Update, our move, some TMI pictures of molly's infection

I was going to attempt to catch up but too much has gone on since AUGUST for me to go into detail but I will just highlight some main points

• Bailey had a rash on his groin area, his doctors said it was dog acne and gave us some antibiotics for the rash. After he would stop taking the medication, his rash would return in a red, spotty and flakey mess. Upon further research, friends and my own gut instinct I switch his dog food and the rash has never returned.
•  Turns out he has a Lamb allergy, which I was told can be common for purebreds. How does a doctor not know the difference between dog acne and a food allergy rash?
•  Molly was finally at her safe weight to get fixed and the procedure was done but we had complications). She never touched, licked or did anything with her incision. I was with her 24/7, at this point I had quit my job because of our move in a month from then.
• I noticed under her incision there was a lump, some redness but it didn't bother her. I took her into the Vet, they said it was just ‘scar tissue irritation’ and to put a warm washcloth on it.

How it started to look

• A few days later, it was shifting under her skin, took her in and they said again, it was normal.
• The next day it looked like this

I called the vet Friday, two minutes before they closed, the REFUSED to see me and told me to go to the ER. Awesome right?

• The day after it was much worse and I took her to an emergency vet and was told she had an allergic reaction to her stitches, she had an abscess and it burst all over as they were looking at it.

How it looked the day it burst.

• Poor girl had a fever but with some good medication to fight the infection and TLC, she was back to being healthy.
•  We moved to Nevada, Bailey’s nose is dry and cracked from the weather but we have added supplements to his food and I put lip balm on his nose. Poor baby.

As for today, Molly finally learned to give me her paw, she learned to roll over and Bailey will now stare into my eyes when I say “focus.” I love them so much but dang, they know how to get into trouble. I posted this on my Facebook page yesterday:

"Moments like this when Bailey prances out of my kitchen, with a happy little skip to his step, truly make me stop and smile. Moments that follow moments like that, when I realize he stole my dish towel, makes me stop and yell "BAILEY, PUT THE DAMN DISH TOWEL DOWN."

Molly

Let me introduce a new member to the McKee family, Molly. Molly is a rescue and has already had a challenging life and now deserves to be a lazy, housedog, ha ha. Molly is part Vizsla and part Lab, they first said she was 3 years old but after further evaluation, they said she is 1.5 years old. Let me start by telling her story from her beginning (or as far as we know is her beginning).

Molly’s story
Molly was found living on the streets trying to raise 11 young puppies. She was in a California desert; killing and eating lizards just to produce milk to feed her puppies. She was picked up by animal control and when her stray hold time was up her and her entire litter was going to be killed. That is when K9 Northwest stepped in and rescued her and her puppies. To get an idea of her temperament, when they rescued her puppies and took them from her to travel, she didn’t lung at them, growl or bite anyone. She trusted those that were rescuing her and her babies. Now that is one special, kindhearted dog. When she arrived in WA, they had to wean her puppies at 5 weeks because they were starving her; Molly looked like one of those starved puppies on those ASPCA commercials. After a month of loving care, she was ready to be put up for adoption.

At the time, we were already looking to add to our family and had an appointment to see Vizsla puppies. When I went to oodle.com and typed in Vizsla, there was Molly. At the time, they listed her as Winny because they needed a name for her but she didn’t respond to that name. We contacted K9 Northwest and set up a meeting the very next day. We drove an hour away to McCleary, WA and met this special little girl. She had a heart of gold and immediately warmed up to us. We ended up leaving without her after our first meeting, as we needed to think about this decision. Adopting a dog is not for a day or a week or just during the puppy stages, it is a FOREVER decision. If you think you can’t move with or live with your animal for the rest of your life, then do not do it. Two days later, I was making the drive back to pick up Winny/Molly and she has been with us since Tuesday.

Bailey likes her and I mean he REALLY likes her. He has been marking his territory by rubbing his scent all over her and just making sure she knows her “place.” Molly just doesn’t care, she just lets him be and if his behavior is too much for her, she comes to us or she gives us the look. She is the opposite of aggressive, she just cannot bark at Bailey or give him the needed aggression in return to tell him to back off. I feel that over time, once she is more comfortable in her new home and family, she will let her voice be heard.

There are issues with her we still need to deal with (deal with? I can’t think of a better word) more so, she needs to be spayed and I am thinking of scheduling it for the week after. She has put on a healthy amount of weight, her ribs are barely showing anymore and I am almost comfortable putting her through the surgery.

Updates will come soon.

Staring contest, dog vs cat!

This afternoon I opened the sliding glass door to let some air in. Bailey loves it when I do this because he can sit and stare out, in hopes a cat will come by that he can scare!

Today he saw a black cat and pressed his nose against that screen, hoping it would open for him to dart out. The cat had frozen into place the moment it saw Bailey and they just stared at each other. The cat was hoping the dog wouldn’t come after him and Bailey wanted to chase it down! My good little boy didn’t growl, he didn’t jump at the screen, he just stared and didn’t lose his concentration.

I can’t really get mad at him for wanting to chase cats down, especially when we go out for walks and try to find cats for him to chase after. I do not teach him to harm cats, but to chase them away. Bailey has never hurt another animal and never will, he just wants to play with them.

Here they are in the middle of the stare down.

Bailey fell asleep with his glasses on!

Last night Bailey fell asleep on the chair in our living room, I decided to sleep on the couch in case he got sick in the middle of the night. Obviously, I have to mess with him one way or another. Here is a picture of Bailey and my glasses ha ha. My friends told me on FB, that he looks like a wrinkly, old man ha ha.

Attempt at catching up

Let’s make another attempt into the world of blogging.

Poor Bailey has been sick for the past 48 hours, well; in my head he should be sick. Sunday night he got into our garbage and ate three chicken wing bones. Normally, we have chairs set up to provide a gate to keep Bailey out and our garbage is under the sink (extra protection from Bailey and his nose). Well, that night I was on some muscle relaxers for my back and passed out before I had the chance to make sure everything was in place and nothing was in reach of Bailey. Bailey has been getting up in the middle of the night and wandering the house (new development but we’re working with it) and every night I walk the house to make sure there is nothing he can get into. Well, my husband never caught onto this or remembered and well, Bailey got into the garbage because the chairs were not in place.

Around 3am I realized there was no dog at the end of our bed, I got up and found wrappers and pieces of paper from the garbage all over the living room floor. No biggy, right? Well, within 5 seconds I am wide awake when I realize I had 3 chicken wings with lunch and threw the bones in the trash. I darted to the kitchen, dumped the bag and could NOT find the bones; Bailey ate them.

At this point he was already on the couch either 1). Feeling like crap from what he ate or 2). Feeling guilty. After eating chicken bones (bones that have been cooked) they can splinter off into his body and can cause severe internal damage. Not much I could do at that point because if they make him throw up his food, it could damage him that way as well. Quick reading online and past experience I went with the over feed your dog approach to coat the pieces as they pass through his body.

Almost 48 hours later, he is still jumpy, eating normal and having normal bowel movements. I feel very lucky so far, I know we’re not out of the woods but I am going to lean on one fact I know. Bailey doesn’t swallow anything whole, he chews the crap out of everything and I hope he did that with the bones.

Anyways, here are some recent pictures of my baby Vizsla. I love him so much :)

Bailey and the sleep grunts

It has been so long since I have posted about Bailey. I am going to try and blog daily because Bailey’s silliness is worth a blog a day.

Bailey is a character and constantly shows his personality, more so when it is sleep time. There will be times that he will be asleep at the end of the bed and I will move, get up to go to the bathroom or accidently touch him. If and when this happens, Bailey will let out the grunt of the year! “MUHHHHHHHHH” almost like he is trying to say “WTF you ruined my dream about chasing a cat.” No matter what time of day this happens, I almost always find myself smiling or saying “Oh shut up Bailey” and then, I greeted back with another “MUHHHHHHHHH”. Love that dog.

I love when he grunts at us when he wants to sleep or stay asleep longer. This morning we got up earlier (Travis needs to get back on a normal sleep schedule) and when I called Bailey, he didn’t move. I pull his blanket back; he looks at me with one eye and grunts. Bailey is not a morning dog for sure; he stayed asleep for another 3 hours lol.

Vizsla’s are full of personality and Bailey has enough personality for 20 Vizsla’s.

~Love & Barks & Doggy Kisses~

Pictures!!!

Remotes and a Vizsla

Ever since Bailey was a puppy, he has had one obsession; steal the remote. At least once a day we will play the “chase Bailey for the remote” game. Bailey will take the remote from the chair or couch, pull some football maneuver, circle around quickly (you can tell he is thinking, “By George I think I got”, he will look up and go “oh crap”. One command to “drop it” and it falls to the floor.

He pulls the same game with our bath mat, laundry basket (looking for socks), and our kitchen towel. We have tried to break him of this habit, but it has gone on since he was a few months old; it seems like a never ending game. However, we can easily break him of new disobedient problems (one grand upside).

I firmly believe, he steals these items to play with us. He never destroys the item; he just wants our attention. During the chase for our remote, Bailey will jump up on the couch, drop the remote and look up at us with these big Vizsla eyes and your heart just melts (can you tell I can be a push over when it comes to this little devil?). He will get a smile from me, a pat on the head and a kiss on the head. I then place the remote back in its spot (basket on the coffee table), he will get down off the couch, glance at the basket, look at me and walk away. Every time he does that, I visualize him saying 'we will meet again one day remote" as he waits for the time we leave the remote on the couch again, so the chase can begin again.

Looking at this now, I can see we are not fixing our problem, but I don’t think we really want to.

Dog Parks & Children Noises

Every day Bailey and I head to the dog park, we see the same group of people and their dogs. Every now and then we get new visitors with their dog and we hope (and pray) that their dog is sociable and behaved.

Bailey has a good friend named Rhode (Rhodesian Ridge Back). These two are like frat brothers when they play. They try to see who they can make say “MERCY” first, they run fast, chase, wrestle and so on. They're a large breed and have a big bark, but they are also gentle and not vicious creature (don't be scared by their size). Now when these two “play”, they focus on each other and we (the owners) can control them from a distance as well. Tonight there were some problems in this area.

Most dogs when there is a lot of screaming or barking they can become upset, distracted and irritated with the situation. On the list of rules for the dog park is excessive barking is not allowed, however, excessive screaming from children shouldn’t be allowed either. Tonight there was an unusual amount of children in their running IN THE DOG PARK, screaming at the dogs, trying to command the dogs and just making so much noise that three dogs just lost it. Bailey wasn’t coming to me (and wasn’t responding when I used his correction collar), Misty couldn’t stop barking (because she didn’t know what was going on) and Rhode was responding just as bad as Bailey was.

What set me off the most was a dog owner and a five pound dog enter the park, Bailey and Rhode are just sniffing the dog and the dog starts to attack the two bigger dogs. The owner proceeds to say “Go (whatever the dogs name was) get them”. Both Bailey and Rhode started to bark at this dog (because the dog is attacking them) and yet they‘re looked at as the bad ones.

I took Bailey by the collar and we left. That sort of behavior is unacceptable at a dog park

Tips for Dog Park Etiquette

1). Pick up after your dog. Bring a bag and watch your dog. If you’re not watching your dog, do not come to a dog park.

2). If your dog finds entertainment in attacking other dogs, do not bring them to a dog park

3). If you come to a dog park and let your children run at dogs, scream at dogs and just screaming in general, do not come to a dog park.

A dog park is a place for dogs to play, not for adults and not for children to play. This is the one place a dog can be off leash and play with their friends. Let’s be respectful of other dogs and the owners.

Day 1 - Intro

The reason I created this blog for my dog Bailey, was so I can create lasting visual memories of the life of my precious baby. This past year, a friend of mine lost their dog and I happened to witness the dog’s untimely passing. Watching the loss of my friend, combined with the love I have for my dog and all the little things his personality stirs up, I decided a blog would be the best way to capture this.

I want to sit here and tell you all about my dog Bailey. However, his personality and the stories it would take just to get you to understand a fraction, of who he is would fill a novel! Bailey is spunky, lovable, energetic, dorky, easy going, simple minded, a nut and a million other characteristics all balled up into one dog. Instead of sitting here and boring you with stories of the past, I will start with stories from today on.

I’ll provide pictures and video’s as time goes on, but just be aware I cannot make this stuff up. Bailey is all about bringing originality to a new level.

Bailey 101

-Bailey will be 2 years old in June

-Bailey has been fixed

-Bailey loves anything that is fabric, squeaks, crackles, moves or is within his reach

-Bailey will love you until you give him a reason to hate you

-Bailey goes to a dog park daily and plays with his friends for at least an hour

-Bailey did not come from a breeder. We were told no one wanted him because he may have been stepped on by a horse; no one wanted him because of that. Even though he had the makings of turning into a beautiful Vizsla, he was an unwanted puppy.

-Bailey is a on a dry food diet from the brand Wellness and I just bought the ingredients to start making his own natural treats.

-Bailey will drool on you

-Bailey will steal our bath mat if we leave the bathroom door open.

-Bailey weights about 60-63 pounds