Quarterly Tito Update

Whilst there was great interest in the pictures of our new homestead in Boise, Idaho, there's still a near constant clamoring for the red meat of the Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes blog, updates on Tito.

Our recent stories about his 17th Birthday and looking scraggly while losing his winter coat were among our better received posts of late. Tito is still doing well, incredibly well in fact for a 17 year old dog. We've had to work through his medications to get the right dosage, enough so that his rate of his congestive heart failure is slowed (it's not going to get better) as much as possible, while giving him a good quality of life.

For Tito, a good quality of life means food. Initially one of his meds killed his appetite and after conferring with his awesome vet, we decided to cut back the dosage and accept slightly less efficacy for improved quality of life. His appetite returned, though he now gets ground beef and rice mixed in with his kibble. For the record, John doesn't get ground beef and rice with his kibble. Ever.

Our warm weather broke last week and we enjoyed cool temperatures and rain showers for almost the entire week. It was glorious. We celebrated the return of cool weather by breaking back out the warming bed inserts for the pups. More info from previous posts about the warming beds here. If you have older pups that have trouble getting up, suffer from arthritis, or would just appreciate a warming bed insert, we highly recommend these. It wouldn't be Fall (or Winter and Spring) without a plethora of heated dog beds.

New House Pictures from Boise, Idaho

Finally. Finally a few pictures our new house in Boise, Idaho. We've appreciated your patience, and some photos and background story are probably long overdue for all of our loyal readers. It's been a busy summer moving and getting Alycia settled into her new office/lab at her new job.

We tried to find a house that was as old or older than our 1918 American Four Square style house in Grand Forks, ND, but the best we could manage was our 1925 built little bungalow. We're in the Boise Bench (specifically the Depot Bench) area of town, just South of downtown and Boise State University.

The house is actually smaller than our old house, but feels larger. Perhaps that's because the square footage is spread over 2 floors (a main floor and basement), instead of three in North Dakota.

 

These are pretty grand looking photos, that's because they're the pictures from the real estate listing, so they're truly showing the best side of the house. We'll have more pictures of the garden and other areas in the weeks and months to come.

Fun New Dog Toy

We'll get around to posting pictures of our new homestead and garden here in Boise, Idaho eventually. For now, pictures of Shadowfax and her new dog toy will have to suffice.

You're not seeing things, that's a ball covered in unicorns farting rainbows. Alycia was at our local independent pet store and had to buy this. I applauded this. If you want one for yourself, you can find the Amazon link here.

Shadowfax really enjoyed her new ball, but wound up pooping herself out and then taking a nap in the most awkward position possible. As we've learned over the years, too much fun can take a toll.