THE CACTUS SHOW IS OVER (AND OTHER NEWS)!

Mom survived the cactus show, and she even got home yesterday in time to feed us our supper only half an hour late.  In fact, we could have even had supper on time, if Mom hadn't insisted on unloading all her boxes of plants out of the car and carrying them into the house before she fed us.

During the afternoon, while Mom was gone, there was a big, scary storm, with lots of wind and thunder, but no rain.  My brothers were scared, but I wasn't, because I am very brave.  Mom thought that when she got home, she would have to clean up pee because Nicky might have peed in the house when he was scared about the storm.  But he didn't pee in the house, and I didn't pee in the house, and neither did Mel or Barry.  So Mom was very happy, and she said we were all excellent dogs.  Which we already knew.

Anyway, here's a picture of the cactus show.  It looks pretty boring to me because all it is is a bunch of plants sitting on a bunch of tables.  I don't know if any of the plants are yummy to eat or not, but they might be.



The judges came all the way from St. Louis, and there were three of them.  Their names were Mike, Pam, and Tom.  These judges did not give important awards to any of Mom's plants, like for instance Best Succulent, which Mom won last year.

I think this means that they were very bad judges, or at least that they were feeling very cross.  But Mom said that's not how it was.  She said that the judges were actually very fair, but they were just tougher judges than the ones we get some years from other clubs.  I'm not going to argue with Mom about this, but I hope she will think about how much better dogs are than plants.  Because if she thought about that, maybe she would get rid of all those plants and just have dogs.  And maybe a couple of cats.

That pink flower I put at the beginning of this entry is called an Adenium.  Mom is very excited about this plant because it bloomed a whole bunch this year, and it has not ever ever bloomed before, even though Mom has had it for several years.  This Adenium is a hybrid from Thailand, and I thought if Mom liked it so much, she should put it in the cactus show.  But Mom said that the leaves of this plant are all kind of dead at the tips, and besides that, Aunt Judy was sure to enter some really pretty Adeniums in the show.  And sure enough, she did, like for instance this one with the pretty reddish flowers.



Okay, well, I'm tired of talking about the cactus show now, and I'm going to talk about myself, which is a much more interesting topic!  On Friday, Dr. Griswald called Mom while Mom was helping to set up for the cactus show, and Dr. Griswald said that the results of my expensive test that I had on Thursday showed that my cortisol level is now too low.  So I have to stop taking that icky, chemotherapy drug, and I have to get half a prednisone tablet once a day.

Also, Mom had to take me to the vet clinic Friday afternoon and leave me there so the nurses could get blood and urine out of me.  And the blood was so that they could check something called electrolytes, but I don't know why they wanted to look at my urine.

Then on Saturday, Dr. Griswald called Mom at the cactus show and told her that my electrolytes are fine, and I need to keep taking prednisone for a little while.  In the meantime, Dr. Griswald will call the internist to ask how soon we need to do the expensive test again, because we will have to either do it in 2 weeks or in 4 weeks.  And Mom was really stupid, in my opinion, and spent over $100 on plants at the cactus sale instead of saving that money to pay my vet bills and buy dog food.  I try and I try, but I just can't seem to teach her anything!