog doing what they do best.
I am very sorry about Pepper. It makes me see the immortally of my dogs.
Posted by: Craig from Great Falls | February 23, 2008 at 11:34 PM
Babe has the BEST ears!
Shiloh does look good; keep enjoying him everyday! We hope spring bring him some happy rolling dog days.
Posted by: Boundforglory | February 20, 2008 at 09:15 AM
The thought of losing Shiloh so soon after Dillon is almost too much for anyone to handle. Hopefully, Shiloh's last months will be good ones. Thanks for the update.
Oh yeah, the snow is always whiter on the other side of the fence, ya know! LOL
Posted by: Debbie | February 20, 2008 at 07:44 AM