Years End

Greetings friends and fans. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your guest reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel's ghostwriter. I want to say a heartfelt thanks to all of you who have left comforting comments on our last post about our ace reporter Chester crossing the Rainbow Bridge a couple weeks ago. I'm hoping I can write now without crying. (I'm having a really hard time with this loss.) 

It's strange not having a dog in the house. I keep looking at all the spots where Chester used to spend his time, and now he's not there. 

The Evil Squirrel Cartel is taking advantage of Chester's absence.

Hey, where's dogface? He still owes me 50,000 peanut butter sandwiches! 

Just for that, I'm putting red hot pepper on all the seeds and suet cakes in that feeder. Haha!

Moving on, in keeping Chester's tradition, I went out into the yard and I tried looking up, and looking down to find some amazing things. 

Unlike our neighbors in Buffalo NY to the west of us, we only got a thin coating of snow. The snow plow was hardly needed on our street.

Since then, we've seen some spectacular, and ever changing skies.

Today we had some warmer weather, and what was left of our snow melted.

Some of you might be wondering what will happen to The Daily Bone in the future. I hope to keep it going. After all, there are always amazing things to find right in my own yard just by looking up, and looking down. I also hope to get back to writing some more stories and finding out how I might get some novels published. 

I am still working at the nursing home, but only one day a week. I think I can handle that. It'll be nice to see my team and patients once a week. Besides, I don't think old "battle axe" nurses like me ever completely retire. 

By spring I'm thinking of maybe taking "applications" for the job of reporter here at The Daily Bone. I hope angel Chester helps me find just the right pup for the job! 

I wish everyone a Happy New Year! 

Thanks again for all the lovely tributes, and comforting words from our dear blog friends.

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You had a good life. Sleep well, Little Guy

Getting Comfortable

 Hello friends. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your diligent doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel.

Last week, Dad and ghostwriter told me that they are putting me on something called "comfort care." That means they're going to stop making me take yucky medicine. 

Phew! That's a relief!

They also said I could eat, or not eat, whatever I want. So lately ghostwriter has been giving me browned ground beef, or boiled chicken. Sometimes I just want to eat whatever my humans are eating. Some days I don't want to eat anything. 

Hey, is that chicken pot pie?

Also, I can go out whenever I want, even if I just went out ten minutes ago. And I can lead the way on some short walks, maybe halfway down the street and back, just so I can check out the pee-mail. 

Well, I'm an old guy now! It's about time I can take things easy! 

Note from ghostwriter:

For the past couple weeks, Chester was showing signs that he was nearing the end of his life. He had lost a lot of weight, was limping due to arthritis, and was becoming confused and disoriented. Trying to get him to take his medicine was at least, a struggle, and at worst almost traumatic. We decided to just let him relax, do whatever he wanted to do, and let nature take its course. The above post was written a week ago, but I never published it, since both Dad and I were busy taking care of Chester's every need. 

Today Chester was doing very poorly. I won't go into details. But we took him to the vet to help him to cross over the Rainbow Bridge so he could be with his brother Joey dog, and his sisters Miss Ginger, and Old Charisma. He went very peacefully. 

Thank you everyone at South Towne Veterinary Hospital for all of the tender loving care you gave to all of our doggies over the years. 

Update

 Hello friends. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

If you read our last post, you know my ghostwriter made a dire report on my health. I'm happy to say that I'm starting to feel better now. In fact today I did a photo shoot in the back yard, looked up and looked down to find some amazing things, and even went for a short walk. I am now ready for a new post!

Last Friday there was a big snow storm in WNY. We were lucky to be spared the multiple feet of snow that got dumped on Buffalo and areas south of us. Here's a picture of our snow that day.

I bring to your attention that there were four, count 'em FOUR, crummy rotten squirrels out there! One of them even tried to break into our squirrel-proof feeder without success. 

Today the snow is almost all gone from our yard. The sun was shining most of the day too! 

On the ground we found some beautiful red hawthorn berries among the dry leaves.

The past few nights there have been bunnies in my yard. They usually come by around 8 or 9pm. Here's a not so good picture of me confronting two of those bunnies:

Usually when we turn on the light and open the back door, they freeze into position. They don't run away until I get about five or six feet of them. Last night there was one of them practically knocking at the back door! If we manage to get some better pictures of them, we'll be sure to post them. 

And that's my report for today! Time for a nap. 

Dreaming about my bunny hunting days:

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Note from ghostwriter: Chester has been doing a little better the past couple days. The vet discontinued his Cushing's syndrome medication, and started him on an antibiotic. He's finally starting to get his appetite back. He's even started eating a little of his regular kibble which he hasn't touched in many weeks. Today he had some grilled chicken. We'll continue to keep a close watch on him spoil him, and post any changes.

Hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!

The End of Fall

Hello everyone. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

After a beautiful, wonderful, amazing autumn here in WNY, we finally had a change. Last Sunday snow was predicted. In the middle of that day, we got this:

This might look like snow, but it's actually something called graupel. 

Please refer to the following diagram for an explanation of what graupel is and how it forms.

After the graupel melted, we got some real snow.

By night time, it looked like this outside:

This all melted by morning. But there was still something interesting on the ground. Dad found a little birdie nest that had been blown out of the maple tree. If you look closely, you'll see the birdie used some dental floss, bits of fabric, a piece of scotch tape, and lots of squeaky toy stuffing. What a clever little birdie! I'm sure her babies were nice and comfy in that nest!

You'll have to excuse me now. I'm still pretty tired from my ordeal yesterday. I had to spend the entire day at the vet! Harumph!

Note from ghostwriter: Chester is now 14 years old. He was diagnosed with Cushing's syndrome about a year ago, and it was time to do some tests to make sure his medication is working properly. He also had some tests for other problems because he hasn't been eating much, and has lost a lot of weight. He stumbles around due to arthritis in his legs, hips, and back. Sometimes he just stares and whines quietly. We're still waiting for the vet to analyze all the tests and decide what to do. However, we've seen this before. It's called "old dog syndrome." Hopefully he'll have some more energy tomorrow after some  rest. We'll be sure to keep you posted. 

Mr. Bones Daily

 Hello everyone! This is The Daily Bone and I'm your trusty doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

Halloween has come and gone. Unfortunately, we didn't get many trick-or-treaters that night because it rained. Blah! Anyway, Mr. Bones Daily and his partner Ossy (aka Os Canis) did their one day of work for the year by pretending to be scary. 

Boo!

In the past few days, they've retired back to the garage. So I decided to do an interview.

Hi guys! Are you recovered from your one day of work? What are your plans for the rest of the year? They didn't have much to say, except that they were glad to be resting up from all the Halloween excitement, and were kind of bored stiff now. 

Well, you know, I said, there is something I think you might help with. Dad has been tinkering with putting together a snow plow attachment for his riding lawn mower. I mean, you spend all the rest of the year hanging around in Dad's workshop, I would think you might have picked up some knowledge on how to fix things. 

"Who me?" Mr. Bones replied. "I can't do that! I'm just a bone head!"  

More like a lazy bones, I think! So I sent them both outside to the back yard to see if they could scare the squirrels away.

Knock 'em dead guys!

Well, that's a nope! 

Sheesh! It seems like nobody wants to work these days. So it's back to Dad's shop for Mr. Bones Daily to spend the rest of the year on rigorous guard duty. More like rigor mortis, I say. 

Hey, I heard that.

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