My name is Brutus, and I'm an addict.

Today is my semester break day. It was going to be a snow make-up day, but the high school teachers freaked out that they wouldn't have enough time to grade last week's finals (even though grades aren't DUE until Thursday at 3pm). Now our snow make-up day is scheduled for February 17 which makes President's Day weekend a three-dayer in stead of four.

Anywho...my husband and I have been pretty worried about this little guy lately...

Brutus has had a rough three months.

{Brutus Ordeal #1} It all started in November on Apple Cup Saturday. We woke up, stoked to go to our favorite college football game of the season - WSU vs UW (go dawgs).

Unfortunately, Brutus had other plans. He is usually so peppy and cheerful, wagging his tail, jumping all over the place, happy little guy. We knew something was hurting him because he literally could not move. His head was cowered down, and he was scrunching his spine in odd ways.

We knew we needed to get him in ASAP, so Josh and his mom's husband took him to the vet to get him checked out. They took x-rays, and found out he had some sort of neck injury.

Yes this is actually Brutus. They gave us the x-rays on a CD.

The result was putting him on some steroids. Luckily, we fit the vet appointment into our day early enough that it didn't affect our afternoon Apple Cup plans (the dawgs won, btw). We had to make Brutus take it easy, like no stairs, no jumping up or off of things, etc. The most hilarious thing about this was that we started to notice that Brutus loved medicine time. The mere sound of pills shaking in a bottle caused him to bolt toward the sound. Apparently he thinks they're treats. This caused no alarm, and we had no idea that it was the beginning of his "addiction"...

{Brutus Ordeal #2} Sometime in December, Josh sends me this picture on my cell phone while I'm at work, teaching...

Brutus was having some sort of allergic reaction to something and his face became red and swollen. The next day, hives appeared all over his fur.

Apparently dogs can break out in hives, too.

One phone call to the vet later, we gave Brutus benadryl to alleviate whatever allergy his body was trying to fight.

{Brutus Ordeal #3} I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. Brutus chewed up my brother-in-law's fake tooth retainer. We found shattered little pieces of the entire thing scattered all over the upstairs while I was downstairs wrapping presents and the boys were upstairs playing video games. Sheesh.

{Brutus Ordeal #4} This brings me back to the beginning of this post: With my day off, I was finally able to bring Brutus to the vet because his hind legs have been a little weird the last month or so. He sits off centered, drags his legs behind him when he runs, refuses to jump up on the couch, struggles up the stairs when it is slick outside, etc. Once again the vet prescribed him steroids. As soon as she walked into the room with the pill bottle, Brutus got super duper excited. I looked him in the eye and said, "I think its time for an intervention."

Hopefully he's able to pull through this addiction and heal. Otherwise we might be making a trip down to WSU for a $urgery con$ultation. Yikes! Get well soon, Brutie!