doggy days

it's been a rough couple of days for our house. you see, bozeman somehow swallowed a little piece of wood and on it's way back out of his stomach, it scratched his throat. this caused him to cough like an ex-smoker, because he thought something was still in his throat and he was diligently trying to get it out. after a couple of days of this, i took him to the vet and yep, his throat was scratched and had a little bit of an infection. after a shot of anti-inflammatory and some antibiotic pills, he was good to go. on our way home from the vet, i decided that bozeman needed a bath. only, i didn't want to dirty up our guest bathroom, nor did i want to have tons of towels to launder after washing and drying him. luckily, there is a place near us that lets you use their facilities to wash and dry your dog for a small fee. bozeman loved his bath and especially the hair dryer at this place, because it blows out freezing cold air instead of hot air like my hair dryer does. i now had a fresh, medicated dog on my hands who was badly in need of a nap. while he napped, i was very productive around the house and even planned a cool dinner with our leftover chicken: fried rice (the hubby helped cook it and it was SO good. i am definitely going to make this dish again!).
okay, fast forward to after the dog finished napping and needed to go outside again. we went for what was supposed to be a short walk, but ran into one of our friends and her labrador and we ended up walking with them for awhile. on the way back home from our walk, bozeman was hot and tired and decided to lay down in some tall grass beside this gravel road. i encouraged him to get up, and when he did, he kept sitting back down to bite at his tail. i finally went back to investigate why he was biting so much and, i kid you not, his entire rear end and back legs were COVERED with fire ants. i started swatting at them with my hands and trying to get them out of his fur, but they were stuck and biting my hands. thankfully, there was a pond up ahead and so bozeman and i ran for it as fast as we could and i had him jump in and swim around for a little while. that killed most of the fire ants, but once we got home, my hubby and i had to bathe him and then pick out all of the dead ants from bozeman's fur since they stick so well to his long, golden locks.
now... i need to stop procrastinating and go for a run, then clean our bathrooms and start working on the chocolate cake that i'm making with the pioneer woman's recipe. we are having one of my hubby's college buddies over for dinner tonight and i'm going to make one of our favorite dishes: sockeye salmon.