Not the way I want to start the day

First, wake up with a whopping calf cramp, get can't out of the blankets trying to get out of bed to stop the cramp.

Fed the beastie, collared him, let him out. After business, he's watching the world go by in his usual spot by the front steps. I am peacefully sipping my coffee and making my grocery pickup orders. When up pops a FB video call.

The beastie is now in my neighbor's pasture. Thank her profusely for the call, throw on some boots, grab the transmitter for his fry collar and off into the finger lakes mud I go. Neighbor says he was northwest of their house. I'm calling, I'm buzzing his collar, nothin. Then remember, the fence is still active . Come in the house, alert husband to get dressed, turn off the fence transmitter, grab a leash, a chicken treat and the whistle I use to call him in at night. Head northwest to continue searching. Then remember, I'm old and don't have my phone. Back to the house, see a white pickup turn around on the driveway and husband hollars - he's on Beach road. Which is to the south of us

So hubby goes for the car keys and I change direction, still calling his name, alternately whistling and buzzing his collar. With an occasional "fry "

Good news. I get to the road and he's at the corner, though not entirely interested in approaching me you know the look - catch me if you can! One buzz on the collar took care of that!

Looks like his fence collar was way too loose. I checked his collar against the fence and, yes, it works. With vengeance

Now the issue, is the collar loose from stretching, is he losing weight because we're being strict. Or does he have a serious medical issue.

Oh. And all that activity before shower, in 60⁰ weather and wearing fleece cuddle duds? I need a shower. I stink

Kye had his annual, more like year and a half, vet visit today. He's so hard to tell weight on because the pred keeps his belly bloated. He was down 5 pounds from last year. Haven't really been trying to get him to lose weight but have been trying to make sure he didn't gain any. Luckily blood work came back good so no weight loss due to major medical issue. Kye's collar seems like it wants to loosen up some every now and then. Mostly because he gets puffy in the winter and it tightens around the extra fur, then it loosens as his hair sheds off in spring or becomes a little more matted down with time throughout winter.

Dogs are getting ready for a major shed. We were 72 degrees yesterday and pushing 80 today which is insane for us in February. High of 36 tomorrow.

Hoping the weight loss is either intentional or he had been shedding.

We are 60⁰ til noon tomorrow than dropping like a rock. 18⁰ expected overnight with high of only 29⁰ n Thursday. Then temps back into the, wow, warm for February zone.

Good news? Still 4 live hives. Bad news? Eyeballing the hives at 20 ft for activity and a bee flew into my face. Stung me.

Hey - @twisterII Jenn - what can you tell me about luxury vinyl plank? I think you've installed in the past? Looks like it's that or carpet for our upstairs bathroom due to a variety of constraints. With crafts people availability, if i want a bathroom before at least summer, I'll need to do it myself. House is not super conditioned in summer and upstairs not heated in winter so wide swing in humidity and temperature. Our contractor recommends glue down over click lock. I'm thinking of Cali because it can be either glue or click installation. Currently waiting for the particle board underlayment to dry so o can test level. Really don't want to remove it.

Took Ami with me on my errands yesterday, stopped by the vet for a weigh in. He has lost weight, 6 pounds since October and 11 since last April. So the big question is - have his dietary changes made a difference or is something more sinister going on. Made an appt but that not til end of March. I'm not terribly worried - his appetite is enormous. And his energy level, as shown by yesterday's adventures, is normal, maybe even more bouncy with the weight loss. We shall see, he is approaching 12 this fall so bad things would not be entirely unexpected.

As for the fence - the jury is still out on that one. I did get a good zing while testing the fence but I'm not sure it's as wide a boundary as it was or as consistent as should be. Testing is a bit difficult as the beep on the collar is hard for me to hear when the collar is at dog neck height. And seeing the tiny red flashing light on daylight is next to impossible. I did go out in the dark last night and the boundary width seems a little narrow. Today, if we have electricity, I'll do a loop test (10 ft length of wire attached to the transmitter in house) and check the collar against that. One question I've not found an answer to is whether these transmitter slowly lose the ability to power the 2500' length of wire I have.

Once this weather passes, I'll take him around out on the woods and watch his reaction to the fence, see if he refuses to walk over while i cross the boundary - that a fairly good indicator. It's really funny, he's like a horse that abruptly stops, dumping his rider and refusing to jump. Plants his feet, shakes his head "nope, no way." He's hearing the warning beep that i can't hear, take off the collar and happily he ghosts forth.

Right now, he's sulking because I closed the gate from the backyard to the the front.

Ours was done where it locks into place. It could be glued but we were told not to do that. Seems to handle the crazy temp variations from no ac when its hot to below 0 outside. Handles the wood stove ok also.

I am glad spider stays put. Really all my dogs do except splinter who goes through the fence.

@amymeme We have some glue down vinyl in the basement. It looks alright but it shows any little thing that might be under it at install so if the seams in your subfloor aren't spot on it could show in some of the glue down kind. It's more of a process to install as well. We have click vinyl in both of our bathrooms and it is awesome. It went in so freaking easy and has been insanely durable. We had a nice level floor under ours but because our house is over a basement it does have some flex to it considering my husband's weight (he's 6'7" and around 270 pounds) The floating floor has been good for us. We've never glued anything down in any of our floor remodels and it's never been an issue for us. We have however had to remove some flooring that was glued and that was the pits. I personally won't glue if I ever think it's something that I or someone else will want to remove with the exception of high end hardwoods (not engineered hardwood) because they can squeak if not glued. We actually pulled out some high end oak hardwoods and replaced with the super heavy duty laminate and I have no regrets removing the hard wood for laminate. Some folks we know were horrified that we did that but I have zero interest in heaving everything out of my house every 3-5 years to refinish them with our dogs.

Jenn - thank you for that information! If you don't mind, what brand did you use? I'm thinking of going with Cali as it has the widest temperature tolerance and there is always the possibility we may closer up the house in winter at some point in the future. Not much chance, mind you, but a bit. They also have a darker reddish brown that is almost an exact match for our Early American minwax stain. I even took a fork to the samples they sent me and no scratching.

I'm not sure what my contractors experience has been but you are now the third person I've asked and said they've had no problems! He says he's been called to fix floors people did themselves and seams popped.

https://www.califloors.com/product-island-maple-waterproof-cozy-cinnamon-vinyl-flooring-7902500300

Amy, has Ami seen the vet? The weight loss is concerning. I hope it’s nothing

Jimmy - we have an appt at the end of March. I'm not terribly concerned, his appetite is enormous. Last year, in April, his weight was the highest it's ever been despite trying to limit his intake. He was considered obese! I got a severe talking to by the substitute vet in my regular office. For the past several years, he was a bit overweight but then 2 years ago, he just starting gaining and gaining. In retrospect, i think it was his nightly bone - the butcher we were using for bones retired, sold his shop and the new guy was not trimming the fat of the bones like the old guy did. But about 8 months ago, he stopped selling those pieces and went strictly to narrow bones. Initially, I wasn't happy about that thinking the narrow was high fat (it is) but Ami can't get much of it out (Z'ev could clear the whole thing!) there is only a bit of meat around the outside and no external fat. I also switched from the Victor HiPro with 406 calories per cup and 20% minimum fat to a senior food at 360 calories per cup and 11.5% minimum fat. The protein is slightly lower so i make that up with an assortment of whatever protein were having. Also, now when i let him lick out the pots and pans from metal preparation, i use a paper towel to remove most of the oil, leaving him, really, just a whiff. But. He is scheduled for an exam. Also? His energy level has gone up. Except yesterday when it was 62⁰ and sunny - he's a fluffy rug when the temps go up

The click vinyl we used in our bathroom is Lifeproof through Home Depot. The laminate that we ran through the rest of the house is Pergo Max. I'm not sure the brand of the glue down vinyl since it was already installed when we bought the house. It's been durable but it doesn't look as nice as the other stuff we've installed. The glue seams collect dirt in a different way than the click seams do so it tends to look more dirty all the time because of that.

Thanks, Jenn - I'll check out the Lifeproof. Consumer reports rates out quite highly.

Ok, Amy, the food switch makes sense, when I had to change Mishka’s food to the hydrologized protein food, she was constantly hungry, to the point of making me sad seeing how hungry she was. When I read your post though, my heart dropped when I read about the consistent weight loss. Mishka did that and then, unknowingly to me, Kohdi was dropping weight. If you remember, just before Mishka got so bad, she and Kohdi both went to the vet for the day and when I put Kohdi on the scale, he had dropped about 5 lbs from his normal weight and this was a couple months before he stopped eating. The week before he died, he had dropped another 6 lbs in just one week. I hope Ami’s appointment goes well and it’s a relief to me that you aren’t too worried, you know health a lot better than I do.

Just back from the vet. Ami lost another 2 pounds since Feb 28. She did a thorough exam and a bunch of blood work. After about 20 minutes, she came back to report the results. Beaming from ear to ear exclaimed "his blood work is perfect." I'm just not feeding him enough. She thinks he's at a healthy weight now, wouldn't want it to go any lower. Was really quite funny - she says " he looks fat, but watch. She clamps down his fur and says - " he's all fur!!!

I'm satisfied - i can feel the tops of his shoulder blades and his ribs and he now has a, somewhat, visible tuck again! Now to figure out how much food to add without making him fat again...

I have to chuckle @amymeme Avalanche has a coat very similar to a GSD ... longish, flush outer coat and a light inner coat.
Sky on the other hand has guard hairs that really guard ... if I try to run a rake through it she objects, a slicker just gets the top coat --- I just spend a lot of time with her 'plucking the fair lady'

Depending on which of the two (if either) is laying beside my bed one always feels warm - Avalanche and the other always feels cool - like I cant get my fingers through the fur to tell is she's really there or not!

Avalanche is bony and after 10 years I've stopped trying to put any more weight on him. He weighs in at around 55-60 and my vet is satisfied with that since we can't do anything else ... his shoulders are pronounced, he has a very bony roach back so makes up in bones that are touchable over Sky's which are not. << rambling >>

Al - I'm just glad he's no longer obese. And that his weight loss is intake related and not something else. Though she didn't say much about his tail. She did, however ask the right questions to rule out Cushing's and tested thyroid.

Guess hubby was right all along - he kept saying Ami was acting like he was starving

Squirts weight is up. Combo of not going out as much this year and hubby over feeding her a little. And spider needs a diet i think. Shes getting a little on the chubby side. Shes also been way lazy and the energy spurts are shorter. Not sure if it is weather changes or her age starting to show.

There comes a point in their age where putting weight on just isn't an option. Kenzi is a skeleton. Putting weight on with diabetes is difficult even when managed but after a point it doesn't matter how managed they are, the weight just doesn't go back on and continues to slip. I haven't had her weighed in a long time but she had been holding around 50 pounds. She's on the larger side for a female purebred and used to push 60 pounds in her hay day. I think she's probably closer to 45 now. Mostly just hair draped over bones. It's starting to show in her face now as well. Still has good energy first thing in the morning but spends the majority of the rest of the day sleeping. Up most of the night needing to pee.

Kye always looks fat. He's fluffy and the pred just makes him puffy shaped even when he's a great weight. I've never been able to go by looks with him. Hubby used to give me crap about starving him but the vet likes where he's at, especially considering his hips and the mobility problems his rear is starting to have, so we will continue at this feeding rate.

Mine always act like they are staving even when they clearly aren't.

That’s great news, Amy

After what I went through with Kohdi and Mishka and with what my mom is going thru with her cancer, I think it may be a good thing (as long as it isn’t affecting their health) to have a few extra pounds. It can act as a cushion if an illness does strike them and their appetite suffers during the illness.