Fat Dog

Kersey had her annual check up at the vet yesterday.  She weighed in five pounds heavier than last year.

She doesn't get table scraps; she doesn't get cookies; we have even cut back on her food.

The vet said she needs to lose weight.  We agree.  She asked how much we feed her and said we can't really cut back anymore.  She recommended a thyroid test which came back perfectly normal.  Figures.

The vet recommended we start feeding her a dog food called Fat Dog.  Seriously.  She said many lite dog foods don't have enough nutrition but she's seen good results with this one.

Brett and I were talking about it yesterday over our evening glass of wine on the porch.  Kersey was, as usual, sleeping on the porch.  We realized that since Sedona died, she just lays around.  Sedona was always in motion and Kersey followed along.  Now she lazes on the porch or in the house.

I'm going to take her on walks in the morning on the days I don't have time to ride.  We are going to see if we can interest her in fetch -- she hasn't really shown much interest up until now.  Some retriever she is!  And today, we picked up a bag of that dog food for her.

Another Barn Project

We love almost everything about the barn here at Oak Creek Ranch.  It's big, it's solid, it has great ventilation; it has a tack room, a bathroom, and a wash stall with hot water.

On the right: storage room/stall, tack room, wash stall, feed room/stall

It also has birds that nest up in the ceiling.  We've been using the two stalls on the tack room side as rooms rather than stalls.  The bigger stall is where we stacked the boxes of belongings from the house at Aspen Meadows that don't fit in this house -- primarily books.  We also store all the extra tack that accumulates over the years but for which we have no immediate need.  The birds poop all over the boxes and all the nests that fall down (or are pushed down during bird nest remodeling) fall on the boxes.  Its pretty disgusting.

The other empty stall, past the wash rack area, is used as a feed room.  We mix up the horses morning vitamins and supplements in here; it houses the cat and her food, goat supplements and the cabinet full of poultices, bandages and medications.  It was also caked in bird poop.  Those of you who know Brett well, will understand when I say that we both found the situation to be deeply unacceptable.  Brett has been thinking about how to put a ceiling or cover over the stall without it looking tacky.

While I was gone last weekend, he and our neighbor put up a ceiling.  When I got home, it was finished and Brett had cleaned the bird poop off of the table, the cabinet, my show tack box and the Rubbermaid container for extra bags of chicken and dog feed.  It looks amazing.

And it is staying clean.  Brett and Marv (the neighbor) were going to put wood siding over the ceiling to give it a more finished look.  I much prefer the open, rustic look so Brett has agreed to leave it as is.

Now we have a clean, sanitary place to mix the horses buckets and Passage has a clean bedroom.  We are loving it.