My sister, Sadie, has become the sentinel Scottie of our clan.  If someone rings our doorbell, she is at the door, jumping up and down, barking furiously.  Even when she hears a doorbell on TV, she barks and lets everybody know.

When we Scotties are cruising the backyard and Sadie hears a bird chirping, she will bark a response and heaven forbid, if she hears another dog barking in the neighborhood, she has to chime in.  Sadie also likes to bark when she hears a car door slam or if she hears human voices outside.  She definitely likes to make her presence known!

Wen is not thrilled when the sentinel barks outside and Sadie has gotten in trouble for her loud high shrill barking on many occasions.  It has not phased her in the least though and the sentinel Scottie continues to do her job.  In my opinion, she is just a nosy chatty girl!

 

Well, we were all pumped up for the Denver Broncos-Kansas city Chiefs game last night, but our excitement didn’t last long.  After scoring one touchdown, the Chiefs steamrolled the Broncos and we suffered an embarrassing 30-6 loss.  What the heck, Broncos?!  It looks as though the season is basically over!

Someone in our family has a special talent.  My sister, Molly, is the only one of us Scotties who can rise up on her rear legs and beg for a treat.  Every time that Wen walks over to the treat jar, there’s Molly, sitting up and begging as if to say, “Please may I have a treat?  Pretty please?”  She looks like one of those prairie dogs standing straight up, but she looks really cute, even if she’s begging.  Neither Sadie nor I have ever begged like that.  We just do a regular sit and give Wen the pleading Scottie eyes or jump up and down in anticipation of a tasty morsel.   I guess that we’re lucky that treats are dispersed equally, whether we have special talents or not!

I suppose you could say that I’m “on the mend.”  I am walking normally on all four legs again and the only problem seems to be that I want to be too active.  Wen has been carrying me up and down stairs and she is always right there, monitoring my activity out in our yard, so that I don’t try to run or jump.  She has to be very diligent though, because I can be sneaky!

It’s a relief that I’m “on the mend,” but evidently, my knee won’t be completely healed for a long time, so taking it easy will be a challenge for both Wen and me.  Then there’s the fact that I have two Scottie sisters who like to play and be rambunctious, not to mention the couch, my favorite place to jump on and off fifty times a day.  This “on the mend” thing could prove to be interesting!

Well, I literally blew it yesterday.  We had our first snowstorm of the season and of course, we Scotties were enjoying playing in the snow in our backyard.  We were making tracks, crunching on little pieces of ice, chasing each other, and generally having a good time, when all of a sudden, I hurt my leg.

Wen joined us outside and immediately noticed that I was walking around, carrying my left rear leg.  She checked everything from my toes to my hips and even gave my leg a little massage, but I still wouldn’t touch my toes to the ground.

Before I knew it, she had made a vet appointment and we were off to go see Dr. Nina, who gave me a thorough exam and decided that x-rays were necessary.  She felt that I had partially torn my ACL and the x-rays confirmed the differences between my two knees.  Next, my blood was drawn to make sure that I was fine to take pain medication and I received a nice warm laser treatment on my knee.

I had started to bear just a little weight on my leg by the time we got home, but mostly, I was a three-legged dog.  After dinner, which included pain medication and a sedative, Wen put me on the couch, where I snoozed for hours.  Then, she carried me outside and up to bed.

This morning, I put more weight on my leg and wanted to be more active, which is a big no-no for an ACL tear, so Wen has been carrying me up and down stairs and walking me on a leash outside.  It seems that she plans to continue this for awhile, as well as more laser treatments on my knee.

Yep, I literally blew it (my ACL) yesterday and now I’m confined to very little activity for weeks, maybe months.  Bummer, but at least since it’s a partial tear, I hopefully won’t need surgery.

 

Here we are, expected to hit 80 degrees today, but an artcic blast is on the way.  Tomorrow, it’s supposed to be snowing and in the 20’s.  What’s with that?!  Wen has been busy outside with her winterizing tasks, preparing for the first snow storm of the season.  Meanwhile, we Scotties are enjoying the warm weather.  The sad thing is that the colorful leaves on our backyard bushes probably won’t survive the upcoming snowstorm, so we have to enjoy the pretty colors while we can and that means spending today out in the sun, because tomorrow the flakes will fly!

There has been a lot of crafting activity in our kitchen lately.  Yesterday, Wen made a Scottie silhouette out of thick wire and then she covered it with black and orange garland. Today, she added a plaid bow and a witch’s hat to the Scottie and attached it to a grapevine wreath.  Next, she attached a little broom to the wreath, so the Scottie witch looked as though she was riding her broom and after a few adjustments, the wreath was finished.

Of course, the wreath project was interesting and we Scotties like to be involved in anything new and interesting, so Wen had the pleasure of our company during the process. After all, every project needs Scottie “supervisors” to make sure everything goes well and you never know when something particularly interesting could fall from the countertop work space onto the floor and really grab our attention!

It seems that we are now counting down the days to Halloween.  Every day, more decorations pop up around our house and between the fall flowers and the pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns, not to forget the Scottie Halloween wreath that Wen made, we are celebrating the season.  The countdown to trick or treating has begun!

Since we are getting closer to Halloween, Wen likes to try out costumes on us Scotties just for fun.  Whenever she finds a particularly unusual costume, she will buy it on impulse and bring it home to dress us up and take photos.  Sometimes, she even alters costumes that are meant for little kids and turns them into Scottie wearable costumes. We never know what she will come up with next or what silly outfit we will have to model, but Molly, Sadie, and I are usually fairly cooperative, since it’s all for fun.  After all, not every dog gets to pretend to be a pirate or an astronaut or a pineapple!

Today, Wen showed up with a big bag that contained a pirate ship costume.  After spending some time with a scissors and a hot glue gun, Sadie was the unsuspecting victim and before we knew it, the pirate ship had a new captain.  Ahoy, mateys!

It seems that fall has brought us some rainy foggy weather.  Inside though, we have some decorations in warm and cheerful fall colors.  That’s exactly what we need to brighten a dreary day:  warm and cheerful fall colors!