Happy New Y-Aire to all our bloggin' buddies!

Greetings, fur buddies! It's me, Patches! As we are preparing to say "Goodbye" to 2008, we are kind of looking back at this year. It has been one heck of a year for ME! In May, my mom and Aunt Wendy rescued me from a stinky motel room where I was living with a bunch of c-a-t-s and some hooman who hardly ever fed me. I was sent to see a v-e-t. He gave me all my shots and found out that I did NOT have heartworm. Woohoo! The next day, my new mom and Aunt Wendy picked me up and I came home to meet Poppy and Penny.

We had a bit of a rough start since I had never lived with other doggies before. Once I figured out that Poppy is the Alpha, things have been much better. In September, I had my fix-it surgery even though I didn't know I was broken! I healed up very quickly and was back to bitey-face in no time at all!

Now that I have entered the witness protection program and I have lived here at Airedale Heaven for about 7 months and one week, I am doing great! I have gained about 14 pounds so none of my bones stick out anymore. And boy, have I learned a LOT since I've been here! I have learned that I can't get near Penny when she's eating and when we beg at the table, there is a "pecking" order...first Penny, then Poppy and them ME! I even make sure to get out of the way so the other girls can get their treats first.

Yesterday, I even taught Mom and Aunt Wendy something. I taught them that NO ONE is going to cut my toenails! Not without a helmet and maybe some welding gloves! Actually, full body armour would be better! Mom was holding me and Aunt Wendy was trying to cut my nails, but every time she got a good grip on one of my toenails, I thrashed my head around and threatened to bite. That made Aunt Wendy lose the grip on my nail and Mom jumped out of the way. You see, my mom has dental implants in her lower jaw and she is always afraid somedoggie is going to throw their head back and break her jaw. We wouldn't do it on purpose, but you just never know!

Poppy and Penny each got all their toenails cut and then smoothed out with the Pedi Paws. They were good girls, but I am going to have to go to the vet to get my front ones done.

Poppy has an absess, on her fuzzbutt, and Mom has been doctoring it. We didn't know what it was, but since Aunt Wendy was a vet tech for many years, Mom had her look at it, yesterday. She said it was an absess, but it is draining and getting better, so Mom has decided to doctor it with hot compresses and Neosporin three times a day. It's looks quite a bit better today! If it isn't better yet, by tomorrow, Poppy will be going to the v-e-t on Friday.

Friday will be our first blogaversary and we would like to thank everyone for being our friends! It has been sooooo cool to meet other furry critters from all over the world. It's the first time in our lives when we all got barkday greetings from all different parts of the world. We have laughed with all of you and cried with all of you and we hope that 2009 only brings laughter to everydoggie, kitty, hammie, bear and hooman!

We would really like to stay up for the chat pawty, tonight, but since we get up sooooo early, and the pawty doesn't start until 10 p.m., here in Georgia, we will have to miss it. Our personal secretary will probably be sleeping by 9:30 or 10:00, so we will just lie in our beds and keep our paws crossed for Maggie. We just heard that her dad and Mitch went out in a blinding snow storm to get her some ice cream. We sure hope they made it home safely and we hope Maggie really enjoyed her ice cream. We know that ice cream fixes EVERYTHING! Here's to ice cream for EVERYDOGGIE!

Happy New Y-aire and we'll see you all in 2009!

Aire-hugs,

Poppy, Penny & Patches