Memorial Day Trip

Lee, Jessica, Edgar and I took a very last minute trip this holiday weekend. It was quite fun. After this trip Edgar has been in five states. He is getting to be well traveled.

We started Saturday out by driving to New Mexico and taking a stop in White Sands National Monument.


Edgar is very excited to get out of the car.




Okay maybe we are all happy to get out of the car besides just Edgar.


So pretty.


Sandy hills as far as you can see. All you need now is an ocean and it would be perfect.


Trotting along feeling very fine with himself.


Windy cheeks.




Yeah, this is one happy dog.


Edgar suddenly forgets how to use his legs and can't walk down a sand dune. He requires assistance from Jessica and Lee.



Cool ripples in the sand.


Blowing sand.


Who's the king?





Lee and Edgar play a little chase.



Lee's sandals got taken off right away as it was impossible to walk in the sand with them.


While my shoes weren't hard to walk in they collected sand like buckets.


Yes I was there too.




The next day we go to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas. There was only one small trail that we could bring Edgar on. But that was okay as we were all tired from the long drive the night before.

"What do you mean I'm in Texas now?"


"Guess they weren't lying."


Walking the trail with Edgar looking for promising peeing spots.


So hot and so dry.


More rock formations.


Flowers. Guess just because it's hot and rocky doesn't mean there aren't any blooms.




That night we went to a drive in movie and brought Edgar with us. Jessica and I sat in the front seats while Lee sat in the back and hugged Edgar/scratched his butt for an hour and a half.

Monday we went to Carlsbad Caverns. Oh yes even Edgar came with us. We boarded him at the caverns for five dollars. Pretty cheap. Since he didn't go into the caves with us I will refrain from putting up pictures of the cavern formations.


"Oh no I'm stuck in the car again!" Anybody out there ever try sharing a back seat with an Old English Sheepdog? Talk about seat hogs. It looks like he should be laying in the seat by himself but he is actually sharing it with Jessica at that moment. Monday afternoon we start our long drive back home and get in around 1:30 in the morning.

Off Raw

Edgar keeps having on and off diarrhea while on the raw diet. Since we are in a vacation condo for a few months that is fully carpeted we decided to take him off it. Once we get to a more permanent location, (that isn't fully carpeted) I am going to put him back on it. Then mess around to see if I can find out what is disagreeing with him on the raw diet. Otherwise Edgar loves the raw food and it has helped SO much with all his itching allergy problems.

Our Short Adoption Experience

Lee and I adopted an Old English Sheepdog from an rescue dealing in that breed. We decided to name her Emma to go along with Edgar's name. She was seven years old. This is a picture of her on the day we brought her home.



Emma learned how to sit, come, her name, and was working on down. Every time she would see you or catch your eye her butt would start wagging a mile a minute and up she would come to see you. I have never met another dog as friendly as her before.

After having her for about 25 days she counter surfed while we were out one night and ate most of a loaf of bread. That morning after realizing something was wrong we brought her into an emergency vet. There we were told that Emma had Bloat. We made the decision to put her down.

This is the last picture I took of her 16 days after the first one. She was all happy because I came out while she was sleeping in the hallway.

Organ Meat

Edgar's raw diet is still going good. He love, love, loves it! Only thing he hates is chicken livers. Cow livers though get eaten in a flash. While the Sprouts thing never got off the ground we did find another source for organ meat. There is a store here called Food City that is cheaper and caters a lot to the Mexican cliental. You can find all sorts of meat types that you can never find in any of the other stores. Like how often do you walk into Safeway and find cow brain for sale? NEVER! So we bought five pounds of cow livers for .99 cents a pound. And found chicken giblets and tripe for cheap. Tripe, thats another thing I have never seen in the stores around here.

Chicken Organs

Edgar ate a whole piece of chicken without it being ground up. This was a first. We had been buying pre-ground up chicken at whole foods that had the bone and other good stuff also in it. Well we ran out of that and went to Sprout's to buy a whole chicken hoping that it would have all the organs in it.

It didn't have the organs but we talked to the guy behind the counter and he told us to talk to the manager and it shouldn't be a problem. That would be nice because we don't have a close source for this type of thing. Chicken is fine but good luck trying to find organs in the store. So tomorrow I am going to call the manager to see about setting up a order of chicken organs every week. The Sprout's meat guy said that they just throw that stuff away anyways. I so hope this works out.

Raw Diet

Edgar is LOVING the raw meat. Glad it's him and not me. I was wondering how he would take to it and there was not a problem at all. This might be because we are buying ground up chicken stuff for pets from WHOLE FOODS. Today when we were at WHOLE FOODS we did buy some chicken liver for him and there was a little confusion with him on how to eat it. It went some what like this ... lick, lick, look up at me, lick, lick, looks at me again, lick, pick up, drop it, looks at me, lick, lick, etc.

Lee finally hand fed the liver too him. Edgar can't resist anything presented in the form of tug.

So while dinner was pretty much ecstasy for Edgar to start with it is now a whole different category of happiness for him.

Afternoon Walk

We went to the Riparian Preserve in Gilbert while we were kicked out of our house for a Realtor showing. Lee took the afternoon off and Edgar came along so he wouldn't eat the realtor or the people looking at our house. It was quite fun and relaxing waking around looking at all the different birds, wild life, and plants in boom. While we were there we saw 4 bunnies, a turtle, 2 catfish, and tons of different bird varieties. I would go back again in an instant.

Starting off we saw ducks.


Then Edgar kept looking at the ducks.


Some grasses looking out up to the library. It was very pretty.


Edgar looking at more ducks. And feeling pretty pleased with himself as he is walking on water without getting his feet wet.


Lee calls this my Hollywood duck because it has sparkles all around it. I thought it turned out pretty nice myself.


Still feeling happy about the ducks.


Plants were flowering everywhere in the preserve.


I find this picture funny as I don't think you would see a Old English Sheepdog naturally walking around through cactus.


These plants were blooming everywhere.


They seem to be looking at different things. Obviously what Edgar is looking at must be more interesting.


Some more plants that were in bloom through out the preserve.


This was like walking down a hedge of the orange plants pictured above.


Edgar checking out the water. As we all know he is a wuss and doesn't have a clue what to do with wet stuff living here in the desert.


Edgar likes public benches as he is allowed to get up on them. It makes him feel very special.


Some of the trails we walked through.


Can't seem to be on the same page. Each one is still looking at something else.


And another park bench. This time they are looking at the same interesting thing.

Keeping Watch

Changing To A Raw Diet

Well I am going to try a raw diet with Edgar. I have been dealing with his itching skin problems by trying medicines, special shampoo's, vet prescription food, and various other nice dog foods (such as Solid Gold and Flint River Ranch). Nothing seems to be helping. Just recently I switched his food over to Taste Of The Wild to see if a grain free diet would solve his itching problem. While I think that the product is a nice one (and proved that he was allergic to grains because the itching went away) it didn't help. It made him very gassy (knock you over dead type all day long) and he keeps having bouts of diarrhea. I had his poop tested and it came back fine so the only thing I can think of is that it is not agreeing with his stomach.

Tonight we are driving over to Whole Foods to get some meat to start him off with. I ordered a vitamin supplement online from animalessentials.com (Thanks Tammy) to go along with the diet today.

I know that some people when they do these diets they do all meat while others will do part meat with added veggies. Some only do certain types of meat while others will cook the meat first instead of doing it raw. I plan on trying out the raw meat with veggies first. I hope this goes well and will update as I go along.

Diarrhea Explosion

Last morning at 5:00 a.m. there was a poopie explosion on the carpet. Nothing can quite describe the horror I felt as I was trying to scoop liquid poop out of the carpet. With our house being up for sale and the entire house smelling like dog poop we were freaking out. Lee got sent to the store for another bottle of carpet cleaner and about 50 poop soaked rags later the spot was cleaned up. You can't even tell anything happened there. Thankfully with the windows open, candles burning, ceiling fans blowing, and baking soda to help dry up the spot/smell, you wouldn't have known anything happened. After all that work to get the house smelling good and clean again no one even stopped by to look at it.

And no, I didn't take a picture.

Brainless But Happy

Happiness shoves the remaining one thought left in Daniel's head out the door.

Back Massage Or Torture

Daniel trying to break Lee's back by laying on it. It's like 100 pound sticks pushing their way through your back while cutting off your air supply.

Bed Thief

Jasper stole Edgar's bed and made him sleep on the floor. Such a hard life sleeping on the carpet without all that cushy bed stuffing to lay in.