"The Grudem Kids"

My name is Tiffany Grudem and I work at the Orange Villa Veterinary Hospital as a Receptionist. I would like to introduce you to my family.

Our first baby is "Cynder". She is a 6-year-old Pitbull/Ridgeback mix. When I first got Cynder she was 8 weeks old and very sick. She had Parvo. The vet said it was such an advanced case that he didn't think she would pull through, but now looking back I'm glad we took the chance to let her try. After spending 2 weeks in the hospital hooked up to an I.V. catheter and being pumped full of antibiotics we were finally able to bring her home. She has always been very affectionate and loving. She tries to mother everything. She was so happy to meet Donny (my boyfriends then, husband now). She loves him. Talk about a daddy's girl. If she had it her way she'd spend all day curled up on his lap on the couch, however now that we're expecting our first child she's very attentive to me and wants to be involved in everything with the baby. Everytime we are working on the nursery she comes in and sits down right in the middle of the room as if she's giving her opinion on where things should go. She also loves to go outside and try to dig up the gophers in the back yard, of course she never catches any, but I might say she makes a really nice hole in our lawn trying. She recently had to have her knee operated on. She had ruptured her cruciate ligament, but Dr. Dahlem fixed her up and now she's back to dodging the horses and digging for the gophers.

"Snoopy" is the oldest of our clan. He's a 12 year old Samoyed. You might say he doesn't look like one. That's because I keep him shaved. We live on an acre in the Riverside area and because we have a doggy door and he can help himself to going outside whenever he wants I don't want him to get to overheated. He was in very poor shape when I got him 5 years ago from the Irvine Animal Shelter (where I worked at the time). As soon as his 7 days were up I shaved his completely matted coat off and brought him home. He fit in perfectly. He's the boss and everybody knows it. He would be the one, out of all my kids that visits Dr. Horn the most. About 1 1/2 years ago he got very sick and when we rushed him down to OVVH they found he had a liver that was not functioning properly, but after Dr. Horn paying really close attention to him, he pulled through. He still comes to work with me once a month to have his blood rechecked. Now he's a mommy's boy. There isn't a thing he doesn't get that he wants. He loves to sit down with me and have me scratch his chest. WOW that's heaven. As he's gotten older he has slowed down, but with all of the wonderful arthritis products out there his aging has really slowed down, he loves to romp around in the grass with Cynder when the day cools off or early in the morning.

"Sebastian" is the baby of the family. He's a 5-year-old Golden/Labrador mix. We got him when he was 4 weeks old. Some friends of ours owned his mother and a coyote attacked him mom so they had to find homes for all of the puppies. We had 8 puppies to choose from, and out of all 8 I'm sure he's been put under the knife the most. In 5 years he's had 3 hip surgeries. Poor boy, but now thanks to Dr. Vogel (an orthopedic specialist) he can play Frisbee or ball for hours and not miss a step or be at all sore. He is the main protector of the house. He spends all day and night running outside when he hears the slightest noise. Which can be very starling when you're deep in sleep and you hear him going thundering outside, but it makes us feel safe. I have noticed a huge difference in him since I've been pregnant. He spends a lot of time right at my side and follows me everywhere. Sometimes I almost trip over him because he's right underneath me. Now, his favorite thing to do is run outside the horse arena while I exercise the horses and bark his head off. Thankfully I live in the country and have very understanding neighbors. I can tell you he thoroughly enjoys it. Oh! I can't forget playing ball. He could play ball till his legs wore down to stumps. Everytime he goes outside with us he runs and gets the ball and shoves it in our face begging for 1 of us to throw it for him.

We want to thank Dr. Dahlem and Dr. Horn for being wonderful vets and keeping our babies healthy. They are our life and whenever they are sick we get very worried. I always tell the Doctors I'm sure I'm their worst client. They just laugh. Thank you again. Tiffany, Donny, Snoopy, Cynder and Sebastian.