The Insanity Workout

I am feeling loads and loads better today!  The antibiotics seem to be finally kicking in.  The pain from the pleurisy is all gone today.  In fact, I am feeling so good today that I lost my mind decided to give Riley a bath before her nursing home visit tomorrow.  She hadn’t had a bath in forever (a few months at least) and has been delighting in getting dirty and muddy lately.

A quick note about our “fancy pants” retirement community we’re going to start visiting: the activities director called me on Tuesday and said that in all of her excitement about Riley and I coming to start visits, she forgot that I have to fill out paperwork, have a criminal background check, and have a PPD (tuberculosis) test before we can start.  Our first visit was supposed to be today at 2:00, but I went by and filled out the paperwork yesterday and am waiting on a call back about when I can go get the PPD done.  I am actually glad to see that they require all of their volunteers do this–it seems smart to me.  So I don’t mind the delay!  Oh, and I met Luke, the yellow lab that’s a therapy dog there already.  He’s 11 and SUPER mellow…Riley’s gonna seem like the Tasmanian Devil compared to him!  😉

You’ve heard of the Insanity workout program?  Yes?  Good.  Here’s Riley being insane demonstrating that workout right after her bath…

The FURminator

Riley thinking she’s small enough to be a lap dog…  I think not!

I bought a nifty little grooming tool on sale at Amazon the other day and it came in the mail today.  It’s called the “FURminator” and it’s the most amazing pet product I’ve found.  After we got back from walking the dogs I tried it out.  It pulls out dead hair from Riley’s undercoat.  She has two coats, a black top coat and a tan undercoat.  If you pet her black areas against the grain all you see is tan.  So this thing got out a TON of tan hair from underneath her black hair.  I got about a fourth of a grocery bag full and only used it for about 10 minutes total.  The hair just comes off in big piles.  The only problem I had was that Riley wanted to try to eat the piles of hair that were coming off.  I’m surprised she doesn’t look bald, as much hair as I got off of her.  She enjoyed the good brushing which was surprising to me.  Her coat’s noticeably more shiny and now hair doesn’t come off on your hand every time you pet her.  I would say it’s worth the $20 or so investment.  They’re on sale right now at Amazon.com.

The “FURminator!”
FURminator Website