Happy Birthday Hanna!

Animated image courtesy of Bull Creek Jack Russells

Today is a special day for Hanna and both of us ... she'll be celebrating her very first birthday! (And her 3+ month tenure as the reigning pup of the house!) On the (albeit) sketchy vet records we got from her Foster Mom (which date from 10/20/08), their best estimate of her age at that time was 6 months, so counting back, that means she was probably born around April 20, 2008 ... so lacking a more precise (or verifiable) date, we decided to adopt that as her "official" birthday. So today, we're going to make her day all about her as much as possible ... when Fernymoss gets home from work, he'll take her on a nice, long walkie and when she gets back, she'll have a special dinner to celebrate ... no cake, of course, but I did stock up on the treats today and we'll likely spoil her rotten tomorrow night and stuff the Kong at least once (if not twice) and give her (even) more cuddles and love than we usually do, so she knows that something special is going on....

Sunday night I realized we hadn't taken any recent "cuteness" pictures of her so I commissioned Fernymoss to come up with something I could post ... We decided to see what we could get by giving her one of her favorite (non-meaty) treats to play with ... a couple of ice cubes! These three shots are the best we could come up with (Hanna didn't seem to want to do "cute on command" tonight!) ... Here she is getting ready to pounce again on the ice cube.

For some reason, here she seems a bit perplexed ... again, one of those moments when we wish we could read what she was thinking at that particular instant....

And here's the inevitable "chomp!" as she's done playing with the ice cube and gets serious about devouring it. I know it's a kind of paltry advance on a birthday treat, but hey, we were trying to force cuteness, and this seemed the quickest way. We just need to be more consistent about having the camera handy downstairs to capture the more spontaneous moments we see every day....

Sunday marked the two week waiting period after the end of her course of medicine for the Giardia parasite she was positive for on her last fecal exam, so we had to collect another sample to take in for analysis. With any luck, I won't hear from the vet's clinic on Tuesday, which means she's clear of the parasite and we can stay away from the vet's until Fall when she gets her rabies vaccine renewed. We really like Dr. B, but the fewer visits we can make out there, the better! She's now totally current on all her vaccinations and has a 6 month supply of her heartworm preventative and we'll be starting the Frontline (flea and tick preventative) as soon as we can get back to Petco and they actually have the one appropriate for her size in stock (last time they were out of the <20 pound formulation).

We also had them scan her microchip today just to make sure it was reporting the correct number (and yay! it did!), because her Foster Mom called me last week to tell me that the clinic where she has her rescue dogs microchipped had contacted her saying that some of them apparently weren't scanning correctly and she wanted us to check, just to make sure that Hanna was registered correctly. So that was a relief ... so if ever she should get lost, she'll be registered with the microchip service, as well as the city (via her license) so she won't ever end up in a pound or a shelter again. It seems like these past 3 months since she came to live with us have just flown by and we feel like she has been with us much longer because she has adapted so well to her new environment. We were just talking last night about how easy the transition has been for all of us ... none of the typical "Marley style" puppy trauma and drama (except for those two "acting out" episodes that happened while I was gone) one usually expects with a new pup. For a little girl who is just hitting the one year old mark, she's remarkably well adjusted and mature and seems to love her new life here with us ... she knows the routines now and is so quick to learn (and loves) new things. We're really looking forward to the summer months when we can be outside with her more and work on some of those agility activities we're planning for her (and get video of that!).....

Once again, we can only consider ourselves truly fortunate that she came into our lives when she did, because she has brought nothing but joy and energy to help fill the void left by the departures of Pepa and Rolly. Of course, I remain convinced that they and my previous dog Coco had their paws in the whole adoption ... if there's such a thing as doggie Guardian Angels, they are certainly watching over her and helping her chart a great and very happy path....

In my previous post, I had mentioned that on Friday I had started to get some shots of the gardens after work, but didn't get very far before Fernymoss got home from work ... so here's a couple of pictures of just how floriferous the Daffodils have become over the past few days ... after taking what seemed forever, they now seem to be popping all at once! The Tulips and Hyacinths aren't too far behind, and I've been seeing some Tulip buds setting on, and the Species Tulips (the dwarf varieties) should be blooming in just a few days, so you can expect to see those beauties soon!

This time of the year is what makes the whole effort of planting bulbs worth it ... seeing our old friends return in force to spread their color around the garden areas ... of course, like any of the flowers we have, it's fleeting, but these are the times to savor as the real gardening season gets going in earnest. On Saturday, we saw that our favorite garden center (located at a local grocery store where we shop) had opened up with their first stock of the season. They don't have a whole lot yet, but they did have some exquisite Pansies and organic peppers and herbs, so we picked up some Serrano peppers (which are hard to find around here for some odd reason) and a new "giant" variety of Italian Flat Leaf Parsley (the only kind to plant) that we're going to get planted very soon. Given the pathetic performance of our peppers the last few years, I think I'm just going to plant these in large pots this year and see what happens. The Parsley will go in the ground in the herb bed next to the patch I got started from seed last year. Pretty soon it will be time to plant the Cilantro and Basil, once we're more confident that there will be no further frosts (never a sure thing here in Zone 5a until well into May).

Yes, FARfetched, things are really revving up here around Urban Oasis, so there's going to be plenty more to report on in the coming months.....