Today is Betty Boop's one year anniversary. She came to us a year ago and has enriched our lives immeasurably. We hope and pray that she has found love and contentment here with us old folks. She will turn 10 in a couple of months and we pray that the remaining years make up for the first 9 years of horror and indifference. We love you dearly Betty Boop. May we be worthy of your love as well.

Just a quick funny note. Since we live in a rural area we have all kinds of fowl, turkeys, geese, ducks, heron and such in the area. I live very close to a small rural campus where I also take classes so Sully and I are on campus often. I spend a lot of time trying to teach Sully not to try to herd my daughter's ducks and chickens and the water fowl in the pond on campus. I just found out the college hired a team of border collies to convince the ducks and geese to relocate to a pond across…

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ardleigh-Elliott-Tricolor-Corgi-Faithful-Friends-Tote-/321737395311?ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123…

As anyone who's been paying attention knows, one of my strangest quirks is that I feed my dogs real food: cooked meat, starches, vegetables and fruits, unadulterated by anything that came from a lab bench. This has worked exceptionally well in the past and it continues to do so:

• Ruby and Cassie maintain their normal weight. Neither dog is overweight or underweight.

• Their…

Snoopy will be traveling to Texas soon. He's a dog with a past and I looked up that past when I first got him. His AKC name is Cadet's Snooping in the Dark.  I maintained contact with a lady who had some of his grand-dogs. I knew, we knew, that Winston was not long for this world many months ago & we know that at 13, Snoops is timing out as well. Although he's healthy as a horse right now, we know he'll leave sometime in the next few years. Anyhow, the lady with his offspring? Well....we…

I can't believe it has been a year since we added Watson to our family. He has been a joy to live with. He is the happiest dog imaginable and very loving. As I continue with chemotherapy he is always good for a laugh or cuddle. I am hoping the doctors will announce soon that I am in remission. At that point I hope to have the energy to continue with his training. The only…

I went on a long hike through the woods with Sully this weekend. She took her monthly Nexgard treatment the day before and although we removed many ticks from her fur, none were attached and she remains tick free. Apparently the treatment is corgi successful because I took nothing and had to remove a tick embedded in my scalp this morning. I think it is going to be a tough season. By the way, there are still patches of snow out there but those little ass-hats are wide awake and ready to…

Welp, it turns out to have been a good thing that I hired my old landscaper Richard to build a little fence between the swimming pool and the back door (and the doggy door, conveniently).

Yesterday Ruby the Corgi Pup went into a corgi-baying frenzy in the back yard:

arfarfarfarfarfaROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Holy mackerel! Did one of the meth-heads hop over the back wall? Whaaaa?…

Hooorah! Ruby the Corgi Pup has got the idea about walking nicely on a lead. What a clever little dog she is!

The adventures in medical science -- nine months' worth -- put the eefus on my puppy-raising schemes. It was all I could do to resist having to return her to the breeder, much less walk her every day to get her properly leash-trained.

When she was pretty little, I realized that she did better with a harness than with a collar, and so when we've…