Man's Best Friend

Man's Best Friend

Image by Jeffrey Simms Photography
I've had Toby since Freshman year of high school. I picked him out at the Humane Society when he was only 1 year old. When we first brought him home he didn't bark for weeks! We thought someone had cut his vocal cords somehow... I know, that sounds horrible, but we couldn't figure out why this German Shepard / Beagle mix didn't bark.

After the first weeks passed, the barking came. Toby broke out of his barking shyness and he never looked back! Throughout the years it's been hard to comprehend that this is the same dog I found at the Humane Society. The change was amazing! Toby has never shown any signs of stopping his barking either!

Recently Toby has been acting very strange. The barking suddenly stopped and was replaced with crying. After just a few days of this he was taken to the Vet to get checked out. Turns out that Toby was in a lot of pain due to a slipped disk in his neck. Any type of movement or barking would cause him terrible pain. The doctors prescribed muscle relaxors and steroids. Within a few days Toby had once again done a complete 180 and began to be himself again... barking included!

Sadly though, Toby has taken a turn for the worse and seems to be regressing. During the first visit to the Vet, it was mentioned that the slipped disk in his neck could cause paralysis (read: scary!). This is because the slipped disk is not longer in the correct place and could press on other nerves. Turns out that Toby is beginning to experience some paralysis in his right front leg. The poor guy doesn't seem to feel much that goes on with this leg currently...

This picture isn't the greatest quality, greatest composition or taken with an awesome camera (Macbook Pro iSight) ... It does capture my dog Toby and I hanging out on the kitchen floor as a special moment though. While I know his days are surely numbered, I couldn't leave his side after I carried my buddy from the car into the house.

Toby has brought me so much happiness since 9th grade, it's hard to grasp the concept that my doggy is slowly slipping away.

Tomorrow Toby has a 8:00 a.m. appointment with the Vet to begin a series of 4 high-doses cortisone shots. Toby will be at the Vet all day getting these shots spread throughout the morning, afternoon and evening... at least, that's the plan.

*** Update ***
We decided to put Toby down this morning. Last night was very rough on him even with the extra pain medicine. Toby is safe from pain and discomfort and will be playing with all the other doggies in Heaven. I'm already missing everything about him.

On January 3, 2008 Toby Simms went to doggie heaven to rest and play with all the other doggies.

Stop and Smell the flowers.

Image by Finding Josephine
So, My Dream for Juno is that she will be JUST LIKE fay.
Just not a big.
If you don't know who fay is she is a dog who belonged to the photographer Wiliam Wegman.
He could get her to do ANYTHING.
If you ever watched Sesame Street, you must have seen the dogs pretending to be people, well thats what he did with his dogs. I was looking at a book with a bunch of pictures and he would dump flour on his dog and managed to get it to stay still, Thats Talent!
Hopefully she will be able to do Half of what Fay and the other dogs did. :)

Gnarls w flower

Image by BIG Slow
We rescued a new puppy this weekend. We call him Gnarls because this is the only picture I got of him not chewing on something! Ain't he cute though?

Lucy finds a leaf

Image by gocyclones
We got a new puppy today. With our old beagle Maddie having to be put to sleep last year we've had one dog, Libby. We found out someone was giving away some beagle puppies and we had to go take a peak. My son fell in love with them and we just couldn't leave without one. Expect to see plenty more puppy pictures in the near future...

El Perro sin nombre

Image by Compulsion
Our foster dog. As yet unnamed. You may not know it, but he loves you. He loves everyone.

He's a hound/beagle mix? Maybe? Take a guess. He's about 4 months old in this picture.

We fostered him for about a week, then he went off to a new home.