What's Next?

Embarrassing

In case anyone is wondering what absolutely no pride looks like, wonder no more.

Hellhound

While I've been away from home with work this week, Luna has decided to reside at Chez Le Pound.

The timeline:  I left home Sunday, Hellhound bolted from the kids on Monday, the kids finally grew the balls to tell me she was missing on Thursday and we phoned the local SPCA to find her today (Friday).  I return home tomorrow with my flight landing roughly fifteen minutes before late check out at the Chez.  I'm thinking of rounding her stay out to a full week.

I'm not a bad pet owner, The Ex is.  This dog is his dog.  However, while he lives the glorious life a world traveler, I get to feed her, pick up her crap, brush her and, now, post her bail.  While The Ex is in the country, he takes Hellhound for visitations and treats her like her place is somewhere above The Thirteen Goddesses of Greek Mythology.  Nice for her; major behaviour problems for me when I get her back.

Naturally I have handled this in my usual reactive fashion and fired off an email to The Ex filled with reprisal and loathing.  Because that's worked so well for me in the past.

A Boy and His Dog: A Conversation

"Phoenix, sit."

Phoenix sits.

"Phoenix, shake a paw."

Phoenix happily flops her paw into Liam's hand.

"Phoenix, let's see how long you can keep it here."

"The safety word is Banana."

Me, "What??"

Note to self:  buy Net Nanny and have TV cable disconnected.

How Much Does a Therapist Cost?

Taryn-the-now-17-year-old-girl was walking down the hill to catch her school bus on Tuesday morning.  She phoned me within a couple of minutes of leaving the house to tell me to warn Liam that the hill was quite slippery and he should allow a few extra minutes to get to his bus.  Awww... how sweet.

The chatter went on something like this,

Oh, there's this cute little dog running by me.  He's black and white and small and his body looks like it's floating above his little legs that are moving sooooo fast.  He's adorable, I've never seen him before.  Maybe he's lost, I wonder where he's going.  Oh no, it looks like he's going to go out onto the highway.  Oh!  Someone just honked his horn at him.  He's not getting off the road.

Then came the blood curdling scream which, I'm certain, I could have heard, even if we had not been on the phone together.

The little dog just got hit by a car, he's yelping, he flew into the ditch.  Mom, he's just a lump, he's not moving.  YOU HAVE TO HELP!!

Now, she's crying and hyperventilating.

So, I put down my coffee, grab a hoodie (not my Wonder Woman cape), rubber gloves and a towel and get into my Jeep in my pajama pants and Crocs (which, we all know, should never be worn in public despite what you have been told), and drive down the hill to pick what I'm certain will be a dead and mutilated dog out of the ditch.

I must do this to save my daughter from having a stroke.

Lucky day for me and the little dog.  He She's not dead at all:  a little unsteady, sensitive and shaky.  I wrapped her in a towel, took her to the local veterinary office and told them that I had a plane to catch and could follow up in three days.

Today, on the way home from the airport, I stopped in at the vet's office to find that, not only was she just fine, her owners had claimed her.  While they were on vacation, they trusted the child, who they had successfully raised,to take care of their remaining dependent.  Being a dog who remains almost exclusively in her house due to her age and cataracts, she escaped into a totally unfamiliar environment.  According to the vet, the offspring was not completely honest to his parents as to the extent of the dog's disappearance.  A kid lying to his parents.... hmmm..... and I thought they outgrew that, eventually.

Pleeeeaaaaasssssse!

"No, the menagerie is not looking for new members."

Liam and I found this guy just outside of Marmora, Ontario.  And, he's still there.  I was strong.

And This is Why You Need to be In Before Dark

At 8:45 pm, I saw dancing flashlight beams outside of my window.  This could mean only one thing:  "Kids!  There's a bear in the yard!"

Liam, "All pets accounted for."

Taryn, an upstanding member of PETA, "You're not going to report it, right!  They'll kill him!"

Me, "Where's my camera?"

This picture was taken outside my backdoor.  We had a plan to get this photograph; I would stand outside the door, Liam would be on the inside of the door, keeping himself safe and the dogs inside, with his hand on the doorknob so that he could quickly open the door if I screamed.  The neighbours were in their securely fenced yard to the right, holding a flashlight on the bear so that my camera could see enough to focus.

All this is because it is early in the yard-dwelling bear season for us.  Still a novelty.  In a matter of weeks, we will be guarding our garbage and banging pots together because we are tired of stepping in bear shit.

Stoned

If you had to choose, only by looking at the picture, without the benefit of laboratory results, which subject in the following picture is under the influence of drugs; could you do it?

Serious WARNING!

Luna, the black dog, got into some garbage that I had put out yesterday morning.  The bags had been tucked out of site, double bagged and in the heat until yesterday morning when they were moved for disposal.

Luna was outside and had access for less than ten minutes when I heard her rustling in the garbage through the window.  I immediately called her into the house, reprimanded her and she went pouting off into Liam's room.

About an hour and a half later, she joined the rest of the menagerie following me around the house.  We went to the basement to rotate laundry and Luna lost control of her bowels and started shaking while still standing.  I laid her down onto a blanket and tried to keep her from trying to stand.  Her pupils were dilated and every part of her body from her eyelids to her legs was shaking.  She was breathing at a rate over 200 per minute and she was hot to the touch.

Her convulsions continued increasing in intensity.  I wrapped her in a blanket to control her legs while I carried her out to the Jeep, turned the air conditioning on and headed to the vet.

By the way, carrying a 75 pound convulsing dog up a flight of stairs and into the back of an SUV, counts as at least three exercise sessions.

At the vet, Luna's eyes were rolling up, she was biting her tongue, respiration rate was estimated at up to 300 breaths per minute, heart rate was too fast to count and her rectal body temperature was 43.1 degrees Celsius or 110 degrees Fahrenheit.  The vet checked it twice with two different thermometers.  Normal temperature for a dog is 37.2 degrees Celsius or 99 degrees Fahrenheit.

Her seizures were brought under control with a very high, repeated dose of valium.  Blood was drawn for testing for end organ damage.  Rapid cooling was started by infusing a cool intravenous solution, watering her down, applying ice packs to her neck and groin and running a fan over her.

For the next 12 hours, Luna would start convulsing as soon as the medications started to wear off.  The vet told me that she felt that Luna was facing a 50% chance of survival.  At the 24 hour mark, if she was still requiring strong anti-seizure medications, we would have to consider our options; transferring her to an intensive care unit in Spokane or Vancouver (both quite a distance from home)or, more likely, euthanasia.

We got lucky, this time.  We brought her home this morning on a steroid, an antibiotic and a special intestine-friendly dog food.  She is still a little sedate and walks like she's drunk.  Hopefully, those effects are only from the medications and should wear off within a couple of days.

The neurotoxin that affected her was penitrem A and/or roquefortine.  This is a naturally occurring product of mold and decomposition and can be found in household garbage and compost.  However, the effect on the body is almost indiscernible from strychnine poisoning.  The last dog with a similar exposure who was treated by our vet, died a little after 24 hours following the consumption.

Doggie Diet

Phoenix, the Yellow Dog, is a little overweight.  Has been since....oh.... birth.  But she has a great personality.

I have tried many times over the years to assist her in her quest for a svelte, greyhound-like body but, to no avail.  Feeding her the carefully measured doses of Medi-Cal Weight Management dog food at $1000 per scoop does nothing for her when she does everything she can to ingest anything that will fit in her mouth.  Food scraps, garbage, grass, digested cat food with small particles of cat litter in it.

And, the biggest problem.....she's just so cute.....and just a little pathetic.

I have since switched to very heavy ceramic dog dishes and she is still a little overweight.

As The Menagerie Grows

I have met a few people who have had the attitude, "What's one more?", usually in reference to children, or beer.  I seem to have developed that attitude towards pets.  I'm not sure anymore if I am simply trying to provide a loving home and a responsible environment for the children or if I am, possibly, just defeated.

So, now, in addition to the previous established inhabitants of the Fruitvale Indoor Zoo, we have adopted a 3 year old Ragdoll Cat named Pinkie, which is short for Vienna Royale of course.  We have decided to call her Vienna because Pinkie reminded me of the cartoon Pinky and the Brain and that would be the children's preschool years that we are trying to put behind us.

My Mom received this cat from the donor about six weeks before I drove to Edmonton to get her (the cat, not my Mom; I'm not totally insane).  In that six weeks my Mom saw her a few times, never actually managed to touch her and only knew she was alive, in the house, because she was eating and shitting.

Could have been a rat, says me.

No, she's a different colour, says Mom.

Two days!  It took me two days to find and capture this feral beast, in her basement!  My Mom has stored a lot of stuff over the past 25 years.  The cat had that labyrinth mastered and ran me around it like a puppet.  Don't get me wrong; I was not down there for the whole 48 hours.  There were the breaks I took to swear, scream, drink and tell my Mom that I am going to burn down her house when she moves into the Old Folks' Home rather than pack it.

Why didn't I just leave the cat there?  Because then it would have won and that just can't happen.

Once I cornered her in the back of a storage closet, in the dark, I brought her upstairs to the bathroom where her litter box, food, water and kennel were waiting for her.  She was behaving; lulling me into a false sense of security so that I would lower my defenses and she would be able to kill me.  So, I closed the bathroom door with the two of us inside <Danger, Will Robinson, Danger> and I put her down on the floor to give her the opportunity to eat and, perhaps, use the facilities before we headed home.

She snarled and ran up the door, claws flying like the talons of Satan, across the counter launching knick knacks and Lancome freebies into the toilet, through the litter box knocking extra-absorbent particles into the super shag bath rug.  From the "open concept" linen closet across the room and into a cabinet beneath the sink where she coiled her body around the water pipes and stopped.

It would have been an incredibly entertaining site if I hadn't been cowering in the corner protecting my jugular.

She is I am now safely at home.  Vienna has settled in quite well with the rest of the free-loaders and my tetanus is now up to date.