dog | Patton's Diary

Piper and Mina: Adventures of Two Playful Rhodesian Ridgebacks

Patton had been writing his diary for many years, and I know he would not approve of his platform getting dusty and forgotten. So, let me introduce you to the crazy duo who will be taking over his diary.

Meet Piper. She’s a 5-year old Rhodesian Ridgeback. She’s the perpetual “baby” and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Next up is Mina. She’s a 1.5-year old Rhodesian Ridgeback. Mina is Piper’s half sister (they have the same sire). She is by far the most entertaining of the two. She is always up for some fun!

We are currently in a little heat wave here in East Tennessee. The girls have been spending time enjoying the water features available at daycare. They have splash pads, fountains and plenty of wading pools!

It sucks getting old

Posted on July 5, 2021 by Patton B

Well friends, it’s official, it sucks getting old. As of this writing I am around 13.5 years old – pretty old for a large dog. Overall, I have been a very healthy pup, very few issues or illness. However, earlier this year my age started catching up to me.

It started out simple enough with a slight limp on my right hind leg. Mom figured arthritis and she was correct, but that was only the start. Turns out I probably had a partial tear in my CCL as well. Even with medication, my limp wasn’t improving, in fact, it go worse. That lead to mom doing tons of research on CCL injuries. Of course lots of information was about surgical options. Mom really didn’t want to go that route due to my age and the recovery time involved.

She finally came across “conservative management” options. This was all about supplements, braces, limiting actives, etc. This sounded like a good option. Thus, I got a brace for my injured leg. I wore it some and it did seem to help but getting it adjusted for a perfect fit was difficult.

*Giving mom the “stink eye” because I have to wear this brace.*

After about 3 months, I was getting around good. Still had a little bit of a limp, but it wasn’t to too bad. Unfortunately my other leg had been taking a lot of extra abuse to compensate for the injury to the first leg. This lead to me blowing out my other knee! Now I was really in a pickle!

Mom bumped up my medications (she had been weaning me off of some) and kept adding to my supplements. It took about a month, but I’m able to walk again – but I still have a noticeable limp. Mom says if we can keep making improvements and avoid any additional injuries to my hind legs… well, I might just be almost as good as “new” in another 6-12 months. I know that sounds like a long time, but it will be worth it! Right now, I am enjoying being pampered.

Beach Trip Update

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Patton B

Hi Everyone! As I mentioned, I got to go to the beach last month! My pawrents, myself & Pixie spent a week on St George Island, Florida. Turns out I like the beach and ocean very much! Pixie was not as thrilled. She isn’t a fan of the water in the first place and the ocean winds were causing sand to blow up against her tummy & face. Guess there is a benefit to being a bigger dog after all.

Mom says she will think about going back next year – have to work on saving up for another vacation. I’m all for it! The worst thing about vacation is the car ride. I don’t mind riding, I can sleep 99% of the time, but I get bored that last 1%. AND I don’t like the rest stop areas… they freak me out! So many strange people, cars and those tractor trailers!

Any way, I thought you might like to see a few of my beach trip photos, so here you go! Hope you enjoy looking at them.

One of our first walks on the beach

Enjoying the calm water near the jettie

Out on a sand bar, walking in the surf

Pixie checking out the “wreckage”

Pixie & I getting our paws wet

Too Much of Anything is No Good

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Patton B

Mom kept telling me “Patton, too much of anything is no good.” Did I listen to her? Nope, I didn’t. I guess I should have because she might have been onto something.

Remember me raving about how I love this time of year? All the wonderful goodies that Santa brings me? Well, I overindulged in some of those goodies. They were wonderful going down and all was good for a while… then 3:30am rolled around.

I had a rumbly in my tumbly… I thought if I got up and walked around a little, maybe my stomach would feel better. It didn’t work. Mom thought I was being my normal guard dog self. Figured that I wanted to go outside to simply patrol the yard perimeter. So she told me to hop back up on the bed and go to sleep.

I was a good boy, did what she asked me to. She rubbed my ears to help me settle down. (I ADORE ear rubs!) Then I started yawning… and then I started licking my lips. That got mom’s attention super fast. She leaped out of bed at the same time she was asking me if I needed to go outside. Well duh! That was a stupid question. Yes I needed to go outside, I was going to be sick!

We raced down the hall to the deck door. While mom was unlocking it… well, it was too late. I got sick 😦 I still wanted to go out, so mom let me out in the yard while she cleaned things up. When I came inside, mom snuggled with me in my favorite chair for a little while before we went back to bed.

Needless to say, I wasn’t so treat obsessed yesterday. Sleeping seemed to make more sense, you know take things easy. Tonight, I’m working on getting back on a “normal” treat schedule. I’m back to being a cookie monster!

Rub-a-dub-dub

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Patton B

Rub-a-dub-dub,

Big Patton in a tub,

And how do you think he got there?

Well, I’ll tell you how I got there… I hopped right in!

Mom said today was bath day for Pixie & myself. She said we were stankie, stankie, stankie! In other words… we smelled like dogs! BOL!!

I don’t mind taking baths, that’s the reason I will just hop right into the tub when mom asks me too. I love the water in any shape or form. Pixie on the other hand… well let’s just say that bath time is NOT her favorite time. She will try to hide from mom and then she’ll try to jump out of the tub before she is even soaped up! Of course, Pixie & I both enjoy the after bath time. We both are usually all hyper and ready to play. We have a blast romping around after taking a bath.

Where Did Fall Go?

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Patton B

Where did fall go? On Tuesday it was a nice toasty 82 degrees. Then a cold front came through Tuesday night and brought rain and thunder with it. Then right behind it came the cold weather! I mean on Wednesday our temperature was almost 40 degrees cooler than it was the day before.

Mom saw on Facebook that Mt LeConte received about an inch of snow on Tuesday afternoon. And today it was 24 degrees there this morning! Woof! That is very cold!! Pixie agrees about the cold… as much as she hates having her sweater put on her skinny self, she sure does enjoy it once it is on her.

I think Mr Sunshine is supposed to reappear this weekend and get the temperatures back to “normal”. Mom says she can’t wait, but she isn’t thrilled about raking all the leaves that are starting to fall.

January – March 2011

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Patton B

I get my point across
January 23rd 2011 5:30 pm

I have pretty much perfected the art of getting my point across to my humans. If there’s something on the counter, stove top, or in the refrigerator that I want… we’ll let’s just say I know how to let the humans know.

I started this little “trick” back many months ago when mom made hot dogs for dinner & didn’t share. Back then I just would sit in front of what I wanted & stare. Well, that worked OK, but not well enough. Now I figured out how to super charge my demands.

See it goes like this. There’s a tub of dog cookies on the kitchen counter. I want some cookies. The humans don’t seem to understand that I need to have dessert after my dinner and a bedtime snack too. So I start out with the original sit & stare. Sometime this gets noticed, but more times than not, the peeps are more interested in whatever is on that stupid TV. So that means it is time to super charge my demand.

Super charging means that I take the above mentioned technique and add a very low growl to it. Mom almost always hears it. I think she has hearing close to us pups. She can hear EVERYTHING! Even the things us pups don’t want her to hear us doing. Anyway, the growl gets noticed 99% of the time. Of course this just amuses mom to no great end. But mom is mean. She won’t immediately get me the item that I am requesting. Nope, she makes me wait. Sometimes it’s only a few minutes and sometimes it’s as long as 30 minutes. But 9 times out of 10 I get the item I requested. If I don’t get that item, I at least get some sort of reward. Mom thinks that I’m starting to be scary smart!

My ruff year
January 28th 2011 10:24 am

This past year has been a ruff one for me & my family. Some of you may remember that I lost my best play buddy, my sister Annie, to a sudden brain tumor back in March. I still miss her 😦 I was so depressed mom adopted Pixie to be my companion & playmate. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pixie, but she sure isn’t an Annie.

Things went fairly well until summer. Then my big sis Abby got pancreatitis. She felt so bad, but she eventually bounced back. You could tell her age & health issues were slowly creeping up on her.

Then things really took a nose dive in December. Abby got sick again, she’d suddenly lost weight. Mom took her back to the vet, and got the devastating news that Abby had cancer. Things didn’t look good.

Then right before Christmas, mom went out for a quick shopping trip after we had eaten our dinner. When she got home, she gave us treats. We LOVE treats. But my brother Ty didn’t want his and he was acting strange. Mom touched is sides and she knew what was wrong. He had bloat. Off to the after hours pet clinic for emergency surgery!

January rolls around and it seems like all we were getting was snow. Abby’s health was continuing to decline. She lost her battle with cancer on the 10th. That same day, my kitty brother, Pip, went to the vet with an UTI.

Pip sort of recovered from the UTI but something else was going on. Back to the vet he went. He stayed there for a week. Nothing the vets tried worked. He went to the Rainbow Bridge on the 25th of this month to join Annie & Abby.

Mom & I say enough is enough! It’s time to turn things around and only have good, happy, positive things happen! That’s my wish for the rest of the year, not only for my family, but for all my pals & their families too!!

In Memory of Abby

In Memory of Pip

Patton 2.0
February 7th 2011 6:56 pm

One of my friends has a mom that has been feeling a little sad. Well, I like to think that my stories can help cheer her up & make her smile. So I’m dedicating this tale to her. *paws crossed that it works*

Patton 2.0
He’s brighter, stronger, smarter…. He’s Patton 2.0

I’ve been working on being annoying and cute, all at the same time. I have been programmed to wake up at 6:45 every day and I mean every day. I don’t know the meaning of sleeping in on a weekend.

At 6:35am, I hop off the bed and make a perimeter patrol around the inside of the house. All looks well, so I hop back on the bed. Did I mention that my bouncing on/off has woken up my mom? And she isn’t pleased.

6:40 am – I start making sure that mom does not oversleep. You know some one has to put in the hours to make sure I have plenty of kibble, cookies and toys to enjoy. I make sure mom doesn’t oversleep by doing a few assorted things.

1) I lay my chin on her shoulder & snort in her ear. If mom wasn’t trying to sleep, she would thing this is cute. This usually results in her turning over and putting her back to me. I’m pretty sure she’s muttering about how she still has 5 minutes to sleep.

2) I continue with the staring routine and add in the super cute “wiggle waggly tail”. This is a fairly simple move. I just wag my curly tail like a rattle snake. I make sure I put lots of effort into it too. This will make the bed shake and earn me more muttering.

3) If all else fails, it’s time to break out the heavy guns. And that is simply my body weight. I will drape myself over mom’s side. Most of the time, this makes her roll over onto her back. This gives me the perfect chance to make my move. I stand up and sit back down on her chest!

Option #3 yields the best results to date. Mom usually start squealing that I’m suffocating her. Ha! I know better than that. If she can’t breath, she can’t squeal. I reward her with a nice sloppy smooch. And… well, if she starts rubbing my ears and scratching my head I will move off of her. By this time, the alarm clock is playing some sort of annoying music. This means it is kibble time.

I prance down the hallway, snag a toy out of my toy box and continue into the living room while I sling my toy around. Oh happy morning! It’s kibble time!!

However, I will admit that weekends do require some extra work. Mom is much more stubborn on the weekends. Every now and then I’ll toss her a bone and let her sleep until 8:30am.

Maybe Patton 3.0 will figure out a way to fix the weekend “bug”.

Scary night
February 9th 2011 10:32 am

I had a scary night last night. It started out normal enough, eating my kibble, getting a treat, snuggling on the couch. Then it happened. My brother Ty had a seizure.

Now mind you the ER vet told the pawrents that he’d had several while he was there having emergency surgery for bloat (right before Christmas). Since he’d never had them before, this was sort of chalked up to the stress & medicines he was on at the ER. He was put on phenobarbitol to control the seizures, “just in case”. Well our regular vet was working on weaning Ty off the phenobarb since he hadn’t had any seizures or signs of them. Next week would have been his last week on the medicine.

Mom took Ty to work with her today so she can keep a watch on him. And to keep him safe from me. See, I got really upset last night when I saw him having the seizure. After Ty recovered from the seizure, I would growl at him anytime he came close to me. I even had my hackles up. By the time bedtime rolled around, I had pretty much calmed down. But to be on the safe side, mom thought a day apart might not be a bad idea, especially if there was the slightest chance that Ty might have another seizure.

So after speaking with the vet this morning, the decision has been made to keep Ty on the phenobarb permanently. And his dosage will be increase to 2 pills a day. Hopefully this will prevent any new seizures. Mom certainly hopes so. She says she can’t take too much more doggy drama right now.

Snicker, Snicker, Snort!
February 10th 2011 1:10 pm

Oh man! I forgot to tell you guys what I did to my dad. Heeheehee! Of course he didn’t think it was funny, but my mom dies laughing every time he mentions it. Well, here goes–

Earlier this week I was lounging on the couch watching TV with the pawrents. Mom was on one end, dad on the other and myself stretched out between. Of course mom was graced with my head in her lap and dad… well, let’s just say he had a less than pleasant side of me. See… I’ve had a little stinky butt issue. It clears up then months later it will flare up again. Needless to say, it had flared up again. And no, I did not smell like roses.

Dad had made several comments to mom this particular night about how bad I smelled & he figured it was time for a little V-E-T visit. Hmmmm…. I heard that mister! So I decided to extract some revenge. All night long, I allowed that area to come in direct contact with dad’s jean clad leg. Heeheehee! He didn’t realize that I was releasing my secret weapon until it was too late!

I cured my stink butt problem by releasing the stink right on to dad’s leg! Heeheehee!! And guess what! It worked! Dad had to immediately launder his pants because they smelled SO bad! And you know what? I haven’t had stink butt since that night! No V-E-T visit for this smart boy!

Adding to my Skillz!
March 14th 2011 8:46 pm

I’m adding to my skill set. I’ve told you about my “growling” to express what I want. Know I’m adding something new to the mix. I’m starting to speak in response to questions. The other night, I’m laying on the couch between the pawrents. Dad says “Patton, do you want a cookie?” I sit up, look at him, look at the kitchen, look back at him. Then I hop onto the ottoman look at dad and let out a great big woof! I proceeded to escort dad to the kitchen and then I assumed the sitting pretty position. That was an awesome cookie. And I impressed the ‘rents with my new speaking abilities! Watch me talk in the video below!

http://www.facebook.com/v/2429853035729

May 2008

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Patton B

Graduated
May 11th 2008 6:09 pm

I graduated from puppy kindergarten yesterday. I’ve learned a lot and still need to practice. Mom want to work on what I learned in kindergarten for a few months, then enroll me in some more classes. Gray Dog has some advanced obedience classes she is interested in for me (she thinks I could make a good therapy dog if I can get past a few issues that I have). And Gray Dog offers some water sports classes. Those sound like my type of classes….. WATER!!

Back to work
May 13th 2008 9:46 am

I went back to work today. The boss is on vacation so mom is figuring it’s a good time to play rotating/visiting pups. Her co-workers just love us, so today is my day to visit. I think I’m going to get to go to the dog park again. That’s a big YEAH! Otherwise, I would just prefer to spend my day out in the yard, chasing squirrels.

UPDATE 3:25pm — Yup it was a dog park day. Ran into some old friends and made a few new ones. Took a little dip in the big pond, played some chase…. overall it was a grand time!

UPDATE II — Just got back to work and found out that a co-worker brought her dog in after lunch. A new buddy to play with!! YAHOO!! Her name is Charleah and she’s a real cute little Aussie mix.

I got a pool!!
May 19th 2008 11:18 am

I got a pool, my very own pool!!! Yip Yip Yippie! I love the water and now I don’t have to wait until I go to the dog park to play!! And I know that this is MY POOL ‘cause all my sisters and brother hate the water. I’m sooo very excited. Mom brought it home for me on Saturday and finally got around to putting water in it this morning. It didn’t take me too long to figure out what the pool was for. I hopped in and started splashing immediately. Then….. I figured out that it was super cool to lay down in the water. I tried rolling over, but found out that wasn’t such a good idea — water in my nose & ears. I might try it again sometime, there has got to be a way to do it. Mom put a small pool video on my page for me. (http://www.dogster.com/dogs/744997) It isn’t the best ‘cause her camera had dead batteries in it. Silly mom… doesn’t she realize that she needs charged batteries ready at all times?

Oowwee Zowee
May 28th 2008 12:02 pm

I had an owee zowee toenail. Note: I said “had”. Seems like I played a little too hard over the holiday weekend and ended up ripping part of my toenail off. Actually it was more than half of a toenail and it didn’t come all the way off. But I didn’t let a little pain stand in my way…. I kept right on playing & playing hard too! Anyway, the more mom looked at that toe, the more she was convinced that it really had to be hurting me. (and it did a little, but licking it made it feel better) So off to the vet we went this morning. BTW – I’m up to 51.5 pound now, officially a “large” dog!! Turns out the doc had to sedate me so they could fix my toe and mom had to pick me up an hour later. I wasn’t very pleased to be left alone at the vet’s office. So when my drugs were wearing off, I hide from the vet techs. Mom was wondering what was taking them so long to bring me up… Heeeheeeheee! They didn’t know how sneaky I can be!! But anyway, my toe feels much better now, even if I’m still a tad drowsy.

I’m hoping that I can go to the dog park today. That would make a day at mom’s work much better. At least today there is another dog here at work. Her name is Maggie & she belongs to the company’s owner. She’s an older girl & pretty cool, I really like her. She surprised everyone by playing a little with me. Maggie doesn’t usually play anymore.

Big Day on the Lake
May 30th 2008 9:09 am

Yesterday was my big lake debut! Man did I enjoy it!! The lake is just like a dog park only bigger & better. So much water and lots of stuff to smell. Plus they had rides!! A regular doggie amusement park! I even made a new friend. I also had my very first boat ride. That was sooo cool!! We went out to an island so I could roam around without being on a leash and we took my new pup friend along too. She loved the boat ride too! I hope she finds a home soon. See my friend is a petite little husky mix with really pretty bi-color eyes (one dark brown and one icy blue) and it appears that someone has just dumped her out at the lake. My mom decide she looked like a “Sasha”, that what she decided to call the pup. Mom guesses that Sasha is in the 6 month to a year range. Poor Sasha was hungry so I shared some of my dog biscuits and hog dogs with her. Mom’s friend (Kenyon’s mom) talked to some of her lake neighbors and convinced them to keep an eye on Sasha and feed her some. I’m hoping that KM can talk her husband into adopting Sasha. She’s such a sweet pup! Mom even said if she didn’t already have 4 dogs, she would consider bringing Sasha home with us. That would send big sis Abby right over the edge. She still isn’t thrilled about me being around, imagine her dismay if mom brought in another dog!!! BOL!!

Maybe???
May 31st 2008 5:06 pm

Mom visited her parents today and my human aunt was there too. Mom was telling her sister about the little lake dog (my buddy “Sasha”). Keep your paws crossed!!! Sasha might just have a home if she’s still around in a couple weeks. My aunt is interested in Sasha, but she has to go out of town for a week or so. She works for a local police department and works at the regional K9 training trial events. One of these events will be this upcoming week, so my aunt won’t be able to take a look at Sasha. I think Sasha would be pawsitively pawfect for my human aunt. See, she lost her oldest dog to cancer close to a year ago. In the mean time, her youngest dog has been all alone. All of us here thinks that it would be an ideal situation for everyone. So everyone – please keep your paws crossed that this works out!!!