Things have been pretty busy here lately -- I'm lucky if I have time to check e-mail each day. We also had a bit of an accident last week that has kept the mood around the house a little sad...

Last Saturday (the 11th) I took the dogs out to Chatfield State Park to play in the large dog park. Once we were inside the park on the access road, apparently Lucy climbed up on the arm rest on the door with her back legs and squeezed her body through the window opening, which was only really open far enough for her head to stick out -- or so I thought. She lost her balance and fell out of the window on to the roadway. Luckly, I was only driving about 25 MPH or this would be a very sad story.

Lucy had some road rash on her head, nose and front right leg, but no apparent fractures. It's difficult to tell with puppies since their growth plates in their bones don't fuse together until 10 months of age or so, but a comparison to her other front leg didn't show any fractures. When I first stopped the car and ran up to her, although I knew an injured animal might bite me I still reached out to touch her head and comfort her. She bit the crap out of my hand and then realized who I was. She was in shock when I carried her back to the car and drove her to the emergency pet hospital.

Once the vets looked her over they told me there were no fractures but she appeared to have damaged the nerve bundle in the "arm pit" of her right leg. This nerve bundle controls motor function in the leg, and the reason she wasn't putting any weight on the front right paw was because she could not feel it. With nerve damage, there's not a good way to tell how extensive it is and they couldn't tell me if the feeling would come back at all. In fact, they advised me that in many cases the nerves are so badly damaged that they recommend amputation of the leg, since it is just limp and is dragged around. If the limp leg was injured she wouldn't even know it, and at the very least it would atrophy from lack of use.

Clearly, I needed a second opinion on this, so I took Lucy to her vet on the following Monday. The vet seemed to concur with the emergency vets' diagnosis, but she wanted to wait quite a while before we make a decision about amputation.

In the meantime, Lucy doesn't really act hurt at all. She does hop around on three legs, but I have seen real improvement in her leg and she even started reacting to pinches on the "dead" paw. We went back to the vet today and she was happy with Lucy's progress, too, but said she had consulted with a neurologist who said that in most cases if the dog cannot support her weight on the injured leg it would never be useful to her. That's our next milestone, then: to work with Lucy until she can stand with her weight on the front right leg and her rear legs. The vet wants to wait at least a month before we make any other decisions.

As much as I walk Fabi and take her to the park, she still needed more activity. Since I have to work for a living, there was not much chance of that, so I decided I would get her a companion that she could play with and wrestle with during the day while I am working.

I went down to the Colorado Puppy Rescue adoption event Saturday to get a 5-week-old black lab mix puppy that I had seen on their web site, but when I arrived and saw this cute yellow lab/Maremma sheep dog female, I knew she was the one. She's 11 weeks old and rescued from a kill shelter in Las Vegas NM. I named her Lucero, which I shortened to Lucy.

Lucy and Fabi have become good buddies and have been playing constantly since she arrived. I think I made a good choice.

I just received an e-mail from my airline notifying me that my flight from Denver to Newark on Tuesday has been cancelled. I am now traveling from Denver to Houston, and then to Newark, before flying to Glasgow.

I leave two hours earlier form Denver, and make it into Newark only 50 minutes before my flight to Scotland is supposed to take off. Who's taking bets that we'll be on time? Or that the extra flight and connection will allow me to loose my checked bag? I may just have to carry my big backpack on the plane to make sure it arrives with me.

This is not the way I wanted this holiday to begin.

Heavy snow causes travel problems

Heavy snow falling over much of England and Wales is disrupting travel - as forecasters warn of the heaviest and most widespread snow for six years.

Thanks, BBC News!

update
Apparently, I should take a pillow with me, too, since I am connecting through Newark tomorrow:

“Heavy snow may cause delays in the following U.K. and European destinations: Amsterdam, Brussels, Birmingham, Edinburgh, London-Heathrow, Manchester, Milan, and Paris-Charles De Gaulle.

Newark-Liberty Airport may experience delays and/or cancellations on 3FEB09 due to snowy conditions. Customers scheduled to travel on 3FEB09 should confirm their flight status tomorrow morning.”

Clearly it's my fault for letting her see the package sitting on the front porch when I came home this evening. She grabbed it and ran up and down the street shaking it back and forth in her mouth. I feed her only the best crack.

I was disappointed that this box of Wild Animal Crunch cereal does not contain bits of actual polar bears, nor did the adjacent box contain meerkat flesh.

I ask you this: How bad is this cereal if they cannot sell it for 75 cents at Big Lots?

The BBC is reporting that Patrick McGoohan passed away today at the age of 80.

His television series The Prisoner was one of my favorites growing up. I watched it in late-night re-airings on CBS in the 1980's and it gave me hope that television could be interesting, witty and intelligent back during a time when T.J. Hooker and Dallas were the staples of American television (and I'm not knocking T.J. Hooker, either).

My favorite part of The Prisoner was that you never knew whether the writers were trying to make a point about politics of the 1960's, attempting to be slightly subversive while maintaining their dignified British personalities, or just smoking a lot of pot -- the answer is: all of the above (in my opinion).

I purchased the entire series on DVD a few years ago and still watch an episode or two every few months when I need to be cheered up.

(photo credit: BBC / Rex Features)