Out to The Yard

AP here:
Mornings here start anywhere from 3 to 5 am and Tonka's new favorite thing to do is to lay out in the screened in porch for a few hours. He is loving the cold weather and I think he likes listening to the neighborhood wake up. His friends Duke and Riley have fences that meet ours and he can hear them in the morning when they come out. Next up is breakfast so I get him up and into his wheels so he can stand and eat. He has two raised combination food/water bowls that he can access without having to bend down too far. One is inside the house and the other is in the screened in porch. I fed him on the porch today and while he was eating I ran upstairs to get a sweatshirt. Tonka's routine has always been eat and then go potty so that is what we stick to. I try to keep him on a schedule so that we do not have accidents in the house. Now normally after he eats I go with him out in the yard and make him go (I'll leave those details out) but his morning he went out to the yard on his own. I came back with the sweatshirt expecting him to be waiting at the doorway but he wasn't there.

Waiting

I started to walk out into the yard and I noticed that he had gone to the bathroom on the concrete step just outside the doorway. He was out in the yard so the only thing I can think is that he finished eating and knew he had to go and tried to make it out to the yard. This is another HUGE DEAL! If he can regain bowel and bladder function then our days will be much less complicated.

Its the little things (like PEE)

AP here:
Well Tonka followers today was a historic day in the Journey of Tonka. His neurological condition that left him unable to walk also left him unable to go to the bathroom on his own. He has relied on me to empty his bladder for him every 4 hours for the past couple of months. Today we were at the park and he was rolling around in his wheels and chewing on tree branches with his girlfriend Nala when his buddy Spencer came running up.

Sticks R Good

Spencer

Tonka and Spencer love to play together so he was very happy to "see" him. Spencer's little brother Charlie was also running around like a crazy boy barking and carrying on.

Charlie

 Spencer said hello and then went over and lifted his leg and peed on the fence. Tonka's response was to start sniffing the fence and then he started peeing ON HIS OWN! Everything I have read research wise said if he was going to regain the ability to go on his own it would probably happen while sniffing where another dog had marked. Hopefully this is the first of many hapPEE occasions!

Spencer, Charlie and Nala

Big Dog Beds

AP here:
If you have a big dog then you know that not all dog beds are created equal and you know that the average retailer considers 80lbs to be the top end of things marked XL. Years ago when my female Pyrenees Myatuk started to get stiff in her hind limbs I purchased a Big Dog Bed from bigdogbeds.com. They understand Big and Giant breeds and know that all beds are not created equal. The beds are top quality and the one I chose was made with Max Comfort Bio Medic memory foam so it was nice and comfortable for her.

Myatuk

That bed is now eight years old and still in great shape and has become Tonka's favorite since he became disabled. It sits outside in the screened in porch and he loves to lay out there with the sounds and the smells from the breeze.

Tonka Snoozing

Hanging on my Big Dog Bed

Since he seems to enjoy it so much I decided to get him another one for in the house so I called Woody at BigDogBeds.com and told him what I wanted. Woody is a great guy, very thorough and interested in getting the right match for your dog.
We discussed Tonka and his current issues including the fact that he is incontinent and sometimes dribbles a bit. I ended up getting essentially the same bed as the last one but with a different cover made of  Crypton® Waterproof Fabric. I also got a cover for the older bed made of the same stuff. This way both are waterproof and can be wiped clean quick and easy. The bed came vacumn packed so that the box was not huge and took no time at all to spring out to full size once unpacked. So if you are looking for a truly Big Dog Bed for a Big Dog you should talk to Woody.

Comfy

 
 

Hug your Huggables

AP here:
Two years ago my little cousins life was cut tragically short by a  senseless act of violence. He was a remarkable young man. an artist and an actor, a young man who knew what he wanted and was not afraid to be different from the mainstream. The fact that he was such a smart and caring individual made it possible for two other families to keep there loved one around because at age seventeen he was an organ donor.
There is a line from a song by Baz Luhrman that goes "The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday"
How true this is, as we cannot plan for the horrible things that sometimes happen in life. There is never a guarantee for any of us for tomorrow. So it crossed my mind today that we need to take the time to let the people in their lives know just what they mean to us. I know that I kiss Tonka on his head everyday and tell him that I love him but I don't always tell the humans in my life how much I appreciate them. Tonka on the other hand always lets everyone know how much he loves them and I need to take a page from his book.
In honor of Kevin I have set out this week to let the people in my life know that they are loved.

Hug your Huggables everybody - life is short.

Post Sandy (back to the beach)

Since I never got to "see" Sandy but everyone kept talking about her. I was excited when AP said we were going back to the beach to see what she had done there. So last Sunday we loaded up my wheels and Aunt Carol and headed out.

When we got there there were leaves and sticks and prickly pine cones everywhere. AP and Aunt carol put me on the porch and started raking up all the stuff. They filled 9 big bags with stuff.

AP made the mistake of letting me off the porch once there was a little path and I headed off down to find my friend Wally. He wasn't home and AP had to come retrieve me, she wasnt happy that I took off.

all cleaned up

Then we headed into town to see what Sandy had been up to there.

We stopped by to see Rick and I got cookies....

Yummy

I wanted Lobster for Lunch

I Love the Beach

Window Shopping

Do We Have To Leave

 

I Could Learn to Surf

I still didn't meet Sandy.

Trick or Treat

Halloween is one of my favoritist holidays cuz the kids come to me.....

AP and CM dress up and hand out candy to the kids and I get to say hi to them as they come by. This year AP put my Big Dog Bed out front and I greeted everyone as they walked up the driveway.

I met a little Pumpkin

Frankie came to visit

Megan and Cayden gave me some love

and a zombie tried to get me