The Bulldog and The Peanut Butter

On Sunday, Mr B. was patting Otis (our english bulldog) and felt a lump under his left jaw.  We're talking huge.. gumball sized.  By Monday morning it had grown to jumbo egg size... Poor Otis.  It must have bothered him but he was still romping about, eating and hanging off Pamunky's neck and collar as usual. (Pamunky is our very furry chow/rott mix)  Needless to say we had Otis at the vet that afternoon.

Otis LOVES his vet.  Dr Sherri, (yes Otis is on a first name basis with her), took his temperature and attempted to aspirate the lump with a giant needle.  Otis let her do it all without complaint.   Dr. Sherri couldn't withdraw anything from the gland.  She says often something gets compacted up in there.   When inspecting inside Otis' mouth, she pulled out a big clump of dog fur and held it up, looking at it as if to say, "what the...?"  Mr. B. shook his head and said "He hangs off Munky."  "Of course he does.  Poor Munky."  replied Dr. Sherri.

You have to know that bulldogs are much like chipmunks.. they can hide things in their mouths.  Otis picks things up off the ground he shouldn't eat constantly and when told to drop it, stops chewing, pretends to drop it and then waits until you look away.  He starts chewing again.  This will happen a few times, then we go in physically holding his mouth open and searching that huge mouth with all it's folds.  Can't find anything... hmmm maybe he did drop it.. look away.. he starts chewing. This repeats until the item is finally found glued to the roof of his mouth or under the corner of his tongue where you checked the last time you checked.  Mr. B. had pulled some fur out of Otis' mouth when they left the house.. I guess Otis was keeping this clump of Munky fur to chew later.

The diagnosis was an inflamed, compacted salivary gland, which sure sounds better than lymphoma, although if it doesn't clear up we'll have to biopsy it.  Three shots later Otis was on his way home with two bottles of pills that he has to take twice a day.  Otis doesn't mind though, because Dr. Sherri said to give them to him in peanut butter.

Otis loves Dr. Sherri.  Otis loves peanut butter.  Otis loves Dr. Sherri.

The lump shrank to jawbreaker size by Tuesday morning and has been shrinking ever since.  So it seems the medication is working, or maybe it's the peanut butter.  Otis thinks it's the peanut butter.  He thinks he should get peanut butter everyday from now on.  Peanut butter everyday keeps the vet away, he says.

My Little Bliss List

My Little Bliss List (Remembering the things that made me happy this week, because it's so easy to forget them.)

1 - Air conditioning!!  I love it.  I melt in the sun and the heat and it's been over 100 here the last couple of days.  I am so thankful for air conditioning.

2 - We had Otis our bulldog neutered this week and he's home now.  Everything went fine and he's "resting" .... unless he sees a toad outside.  He looks for them because they scare him.  They jump and he jumps straight up like a scared cat, all four paws in the air and then he barks at it until it jumps again.. and so on and so on...

Otis and the toad

What a dirty nose!  All that snuffling around in the dirt after the toad.

3 - I have pictures of my daughter Melissa in the Bard in The Park production of "Much Ado About Nothing", which played June 12 to June17, in Toronto, Canada.  It's the next best thing to being there.

Coverage by the local community newspaper in the Beach, Toronto.  Click to read the caption.

Backstage preparations

Melissa taking a bow with her co star and boyfriend, Holm Bradwell, who played Benedick to her Beatrice. 

What made you happy this week?  Share your bliss.

I am linking to Liv Lane's Little Bliss List Link Party

Friday - My Little Bliss List

My Little Bliss List (Remembering the things that made me happy this week, because it's so easy to forget them)

Another week of blissfully beautiful weather.  I love it.  The dogs love it.  I captured this picture of Pamunky and Otis patiently waiting for me to finish taking pictures so we could finish our walk.

Pamunky and Otis during a picture taking break on our walk

Mr. B. is home on leave.  It has been bliss.  I love it.  The animals love it.  (lots of love its this week)  I found Mr. B., Otis and two of our cats napping on the couch... so funny.. I tiptoed away to get the camera and tried to be quiet but the cats were very aware that I was taking pictures... Otis and Mr. B., not so much.

Mr. B., Otis, Sniper and Recon piled up on the couch napping

And.. true bliss..  The mama fox and her three kits, which had moved in under our addtion aka the master bedroom, last week, are gone!  Mr. B. managed to get them to move out, after a few sleepless nights listening to them squabble, play and rustle around under the floor boards.  It sounded like they were right in the room with us.  Pamunky and Otis, of course would bark.  It was chaos and no one was getting any sleep.  Not only that, we had to clean up after them every morning.. they would leave the carcasses (snake, chicken, smaller birds, moles, a rabbit) of what they ate outside by the side of the house.  It's been blissfully quiet for three nights now with no signs of them.  We've been able to get a full night's sleep again.

(the quality of the following pictures isn't the best, I was taking through them a window and screen and the foxes were moving)

Mama Fox

One of the kits

Oh.. Tomorrow, I will be sharing my new cookbook from last week's Bliss List with you.  Drop back to read all about it.

This post is being linked to:

The Little Bliss List Link Party

My Little Bliss List

This morning, while I was doing my morning coffee and browse before waking up my husband, Mr. B., I stumbled across The Little Bliss List on Choosing Beauty, thought what a beautiful idea and decided to link up.

I think it's a lovely idea to post about the wonderful, blissful things that happen to us, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves of them, because for some reason, we tend to forget them.

So here are the moments that made me happy this week.

My Bliss List

1)  Snapping this picture of Otis' "You talking to me face".  Makes me smile every time I look at it.

Otis' "You talkin' to me" face.  Photo by Tori Beveridge

2)  I ordered our chicken coop this week from The Chicken Saloon.  I took the plunge, because I know Mr. B. just doesn't have the time to build one, and me, well, I'm not the greatest with a saw, unless it's a pruning saw.  It's made me happy thinking about it.

The Rambler from The Chicken Saloon;  our new chicken coop is on it's way.

3)  I found new inspiration for my illustrations/lineart/digital stamps in old fantasy writings I used to do.  One in particular was a menu of drinks I made up for a fantasy tavern and the descriptions had me sketching and doodling with delight.

4)  All the rain has made everything super lush and green and beautiful.  I've had time to enjoy it walking the dogs, in between raindrops.

5)  I finally went to the library in the nearest town and got a library card and took out books.  I love libraries.  I forgot how much I love wandering around in them, browsing through all the books and knowing it will cost nothing to check them out.

6)  I'm reading Debbie Macomber's "The Shop on Blossom Street", just for pure fast reading pleasure at night before I fall asleep.  Yes!  I did get it from the library.

What made you happy this week?  Share your bliss.