BILLY... Jan 5, 2000 – Mar 29, 2009

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Billy suffered an acute cardiac event early Sunday morning which was not survivable.

There were no warning signs. Hours later, he was gone.

He had been enjoying his senior years in great health. Nothing limited his activities. 7 Mastiffs over a 32 year period… and Billy experienced the best quality-of-life that we had seen.

Bruce and I were exhausted when we came home from the Emergency Room without Billy. We laid down for a nap knowing that when we woke, Billy would not be there and our hearts would start to hurt again.

Surprisingly, we woke to Billy’s 5-year-old friend from next door who proved to us that Billy was indeed still here and will always be with us.

We will always love and miss you Billy.

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Springtime and your Pets

With the coming of spring, we will be outside with our pets more frequently. Today I was playing ball with our dogs Billy & Foster (pictured above but photo is a few yrs old) I noticed that Billy was limping. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with his hips or knees and when I looked at his pads I found the culprit. There was a bur stuck between his toes. Living in California allows us to be outside year round so I do try to walk around the yard every morning looking for things that they might get hurt on. It only takes a few minutes to help protect your pet.

Yesterday there was a report on the news that I want to share with everyone. There is a possibility that flea & tick shampoos and drops might be harmful to your dog or cat. It seems to cover quite a few brands and are found at the supermarket or your local pet store.
Here is a link to the report.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/health/topics/PetProductsConcern.html

May you enjoy the longer days with your pets whether they be dogs, cats, birds, hamsters or something else.

Sunday is our Favorite Day!

Every Sunday both of our dogs are allowed on the bed in the morning. Our old mastiff Billy get so excited when we call him up. He takes up a lot of the bed but makes a great pillow. Foster has never grown out of "nibbling" on things so we are constantly telling him no. We have had Foster since he was 2 days old and didn't realize that we should have been disciplining him more so I can't really blame him for some of his bad behaviors. They both forget sometimes that they are dogs! Jake our cat lays with my husband all the time and finds he has to move to make room for his "brothers" the dogs.

I have a included a slideshow of most of our family. I hope you enjoy it.

Dogs and Cats

My husband and I moved from Chicago to California in 1998. We drove with our two Mastiffs Portia and Indy and flew our 4 cats here. It was quite an adventure packing and unpacking the car in Nebraska, Colorado, Utah and Nevada. Our cats were boarded at our Vet and a service came and picked up the carriers (with cats included of course) and put them on a plane. We met them at LAX and they were truly unhappy. Our dogs found it a great adventure. We stayed the night in Bryce Canyon, UT and Indy made friends with a cow. Everyone loved seeing them and took pictures of them. Corky our cat hid for almost a week and he was my bravest cat.


If you have never had big dogs, you should try it at least once in your life. We have had Mastiffs for over 30 years and although we do have to clean the walls a bit, you will not find a more loyal companion. They do like a bit of exercise but really just a bit. As you can see from my photo, Indy and Billy are hanging out on the patio in the shade.


Our little menagerie has grown a bit and now we have 7 cats. Most came into our lives and we are glad they did. We have a Bengal named Ruh, two Burmese that are litter mates Duncan and Phoenix, a huge brown tabby appropriately named Big Bear, a Snowshoe mix Maggie Mae, a flame point Siamese mix Jake (also called Corky Jr. as he looks so much like our beloved Corky), and an American Short Hair which is Silver and Gray named Stanley. For the most part they all get along and I will use this blog to talk about the hilarious things they do.


We were playing with the laser pointer (and yest my Bullmastiff mix loves to play along) and it cracks me up that they still chase it although they never catch it. Even with all their toys, they still like the paper grocery bags or balled up notebook pages to play with.


Hope you enjoy our family stories and photos.