Quick Update

Here's a quick update with a few pictures and videos. The pictures aren't the greatest yet, we're still slowly putting the apartment together, and hopefully we can get our household shipment sometime this week to finish it off! Our shipment was in Naples as of May 15th, so we'll be calling them to set up a time to get it over here. Caleb's birthday friday was a blast. We had Shane, Aubree and their new baby Alexis over that afternoon. We did a few things in the morning, then decorated the apartment and just hung out and played. Caleb loved all of his gifts and took advantage of the sweets I baked! I made him a triple chocolate fudge cake (upon his and Michael's request haha), rice crispy treats, and peanut butter cookies. We had baked beans, mac and cheese, and grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. After dinner we all went for a walk and it was a beautiful night. As much as Caleb loves his new toys, it'll be great when our household shipment gets delivered so he can have ALL of his stuff back! The video of him playing his new drum set is the first time he sat down the play. Pay close attention not only to what he's playing, but also how he's playing it. He actually had a beat going, and at the end it sounds like he does a finish. It was awesome. So let me try to explain a little about the pictures. If you read my last post I've already described what the apartment looks like, so these pictures just go along with that. Like I said it's not the greatest, but when we get all of our stuff and are able to "officially" settle in (meaning we don't have borrowed furniture stashed everywhere) then I'll get some updated pictures up. The blue couches, any of the light brown tables/chairs, and the beds are loaner furniture that will be going back the day they come drop off our household shipment. The dark brown couches and coffee table are our own furniture we just purchased. Caleb's new bed is in the process of getting put together, Michael and I still need to look at beds, and we'll be getting a nice area rug in a couple weeks as well as a couple other little things. Now most of you are probably looking at these pictures/videos, and the last thing you're thinking about is the furniture. Yes, we have another dog. Surprise! Definately wasn't planned, but we're glad we have him. His name is Sucre (pronounced su-kray), he's just about a month old, and I couldn't tell you what breed he is. From what we and the vet can figure out, it looks like he might have some german shepherd and maybe some chow and a little husky. We'll never know what he is, but he's the softest little ball of fur and he took to all of us really well. So this is what happened. Michael's working the other day, and they get a call from a lady who said there's been a cardboard box with some puppies in it abandoned outside in the sun for quite some time now, by one of the buildings on base. So they went to investigate and found three weak, malnourished, sickly puppies that were covered in their own pee and poop for who knows how long. When Michael went to pick up the box is completely fell apart in his hands it was so bad. Now they tried to call the vet on base but there's nothing this vet can do when it comes to abandoned dogs. Any dog on base gets micro-chipped by the vet and has to be reported, so unless someone were to take in an abandoned dog, they're shit out of luck. They were told to make another phone call but then also found out that they are allowed to take in strays, which is when they called me. No-one had really looked too closely or done anything with the puppies yet, so when the guys told me about them I said I'd get them all cleaned up and hang onto them until they were done with work, and then we could work on getting them adopted out. So Michael and his co-worker drove over with the box of puppies and I took them upstairs to get started while Caleb was napping. I've never seen a dog in this bad of shape before, let alone three, except for on those animal cop shows on tv. I cannot believe anyone could do something like that to those little puppies, they didn't look good at all and were barely moving. We could tell they were too young to be away from mom already. Michael had pointed one of the puppies out when he gave me the box and mentioned about us maybe taking him (which is Sucre), so I took that puppy out first and put him in the bathtub to get started. I've never seen a tick before besides on the discovery channel. Let's just say I had to call Michael and his buddy to come back and pick the puppies up because it was just way too much for me to do by myself, with no tools, on the bathroom floor, with a child in the house (thankfully Caleb was sleeping through all of this). It was when I had started giving the puppy a bath and checking him for fleas that I realized that he had ticks. A whole lot of ticks. So Michael and his buddy came back and I told them what happened. After we talked for a minute we decided that Michael and I would keep the one puppy Michael had pointed out and claim him so that we could take him to the vet. His buddy said that he would take one of the other puppies he had had his eye on and would keep it as his own. It wasn't until after Michael got home that I found out one of their co-workers volunteered to claim the last puppy so he could take it to the vet and get help, and he said that he would take care of it until someone decides to adopt it. This was great news because if they had made that other phone call when the first found the puppies, they wouldn't be alive. So I called the vet when I got back upstairs and told them about Sucre. They said the first appointment they had available was in about a month, so unfortunately there wasn't much they could help with right now and we'd have to wait until then. So I put him in the bathtub to try to clean him up before I was going to tackle the fleas and ticks myself. When I lifted up his ear to wash it, there was a tick about the size of a grape, surrounded by about 7 or 8 more ticks. I won't get into anymore details, but that was just the beginning. I called the vet and told them everything I found and by the time I was done they told me to come right over. I wrapped Sucre in a towel, grabbed Caleb, and we walked to the vet. They knew where the puppy came from, they remembered getting a phone call that morning about the puppies, so they were all very helpful in taking care of him and everyone wanted to meet him and pet him even though he was covered in all sorts of bugs and crap. They checked him over and said he was only maybe a month old and shouldn't have been away from mom yet, they checked his temperature and they weighed him (he was 3lbs 4ounces). The veterinary assistant began pulling out ticks and even the vet himself came in a few times to check on the puppy and see how things were going. After they finished they gave him wormer, we set up our next appointment, they played with him for a little while, then they gave us a big can of dog food to help get us started and sent us home. Basically to make a long story short, everything has worked out great, and Sucre is making a full recovery. Thankfully, he slowly started to eat the wet dog food and is now eating dry puppy chow as well. He had worms so bad that when he pooped it looked like he was pooping white noodles, there wasn't even any poop to it, but the medicine they gave him took care of everything and he's functioning normal now. By the time everything was done, I added up the ticks the vet had pulled out, as well as a few I had taken out myself, and it came out to over 30 ticks. The only other issue we had with Sucre is that he had fleas, but because he was so young and especially weak, the vet said not to use any flea treatments until the next appointment June 13th. They couldn't do anything to help except for try to pick off fleas when they saw them. That's a long time to wait and have a puppy running around with fleas, so I did some research and found a few all-natural home remedies to get rid of fleas. I picked three and tried them, and we're happy to announce that they're working. It's not an overnight fix, I have to keep working at it, but every day is getting better and better. So now when Rocky finally gets out here with us he'll have a brother. That's our story, or a short version of it. We hope you all enjoy the pictures and videos.