Trudy

I'm going to try to finish up the draft layout this weekend. Once it looks good, I'll PM people if I need a large picture to use. So keep your eyes open this weekend and be ready to send your pics if I need the full size one.

I think for many it works in that a little pumpkin helps firm things up and more pumpkin loosens things up.

SS event closed. No new entries will be accepted.

SS 2013 sign ups close automatically at midnight tonight. So if you want to sign up, do it now.

I'm really late getting this started, so dig through your pics or go take some this weekend. Post a picture per month and once we have enough, I'll start putting it together so maybe we can get it ready before January! Head to the GT calendar forum for details.

I opened it up earlier this week. If you are overseas, please sign up early so I can get those matched and packages to you can start their journey over the many many miles. There is a thread that shows how to sign up in the SS forum.

I'm so sorry Liz Like Jet, I thought she's be around forever too.

I'm so sorry Tonya

You can refreeze food for human consumption with no issue (though texture might be a little off), but no ill health effects. So I see no reason you can't with the dog version unless it has been thawed and refrozen 238924 times

My baby girl is home again. Sitting next to Ryan.

It was hard to write Ryan's remembrance thread. But with him I knew it was coming. Time to prepare for it. Time to grieve before. I didn't get that this time. I guess that is a good thing. I'm not sure yet. But I know I'll never look back and think "I waited too long to let her go." One day in the spring of 2001 I called in to work that I'd be late, I was going to go look at some dogs. I was only going to look. Hoped maybe I'd find one, but wasn't ready to bring a dog home. I looked a big fawn boy, Denim. He was really nice. I wanted a big boy. But Marilyn said, "I want you to look at this girl before you decide." Out flies Jet. How fitting to her name. She tore around the yard at the kennel and ran straight for me where I was sitting with Denim. She jumped over him and weaseled her way close to me. I left less than an hour later with Jet. She made it pretty clear she was NOT staying there a second longer and she WAS coming home with me. Each time I'd head toward the door to look at anybody else, she'd go stand in front of the door. Waiting. Marilyn finally told me I had no choice in the matter, she'd picked me and that was that. So home we went with a stop at the pet store to get the essentials. Walked into my house like she owned the place. She was mine. Or maybe I was hers. Either way. She was my baby girl, my bug, my Jet. I can look back on those 12+ years and honestly say she had a pretty great life. I'm glad she didn't let me leave without her that day. Love you baby girl She fell about 10 days ago. Tavarish bumped her, she slipped on the tile and fell. Got her up and she was sore. Nothing new, she's old. You fall on tile, it hurts. But it wasn't getting better. So I was going to call our vet on Monday to get her seen. Didn't slow her down much - she was still running around the garden with T and Abby every day. Still being crazy, just a little more cautious doing so. Found a lump on her leg where she hit the floor over the weekend and started icing it. Sunday night I laid her on the couch to ice her. She decided she was done with the ice, hoped up and jumped off the couch. Jeff and I both heard the snap and then screaming. My heart sank. There is only one reason a 14 year old dog snaps a leg jumping off a couch. I called our vet - she wasn't in, but here's the number to the e-vet in pensacola. Called the other e-vet and ended up meeting her at the clinic. Brought Jet in and laid her on the xray table and suited up to hold her while they took a pic. Yep, broken. Asked if it was osteo. Said it wasn't clear from the picture. So we took another. Still not clear to say it was osteo. Took a pic of her lungs. Yep, osteo. Fracture wasn't going to heal. So we did the only thing we could. Took her off the xray table, got a blanket and laid on the floor with her for a while while they worked with another patient that came in. We let her go around 10:30 Sunday night. I'm officially done with Mother's Day. She promised to live forever. She tried. 14 years is a pretty good run. I'm angry for her. You make it to 14 and osteo should no longer have to be a word you have to worry about. Jet - LPB Linda's Jet (09 March) 26 March, 1999 - 12 May, 2013 I will continue to keep the 09 March birthday that we celebrated until we met her litter mate which had only one date on her paperwork and found I found I'd picked the wrong one.

Wow. She came here looking for info. Could have just provided that info instead of jump on a new member that you don't agree with her on altering her dogs. Personally, I have no clue what my greyhounds were like with all their hormones. I do know what my doberman was like. I like his attitude better without it all The biggest reason for early spay/neutering is to reduce unwanted animals. With responsible people, I'm good with later altering, especially on large breed dogs. And while I have NO desire to own intact dogs, if somebody else does, what does it bother me. Yeah, there are lots of retired hounds out there for adoption. Lots of other dogs too. But if somebody knows what they want and are willing to hunt down a responsible breeder, by all means, go for it. When we get the next doberman, you can bet we will be looking at breeders. Adoption as well, but also breeders. But that's ok, just one more reason for the repo wagon to show up to our house. This is one of the treads where people should have gone with the "agree to disagree" bit.

Go to the calendar forum to check out the final product and click on links to order. All done through www.mycanvas.com - GT doesn't get anything from this.

I will open it back up and close it Friday night

Secret Santa signups will close at midnight on 15 November. If you want to partake in this year's fun, please sign up ASAP. I will do the matching sometime Friday. Hopefully.

Thank you Christel

There shouldn't be a match. I haven't matched anybody yet. I will announce in the SS forum when I do the matches.

when you click on my packages, you should see if you have a package or not. what doesn't look like you are signed up?

SS2012 is now open http://forum.greytalk.com/index.php/topic/277990-secret-santa-2011/#entry5055900

Miss you baby boy. 2 years seems like forever already.

yep, most kibble kibble is 10%. Some will have higher % if they have softer bits of kibble in it instead of being all hard/crunchy kibble. We hit petsmart yesterday. Wow they have tons of food. Found several options that were a bit lower in protein, but really, I'm comfortable with the protein level in the current food, just need the phosphorus level from the manufacturer. We went through this with Ryan with a vet I trust and I may just email him again to see what he suggests. Jet's levels aren't that high and she'd passed on eating for 1.5 days prior - though she had eaten some dinner and breakfast before her vet apt. We'll check again in 3 months and this may all be for naught anyway. Just wanted to test liver and kidney values before we started her on stuff for her old bones. btw - Science Diet actually has a line of food now that doesn't scare me with ingredients And pea protein... never heard of it until this weekend. Need to look into that.

I don't think Dry Matter Basis is what she was doing. She needed the size of the bag and all sorts of other stuff as well to figure it out. I don't know that we want lower protein, but likely lower Phosphorus like we did with Ryan. So I emailed Diamond to get phosphorus info since it isn't on the bag.

Is there a 'truer' protein calculation other than the label on the bag? Our vet confused us today. I emailed her when we got home, so hopefully she can explain, but in the meantime.... we are on the search for a lower protein food for Jet. The senior version of her current food is the same protein level.

Huh, maybe there was a good thing to my 12+ hour day at school today - dinner was ready when I got home and I missed all the GT headache!

Some things should be taken to PM.