Happy Birthday Gus!

Happy Birthday Gusman

Mom and Dad love you so much!

Even when you’re a butt and getting into trouble

!

Our lives wouldn’t be the same without you!

We’re so thankful to have a healthy and happy Pup on your birthday!

To celebrate, we took Gus on a birthday hike this afternoon on Lookout Mountain in Golden, CO.

Gus was excited for the trip!

Thanks so much guys I just love hikes!

Our hike today was a mix of two different trails for, ironically enough, 7.11 miles per Garmin.  Fueled with some yummy granola eaten on the way up, we hit the trails around 900

One bag = one serving.

We started on Chimney Gulch Trail

The views the entire hike were incredible, as always.

The second trail lead us up Lookout Mountain, and actually ends at Boettcher Mansion, our wedding venue!

It was over 90 degree’s by the time we were summating, and needless to say we felt the 7 + miles.

But overall, any morning spent outside on the mountains is a good one, and I think our boy enjoyed it!

And of course…what I find when I load up pictures…

Flattering family butt shots…Thanks Babe! 🙂

Happy Birthday Furball! We love you!

Back tonight with a post dedicated to this household’s favorite dinner, HOMEMADE PIZZA!

Welcome Back, Love Denver (And Gus…and August.

After a 3.25 hour delay, we took off from Indiana and left for our route to Denver.

I did finish my book, Where We Belong, and plan a review in the coming days.

I also started a new book, “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein, all while I enjoyed my air port reinforcements :).

Within 15-20 minutes I was out on the plane.  I didn’t sleep well all weekend, and I think it had finally just caught up to me.  I must say, my friends on the plane were quite impressed with my ability to just crash.  What can I say, it’s a skill.

Once I woke up, I started working on the reinforcements some more, and continued reading up until landing.

Once we got back to DIA, it was smooth sailing and before I knew it I was on my way to pic up our Gusman.

I can honestly say I’ve never seen him so excited in my life.  He whined, cried and jumped around the car the entire time we were on our way home.  Adorable.  This isn’t the first time he’s had to stay at the VCA, but the previous time he was still quite sick, so didn’t have the energy he did today.  Feels great to be greeted by lots of his puppy love 🙂

Once we got home, I attended to my cinderella duties, including: making his grub (he is on a pork and rice diet), take care of my other Lovely, August, laundry, unpack, water the plants, etc.

By about 815, I was finally ready to sit down to a light dinner and bad TV (hello Bachelorette finale).

Everyone seems to be happy to be home, as I sit with my dinner, Gus sits with his peanut butter treat, and August returns to her predator nature.

Feels good to be home :).

GusMan

Well it’s about 3:30 in the afternoon on a Friday and I’m at home hanging out with the family . . . while it is nice to be home so early on a Friday, what got me here was not so fun.  Let me backtrack a bit…

So, I’ve mentioned my wonderful family.  The youngest member of that family is Gus.

I know…could he be more adorable?

Gus is our (guessing) 3 year old shepherd mix.  We rescued him about 2 years ago from PAWS, a no kill agency in Chicago.  He, along with our other furball August

make up our furry children.  Lovely, the both of em :).

A little history before today’s story:  Around December we started noticing some odd symptoms with Gus.  He had some open wounds showing up around his hind legs that never seemed to heal, eventually turning into a very swollen back leg.  After multiple trips to the vet, including a couple nights in the ICU and medical boarding, we found out Gus has a rare skin disorder, eyrathema multiforme, (http://www.vetbook.org/wiki/dog/index.php/Erythema_multiforme).  While it was tough to know we have a sick puppy, it was a relief to know that we could manage it and make our boy comfortable again.

Since then, Gusman has been on a low dose steroid daily and human food diet to control symptoms. He has fairly consistently been doing better since and gaining a bit of weight back that he lost (down from 65-about 47…yikes).

Well…Back to this morning — Zach woke up to notice that he had what appeared to be an open, gapping mass on his mouth/face.  Needless to say, we were pretty panicked and didn’t know what to do.  Zach tried to reach out to our dermatologist/specialist (yes, or pup sees a dermatologist and I’ve never even seen one), but by midday we hadn’t heard from him and decided I’d leave work and we’d just take him to the ER.  We’re planning to leave for Indianapolis tomorrow but couldn’t imagine leaving Gusman so sick.

So…fast forward to the vet.  We were all extremely anxious, as our history with the vet has rarely had us leaving with good news.  But, after some testing by the VERY nice ER doctor, looks like our boys giant mass was actually just a bunch of puss and bacteria.  This caused by either  a good swat by our lady furball, or his affinity for getting into every possible, leading to likely a tiny scratch that got infected.  The vet cleaned the heck out of the wound, lanced it, and cut off a piece to test.  So, a couple hundred $$ bills later, we have our furball back at home, with another new shaved spot, this time on his mouth, with a mixture of drool/blood constantly flowing (I spare you the image).

Lord we love this dog :).

Good news, he’s going to be fine.  He will be in medical boarding through the weekend, and we will still be going on vacation (all recommendations by the vet).

Seriously dog.  We love you…but keep your nose out of where it don’t belong!  – Sincerly, Mom and Dad.