New Batch of Angels Finds a New Home

Today four of my baby angels will find a new home. Shelli, from Carroll's Pets in Lumberton, will be picking them up this afternoon.

These angels could have left here a month ago but because of my schedule or Shelli's, they've remained here and grown... and grown! They are each about three inches tall. I believe I have three males and one female, judging by their juvenile behavior.

In the meantime, Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick have laid more eggs, this time on a flower pot. Hopefully, they will begin to hatch in a few days.

I plan to put a pair of koi angels, which are bright orange (the male is shown in the picture here), into the infant tank once the older batch of babies leaves with Shelli. This pair has been wanting to breed in their larger tank, terrorizing all the other inhabitants and sending them to the opposite corner of the tank. So they'll be given their own honeymoon suite, and we'll see what happens!

Mattie Gets Her Stitches Out

Today Mattie gets her stitches removed. We've been taking her to the vet's office every other day to get her bandages replaced and her leg inspected. It's been nearly three long weeks but she has definitely turned the corner.

The original idea after her surgery was to keep the area open so it could get some air to help with healing, and to give her oral antibiotics.

But one of her stitches popped loose (we think because she licked them) so the bandage was used instead. Every other day she's received a different color bandage and I think she enjoys the attention and the new legging. (She is shown here with an orange legging on her hind leg. Eddie monitors the situation behind her. He is a good nurse and very attentive.)

She also was able to detect the antibiotics no matter what I tried to wrap it in - lunch meat, hot dogs, chicken, peanut butter, cheese, Greenies... She knew it was there and refused to take it. The real turn in her condition occurred when they gave her an antibiotic shot, which was time released over a week's time.

She's lost about 20% of her weight so the vet suggested that, although she is 11 years old, she should be switched to high calorie puppy food. My local pet store recommended puppy food for tiny dogs, as they require more calories than a larger breed puppy.

Fingers crossed that she will continue to rally back!

An Update on Mattie

Mattie is doing well since the surgery on her leg.

Originally, the vet wanted to leave her leg unbandaged so it could heal with fresh air surrounding it. However, she licked it overnight while we were sleeping and one of the sutures was licked loose. So the vet bandaged her up and each day she's been brought in to have it rebandaged and her leg examined.

Mattie is about 11 years old, which is ancient for a foxhound. She lost her twin brother several years ago and we have felt like she's been on borrowed time. But she is a fighter and she's been hanging in there.

She could smell the antibiotic in her food and refused to eat. So she was given a shot with a timed release antibiotic that lasts for an entire week. It has done wonders to help her recover. She's also been on Tramadol as needed for pain, which thankfully has only been given at night to help her sleep and keep her comfortable.

An Angel Loss

Over the past few weeks, the black angelfish who was suffering from dropsy took a turn for the worse.

She lasted for more than six months with dropsy and at one point I thought she might live much longer even though she was obviously bloated from the condition. In the picture on the right, you can see how wide she was. Angels are normally very thin when looking at them straight-on.

It's believed she ingested turtle food, which had been placed into the tank for the snails, which also need calcium. After this happened, I removed both the snails and the turtle food. But the local pet shop told me about the calcium that is normally placed into a parakeet's cage is also great for snails. It's much safer and dissolves in the water over time.

Medicine did not help and adding fresh, hulled peas didn't work, either.

One morning I found her near the bottom of the tank, hiding from the others. Within a few hours, she passed away. God bless her little soul.

The Perfect Front for a CIA Agent

My 15th book, Dylan's Song, is being released this week. It's the fourth book in the Black Swamp Mysteries series, in which a psychic spy and a CIA ground operative live in a small town, using a front as angelfish breeders to mask their real professions.

In Dylan's Song, they leave America to go to Ireland to locate and extract a missing CIA operative. While they are gone, their CIA handler, Sam, agrees to watch over their angelfish business. Before they leave and unbeknownst to Sam, Dylan installs cameras so he can keep an eye on the angelfish while they're gone. Though he's a trained killer and a spy, he still has a very soft spot for his angels.

It turns out, he also has a soft spot for a border collie he'd left behind when he moved from Ireland to America. He'd found Shep a good home before he departed but they reunite in the book - and when Shep is mistaken for a CIA dog, he finds a way to get her to America so they can remain united.

More Angelfish Babies

Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick have been on a break.

For the past two months, they have shown little interest in laying more eggs. It turns out that angelfish often will breed every two weeks for several months and then stop for several weeks or months.

While they've been on a break, their last batch of angels have been growing larger and stronger. I can tell that at least three of them are males. How? Males tend to grow larger than females. They also tend to become more territorial at a younger age, often chasing the other males out of their area - which sometimes they think of as the entire tank.

Next week, these angels will go to the pet shop in Lumberton, North Carolina. I'm told they can tell the difference between my angels and other breeders because mine have higher fins and grow larger. I believe that's due to the fact that I never overcrowd them. Angels with short fins and stunted growth are often grown in smaller, crowded tanks.

Catching Up

It's been a few weeks since I've posted. I've been involved in organizing the Book 'Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair, an annual event that brings together more than 75 authors, publishers and literary agents to raise money for literacy campaigns.

While I've been neck-deep in organizing, planning and tidying up afterward, Life has gone on around me.

My oldest dog, Mattie, a foxhound, had developed a cyst that the veterinarian determined to be benign. We were watching it to make sure it didn't grow so fast that it hampered her ability to walk, as it was located on the inside of her back leg.

It took a turn for the worse and began to abscess. Mattie had surgery but the infection was so bad (it grew amazingly quickly) that they limited the surgery to a biopsy. We received word that she did not have cancer, which was a huge relief. But what is causing the cysts - which grew from one to three on the same leg in less than a week - is still a mystery.

She is now on antibiotics and going to the vet daily to have her bandages changed and her leg checked.