Charlie’s September Sixth Update

Hi, it's Charlie! Here I am smiling because one of my friends is petting me.

And here’s a reminder to “stay pawsitive.” It’s not from my animal hospital though.

My animal hospital is near my house. I think this cat may be the manager. Sometimes it stands on the front desk.

Dogs come to the animal hospital. The black and white one was friendly, but the other one was shy. 

What else did I do this week? I took walks with Miss Deborah. I took naps. I went for rides with Mom and went to parks to sniff and have fun. I even went to Sadie‘s house to play with her.

I saw some cows.

Yesterday Mom took me to Woodstock and we walked down the street. I met some people who liked me. Mom left her phone in the car. Here I am in the car ready to go home.

I hope you had a good week. If you did not get a chance to have fun, do something tomorrow.

Charlie’s Report for August 21-23

Look what I saw when Mom opened the front door this morning! The grey cat was on our steps! It's not even a friendly cat and runs away when I try to say hello.

(Filtered in Picsart)  

It ran away before Deborah came to take me for a morning walk. She’s been coming here most days since Mom hurt her back. Mom still walks with me in the afternoon, but we don’t go far.

A funny thing happened yesterday. We went to the vet’s office because I had a tummy ache and needed some medicine. Well, we were in the doctor room, and I heard Deborah‘s voice. She was out front with Sadie, who had gotten a nail trim. I squeaked a lot and the receptionist let them come back to see me.

I visited with them the day before when Mom went to the doctor. Here we are walking

What else happened this week? Well, I saw Allison, and I haven’t seen her in a long time. I went to Lowe’s with Mom. I saw Lynn and her friend Barb. Here I am with Lynn. She thinks my mom is her mom

The last picture is one that Mom took this afternoon. See the little butterfly? She was trying to get a picture of a big one, but it flew away.

Cow, Complaints, Canines, Cat

Since this was a rather stressful week. I thought I'd start with something amusing. I took this picture of a cow yesterday morning, but it was not what I was trying to photograph. I was trying to get a picture of a hot air balloon, so I drove closer to it and then went down a side road, hoping to find an interesting foreground with the balloon above it. Instead, I found cows. They looked friendly though. The balloon was not visible from my viewpoint.

Here’s the balloon, with nothing interesting to frame it. There’s a company in my area that gives balloon tours.

In case you case you missed my post about going to the ER, it was caused by several days of lightheadedness, which prompted me to go to me to urgent care. They insisted I should go to the hospital for more advanced tests, probably because they fear that any senior citizen is in mortal danger at any time. The most striking thing about the test results was that I was extremely low in sodium. Did you know that drinking a lot of water can deplete sodium? About half the water I drink is highly filtered and contains no minerals. I also drink bottled spring water which does contain minerals, but that may not be adequate in the summer. Furthermore, air pollution can make you lightheaded and short of breath, and we had several days of haze caused by a distant wildfires. I had noticed that my eyes were irritated from the smoke. 

Speaking of eyes, I went to the retina specialist yesterday for my follow-up visit. I’ve had vision problems in my left eye ever since cataract surgery in May 2024. The doctor said the druzen (which looked like a small bubble in the middle of my eye) is gone but there is now a gel coating that is clouding my vision. He said it is not thick enough for surgery yet, but we’ll keep an eye on it. 

Oh, this is supposed to be a Saturday Critters post, so I’ll turn it over to my canine in residence.

Hi, it’s Charlie! I had a pretty good week. Mom only left me in daycare one time. One day she left me with Deborah and Sadie, and I had a good time. Sadie is a fun dog except she won’t stop licking me. 

Mom took me to the state park a couple of times. One time I took off my harness in the car by chewing the strap. She had to find the extra collar because the red one was too loose to put on my leash. She keeps an extra collar and leash in the car.

The park is across the river.

We saw a dog named Lucky. It had just rained, and he jumped on my mom with his muddy feet. But he was friendly.

Today we went to Petco. I rode in the backseat with Miss Deborah. I wore a new harness. 

There were some kittens from the shelter at Petco. I wanted to adopt one, but Mom did not understand.

 That’s enough for now. You probably want to take a nap. I know I do.

Kitten, Charlie, Zebras

Charlie has a few things to say, but first here’s a kitten for Caturday.

Hi, it’s Charlie! Mom has already told you about our week in her earlier posts. I had a tummy ache, but I’m feeling better today. When we went to the vet, I was surprised because instead of going back to daycare, we went to see Dr. Jim. We left with some pills and they’re okay because Mom puts them in yummy cashew butter. 

I go to daycare about twice a week. On other days, Miss Deborah comes and takes me for a long walk in the morning. Her dog Sadie does not come with us because she is little and not fast like me.

One day we saw some ducks but I did not get close to them because they were afraid of me.

Mom put a new picture on the wall. I think it shows neat looking horses, but she called them something else.

She already had one of a horse on the other wall. She has a lot of pictures.

Well, I feel like going to sleep now. Have a good night!

The Last Week of May

It was a busy week. Marie left on Monday, which was Memorial Day. I had a dermatology appointment on Tuesday, and had to have a spot on my cheek removed for a biopsy. They also treated other sun-damaged spots, leaving me with a slightly beat-up looking face. And it rained. 

I always rest in the car for a while after that sort of appointment because I want to be sure that I have recovered enough to drive safely. The spray that they use on my face leaves me lightheaded. I took a picture of dogwoods through the wet car window.

I canceled the dental appointment that I had for Wednesday because I wanted a day to recover before the funeral that I was going to on Thursday. It rained again, and stopped long enough to take Charlie to Riley Park for a quick walk.

On Thursday, the weather was good. I’ll write about Dr. Poland‘s funeral later.

Yesterday we had more rain. There was a tornado warning, but it didn’t touch down here, although I heard it was seen in Page County. I did pick up my grocery order during a break in the weather.

Today was quite chilly for the end of May. I took Charlie to Camp Roosevelt for a walk, not venturing far from the car because there was a chance of rain again. I’ll share pictures from that trip on another day. 

In the meantime, here’s an image for Caturday.

Charlie’s Report for Late May

Hi! Mom says it’s my turn to tell you what’s going on. Not a whole lot, but I do have a complaint.

Some time ago, Mom brought a tin beagle into our house. She seemed surprised that I didn’t like it, but since it scares me, she finally put it in her bedroom. Well, sometimes she puts it where I can see it if I try to come in the door. That isn’t very nice because it’s a scary thing. It isn’t cute or furry like me. 

Let’s change the subject to something that isn’t scary. I showed you my cat friend before, but we don’t have any recent portraits of Tripod. So we made some on the computer. Here are two that are cute. Which do you like?

Here you see me looking out from the deck. Mom was taking pictures of birds when I saw something more interesting.

The rabbit stopped hopping as soon as it saw me. I stared at it but it did not move. I did not move either. Finally Mom said let’s go back in the house so we did. But I really would like to chase a rabbit.

I heard that Marie is coming tomorrow so I guess we should get some rest. Good night!

Beagle Briefing

Hi, it's Charlie! My report is going to be short because I had a busy day and I'm tired. I went to the dog park in Strasburg and then we took a ride. After that, we visited my friend Sadie. Here I am at the park.

We saw some geese from the car. Perhaps you noticed that I wore a green harness. It’s an old one that has a broken handle because I chewed it. I don’t like it as much as the one that I’ve been wearing, but unfortunately, I chewed the strap on that one a few days ago so Mom threw it away. I like to chew when I’m in the car, and I don’t like wearing a harness anyway

.

Yesterday we saw Tripod and he came over to say hi. 

Also we went to the recycling center and went for a walk in a park. 

Okay, now it's time for bed. Good night!

Beagles and Dinos

Today I have some unique animals to show you, but first I want to show you a new friend that Charlie made. Her name is Lucy and she was at the dog park in Bryce Resort. I could not tell them apart at a distance. Other than her gender being female, the main difference was that she had a white blaze on her forehead.

She was rescued as a stray so we don’t know if she is related to Charlie. I have seen pictures of other beagles who look just like him.

Last week, I mentioned that I wanted to find some unusual animals to share. I got a chance this week when I went to Winchester. The gardens at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley have a sculpture display called Scraposaurs. 

The artist is Dale Lewis and he created these prehistoric creatures using scrap metal.