Bum (I mean, Ball) Action

We had the best snowstorm of the year!
Sophie is in heaven because she finally got
some proper ball action.
She's not allowed to chase the pink orb anymore,
but with 24 cm of the fluffy white stuff,
dive bombing for it is just as good.

I wish I had video of this, but if you scroll through them fast enough, it might just look like stop action.

Tigre

Sophie is actively considering all your suggestions,
with her head in a snow bank (photos to follow soon).

In the meantime, please visit one of her
oldest and dearest friends.
They have never been in the same room,
but I'm sure they wouldn't
completely hate each if they met face to face.

This is Tigre.

She has, of late, fallen off the blogdar and we miss her.
http://ifyoutry.blogspot.com/

*****

P.S. I love the idea of getting Sophie a chicken,
since that is her nickname.

A Sister for Sophie?

That's right. Ever since she got home, she's been
talking about getting a dog. I honestly don't know
where these ideas come from.

Maybe it was all those dogs at the spa.
I don't know.
I keep telling her, be patient. She has the next best
thing to her very own dog hanging around ever other
day, but she just won't stop harping on about it.

Sophie is pretty sure she knows exactly
what kind of dog she wants, but she has been known
to make decisions in haste.

She's learned nothing from her fortune cookie lesson!
So I thought I'd put it out there
and see what y'all think.

What kind of dog should Sophie get?

Sophie's Good Fortune

We had Chinese food tonight and as usual,
Sophie got her very own cookie and fortune.

Of course, she almost swallowed it in her haste
to get the cookie down the hatch.

Happy Blog Day!


It has been one full year of Sophie's blog. I meant to compile a montage, complete with soundtrack, of the highs and lows, the peaks and valleys, the tears and laughter, but alas, I did not. Sophie would shun such displays anyway. She tends to be a very in-the-moment kind of beast, giving not a moment's thought to the past nor a sniff for the future. In fact, I find her long term planning skills greatly lacking and she rarely seems to learn from her mistakes. (i.e.: She will roll in cat poo everytime, even though the final outcome is always a bath.)

In lieu of the celebratory montage, I will instead repost her very first blog photo. It is commonly referred to as her Olympic photo, taken as Sophie reclined on her red Olympic rug to watch Canada rack up the medals in speed skating.

_________



p.s. One more day to Sophie! Her spa vacation ends tomorrow, which means I can finally go home. New York has been great, Park Slope has been lovely, and the company terrific, but the next time Sophie decides she needs time to herself, she's taking me with her.

Boo Hoo
I miss Sophie.

On the other hand,
I just saw Grey Gardens on Broadway.
Fabulous!
da-da-da-da-dum

In lieu of Sophie,

here are but a few of the estimated
one million dogs in New York City

For the record, Sophie would disown me if I put her in this garb.

Woo Hoo
Sophie won Blog of the Day!

I only wish she hadn't gone on vacation,
so I could give her a big hug.

For the record, Sophie hates hugs.
Well, she doesn't really hate them
so much as tolerate them.
I think she really wants to like them,
but just doesn't know how.
Maybe if I dressed up like a giant tennis ball...

If only she understood that me hugging her is
not unlike when she tries to pick up Minette,
the neighbour cat, by the head.
She really doesn't mean to freak her out;
she just wants to see what she feels like ....
and of course say, congratulations kitty/doggie,
You won Blog of the Day!

On Vacation

Sophie needed a break. She's been working hard and thought she deserved a week at the spa. She's living the life of luxury at Possum Place, a wonderful retreat in the country where she is bunking with a lovely Portuguese Water Dog (possibly named Sasha). Having been abandoned by my beast, I went to NY.

Delusions of ... well ... not Grandeur, exactly.

Both of Sophie's dog beds are in the wash.

Sophie's Speedy Recovery from Surgery

Truthfully, it hasn't been that speedy,
and according to her trained medical professionals,

not speedy enough.

She had her x-rays this morning and
everything looks fine,
but she has not been healing as quickly
as they would like, and they do believe she
has probably been a bit too active.


It's not terrible and it's not even not great.
It's just not perfect.


SO ....
Sophie is still on a reduced activity load.
She still can't really run and jump and play,
and definitely NO TENNIS BALLS!

But she can roll in the snow so her mission continues.

ReFOCUS

Sophie has grown weary of her
"quest for comments" mission
and has decided to take on a new challenge.

After much contemplation,
she settled on rolling in the snow.
-----
Not that this is much of a challenge for her.
The challenge really is for me.

Try photographing a dog wiggling around in the snow
in -15, with icy winds that make it feel like -26,
(according to the Weather widget on my desktop)
while wearing gigantic mittens.

But the time I was able to properly zoom out
to accommodate the action,
she was off.

Sophie's Blog Picked up for
Another Season

It's been like sweeps week over here to try to boost Sophie's flagging ratings. She's always been jealous of Tigre's oversea's attention, so we set out to even up the comments.

Our strategy? Hit the dog blogs.

Who knew there would be so many? Over the past few days, I've seen hundreds of dogs, each one better dressed than the next ... and some quite skilled on the treadmill.


Mr. and Mrs. Rusty Reed are definitely the highlight of our tour.

Brilliant!

(click here for more)

What else can I say?

Yes, it's beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you have any idea how frickin' cold it is?
No?
Well let me tell you.
It's so cold that Sophie won't to go out to poop.
She's just going to hold it until spring.

For those of you who want something more precise,
it's -18,
which in itself is not so bad except that with the wind chill,
it FEELS LIKE -31.

That's celsius, of course,
but for you Americans reading this, it is truly as cold as it sounds.

Brrrrrrrr.

Wanna Be My Friend?

Sophie joined Dogster today, mostly because I am procrastinating.

Dogstar is a massive, world-wide collection of dogs.
http://www.dogster.com/dogs/471973

It's Friendster for Dogs.
Remember Friendster? Does Friendster still exist?
Does anyone still have a Friendster account?

Anyway
I made it Sophie's mission on Dogster to collect Pup Pals (TM?) also named Sophie.
It seems a plausible mission and as good a reason as any to collect dog friends online.

Within moments of signing up, another dog recruited her! How exciting.
It wasn't a Sophie, but an Emma Peel.

Close enough. A friend is a friend, after all.
I thought it must have been Sophie's beautiful photo,
her impressive bio or maybe her recent surgery.
Whatever the case, I immediately accepted Emma's paw in friendship.
Emma is a gorgeous Swiss dog, who actually lives in Switzerland.
How cool! Sophie's first Dogster Pup Pal.

Ah yes...
Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that
Sophie is Emma's Pup Pal #5382!
Sophie hasn't even sniffed that many butts in her life.
Oh well. I guess Sophie will have to learn to be one of a crowd
instead of one of a kind.


On the other hand, if you know any dogs named Sophie .....

Sophie's Adventures with TPLO Surgery


As Week 7 draws to a close, we are anxiously anticipating Sophie's x-rays next week, which are sure to tell us that she can resume her life of chasing the tennis ball and attacking other dogs.
(Well, Schnauzer's at least).

Sophie, herself, is not anticipating the x-rays. She hates the prospect of being lifted up onto a table to have her picture taken and has been known to release her anal glands mid-hoist. I like to think of it as a cleanse.

Fingers crossed.
She seems to feel great. Let's hope she photographs well too.

Uncle Ted Pays a Visit

This is Sophie's favourite uncle, Ted. She thinks he's the bomb.
She's always had a thing for men and this one holds
the number one spot on her fave guy list.


***


Ted claims he came all the way to Montreal just to see Sophie.
Of course, that's a bold-faced lie.
He really came to Montreal to see Cha Cha.




Sophie, of course, became very depressed.




After several seconds of brooding,
she flew into a jealous rage and launched an attack
so viscous and brutal that everyone present is still recovering.


It was bad ... very, very bad .... and ugly.
Cha Cha was hurt.


***


Fortunately, Uncle Ted had taken time out from his Ph.D. research
to learn doggie chiropracty and worked his magic on Cha Cha's neck.




Despite a bruised ego from having been savagely attacked by the
beautiful but dangerous Sophie Brador,
Cha Cha held her head high as she made her exit.



We are all looking forward to Uncle Ted's next visit.

Sophie has been maintaining high spirits
throughout her convalescence.
Cha Cha stops by occasionally and there are
moments of extreme play.

But mostly, she's taking a rather zen-like approach to life.

Cha Cha, as you can see, is a zen master.

A special shout out to Tigre and the crew.

Cha Cha stopped by for a visit.
No photos to prove it, but she was here.
Sophie chewed her head a bit and they
played tug-a-war with a stuffed chicken.

The long overdue blog update.

Much has happened since Sophie last graced the screen.

She's been quite busy, in fact.
She traveled extensively over the holidays, venturing off to a far away
land known as Ontario to spend the season with her wee toddler
friends who periodically mauled her, ignored her or wiped snot on her.

And that was only half the adventure.

She also stayed in two hotels, was stranded on the highway,

refused a ride by a CAA tow truck driver on Christmas day,
despite the halo on her head which clearly indicated her heavenly status,
returned to the toddlers who in turn,
returned to periodically mauling her, ignoring her, and snotting on her.

At the end of it all, she returned to Montreal, had her staples removed,
retired the cone and took up her position on the bed.
She leaves this spot to eat and chew bones.
She seems to think she's earned it.
She probably has.


On the medical front, so far so good.
Aside from her superior attitude, she seems to be coping quite well
with her reduced activity load. Only five more weeks to go.

Look at that sexy leg!



Sophie's big, ugly, green bandage came off
a couple of days ago
and it's been mayhem ever since.

From her perspective, I've ceased to dress her in this ridiculously
movement inhibiting outfit so LET'S GO OUT!






But the cone. Damn the cone!





I think it rolls over in Sophie's brain like this:
Tis the season ... I've lost my mind and I'm making her wear a halo.

(please download and colour)



From a medical standpoint, and according to the
surgical technician, her incision looks great.


To me, it just looks like she's stapled together.
For the queasy amongst you, you may
wish to not view the following photo,
although in the age of popular forensic science,
is such a warning even necessary?




This pic is actually pretty tame in comparison to prime time TV.
The only difference is, this is REAL!!

Sophie is doing very well today.
Our stand off over the litter box has ended
and she has succumbed to relieving herself
in this unspeakable place.

Sorry, no photos to prove she's doing her business.
(pause briefly to allow for resounding groans of disappointment.)
You'll just have to take my word for it.

Yes, it's been a good day for Sophie.
Two of her favourite aunties came over to visit.
She was so excited to see them that she almost
wiggled her big, ugly green bandage off.
It could not have been too soon for me
since that thing is getting a bit stinky.

It comes off bright and early Monday morning,
which is sure to be the first and best
birthday present of the day for me.
The next batch of photos should be of her lovely pink leg.
I'll spare you all the incision since I'm not too keen on seeing it myself.

And a side note: Hi Bosco and Jodene! It's great to hear from you. Of course Sophie would remember you. How could she forget a dog who waves and a person who took her for fabulous off leash walks? I hope Bosco doesn't have to go through the surgery, but if he does, it's not all that bad. It's very boring for Sophie and expensive for me, but I don't think she's in much pain at all. She just isn't very happy lazing about and doing nothing all day. We live in a second floor condo, but it's on a park and she's used to two big runs each day. Of course, that's how she tore her ACL. Fortunately, she's in great shape otherwise and that should help her recovery. Give Bosco a big hug from me and keep me posted on how he's doing.

Since arriving home from the hospital,
Sophie has been eating like a trooper.

Unfortunately, she hasn't been pooping like one.

Here she is investigating her outdoor litter box (pre-surgery)
... the realities of living on a second floor.
She can't use the stairs for two months so she has no choice.

The good news is, after two days, she finally pooped.
It was late last night and she immediately tried to bury it.
I think she was mortified by the whole experience.
I'm putting my condo on the market in January.

TPLO

This is the name of the surgery Sophie just had to repair a torn ACL,
which is more or less, the ligament in her knee.

It stands for Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy and if you are interested in exploring further, there is a complete explanation and a lot of non-gross photos on this website: http://vetsurgerycentral.com/tplo.htm

The really important thing to know is that
Sophie will now beep if she goes through airport security.


She had the surgery on Tuesday, December 12 and came home from
the doggie hospital this afternoon. She seems good, happy to be home,
but definitely not happy about the cone.

Today, she starts the first of 60 long days of complete inactivity.
It's anyone's guess which one of us loses our mind first.
I'm betting on me.

So much has happened since Sophie last blogged ..... and she's on her way back to tell you all about it. Here she was enroute to share some of her adventures when she got just a little bit sidetracked by Cha Cha.
Damn that Cha Cha!

So much has happened that Sophie has even come to love Cha Cha just a little.


Stay tuned for more furry fun .... Beginning next week, Sophie invites you to join her on one of her biggest adventures yet. She won't win a million dollars, but you might!