Roxie

Roxie was our Saint Bernard Labrador Mix aka Labranard and she was born with severe hip dysplasia. When she was 6 months old, the vet told us to put her down because she would never walk. Well, she walked and ran and did everything she wanted for almost 7 years.

Earlier this month we had to euthanize her as she was to the point where you could see that every movement was causing her pain.

We miss you Roxie but we know you are no longer in pain.

[ The post "Goodbye Roxie" originally appeared on Ivany.]

I hope you enjoy them!

[ The post "Roxie the Saint Bernard / Labrador Mix Gallery" originally appeared on Ivany.]

Anyhoo, I’m home, drugged up and freaking cold. My hands won’t warm up and I’ve got more layers of clothing on now than I would typically wear on a -34ºC day (with the windchill) like today is. I’ve been trying to do some work (too many deadlines to miss a day) but my brain just isn’t doing very good at assembling coherent thoughts right now. Must be the Buckley’s Mixture! I love to hate that stuff (or is it hate to love?). Why would anyone really want to consume something that tastes like a pine tree. If I really wanted to suck on a pine tree I’d go out back and take a piece of the one that Roxie has been chewing down. Blech! Well, at least the one good thing about Buckley’s Mixture is that it really does work. Well, at least for an hour or so at a time.

My other favorite cold drug is Advil Cold and Sinus (or Coldvil as I’ve been known to mutter at the end of a string of expletives when I can’t find the stuff).
Well, the clock on the wall is telling me it’s time for my next dose of liquid pine tree. Yippee!

[ The post "Buckley’s Mixture – It tastes awful, and it works!" originally appeared on Ivany.]

Anyhoo, she’s about 110 pounds now. Yeah, 110 pounds! She’s quite lean and tall which is good and bad. She’s lean and reasonable muscular which helps a lot with her hip dysplasia (less weight for her to carry is good and more muscle is better). She’s tall enough now that we have to be careful what we leave on the kitchen counter tops as she has been caught a few times trying to snag a bite of something.

She is a very social dog and it’s unfortunate that many people are intimidated by her size as all she wants to do is greet them. Often when we go out for a walk (and she’s great going for reasonable length walks now) people will cross the street or otherwise avoid her. Not something that she really understands as a lot of people would pay great attention to her when she was a little 20lbs puppy.

There are advantages to her size though. We’ve had a few repair people in over the last couple months and it’s always nice to hear from The Boss about the reactions some of these burly repair men have to Roxie. She’ll come bounding along and apparently the repair people can become quite fearful until The Boss tells them that Roxie is friendly. Heck, if I saw a 110lbs dog heading towards me with it’s mouth open I might have to think for a few seconds. ;)

We’ll see how she is over the coming years with the munchkin but I doubt we’ll have anything to worry about. She’s already demonstrated a couple times that she is protective of the munchkin. Nothing too serious and probably nothing that was noticed by anyone other than myself and The Boss. Saints are known for being good with children and Labs are big goof balls so hopefully Roxie will remain a goof ball that’s good with kids. ;)

[ The post "Roxie the Saint Bernard Labrador Mix" originally appeared on Ivany.]

We’ve had Roxie (our Saint Bernard – Labrador mix) on a bit of a diet since she was spayed because the vet told us she had a pretty decent layer of fat on her already. That was a couple months ago. We weighed her last night (differential weighing is getting difficult!) and she came in at a whoping 92lbs. 9 months and 92lbs. Not bad! She’s about half my weight now.

She looks really good right now – leaner and taller than before she was spayed. She hasn’t actually lost any weight but we think she’s lost fat. Her belly isn’t rounded as much and we can sort of feel ribs again. That’s a good thing because with her grade 4 hip dysplasia, we don’t want her to have too much extra weight to carry. She’s been quite active recently too. Maybe part of it is due to losing some extra fat and gaining some new muscle. What ever it was, she’s bouncing around in the snow and even running for short distances when we are outside.

[ The post "Roxie Update" originally appeared on Ivany.]