Pounds and Puppies.
Well, I’ve gotten a puppy, yes, another dog. We tried a fourth dog, a rescue older un-neutered male on impulse earlier this summer, and he wasn’t a good fit, that, and some neighbours turned us in for being extra barky, and the city came and wagged their finger at us for having 4 dogs. Prince was a sweet little rat terrier boy, and it broke my heart to re-home him. Why a second stab at a fourth dog? Well, a few reasons, one, we’ve decided that we’d like to breed Luna, and after much thought, decided we’d like to have our own stud, and if we enjoy doing the puppy thing, maybe even get a second female later on. Multiple dogs means kennel license, or some such, and since we’re going to be moving most likely next year to the Island we’ll look for a place we can do that. I would have waited a bit, but the stud of my dreams came available at an amazing price, and I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. I didn’t want to breed Luna to another pug, because the head size and shape means it’s often a difficult delivery, requiring c-section and putting the bitch at risk. Luna is a good healthy wide girl, but still, I decided after a lot of research, I wanted to go along the line of the hybrid chug - chihuahua crossed with pug. Smaller pups, smaller heads, safer for Luna. Now, I’m uber fond of brindle. I’m a brindle fan. So ideally I wanted a largish brindle chihuahua stud. Lo, I come across an ad for two chipins, a chihuahua cross minpin, meaning they are going to be a decent size, around 10lbs, two brindle boys. We went to see them, and wow, what amazingly sweet little guys. So, home we came with our little brindle chipin puppy, Max.
So, we’re quadruple dogged now, and he is an amazing little guy. Very well behaved, mellow, intelligent, cuddly, quiet little love. I tell you, puppies are good medicine, he brings joy and warmth to my heart, and the other three dogs all love him. He fits in really well into the mix, and I think with his mellow subby nature, is going to mesh well with the ‘pack’.
On another note, the pounds are coming off, it’s tomorrow will be a week, and the scale this morning has given me a loss of 3.5lbs for the 6 days, I expect about the same tomorrow morning, or a slight drop. I got to the pool a couple of times this week, and have found that even though on land I can barely move much of the time due to pain and muscle fatigue, in the water, I can go and go. So first pool workout I swam for an hour, leisurely laps, and todays, I swam for an hour and 45 minutes of leisurely laps (I do breast stroke but keep my head above water the whole time, or kickboard), and then half an hour of an aqua aerobics class afterwards. It’s nice to -do- something. It’s amazing though that I feel the difference and increase in discomfort right away getting out of the pool, and the ease getting in, makes me want to remain aquatic! The hot tub and the sauna, so good on my sore body too. The fact that ‘weightlessness’ is easing my pain, makes me think that weight loss is probably a good idea in terms of dealing with my health issues too, a decrease in pain from losing some weight would be nice. I’m very focused on keeping really good nutrition while I’m losing, I don’t want to compromise my health in any way, so it’s been good supplementation and good basic healthy foods, making sure I have a really clean diet, and enough of all my macro and micro nutrients.
I’ve been looking at a local organic food delivery service, and very tempted to take it even further, and clean up my diet even more, the problem is our budget is really tight right now, and increasing the cost of groceries to go organic is a tough sell. I’m tempted to go organic diet with everything, veggies and meat, etc. It’s readily available via Ladybug Organics and they deliver not only produce, but a full grocery selection of quality healthy organic foods. I could make a switch over to a totally organic diet via their grocery service very easily. Just one more reason why we need to downsize our bills, like mortgage, hence the move, so we can do things like this to improve the quality of life. I’m a firm believer if it’s not broke don’t fix it, before, I was healthy, my diet was healthy, and it wasn’t as healthy as it could be, but I felt it was ‘good enough’, but now.. it is broke, I’m not healthy, and even though diet likely can’t ‘cure’ what is wrong with me, I believe in altering all the factors I can to give me the best possible outlook.
Believe me, pain, is a -substantial- motivator. I understand how people can get sucked into quack cures when they have incurable situations. You’re willing to give lots of things a try in order to make a positive change.
I have a feeling I may be exercising in the pool a lot now, because the pain melts away in the water.
Means one of the concerns with relocating, is needing to find a home that’s not too far away from a community pool. I definitely need to be able to exercise.
Okay, fingers and arms are killing me from the typing, I can swim for almost 2 hours, but I tell you, typing is evil in making my arms and hands ache. I’m out, time to snuggle with a sleepy puppy.