Charla

What wonderful news! I hope she continues to heal and improve.

Welcome home handsome Jonah, it just took you a while to find the right place and the right family for your forever after. I enjoyed all the stories and guessing and of course the ever evolving siggies, it was great fun and had the best ever ending.

Has Nero ever had his teeth cleaned, you know , like we humans do when the dental hygienist gets up under the gum line and scrubs, scales and polishes? Perhaps he has a persistent infection under the gum line, in human terms periodontal disease or gingivitis and needs to have his teeth cleaned fairly often. Gracie builds tarter quickly and has to have hers cleaned every 6 months, Carl can go for a year ... me,every three months!

I have a door in my slider that is the size and rise you're considering; 10.5 X 15.5 and a 9 inch rise. Carl who is a big tall boy, 30 at the shoulder and has weighed over 100 lbs has no problem ... he's back to 94 pounds now . Gracie 28 at the shoulder and 74 pounds just goes through more quickly.

My heart dropped when I saw the H&M thread was locked. I'm so sorry for your loss; these hounds bring so much love, joy and silliness to our lives then leave much to soon.

Ouch! Hope he recovers quickly.

I use the Furmnator on Carl almost every day, he has a thick plush teddy bear coat. Gracie has longer silker fur and I use a slicker type brush on her every other day or so and I still have enough hair floating everywhere to crochet another dog or two!

Keeping you and Lily in my thoughts and prayers.

Beautiful girl! As you can see by my siggy I am addicted to black hounds. I hope you have years of love as she starts to really settle in to home life.

Deb, I'm so sorry that your sweet Rex had to leave, you where both in my thoughts the other day. They can never stay as long as we wish they could and you loved him enough to let him go with dignity.

Love that fuzzy butt that's starting to show! He's such a handsome boy.

Welcome, what took you so long!

How wonderful that you had each other, I know he'll be in your heart forever.

Thinking good positive thoughts for Nadir and hoping you can find a reason and some pain relief soon.

I'm so sorry for your loss; your love for him and his for you is very clear in your tribute. Those big goofy boys bring such love and joy to our lives that we're blessed to have had them.

Kongs can be filled with all kinds of interesting low cal things; low fat cream cheese or peanut butter as the base ... just smear a tablespoon or so in the inside and add bits of green beans, bits of carrot, bit's of apple, kibble, crumbled treats or cookies, cookie dust ... the stuff left in the empty bag or kibble then smear the top shut with peanut butter and freeze. You don't really fill the kong with the sticky stuff, you just smear it around inside so that the hound has to work to get the surprise treats. Chai seems like Gracie, silly, creative and inquisitive ... she has to know what's going on, what's in the box, ohhh that smells good and so on.

Doesn't pumpkin get runny as it thaws? Neither of mine like pumpkin anyway and peanut butter makes them work harder to get it out especially if I've put some broken up treats or pieces of cheese, carrot etc. in the kong before I freeze it. Both of mine HATED crates and it sounds like Chai was comfy on the couch while you were gone. Other than the food raid she didn't chew or destroy anything and as you said the poop was probably the result of all the extra food she ate. Hang in there sounds like she's adjusting to you being gone.

Alisha I'm so sorry for your loss. I wish we could keep them here with us forever but it just doesn't work that way; now you have in in your heart.

Keeping you in my thoughts, hope Jake is better soon.

Gracie is my communicator. Body language to vocalizations she gets her point across. If she thinks she's being ignored she will bounce and shake her head to flap her ears and jangle her tags. She keeps doing this until you pay attention. She and I have amazing conversations; she has quite a vocal range from soft yips, grumbles, whines, to almost barks. She will stare at me with her ears all the way flat and back, her whole body so tense, chattering a bit a times, and whine, groan, yip, grumble a bit and then pause for me to answer. If I don't seem to be "getting it" she will bounce, flap her ears and stare at me and try even harder ... I can almost her her thinking why can't you understand you idiot! She talks and roos in her sleep too! Carl, on the other hand, is the strong silent type an occasional eargasm, or a deep sigh when he puts his head in my lap.

I downloaded FireFox and so far things seem normal!

Jeff , I made sure the approriate boxes where checked ... they where. The ONLY siggy I see is Claudia's and I cannot see any pictures posted in the forums or for that matter the Greytalk header if I use IE as a browser. Using AOL 9.0 browser I see pictures, siggies, avitars but have the format bar in the middle of the reply box and no rich text. I am going to see if I can optimize IE 8 a little later tonight.

I just discovered the same thing Claudia did, I have AOL and that is what I use normally to do everything. I just thought HEY ... try launching IE and using it. Voila! Stuff is normal, I have Rich Text capabilities, but no siggies to be seen anywhere, and I no longer have spell check. I can just see Jeff shaking his head and saying a few choice words ...

Jeff, I just did all of the above and still have the same problem.