Passions of the Soul

When is a Hoagie is not a sandwich?

We took Bailey* to the vet's today 'cause we suspect that she is hypothyroid.  A tech' came and took her to a back room in order to draw the blood, which gave us time to look at the sign posted about a doggy in need of a new home.  Sigh.  Such suckers we are!

Hoagie is a 12-year-old-ish neutered male border collie mix.  He had a long-time home, but then his owners moved out of state and left him behind.  He had another home for a couple of years, but those owners moved and left him; the story as I heard it was that they didn't want to have to give him the Acepromazine he needs when thunderstorms threaten.

So we asked if we could meet him.  While we waited for someone to bring him out, I asked other questions--how does he get along with other dogs, how does he get along with cats, and such things.  Loves other dogs, which we can't really say about Bailey; on the other hand, as aggressive as Bailey looked, acted and sounded, when Hoagie came out and I was paying attention to him, as soon as we got them close enough to sniff each other, Bailey shut up and sniffed, and was sniffed.  Anyway, supposedly Hoagie would look at a cat a bit, and then he'd go mind his own business.  Hah!  He has stopped staring at the cat long enough to eat and to go for a walk; periodically, we can get him to leave his post for about 40 seconds, until he decides there's nothing in it for him, and back he goes.  We've just now closed off the bedroom/office portion of the house the same way we do at night, except with the dogs on this side, for now, to give Kat a little respite.

Except for his behavior toward the cat, he is a very nice dog.  He seems to be housebroken and will use the doggy door.  These are good points. Bruce took both dogs for a walk before we went out to eat, and when they returned, he said Hoagie was a very easy dog to walk.  He's very thin, so we plan to put a little more meat on him.  The vet's staff wouldn't concede that he was too thin, but he reminds us too much of Sadie*, when she first came here.

We do hope we get to sleep, these first few nights.  And I hope by the end of the day, tomorrow, that Hoagie will have gotten bored with Kat.

*See the Photo Album of "Animals."

UPDATE 1/5/07:  A couple more pictures of Hoagie are here, although the page will probably not be available much longer.

Also, while in Maine...

You may or may not have read about the family of six feral horses that were saved from slaughter by a group of very caring people in Maine and elsewhere.  Bruce wrote about it and posted a couple of pictures, here, but the first link will give you the full story.  We were able to visit these horses on the foster-farm where they have been staying.  When the word first went out about their rescue, many people did offer homes, but none could take all six horses.  The scramble is on, now, to find another home for them, where they can stay together.

Bruce's daughter Cathy, whose family we went to see in Maine, has been helping to raise some funds for the care of the six.  Her contacts with the woman heading up the movement to create a good and permanent home for them--and the fact that we had donated some money for the cause--set the stage for our trip to see them while we were in the area.  These horses are not halter-trained; they're carrot-trained.  When they see two-legged critters coming toward them with buckets of food or carrots in hand, they gather in a cluster at the fence, ready to receive.  Until they were rescued and began receiving good care, they were not accustomed to being touched, stroked, or anything else.  Their earlier neglect has left at least one of them with permanent leg and hoof damage that will mean they can never be ridden.  For the others, there is more hope for improvement in their physical difficulties.

At the website, you can also order t-shirts or sweatshirts or make a donation, if you are so inclined.  If, by chance, you live in the area and can help with the actual care of the horses, that's needed, too!

Bailey

We think we've won!  On each of two, maybe three nights, we gave her a whole Acepromazine tablet and were able to sleep longer and better between her whining spells.  Those turned very brief, thank heaven!  Two nights ago, we gave her half a tablet and had a good night.  Last night, we cut that in half and slept all night.  My goodness, what a difference that makes!

We really don't like drugging her, and with a half or--worse--whole tablet, she's druggy all day, as well as all night.  But as long as her "daddy" tucks her in at the end of the sofa, lying on her red towel (blanky) and covered with her blue towel (complete with holes she's chewed in it), she's okay.

Tonight, no pill.  We think she's learned, now, that she can survive the night somewhere other than on our bed and in our room.  In fact, I found her outside, this morning, on the glider, which she really appreciates our having provided for her (we've had it for several years).

Falling behind, again

I don't think I've posted in a couple of weeks.  What does that tell you?  Okay, this is a little peek into our week.

Last Sunday morning, we left home for another trip to visit my mom and family.  We had delayed our trip by several days and enjoyed far more favorable weather, as a result.  Tuesday was still hot, but roughly 10 degrees cooler than it had been the previous week.  It was a good visit, and you can read more at Bruce's blog, where he also has a couple of pictures.

My sister introduced us to Spaghetti Eddie's, a great little Italian restaurant she's known about for years, but had never thought to mention to us.  We loved it so much, we went twice.  Tucson could really use a Spaghetti Eddie's, in case anyone over there is listening!

Now, then, about the 24 hours since we returned:  Determined to retake mastery over our own bed, Bruce blocked Bailey's access to even the hallway to the bedroom, so that we can start getting some sleep.  Of course, she did not go down without a fight.  Such pitiful, truly pathetic whining and carrying on she treated us to!  No, this did not come as a surprise.  But at one point, when she had been quiet for a little while--maybe 20 or 30 minutes--she started up, again.  Then she burst through a door that hadn't been closed fully, ran into our room and was on our bed before we knew she had broken through. 

Bruce got up, very nicely picked her up and carried her back to the living room, talking in a soothing voice all the way.  Until, that is, he felt a sharp pain in his foot.  Expecting to find a sharp piece of glass (tho' nothing had broken), he found a little scorpion under his foot.  Bruce got even, and that critter will never sting anyone else.  But adding insult to injury, he stubbed his other foot on something.  He was up for a few minutes, putting ice on the scorpion sting; when Bailey saw him just sitting there, holding ice against his foot, she jumped up on the sofa, curled up and went to sleep.  We never heard another sound from her, so we got maybe a little more than four hours' sleep before Kat woke us up before 6 a.m.

You're thinking I've gotten off scot free of trouble (unless you count sleep deprivation as trouble), and you're wrong.  I reached for something under a cabinet, this morning, and felt my low back go into a major spasm.  It's still tied up.  I've had heat on it, twice, but this evening, I'm going to switch to a cold pack.  Sometimes that works, when heat doesn't.

I'm taking bets as to whether tonight will be any better.

Dogs

Or rather, dog.  As in Bailey.  Around mid-morning, Bruce realized he hadn't seen or heard anything from her, in a while.  He looked all over the house, yelling for her, in case she was curled up in a corner, ignoring him.  Yes, she would do that.  He looked all around outside.  He got on his bike and rode all around the area.  No Bailey.

I came home from church, put away a few groceries and fixed lunch.  After we ate, we got in the car to drive around, looking.  Stopped up the street for traffic.  A lady in a pickup truck was waiting in front of us to turn left onto our street.  She stopped, though, because--she said several minutes later--we had that "lost dog" look on our faces.  She asked if we were looking for one, determined that we were looking for the one she had found and taken home, and we followed her there.  At the moment, Bailey is here.  We're concerned about how she got free; possibly through the front door, but we're both very careful about letting her out.  But she could also make it over the back wall, if she had a mind to.

Sigh.  Dogs.

I know when I'm licked!

I have previously posted about our little beagle mix, Bailey, and how destructive she is.  I've discovered she is not, in fact, world-class in destruction.

A new friend-I-haven't-met-yet, Hilary, countered my partial recital of Things Bailey Has Destroyed with a list about her own little puppy, aptly named Trouble:

A dozen pairs of shoes, a dozen books, my sister's cell phone, my sister's favorite Bible, my sister's brand new dress, half my sister's dvd collection, a refillable ink pen (all over the couch), a dog bed, several door frames.  everything but the chew toys. (my poor sister.)

Poor sister, indeed.  Whose couch got the ink?

Trouble could be loaned out to people who hold too tightly to this world's goods.

What a week we've had!

We left last Tuesday (5/29) for a visit with my family.  It seemed, for a while, as if there were a conspiracy to keep us in Tucson, but despite our concerns we actually made the trip in 7 hrs. 10 min., from when we reached the freeway, here.  We don't usually start timing it until we get to I-10, because--as was true last week--we often make several stops on our way across town.  So we reached our destination, checked into the hotel and went to dinner.

Wednesday, we went to my mom's, and then Bruce walked back to the hotel (about 1/2 mile) so as to take pictures of the Jacaranda trees.  Boy, there were a lot of them, and they were beautiful!

Wednesday night, we (Mom, Judy, and the two of us) we to Macaroni Grill for dinner.  Getting out of the car at the restaurant, Mom had a quick, sharp pain in her thigh, a little above her knee.  It recurred throughout dinner, always causing her to jump in her seat.  She has previously been diagnosed with Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and thought a clot had traveled into her thigh, which is where they become dangerous.  Finally, she and Judy put their leftovers in a box and took off for Urgent Care.  We soon followed.  Judy had her community group coming over, that evening, so I replaced her at UC, subsequently driving Mom a few miles to a hospital for an ultrasound.  We thought.

Naturally, the word of the M.D. at UC wasn't enough, so Mom had to wait interminably (about 2 hours) to be seen by a doctor, then had blood drawn and waited another hour and a half, or more, for the ultrasound.  Before the necessary person came to do that procedure, Judy's meeting ended and she came to replace me.  The bottom line:  no clot (thank God!), just muscle spasms.  So Mom went home, took some pain reliever and went to bed, which is what she really wanted to do, in the first place.  But if she had done that, she would have continued thinking that she had a traveling clot, and that would have worried her some.

On Saturday, it took us 9 long hours to get home, including an hour for driving across town and stopping at the grocery store.  We were a little too early to pick up Bailey at the kennel, so we came on home, unloaded the car, and Bruce went back for her.  She seemed just fine, although she was out the back door within minutes of arrival.  Good, I thought, she's going to do her business outside, instead of on the bed!  She made several trips out, and after a couple of hours, I went out to check; sure enough, she had diarrhea.  Oh, goody.

Sunday morning, we got up to find her supper from Saturday night deposited on our bedroom floor.  I'm grateful it wasn't on the bed.  But there were a few other small areas of continued vomiting, and several with just froth--the equivalent of our dry heaves.  Naturally, she was dehydrated, and when I got her to drink a little water, later, she subsequently sent that back up.  By mid-afternoon, she was so listless that we started talking about the ER.  Then Bruce followed her outside and discovered blood in her stools.  That settled it.

We took her to Southern Arizona Veterinary Specialists, where we had to leave her overnight.  They checked her blood, which proved to be okay, and hydrated her.  I brought her home, this morning, and she's better--a relative term.  She's taking Metronidozal, a great drug with a very bitter taste that dogs love to hate, and on a bland diet for several days.

This morning's conversation with our own vet' suggested that Bailey might have hemmorhagic (?) gastroenteritis (HGE).  It's not contagious from dog to dog, so isn't something she picked up in the kennel; it isn't caused by stress; no one, in fact, knows where it comes from, but it strikes suddenly, with diarrhea, then goes into vomiting and dehydration, and bloody stools.  Her blood test was 62-somethings that should be 64 or higher, for a diagnosis of HGE, but the pattern sure fits what she's been through.  The good news is that she should be over it in a couple of days.  She is definitely better, but also not yet up to par.

Outside our own family, a friend was taken to the ER on Saturday night with what first appeared to be Guillon-Barre syndrome.  Thankfully, he was doing better by Sunday morning, although he will be in the hospital for a few more days.  By Sunday a.m., the doctor had changed his diagnosis to viral myopathy, which seems vague enough, but at least Rob is steadily improving...last I heard.  He and Linda would appreciate our prayers.

And with that, I'm going to renew my acquaintance with the treadmill.

UPDATE 6/6:  Linda took Rob home yesterday morning.  He's so much better, except for weakness in his hands, for which he will have physical therapy.  Prognosis is good for a full recovery.  Yessss!

Bailey is also essentially her old self, again, which means she is, as I type, on the back of the sofa at the living room window, barking her fool head off whenever a dog passes the house.  I started weaning her, this morning, toward a normal diet.  Of course, I should have known that a Metronidozal would dissolve in the liquid before she could get it down, so she's discovered its bitter taste.  After she finished eating the bulk of her food, I dug the remains of the pill out of the dish and tried to mask it with peanut butter.  Didn't work.  Canned cat food, maybe?

Such a warm welcome home!

We've been in Durango, CO, all week and, despite U.S. Airways' best efforts to foil our return altogether, we actually got back as scheduled.  Our bags will be delivered sometime in the next 3 or 4 hours....

The weather vascillated daily between gorgeous and stormy, but when it wasn't stormy (afternoons, usually late, and one or two evenings), it was just beautiful.  What flowers were left on the trees on our arrival were blown off by the next morning, but the trees and the grass were nice and green.  As usual, we ate several evening meals at the Red Snapper, which combines a pleasant, Hawaiian-type atmosphere, good service and good food that is well-prepared.  (This is also one of two restaurants we have been to where we come back from a salad bar and find that our napkins have been refolded and re-placed on the table.) Bruce will no doubt be posting, and I hope he decides the picture he took of one of the aquariums (aquaria?) is good enough to include.  When he gets it all done, I'll post a link.

We stopped and sprung Bailey loose from the kennel, before we came home.  We've been so surprised at how calm she's been, since the first couple of minutes.  The clomipramine works wonders!  Kat is pretty good, too, just his usual come-close/go-away self.  I've fed both animals and was starting to deal with mail at my desk, but decided to take a few minutes of 1/1 time with Kat on the bed, while Bailey was out helping her daddy in the yard.

So I laid on the bed, Kat got up and was sniffing around, and I became aware that I was lying on a wet spot.  Not wet enough to wring, but definitely new enough.  Off came the top sheet that is supposed to protect other bedding from dirt and toenails; off came the heavy quilted spread that I've needed to remove for the summer, anyway; off came the bed sheets, the pillowcases and the mattress pad--all of them wet.  Apparently, the only thing that prevented the wetness' getting through to the mattress, itself, is that the mattress pad is quilted.  Thank you, Lord!  The quilt-spread will go to the cleaners, and everything else is washable.  I just hadn't intended to do it tonight!

We can't figure out whodunnit.  Kat never has, before, in three years, and he had access to the bedroom all week.  But neither of us saw Bailey on the bed at any time, after we got home, and she took a leak outside.  She is the one of all the dogs we've had who is least interested in marking her territory, so maybe she got up when neither of us was around and got even with us for leaving--?

And, yes, of course it's much hotter here, than it was in Durango.  Thankfully, it isn't quite as hot as we expected it would be.  Yet.

What we'll do for our pets!

First, you should see this.

So we got a second crate, but smaller, for Kat, along with a nice pad to go inside.  Did he ever go in it?  No.  And what did we do this evening?  Took back the small crate and bought another of the same size as Bailey's, with the same size and kind of pad, for Kat.

Ingrate.

UPDATE:  4/23/07 - We put the second crate right next to the first, thinking they might get used to lying close to each other, but being safe.  I've seen Bailey in her crate one time, since then; I've placed Kat in each one, at different times, with treats, hoping he would settle long enough to realize it was still okay to go in them.  Never closed the door on him.  He ate the treats and left.  I've not seen him go in by himself, but it is true:  he does change his favorite spots, frequently.

Cat or dog?

I'm beginning to think Bailey is the result of a bit of cross-species breeding (no, I'm not serious).  One of her favorite places to nap, during the day, is stretched out along the back of the living rooom sofa, by the picture window.  Kat has been there, many times, but while previous doggies used to get up to look out the window, none ever napped there, like that.  I can't really take a picture, because there's so much backlight through the window.