Gus in Training

Today we watched one of our favorite TV shows at ten A.M. on CBS it is on every Saturday, Lucky Dog, check your local listings.

The basis of the whole show is when a professional dog trainer, Brandon, adopts/rescues dogs from shelters and trains them to be suitable for families, military vets, elderly, and business people etc. with all specific needs for the dogs being trained or with dogs having behavioral or other types of issues.

One show had a vet home from war with two amputated legs and prosthesis needing a service dog and he helped him with an appropriately trained dog, another wanted to take the dog to work and he trained that dog to behave in an office setting, another had a family with a pool and he made sure the dog knew how to swim and get out of the pool (author's note: Gus did swim when he fell in to our pool, but it was the getting out that was an issue), and I suppose now you have gotten the idea… It is a southern California based reality show and sincerely informative for dealing with pet problems and normal positive training and a feel good ending every time.

Teaching the seven commands for any pet is a must and they are: sit, down, stay, come, no, off, and heel. The show has been on for nearly two years now. Below is the original press release from when the show began.

http://www.vetstreet.com/our-pet-experts/new-reality-show-trains-rescued-dogs-into-perfect-pets

This is Brandon teaching the seven commands on video: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1qa8er_lucky-dog-seven-common-commands_tv

He also addresses problematic issues and has on his doggie ranch doggie cams to watch inside or outside to see everything from separation anxiety to territory marking to destroying things even going through the garbage in an office or kitchen all problems are dealt with consistently. For a half hour show it is quite a learning experience.

Today he used one that we had seen before with cats climbing on kitchen counters, but this one was for a dog tearing up the waste basket and it worked, pennies in a water bottle, yep plastic and it did work, it’s the pennies hitting each other that make the noise so no tin can is needed.

We had an empty peanut butter jar in plastic in the recycling bin and so I used it for the barking issue, and even the running back and forth behind the couch every-time he sees a cat or the dogs across the street etc. or when barking while we eat and you know what it worked! Just twenty cents worth of pennies to make enough noise and the command no and he stopped! Amazing! Treats after are given, his own dog food just a piece or two of his kibbles, followed with positive comments go along with proper behavior, such as good job, good boy, terrific! He really looks so proud after as if he does understand.

As far as the other commands go we are still working on them, stay is getting there for when Hubby goes out the front door or people come in it, sit and down are doing nicely, heel too, off is not bad but no…still working on it!

Even we old dogs/people, Hubby and me, can learn to try some newer tricks to help Gus become the dog we know he has in him.

On that note of let’s hope allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

A perfect sit and look at Mommy! Just now!

Thinking

We all do it!
Get your minds out of the gutter; look at my title please, yep methinks we thinks, or not I suppose.

Not in all situations and not always first, true?
I know personally that behavior of NOT thinking first before acting or opening our mouths to speak is what gets most of us in trouble, hmm?

Tonight I did not think too much about what I would be writing here, but as many know I never do.
This stuff is not that technical, informative or valuable so in reality who would want to think about it before it ends up here for all eternity, truly?
Sure I occasionally have an opinion that might mean something to me but not really to too many of you, unless I hit it home or a nerve or made you angry.
Thankfully, I am pretty much unknown in the bigger picture of this world called earth.
Venus or Mars or Mercury may have heard of me. 
Nah, probably not either.
Of course I'm kidding or not,who knows who cares.

Where was I?

Oh, thinking yes, I am all for it within reason, how about you?

I have come to the conclusion when asked most will agree.
Although... there could be some holdouts, small cells of dissidents who do not agree with anything logical, ya know?
Sure you do.
That tells me that you are NOT a dissident; good for you!

Being agreeable doesn't have to mean that you don't have an original idea or thought in your wee brain, believe me when I say I have days that you wouldn't want to hear the details about.

But I digress, you think, I think, and perhaps maybe even "they" think, ya think?
 
Nonsense!
Intense!
Self offense!

HUH?

Any-who, in closing I too am for the concept "of thinking" and have been a known supporter of the cause and effect it tends to portend in the public arena for decades; although in the privacy of your own home I do THINK it is up to the parties involved and I am firm in that belief.

Continue.

On that note of so much hokum I am physically wondering whether to laugh or vomit, neither actually, since I thought about it!Try it, you might like it too, and allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask all of you to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Absurd

Absurd: ridiculous, silly, strange, illogical, meaningless, bizarre, or incongruous

Secret Service Agents just wanta have fun, after all it is Spring Break! Drunk driving and crashing in front of the White House for shame and what an embarrassment for us all!

The saddest part of the whole thing is that these are the kids protecting our Commander and Chief? Makes one wonder who really is with the GOP( More appropriately GOB for Good Ole Boys) not taking our main guy seriously these days and circumventing his authority and playing their own “diplomacy” NOT games…You voted them into the frat house and the senate that they have taken over not that differently from that SAE fraternity in my opinion.

Yes! You got that right I have used the “R” word and yes I do believe that most ARE RACISTS!(this is my opinion, but if we all think clearly it does seem so, I'm just saying)

Why else would they disrespect a man who had the wherewithal to gain the votes of the majority of the country to continue in his job for two consecutive terms?

    

 I thought perhaps they really didn’t care for what he was trying to do with his “change” programs and policies, but it has definitely proved to me a nearly legal senior citizen that these “guys” are just wise guys who follow the stupidest one to lead the pack and agree to a cause for themselves to treat our Pres abominably and all he had hoped to do NOT get done!

Sheep without an original thought in their heads or a handle on the majority of what us Americans want and need from their government.

Fat Cats, yes those Senators and Congressmen and women, sitting in their multi-million/billion dollar homes with every care, need or whatever and they are the true ones taken care forever every which way they want, but not minimalistic, oh no but with platinum care for when they leave office that many of you voted for them to be set literally for life as if they won the lottery and they did; you gave that to them; don’t you feel ashamed now?

No?

That’s okay.

Better to hold up your head and act stubbornly about being supportive of the frat boys running those two governmental places, the house and senate.

Maybe they have set up a play date with the immature secret service men for a kegger party in the oval office while our leader is abroad trying to work for his fellow Americans, ya think?

Enough already!

Meanwhile, Hillary’s emails are under attack, and no one knows why it is as important as the GOP seems to think.

She followed what were the rules while doing her job and yet the rules have changed and now they say she should have followed the newer rules? Hey folks she is no longer working there.

This “scandal” to me sounds a wee bit convoluted, but I am not that smart, as you all know!

I’m confused, did she or didn’t she?

Will she or won’t she?

Never mind.

Moving on…

We have been chilling, although I did make interesting paella tonight.

Substitutions are my thing, and healthy can be my middle name, and now before you all say yuck listen to this…We had to make it suitable for just two not four and we had most of the ingredients but not all.

Chicken breasts were called for, but we had leftover chicken thighs from just last night, Italian sausage was called for but all I had were turkey sausage breakfast links and shrimp we did have since it was on sale this month and we have them steam them and they were perfect and then we freeze them. Canned whole tomatoes, we had canned stewed tomatoes, all the other ingredients like chicken stock I made from bouillon, we had bay leafs and rosemary, onions and garlic, no wine here and so it was omitted, and it was not missed, the rice was Spanish in the recipe but I used brown instead, lastly, Hubby does not like peppers, it had called for red ones, so when I sat to eat, believe it or not I just took out our hot red pepper flakes I also use for pizza, and sprinkled them on mine, perfect!

Healthier than you might believe and very good; even Hubby who prefers non-spicy foods did liked it a lot!

Moving on a smidgen again…

Hubby took a specimen of Gus’s back up to the vet’s this morning and when they called back he had just a little bit of those nasty hook worms still showing up under the microscope, most all were gone though, and so he is back on another dosing, for three days, of that powdery medication that I add into his dinner with the Probiotic one too and add a splash of water and he eats it all right up! Ta da!

No luck catching any of those feral cats yet, Hubby has caught and released three opossums or perhaps the same one three times? Nah he said they looked different in size and all…and he has been diligently cleaning up there feces from our raised bed gardens where they seem to prefer leaving their marks…Animal Control was on our side, this time, and felt that they would be helped health wise if we could just catch them! They are constantly here morning, noon and night in our front and back yards, its crazy!
I suppose they are too smart for those live catchers or they do not like the cuisine Hubby has chosen to entice them?

Any-who, he continues to try nightly.

On that note of who knows what, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask all of you to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

PS My endurance sitting here at my ancient PC has been challenged and my shoulders and back pain have sadly won, good night once again.

Blood work results

Mostly normal, but sort of like in the Princess Bride when the Prince was only slightly dead.
Okay, so my A1C is holding its own at 6.1, less than 5.7 is NOT Diabetes.
My total cholesterol is 172, less than 200 is good.

But wait there's more, my LDL is 109, and the norms accept that as within their perimeters, except apparently if you are diabetic or pre-diabetic when less than 100 is preferable so here's where my biggest issue lies, but still not that bad although has to be dealt with honestly, my triglycerides were 201, where  less than 150 is better.
And yes, I am not being cavalier I do realize that triglycerides, translates to: triple sugars, huh, true, wait I do know that having too high numbers in this area has to do with hardening of the arteries, heart disease and stroke possibilities going up to more than likely!
No fooling around folks!
So this lass has to move her ass!
And trash her past eclectic non-fast!

Working on it...got to get back to the gym and walk and move and eat more/ better food!
This last month that I have been hanging out vegetating has been negating what I had been celebrating as the betterment of me!
Now here I lie flat on my back with tummy ache and back ache and nauseous and dizzy in my bed with just my head above this typers' board recording all, whoa, being the bum started to become no fun (never was really)...must get a life and get back into the race that is of the rest of the human pace!

So now you know again tonight is another whoa is me night with ouch and all trying to win...
NO! NO! NO!
I shall try to  rest up and start anew for there is no other choice which is very true.
Next week seems to be right in the very beginning week as all good things begin again from there.

Good night to all now let's say a prayer!
Gotcha!
Kidding, do as you wish and Dont smoke 'em if you got 'em!
Giddy on Nexium and Pepcid.
Good Night again, ho hem.


 

Gus and us

If I were in my right mind, and I very seldom am, I would have realized that what happened with our little darling rescue fellow was an aberration on that night that will live in infamy here, February 6^th, 2015 at ten thirty P.M. when I received the biggest insult to a relationship of parental love, pet-parental love that is of an addition to one’s family could have, being bit by that pet/child in the dark shadowy night’s light when bestowing a loving kiss upon his little noggin, graced by a white star-like marking within a sea of ebony, his eyes barely can be seen whether open or closed within his darkest colors.

We had been friends, I thought, since he allowed me to bathe him and play catch with him and all other doggie toy games, which he inherited many and allows me to feed him and give him any medication prescribed for him, etc. all Mommy things, and in return I was licked and he enjoyed a decent cuddle, and so what happened was more than likely due to his ills… although he did get me once on my finger, but while still ill, and has growled occasionally since without the snap; I do believe that he is fine.

And we have cancelled the concept of a trainer, mostly due to what we were told to do, since Hubby felt that it was NOT how he wanted Gus to be treated, somewhat like a prisoner with using his crate more than we have ever used for any of our previous babies of the four-legged type. Yes, we use it in the car for his safety since our seven passenger van has stow and go seating and with only the two of us we put all the seats stowed below so his crate and my walker have plenty of room in our 2015 Grand Caravan that was not recalled as of yet, thankfully!

With all that room it would be dangerous for the little guy to be loose and so the crate, which is attached with the proper bungees so it is very secure and so is he directly behind us to see us, and of course there is room for groceries or anything else we or Hubby needs to pick up and with a 4’X 8’ enclosed area for gardening things like the mulch etc. it has proved to be just right for us DIYers and it does have that economy boost lever for our gas mileage making it incredibly good with a GPS, which we use to enter all travels prior to leaving on any trip short or distant and also an excellent sound system including Sirius for a little while longer, as well as Bluetooth something that is quite a convenience for us to feel safer on the phone while moving.

Back to our Gus... any-who he has come around to behaving very nicely again, around other people too.

One day last week I had both my blood work and my mammogram that were at different facilities but a few blocks away and Hubby walked him in their parking lots with people coming and going and of course with our little baggies, always, anyway the report was that he was a happy waggly tailed boy with all who approached him!

After all we are not novices at the pet parent thing, and even after I was mangled all those years ago by Andrew we just went on like nothing happened and everything WERE okay and it never happened ever again!

Even teeny tiny, Yorkie, Brandi, at two months old and one pound eight ounces drew blood on my lip with her over indulgent play kiss, and yep that was 1988 and she lived till 2004 and never did it again after she was made to stay in her crate for a few hours, done and done!

Dogs bite, and some do it all the time and sure enough those are sadly BAD dogs and should be removed from society, but not our Gus!

He kisses my hand when he comes into a room, or my bottoms of my feet, which tickles pleasantly, when I recline in my chair and yes he has been on my lap kissing me as if he hasn’t seen me in years, and so he will be watched but not feared and we have decided to love him and train him as much as we have the others, not that much actually, since they are pets not show dogs. Socialization and even that possibility of a service dog does appear to not be off the table either, for he is the sweet loving critter/bog that we did sign on for…and we will continue doing what we knows works with all critters big or small we try to love them all! Well, ours and within reason, wink, wink.

On that note with reality faced with hope, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Our bigger boy today!

Headaches, nausea and dizziness... not a pretty sight.

Before you stop reading this let me warn you it is going to take a turn to the absurd due to what we all seem to do these days, Googling our medical symptoms.

Now don’t you deny it I know that you have done it too?

The funny part is the gamut of what any of our results might be with a diagnosis usually from benign to fatal! If nothing else it does make you end up running to a living breathing medical professional with fear!

The only reason I am laughing, well not out loud but in my belly and oh what a BIG belly, and silently drumming that laughter, is that I AM STILL ALIVE!

Funny how according to the worst of the diagnosis for mine today I have all the qualifying results for a “brain tumor”, ordinarily that wouldn’t be funny at all but when I read that it continues to remind of that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop movie circa 1990: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindergarten_Cop, where one of the little ones suggests when he tells them that they are giving him a headache, “maybe you have a brain tumor”, and he replies “no I don’t have a BRAIN TUMOR!”, in his heavy Austrian accent, hysterical!

Used to like him, that is his movies, sadly he proved to be not so nice after all.

Any-who, thus my reasoning for giggling inside of myself and I was able to discount “a brain tumor”, since even though I met the criteria for each symptom… that is all except one, losing weight, ha!

Yes, brain tumors benign or cancerous seem to be followed by that, a huge loss of weight factor.

So I am good, not happening here!

Who said being a fatty was unhealthy?

Ahhhhhh, methinks I am on to something.

Being fat is unhealthy, but being a skinny smoker is too!

Confusing, since I have been both, and to be honest I felt better being a skinny smoker, oops! Kids ignore that.

You know how every week it seems that cholesterol should kill you by eating all that fat and now they have changed that it has no effect on you since high cholesterol has to do with heredity, uh oh my parents had it, but NOT obesity or high blood pressure, so where do they come from? Neither had diabetes or hypothyroid either.

I’ll tell you from DOCTORS and their Medications!

(A matter of opinion, mine.)

Moving on…

That above was another dead horse I have to prevent myself from continuing to beat.

The weather here in beautiful southwest Florida has given us once again bragging rights; our next ten days will be all above eighty degrees.

Hopefully I will be back in our pool soon.

Gus, our rescue Havanese fell in a few nights ago. I was inside but Hubby was on the opposite side of the fence, he only informed me when it was all over and done and that he needed a large towel!

He has no idea why Gus went in and it clearly was an accident, because the little guy by Hubby’s report had no ability to swim, and he tried directing him to the steps but he kept trying to get up the sides no matter what he said and so he felt the little guy was exhausted and so he reached in and pulled him out!

Next project is to teach him how to get out safely.

Fortunately, the water temperature wasn’t too cold, it was in the mid-seventies, and for me though it has to be mid-eighties so in a few more weeks it should do it. Nighttime temps have continued in the sixties, so we are getting there. We do have a solar blanket but it is a pain in the neck taking it on and off, to clean the pool that does get leaves and dirt in it even with the fence. Never wanted a screened in pool, since always in Florida shading causes mildew with our high humidity in the summer months especially. Thus no screened lanais either, air-conditioned spaces or open with overhangs. This is our third home here in nearly twenty-nine years so we do know, and we closed in two screen porches to air-conditioned rooms and put in two pools with just fencing not screening.

Our lives are good, except for all my ailments I really shouldn’t complain since everyone has something, and some have really bad things according to WEB MD or even Mayo Clinic or almost any reliable site that I too have gone too… but if you can read this you too are here so allow me to be the first to wish you a very happy good night and ask you all to count your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

PS I have MRI’s yearly of my brain and last year everywhere and every year they check for more lesions or other irregularities due to previous TIAs, mini strokes, and my Multiple sclerosis and as of last year all was stable another reason I am pretty sure I don’t have that tumor! Probably my allergies and sinuses working over time, which I had been dx’d with for years and years!

Interpretation

Interpretation: understanding, explanation, reading, construal, elucidation, analysis, or version.

I would also like to add into that the word, comprehension?

Comprehension also means: understanding, grasp, knowledge, command, conception, and intellectual capacity.

Ranges of abilities “to get” what is being written or spoken may have to do with educational background, or age of the absorber, medical condition or so many other factors that none of us have the right to assume, yep that nasty action in all of us that roughly translates into making an ass out of you or me, CRINGE FACTOR, intense once again, or thinking that the receiving or speaking/writing party is STUPID!

Unless you specialize in areas of expertise as an English major/professor, or knows for sure that the person does not have learning deficits or may have hearing problems from every level, which again has nothing to do with IQ. Many dyslexics have genius IQ’s or other learning areas of problematic slowed disorders, Cerebral Palsy comes to mind, as well as many of the deaf or blind people, Helen Keller who was both, also comes to mind. So as I said assumptions are wrong!

In many neurological ailments including mine of Multiple sclerosis cognitive ability can be compromised, but even that does not diminish what the brain has retained, the storing order of where the access locations may be slower to become ready, can be so much of this disorder, but the IQ is usually retained to pre-illness level or even in some cases higher due to other parts of the physical body losing its capacity to be able. As the thought goes with other areas of senses going by the wayside, as a blind person, hearing might become stronger or sense of smell etc. you get the idea.

Our bodies are amazing and do have infinite ways to compensate for what we may be lacking in other parts of our being.

Another example is in people who have lost limbs due to illness, accident or injury due to a lunatic or from war.

The human condition surpasses all of its abilities when given the ideas of what can be done in any situation…proved consistently.

I truly love the times we live in and the fact that each new cure could/might be around the corner for any one of anything we want or need to continue on…when we may be thinking otherwise from depression of bad things happening to us, true?

Hope is another one of those good four letter words and no one and nothing should ever take that away from anyone, and so is life another one of those good four letter words; Gosh there are so many, whoa I’m on a roll! LOL!

All in all, all I can say is love is all around us don’t dare shake it, off, unless singing Taylor Swift’s hit, but I jest… or not

Goto: https://screen.yahoo.com/shake-off-185633268.html

In closing, don’t accept negativity no matter what, we are all worth something, it maybe not be monetarily perhaps, but to someone or if not somebody else than to yourself, yep you should love yourself and allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all those blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!