Falling Apart... but still cute!

This one of our dogs, Smokey. She is a miniature schnauzer (but not very miniature). Her breed is supposed to weigh not more than 15 pounds and she usually weighs in at a whopping 26 pounds! She is 10 1/2 years old and pretty much runs the house! She's the most endearing dog I've ever known. She'll talk in her little schnauzer grunts and give you those "puppy dog eyes"! Yeah, I know, she's spoiled!

I took her to the vet today for a rabies vaccination and she did very well, as usual. We've known for a couple of years now that she has a problem with her liver. We've gone as far as special dog food for her and have had quite a few tests done but we draw the line at taking her to MSU for an ultrasound! We're just going to enjoy the time we have left with her and shower her with love!

Some other problems she has include: right ear (it gets all gunked up and Mike will clean and medicate it almost every day to keep it under control); hind feet (get something like athlete's foot and we treat them with medicated powder); cloudy eyes from old age; and a bump on her chest (we have to keep an eye on that).

Today I found out that one of her eyes has something going on with the pupil and will probably not dialate like it should after a while - again old age. She also has a bump on her ear (the same one that Mike medicates) and the vet thinks she broke a blood vessel by shaking her head - I think it's from scratching it.

Some of you are probably shaking your heads wondering why we cater to such a problematic dog. Well, I'll tell you why - she's part of our family. She was born on the same day that we moved into our current house. We got her 3 months after moving here so she's been a part of us for a very long time. She's had 3 litters of puppies totaling 6 females and 10 males in all. We kept one of the puppies from her last litter and she is now 5 years old. I'll do another post on her later.

So for all you pet owners out there - love 'em, spoil 'em, and give 'em a big hug! It'll make your day a little brighter! :)

Be blessed!