Vegas Baby!

This weekend I went to Viva Las Vegas! Oh, how I love Vegas. And as  always... had a blast. We went down there because I went to the Esthetics Convention. Amber goes to it every year and it is AWESOME! I cannot wait to go next year! That's all I need to say... What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas :)

Super Adoption

This weekend, I had the opportunity to volunteer with Salt Lake County Animal Services at their annual spring Super Adoption. It was amazing! The first morning (Friday) I showed up really early and helped load up all of the puppies and dogs that were coming. SO sad how many are in that shelter. We loaded up over 120 dogs in an hour. Crazy right. Throughout the day, I helped show the dogs to potential adopters and let them out of cages  and walked them. I do have such a soft heart... I wanted to save them all. I think I'm in the wrong business, it makes me want to go into something to help animals. One day... who knows. I still haven't picked out my career in life. HA. Saturday, the same thing...

Mother Nature is quite the bitch. It's the end of April, supposedly spring and it SNOWED on us the entire time. It was freezing! It broke my heart even more to see all of the dogs try and keep warm. This bin had at least 8 or 9 puppies crammed inside trying to keep warm. I spent all of Saturday putting coats on dogs, and taking them off when they got wet and trying to warm them up with blankets. Heart breaker.

I found a mini Brandy. I loved her!

I was SO determined to find this little girl a home! She was a little punk but she was so sweet!! She almost got adopted out 3 or 4 times but something went wrong everytime and she ended up back in her crate all sad like this.

Ellie was just bugging me one night... she kept eating the fleece I was using to make something so I gave her a taste of her own medicine. She wasn't too happy. Enjoy :)

Failed Foster

Meet Phoenix. Our sweet, sweet boy who we decided to foster from the same shelter we got Ellie. You may notice his poor ears. When he was about 5-6 months old- some cruel, awful people cut his ears off with scissors and then abandoned him. Our guess is they were trying to make him a "fight" dog and he just wasn't cut out for it (Thank goodness!) He was adopted out to a girl in September who just didn't really love him and brought him back to the shelter. I was keeping a close eye on this guy because how can you not love him?! Then around February, he was adopted out again to a family that had another male Pit and kids in the family. The family's male pit kept trying to kill the poor guy so they brought him back again. This is where I hit my breaking point, because he just couldn't catch a break. We went down to the shelter to look at potential "fosters" and to my surprise we came home with Phoenix. I really did go into it looking at him as JUST A FOSTER. I knew Dan wouldn't let me keep him because that was part of the agreement to letting me foster another. However, he stole our hearts within days. He should be the poster dog for pitbulls. Sooo sweet, sooo loving, never makes a peep, and just loves everyone. That surprised me because after the awful things that have happened to him, you would think he'd be aggressive and mean but there isn't a mean bone in this guy's body. After fostering him for only 2 weeks, we decided today that we were going to adopt him :) 

Now for his ears... they have healed completely! The picture above was taken when he first went into the shelter last fall. Here is our handsome boy now.

Much better! Right?

Who needs kids? We have 3 dogs and I LOVE them ALL!!

February 14th

My beautiful cupcake bouquet. Thanks Husband! Thanks Amber! (for making it so pretty and tasty)

The actual Valentine's Day was perfect. Sweet and Simple just how I like it :) Love you babe!

Valentine's Day & More!

Today is February 12! In my book, that is Valentine's Day! Dan and I have always celebrated on the 12th because we hate how busy everywhere is on the 14th. However, since Vday falls on a Monday it this year it was a lose-lose situation. Everywhere was busy on a Saturday night! We started the night off at Charlie Chow's. Have you ever eaten there? It's just this little hole in the wall place in Salt Lake that I would have NEVER thought to go except Dan took me there on our very first date and I have loved it ever since! I highly recommend it to EVERYONE!

I meant to take a picture when the plate was full but I destroyed these with a quickness. Make sure you get the cheese wantons! DELICIOUS

After we ate dinner we went and watched the fights with Dan's brother and his family at his mom's house. Good times, it's always so fun to see everyone. 

ALL FINISHED! Due to overwhelming response on wanting to see house pics, I FINALLY have some for everyone! I took them for my grandma and figured I might as well share so I don't have to keep emailing them out.

The Guest Bedroom

Main Bathroom

Main Bathroom again

Master Bathroom

Master Bathroom again

Master Bedroom Dresser... I have pride in this! We got a steal of a deal on KSL for it and I LOVE my decoration on it!

Master Bedroom

Above the bed

Living room when you walk in the front door

Living room

Living Room

Dining Table

Sitting Area... oh how I LOVE how this turned out!

Family Room

Kitchen.

There we have it! I love our cute little house! 

What else have I missed? A lot of things... but I need to get better at taking pictures. I suck. Last week I went to work in Idaho for a few days... the only thing I have to blog about that is this:

This was taken around 6:45 am, Ellie is actually afraid of cars but that morning she jumped in my car and wouldn't get out, she either thought she was coming or I wasn't going. It was tender.
Ellie....
How's Miss Ellie you ask? Since that is ALL I seem to talk about, let me inform you of how our little mutt is doing. I think you all know she got over her pneumonia and kennel cough. Thank god....never thought I saw a light to that tunnel. She was doing really well until Thursday when I took her in to get spayed...

It was quite the dramatic day for this little one. As usual, the anesthesia they give her (and most dogs) causes her to throw up for hours on end and then drop 10 lbs and go back to her starved, unhealthy looking self. I promise we do feed her. 

Over the past few weeks, she's also started getting bald spots so she's even more attractive to look at as if we abuse her. I figured it was food allergies since it started to appear when we switched her food. Nope... turns out she has the worst case of "mange" the vet has seen. Awesome. So now she gets to eat her food with this medicine we have to 'shoot' in with these weird things. You name it, Ellie's got it or will soon have it. If you ever need a dog medication- our house is the place to be. 

Other than that she is doing really good. She loves to ruin anything her eye catches and ripping things apart is her favorite thing ever.... here are some examples.

She actually felt pretty bad about ruining this one, due to the fact it was her favorite.

We had to take off their bed cover to wash since Ellie got sick on it and this is how she reacted to that...

Brandy's Duck...RIP

Her frog is now a piece of cloth. (I had already picked up the cotton before I decided to take a pic)

She got a hold of the candy bucket and smuggled down some Kit Kats, Ding Dongs, Ghiradellis, and other sweets. For some reason, no she didn't die from all of it.

That's all I have for now. I'm loving life! I'm so happy and hope everything continues to be great!

An Exciting Day!

Today is such an exciting day!! It's been a little over 2 weeks since we adopted little miss Ellie...

We were told that her leg would take a lot of surgeries requiring a lot of pins, needles, plates, a lot of healing time and possibly an  amputation. I'm pleased to announce that today...2 weeks from the day of her surgery- Ellie got her cast off!! And is fully healed! I was so skeptical and thought there was no way that she could be fully healed and walking on it in 2 weeks, but our vet proved us wrong! It's so exciting!

ALL BETTER!

What else has been going on in the lives of the Rack's? We had our Wedding Shower/Open House this past Saturday and it was sooo fun! Thank you EVERYONE that came and for all of our great gifts! We have the best friends. Apologies for how crazy it was all night but it was well worth seeing all of our friends and having a good time! It went from 3:00 pm until 12:15 am! LONG day but SO fun! Thank you, thank you- everyone! I didn't take pictures... I suck. But it was a good time :)

A Stressful Week

As many of you have read... we welcomed little miss Ellie into our family on Monday. Oh my gosh! I LOVE her!!! This poor girl, however, is continuing to go through some rough patches even though she has a home now. What happened??
 On Tuesday, we took her to the vet to get her official surgery to fix up her leg. It went great and our vet is awesome! It was nowhere near what we thought it would cost to get her fixed. We brought her home and she was happy as can be

This picture is poor quality but it's adorable :)

Within a few hours, little miss somehow slipped out of her cast and broke her leg again. I honestly have no idea how it happened because she was sleeping right next to me the entire time. So we splint it up to get through the night and back to the vet she went for another surgery on Wednesday morning. This is where the problems began.

The second surgery took longer than usual and I was so worried about her! Rather than the hour- hour and a half the first one took, it was 3-4 hours before we heard back. Her breathing was really unusual so the vet's kept her longer

This is when we picked her up... she wasn't very happy.

When I got home from work, Ellie was home with Dan and she was coughing and gagging every few minutes and then she would throw up. It was the saddest thing ever! To make matters worse, it hurts her even worse because of her torn stomach muscles.We finally came to the conclusion the she had come down with Kennel Cough. It's pretty common in dogs especially ones that were in shelters around other dogs, which in Ellie's case- she was. 

Rather than normal symptoms of Kennel Cough, where dogs still have a good appetite and are still eating, drinking, playing, and acting normal- Ellie was the absolute opposite. She would not eat, drink, or play with us. The first day she was so crazy and we wanted nothing more than for her to rest and chill out and then we did a 180 and were trying to do everything we could to wake her up and play with us..but she wasn't having it. Finally, I hit my breaking point after seeing her in so much pain. I loaded her up in her basket, threw her in the car and went to the vet. I don't know what came over me but the moment I stepped in I just started crying. The vet thinks I'm a basket case now. Great....

He looked her over and knew she didn't have Kennel Cough. This is what happened to her:

When she went in for surgery, she had already eaten and they are not supposed to eat within 8 hours of being put under but given it was an emergency surgery since they had to get her leg put back together they put her under anyways. During the process of the surgery Ellie aspirated and they had to hurry and flush her system causing everything to swell up including her mouth, throat, and stomach. She has the same symptoms of Kennel Cough but its not. 

This is her "car seat". We put her in it because it hurts her ribs too much to hold her in the car so she sleeps in the basket when we drive.

Brandy was jealous...

She hasn't shown too many signs of progress getting better but I'm happy to report she finally ate some food tonight (which she hasn't in 3 days) and drank a ton of water and pedialite. We got her steam ventilator to help her breath better so she doesn't have as many coughing spells and she loves it. 

This is her sleeping in front of her ventilator.

That's the Rackliff's eventful week. I'm really hoping little miss starts feeling better soon!

A New Addition to Our Family

This sweet girl.... is our new addition that we adopted today! Meet Ellie

(That poor patch on her arm is where they've had to sedate her so many times :-/  )

Words can't describe how much we love her already!
As most things have gone for us these past few months, we had no intentions on getting another dog. I've wanted one for a while because I want Brandy to have a little play mate but I didn't want one until at least spring time when we had a fence in. I've been looking for a second dog for a long time, even though I know we wouldn't get it once I found it..(I'm one of those pathetic people that checks KSL pet ads every night just to go to bed feeling awful because I can't give every pet on there a home.) However, the day I came home from Hawaii I saw this post on my friend's facebook page:

This is a little pit pup we picked up yesterday, she has obviously been hit by a car, her back right leg is broken and the other one is swollen and bruised. She is on pain management but we can do little else for her. We are looking for some help- major! We either need a willing rescue to take her or someone who is able to pay for her vet care! Anyone? Know anyone? please crosspost and share share share If we cannot figure out something for her or find the owners who let this happen to her she will be euthanized... I can't let that happen, please please share share share!!!

When I first read this it absolutely broke my heart. Literally. I felt sick to my stomach because I had a feeling she was for sure going to be put to sleep. Who honestly wants to adopt a puppy that they have to pay thousands of dollars to fix?? I know she would've found a home the next day but she was 'broken'. Fate happened to kick in and Brandy ripped her dew claw open and we had to visit the vet.
On a whim, I brought up broken legs on puppies and what kind of options we had and how much it would cost to fix and how do you rehabilitate them and how would it effect their lifestyle? I had endless questions and our vet answered all of them for me. When he put all my answers out, I realized her medical bills were something we could do and could help her get back on her feet. I thought about just paying for her surgeries, fostering her, and then finding her a home.
The next day I called the Davis County Animal Shelter and talked to my new friend Natasha (The one who rescued her). Luckily that same day I called, a group called "The Pit Crew" based out of the Salt Lake County Animal Shelter had rescued her from being put to sleep and taken her to the shelter in Salt Lake. I'm so glad I called because if they couldn't find a lead to get her adopted, they were going to amputate her leg due to the fact they don't have the equipment to fix it and they don't have the money to pay for her surgeries.


Here is Ellie's story on how she ended up in the shelter:
A really angry mom called Natasha yelling at her that there was a bloody puppy in her garage and she didn't know how it got there but she needed to come get it because it was disgusting. Natasha questioned her asking questions such as "was you garage open? do you live on a busy road? do you know who the dog could belong to?" blah blah blah and all the mom could say was "you just need to come pick it up" When Natasha arrived to pick her up she was indeed covered in blood and had what she thought 2 broken legs and she had been left in a closed garage. What she was able to uncover is the mom went out of town for the weekend and her sons had stayed home and bought a dog without permission. Not even a  day later, she had ventured outside onto their busy street they lived on and got hit by a car. The boys panicked and threw her in the garage and left her there until the mom found her!!!! The mom freaked out and didn't want anything to do with the dog and that is how she ended up at the shelter. Heartbreaking... I know!


On with the story, I played phone tag with Natasha and my other new friend John (who is located at the Salt Lake Shelter). I was able to set up an appointment for Dan and I to go meet her and to bring Brandy along to see if they got along. I didn't know what to expect when I saw her, I knew she had a broken leg and the other one was fractured so I thought she was going to have to just lay on the ground and be carried everywhere. I was 100% WRONG. What a little trooper this girl is! I fell in love IMMEDIATELY and the whole fostering plan went right out the window. She was meant for our family! When I saw her, she was in fact walking. She hobbled on her fractured leg that has stitches going all up it because they performed surgery on both legs, and used her  cast to support her up. It is the saddest sight to see at first and was actually some what emotional for me and Dan to watch her. She saw me and instantly wobbled up to me! Love Love Love! Once she came to me she went right over to Brandy and wanted to play. I was so nervous for how Brandy would react with her because the shelter was observing how Brandy acted and that determined if she would do well in our home. Brandy did so good and Ellie loved her! Despite her gimp legs and cone of shame, she's such a happy girl! Before finalizing the adoption, John sent me home with her xrays for the weekend so I could show them to my vet and get a price on her surgeries to make sure we were comfortable with them. He even told me to price out amputation because it's a good possibility we might have to amputate her leg. I'm not a vet or anything but I knew (or thought I knew) that her break wasn't even that bad and we would be fine.

Her poor right leg is broken all the way across :( 

I showed the vet my xrays on Saturday, we talked surgery and I was so excited with the news he gave me! Ellie was going to be just fine and no amputation was necessary. (I knew it!) I called him right after I left here and told him we wanted to go through with the adoption. What do you know... it was his day off so he wanted nothing to do with me. SOO I called him first thing today and set up a time to finish up the adoption papers tonight and took her home!!!!

Let's backtrack a little into the past-
I have a special place in my heart for Pitbulls. Why? Here's why- because before I started dating Dan I was against Pitbulls. I thought what all pitbull haters thought. They were fight dogs, mean, aggressive, made to attack people, horrible animals, all those things you hear everyday when you think of a Pitbull. However, when I met Dan and learned he had a pit I was really skeptic about it because I hated them. Then I met Brandy and it was love at first sight. (I even wrote a whole post about her for hell's sake- that says a lot) She is the sweetest, most loving dog ever and is the biggest wuss ever.

This Girl....

I just love!!! Since I have no kids, and will not have kids for years to come- this girl is my baby. :) Yep- I'm "that" person that posts something about her dog! Not only will you get to know about Dan & I on this blog but little miss Brandy too! She's had a rough week... just in case people wanted to know that. She has her tail wrapped in gauze and tape because she hits it so hard against things that she cut it open. How did I discover this? There were lines of blood all over my walls. Gross... She's just too happy of a dog I guess? 

Not kidding... how many of you have dogs that will smile on command? This one does! It's quite funny, but sometimes creepy because if she wants a treat she will come sit by you and just smile. 

Somehow this week, Brandy also managed to split her dew claw open a little. I could tell it was hurting her because she kept licking it and wouldn't leave it alone. Then, me being the horrible mom I am, walked too close to her on our way down the stairs and her split claw caught on the bottom of my boot and ripped it completely open. Talk about feeling awful! She cried and fell to the ground and was in absolute pain. To stop the bleeding my mom hurry and brought me some gauze and tape and we fixed her up to get her by. 

Then the next day Dan and I took her to the vet to just check it out and rather than just look at it, he ripped it right on out. Did we know this was coming? NOPE! She cried so loud and so hard in pain that my eyes teared up and I almost had to leave the room! 

I'm not kidding, I was cleaning the kitchen and when I finished I found her sleeping like this. Our carpet must be pretty cozy.

These things called "Sing-A-Ma-Jigs" were a hit this Christmas with our family. They're the stupidest thing ever. We had a purple one that was a present for our cute little nephew and Brandy eye balled it for days. I finally gave in and let her have it and she sleeps with it every night (like pictured in bed above) and takes it in the car with her, outside, and when she's hungry she even puts it in her dog dish. Pretty smart if you ask me.

That's my latest rant from the Rackliff family. Stay tuned for more.