Holy crap, we got home tonight and out of the blue Saratoga started walking on all four legs for 4-5 feet at a time. This is truly amazing, it was only about six weeks ago that we brought her home with no feeling in her back legs and now she can cruise around on her own. The surgeon told us it could be weeks, months or years before she walked again, who knew it could possibly be this soon.

I can’t believe how busy we’ve been since Saratoga came home three weeks ago; so busy I forgot to post here. She doesn’t have full use of her back legs yet but with the 3x/day physical therapy that we’re doing with her she’s improving just a little almost every day. She can already hold her weight on her back legs for several seconds which is huge considering she barely had any feeling, let alone muscle control or tone in her back legs when she first came home.

Our sweet little Saratoga (who is only about five years old) has been in the hospital for five days now with a spinal cord injury. She had premature calcification of her backbone and something caused multiple discs to herniate and damage the spinal cord. The news was grim and we ended up driving an hour away to get an MRI the second day and the results from that were so bad that the next day we decided that the kindest thing for her would be to let her go to a better place. She had no feeling in her back legs and no bladder or bowel control.

We went to say good-bye yesterday and it turns out that we missed a phone message from the surgeon saying that she had improved dramatically since we had last talked. She had regained her deep pain sensation in her back legs which we were told was a night & day improvement so she actually stands a chance of walking normally again. She will stay at the hospital a few more days for observation so they can (hopefully) watch her get better day by day.

We miss you Sara and need you to come home soon. Keep fighting girl, you can do it.

Saratoga at the beach (including a sandy face)

Yesterday my wife and I took our dogs Saratoga and Milo for the Walk a Mile for the Animals charity walk to support the Rancho Coastal Humane Society (which is where we got Sara and Milo). We saw a cameraman from local News 8 filming there and as we were leaving he had his camera at ground level just as Sara walked by. Imagine our surprise when we watched the news that night and saw a few seconds of Saratoga towards the end of the story! I had tried to guide Milo into the picture but all you can see is two of his feet showing in between Sara’s feet. Look about 20 seconds into the video to see Saratoga checking out the camera (she’s the black & white Corgi mix).

I got this as one of those e-mails that gets forwarded repeatedly but I don’t remember seeing it before.

A PUPPY has been born in Japan with a large, clear, love-heart-shaped pattern in his coat. The Chihuahua was born in May as one of a litter to a breeder. Shop owner Emiko Sakurada said it was the first time a puppy with the marks had been born out of a thousand she had bred. She had no plans to sell the puppy, which has been named ‘Heart-kun’. The long-coated male Chihuahua puppy was born in Odate, northern Japan.

A couple of nights ago on our walk Saratoga ran to the edge of one of the condo buildings and I could see a dark shape up against the wall, it was probably a little smaller than a baseball. She turned around and I see the feet & head of a small sparrow sticking out of her mouth as she held the body gently. I told her to drop it and put a little pressure on her jaws to help out. I saw the legs twitch but I don’t know if it was just a nervous system reaction or if it was still alive.

Sara was a good girl and released the bird but as it fell out of her mouth Jackson came running in and grabbed it by the tailfeathers and swung it into his mouth! He has a big problem dropping anything remotely edible and has very strong jaws so I had to just let him keep it. He took a few chomps & gulps and then the sparrow was gone. So far we haven’t seen any ill effects but I’m wondering if the beak & feet will digest enough before they come out. (Ewww.)

My wife and I went to a local pet shop to get a Valentine’s Day portrait of our two dogs and damned if they didn’t have five dogs from a local shelter there that they were trying to adopt out. Once my wife gave me “the look” I knew we were going home with dog #3. They said he is a seven year-old Jack Russell Terrier mix named Jack (original, eh?) but my wife renamed him Jackson (let the Jackson Pollock, Jackson 5, Action Jackson etc. jokes fly now). We call him Jacksie or Jax for short. Below is the portrait we had taken; it was initially going to be just Saratoga (on the left) and Milo (on the right) but since we decided to take Jackson (middle) home with us we decided to have all five of us in the picture.

Two weeks ago we adopted Milo from the same animal shelter where we got Sara. Milo is a Chihuahua mix, we first thought it was with Dachshund but now we think he might be part Toy Manchester Terrier. He weighs a paltry seven pounds so he’s easy to handle with one hand.

Milo is the most affectionate dog I’ve ever met, from the first two minutes we sat with him at the shelter he was licking our faces like there’s no tomorrow. He’ll go up to complete strangers and go on a lick-fest.

Milo on my chest:

Same with Sara in the background:

And yes that’s a Philip doll for the dogs to play with (he came with Terence for only ten bucks). You can also barely see my Chinpokomon pants if you look closely.

Yes, I actually used a spare Cat5 cable to extend my dog’s leash at work. I wanted her to be able to wander a little farther away from my chair than her normal leash would reach.

And yes I named my dog Saratoga after the WWII aircraft carrier.

Good-bye Lucky, you were one hell of a pet. We’ve never known a parakeet to live for 10+ years but you were the best. Thanks for all the wonderful years of songs & whistling, we’ll never forget you.