Patriot's Journey- end of Spring update

She has had a good spring. Spends most of her days outside laying in the shade of the trees barking at squirrels and shadows. Digging is her passion and my yard could pass for a WWI trench warfare area!  My beautiful trumpet vines that once covered my fence has been pulled down for use as chew toys and to keep a clear field of view to bark at cars and kids passing by THEIR corner! They have successfully erradicated all grass from the north end of the yard as well. We hope to fence in a bigger area soon but we have to clean up some poisonous to dogs plants and trees first.

Patriot has gained weight (maybe too much as she has lost the Dane hourglass waist) and grown over 2 inches. She stands at just over 30 inches at the shoulder. The growing is a wonderful surprise since the vets said she would NOT grow more because of her heart! 

We can tell the heat of the last couple of weeks is causing her some trouble with her condition. She is agitated and snappy. She will get distant and refuse attention from us and her sister. There has been a few nasty fights caused by her attitude swings and Justice is bearing the marks. She has never gone after her people and if she did that would be a huge deal with hubs about keeping her around. Since she outweights all of our kids that is just not a safe situation...if it ever happened. At night she will wake suddenly wildly barking and we can't console her. We can see her heart pounding rapidly under her skin during the episodes. They don't last long thankfully just minutes to a half hour. It is a pitiful thing to watch her go through.

We bought them a kiddie pool and hose them down when watering the plants. Justice is a water hound and LOVES it!!  Patriot wasn't so sure but today she decided it wasn't killing her and splashed in the puddles and nipped at the water as it sprayed over her head.

The girls turn one year old next month! Hard to believe that time is passing so quickly.  I pray we have Patriot for many more birthdays but we are thankful for the time we have her now.  She has a good life. She is loved deeply. To say the girls are spoiled is an understatement :)