Well, we certainly didn't expect this. Cookie passed just a few days ago. Ami and I had discussed it, and had decided to wait a few weeks to get serious about finding a new dog. And that was the plan.

At the same time, we wanted to help the kids move along a little in the grieving process (Dylan especially has struggled with the loss of Cookie), so decided we'd visit some shelters to sort of get them thinking that way again.

Today, we made a rash decision, and adopted Ike, the handsome fellow you see in the photo. He is an Australian Cattle dog mix and, so far, he's wonderful.

It was totally an accident. We decided to take a quick trip to Operation Kindness, a terrific no-kill shelter near our home, just to sort of meet a few dogs and get the kids thinking about it again. But then Dylan found Ike, behaving like a total gentleman among the chaos at the shelter. Within minutes, I knew we were in trouble. Dylan, the kid who was mad that we were going to look at dogs just minutes earlier, was asking "can we please get him? I like Ike."

It was over before it began. So tonight we're starting over. Reintroducing the cats to a new dog. Training the dog to walk on a leash. And soon, crate training.

The things we do for love, eh?

Well, unfortunately, our adventure with Cookie ended tragically. Her distemper progressed to the point where our vet advised us she could no longer recover, so to spare her additional pain, we agreed to let her go. It's been heartbreaking, to say the least. The kids are struggling with the news, and Ami and I have spent the last two weeks dreading what was clearly becoming Cookie's inevitable fate. We tried everything we could, and finally just ran out of time.

Even though we only had her a short while (38 days, to be exact), Cookie made a big impression on our family. We'll definitely open our hearts and home to another mutt soon. We just need time to recover, and to make sure that the distemper virus is cleared from our home. Then, we'll start a new search with the kids just in time for Summer.

Today's Anna's sixth birthday, and she is happy about it in the way that only little kids can be. It's fun to see her so excited and feeling like a big girl. I'm hoping she has a good day all day. She's already picked out where we're having dinner, and I think plans to turn the entire weekend into a festival of HER.

On a less-happy note, things with Cookie are in limbo. She doesn't eat much or hold down much of what she eats. She's pretty much skin and fur now. Her coordination varies from pretty good, to not great, to terrible. We've been told everything from 5% to 50% survival odds. She's miserable, and hates having to take medicine all the time. I hate giving it to her because it's just gone on so long, and I feel like I'm adding to her suffering. But...her nose is clearly soft again. She doesn't clog up as bad as she did. And she's still being gentle and patient. Plus, she's up and about a little more lately...especially when the cats are around (she likes following them to see what they do).

Anyway, that's it for today. Anna's up, Cookie's down, the rest of us are holding firm somewhere in the middle. Hope you are all trending up.

What a month it has been for our family. I've talked a lot about the new dog, but I've failed to mention the various health problems of the other members of our family. A quick run-down:

• About March 8 or 9, Ami broke her ankle while playing frisbee in the backyard with Dylan. She stepped in a hole in the yard and just snapped it. She's been off work since.

• March 14, on the last day of his spring break basketball camp, Dylan got a cramp or did something to one leg that ended up with him walking with a limp for about a week, and being guarded about it for a few more days than that.

• March 15, we adopted Cookie. Her ongoing health problems are documented below (she's been up and down since the last post, so we're still just waiting to see).

• Tuesday night, April 15, Anna fell off our new swing set and broke her right arm. The x-ray here isn't her, but it's similar to the x-ray that was taken. She was extremely brave, but is concerned about how she's going to do schoolwork and take baths and stuff like that. Her birthday party at Pump It Up has been indefinitely delayed.

So far, the cats and I are the only members of the family to avoid this health curse. I hope to keep it that way, but I also hope the other members of the family don't have any additional issues.

A few happy items to counter the depressing news about Cookie:

1. Anna turns six this Friday, and couldn't be more excited. Her party is Sunday. I can't believe how quickly she's growing up. Kindergarten has been terrific for her.
2. We got a new outdoor play set last week, and I assembled it Friday and Saturday (I should note the significant assistance I got from Ami's Mom, Vicki, on Friday and from Ami's cousin, John, on Saturday.). The old one was wooden and pretty quickly deteriorating. The new one is metal and plastic, fits our yard better, and is much better made.

Swing by sometime and see for yourself.

Well, there's a lot that's happened since my last post. Cookie, as it turns out, has canine distemper. If you're unaware of what that means, let's just say it's not good news. And it's potentially devastating news. Google it if you want the full story. It begins with the fact that it's incurable. And potentially fatal. And if not fatal, there's the potential for life-long complications like seizures and blindness.

The good news is at least we're now with a vet we're more confident in. Cookie's had the symptoms of distemper ("obvious," according to our new vet) for a few weeks, but our first vet didn't pick up on them for some reason. Neither Ami or I has spent much time with dogs as adults, so we weren't clear on what was happening. Now we know.

Right now, Cookie is fighting these symptoms: pneumonia, hardened paw pads (a permanent condition, even if she recovers), weight loss, loss of appetite, (a ton of) nasal mucous, a weird eye discharge, and obvious fatigue. We're doing everything we can to help her, but the downward spiral of her health is obvious at this point and Ami and I are starting to fear for the worst. We even spent a couple hours on Friday e-mailing each other and our vet with information about a highly suspicious "cure" that we found on the Internet.

So for now, we're all holding our breath and hoping for the best. Cookie's such a good dog. She deserves better than this.

Well, we're approaching the end of our first month with Cookie, and it's been nothing if not eventful.

She's still great, and I think we're pretty confident now that she'll be our dog for a long time to come (with no small amount of help from BarkBusters). If, that is, she doesn't bankrupt us with her various health problems.

When we first got her, the vet said she was healthy and gave her her shots. We then scheduled her "fixing" for that next week. By the time that happened, she had a fever and was moving a bit slowly. So they gave us $100 worth of antibiotics and said to come back 10 days later. When we came back, she STILL had a fever. So now we're giving her $26 more of a different antibiotic, plus an eye cream that does SOMETHING, but I'm not sure. Then, we started to notice a rancid smell coming off of her ears...$54 later, and we're working on clearing up an ear infection with ear drops.

The poor dog has clearly felt terrible most of the time we've had her. She's finally getting over her horrible sounding cough from the last week, but we're giving her pills twice a day, putting in eye cream twice a day, putting in ear drops once a day, and generally spending a lot of time and money trying to get our "$15 animal shelter adoption fee" dog healthy again.

She really is a lovely animal. She still has a few behavioral issues to work on (aggressive growling at strangers and strange animals in certain circumstances, for example), but she's quickly becoming quite the polite lady, and I'm really impressed about how well she's inserted herself into our little family.

I'm convinced, however, that she's a full-blooded Border Collie. Do a Google image search on "Blue Merle Border Collie," and the pictures that come back are pretty much our dog exactly.
I can't find a hint of Blue Heeler in her appearance.