It's been a strange week.
Before I went to the beach, my dog Jack developed this very large "thing" on the side of his "private part". It happened practically overnight. We take the dogs swimming, and most of the time it's in waters that are stagnant, so when we get home, they get hosed off in the backyard. Well, I was hosing off Jack, and scrubbing his belly, and thought he'd gotten a burr attached "down there". I said, "Todd, can you get that burr off of Jack's wee-wee while I rinse off the other dogs." Todd takes a look at it and says, "It's not a burr." Now, since this thing is HUGE, and hard and nasty looking, and basically developed over the course of 2 days, you can bet he went to the vet the next day. The vet tech looks at it and says they see them all the time, and that it is a sac filled with a bug larvae. Now I'm really getting grossed out. Especially since I had squeezed on it the night before. Then the vet comes in and says, no it's a tumor, and it needs to be removed and checked to make sure it's not cancer. Cancer? Jack's 2 years old. And on his wee-wee?
Well, I put off having it cut off, because we're going to the beach and he can't get stitches wet. But last week, off it comes. I get the male vet to cut it off since I think he might be a little more sensitive to that area. In the meantime, while we wait for the lab to determine what it is, there's no more swimming in stagnant waters. But we learn something interesting about Turnip, the Green Bean diet dog. Todd's out back, watering the plants, and Turnip is pitching a fit. She's chasing the water hose all over the place. Todd sprays her with the hose and she goes crazy. I mean crazy. This little tiny dog wants the water hose sprayed at her full force in the face, and she can't get enough of it. She biting at the water, and coughing and hacking, and getting soaking wet. And gets upset when he stops. Every day, when Todd comes over, she runs to the backyard and waits by the hose! I finally bought her a little wading pool, and she jumps in there and attacks the hose. So now Turnip, poor little obese dog that she is, has lost over 2 pounds in 2 weeks, from eating green beans and doing her water aerobics. I guess whoever adopts her will have to have a garden hose.
And then the other weird thing happens. My window air conditioner unit breaks. Of course, that's not the weird part. The weird part is that Todd goes to buy a new one, and while he's putting it in - my 2nd floor bedroom window - it falls out. A $250 air conditioner. So he buys another one. I don't know this is happening because I'm at work. Then Todd puts the second one in and IT falls out the 2nd floor window. At this point, I call and say, "hey, how's the AC installation going." You can tell right away from his voice that things aren't good. He says, "I've dropped 2 AC's out the window." I say, "you dropped 2!" Yep. I'm thinking, OMG, he just bought 2 window units and I still don't have air conditioning. What are the odds of dropping 2 of them out a window? So when I get home, I say, we gotta go back and buy a 3rd one, and he says fine, but we have to go to a different Lowe's, because I'm not going to the same Lowe's and buying a 3rd one there. Well, it takes us 2 days to build up enough of a support on the side of the house so that the 3rd one doesn't fall out. What's up with these new window units?
And then I get the good news. Jack doesn't have cancer. He just has genital warts. And they're contagious, so he could've spread them to the other dogs. What in the world has Jack been up to I'm wondering. But I'm glad he doesn't have cancer.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
The Case of the Barking Dog
Ok, I think I'm losing my mind. I'm starting to hear barking dogs where there are none. In my line of work, we call these auditory hallucinations. If you somehow ended up meeting me professionally (and that would be because you'd been admitted to a psych ward), we would be giving you heavy doses of anti-psychotics. Because hearing things isn't normal.
Which is why I'm getting to be a little worried. You see, it all started out with my darn neighbor. She makes flutes. And for some reason she thinks that the only place in her house to make a flute is on her porch. Which happens to be about 100 yards away from my backyard. And for some reason, my dog doesn't care for the flute making process and spent quite a bit of time barking at her. So I spent $1500 putting up a beautiful 6 ft wood fence so the dog couldn't see the flute maker.
This actually works most of the time. But dogs being dogs, like to protect their home, and when the neighbor is out in the garden, the dog likes to bark at her. Well, as you can imagine, that got me a few more notes about my barking dog being a nuisance. I wasn't sure how to solve this, since how do you keep a dog from barking at someone through a window? The one time animal control was called on me, he said my dogs were being perfectly quiet when he got there. And that's what I always find when I come home. Perfectly quiet dogs. So this, I think is the beginning of my insanity.
Fast forward a year, and animal control is back at my house, but this time it's to put a dog under quarantine because I've been bit. They find out I have too many animals. Did you know that 3 cats and 5 dogs is too many? (2 of the dogs are foster dogs, but apparently that doesn't count). So I have to apply for a "permit." But while they're there, a friendly neighbor runs out and tells animal control that my dogs bark "all day and all night." Animal control tells me it looks unlikely I'll get a permit if that's true, and 2 dogs are gonna have to go. So I spend days talking to various neighbors, trying to make peace and see what I can do to make things right. Because there's no way my dogs are barking all night. I wouldn't be sleeping if that were true. And every single neighbor I talk to tell me my dogs don't bark and don't bother them. Even the flute maker. And everyone of them say they will testify this to animal control.
So 10 days later, when animal control shows back up to see that neither I nor the dog who bit me has developed rabies, they tell me that they were not able to substantiate the barking dog issue. I can get my "permit." Seems they talked to my neighbors and they said my dogs were just fine. But since I have just spent 10 days hypervigilant about every single little bark, I'm pretty wired for sound. I can relax now. I have my permit in hand and a letter from animal control saying my dogs don't bark. But you know what? For the last 2 nights, when all of the dogs were sleeping in my bedroom, I swore I heard a dog bark downstairs.
Now I'm really losing it.
Which is why I'm getting to be a little worried. You see, it all started out with my darn neighbor. She makes flutes. And for some reason she thinks that the only place in her house to make a flute is on her porch. Which happens to be about 100 yards away from my backyard. And for some reason, my dog doesn't care for the flute making process and spent quite a bit of time barking at her. So I spent $1500 putting up a beautiful 6 ft wood fence so the dog couldn't see the flute maker.
This actually works most of the time. But dogs being dogs, like to protect their home, and when the neighbor is out in the garden, the dog likes to bark at her. Well, as you can imagine, that got me a few more notes about my barking dog being a nuisance. I wasn't sure how to solve this, since how do you keep a dog from barking at someone through a window? The one time animal control was called on me, he said my dogs were being perfectly quiet when he got there. And that's what I always find when I come home. Perfectly quiet dogs. So this, I think is the beginning of my insanity.
Fast forward a year, and animal control is back at my house, but this time it's to put a dog under quarantine because I've been bit. They find out I have too many animals. Did you know that 3 cats and 5 dogs is too many? (2 of the dogs are foster dogs, but apparently that doesn't count). So I have to apply for a "permit." But while they're there, a friendly neighbor runs out and tells animal control that my dogs bark "all day and all night." Animal control tells me it looks unlikely I'll get a permit if that's true, and 2 dogs are gonna have to go. So I spend days talking to various neighbors, trying to make peace and see what I can do to make things right. Because there's no way my dogs are barking all night. I wouldn't be sleeping if that were true. And every single neighbor I talk to tell me my dogs don't bark and don't bother them. Even the flute maker. And everyone of them say they will testify this to animal control.
So 10 days later, when animal control shows back up to see that neither I nor the dog who bit me has developed rabies, they tell me that they were not able to substantiate the barking dog issue. I can get my "permit." Seems they talked to my neighbors and they said my dogs were just fine. But since I have just spent 10 days hypervigilant about every single little bark, I'm pretty wired for sound. I can relax now. I have my permit in hand and a letter from animal control saying my dogs don't bark. But you know what? For the last 2 nights, when all of the dogs were sleeping in my bedroom, I swore I heard a dog bark downstairs.
Now I'm really losing it.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Green Bean Diet and a Dog Named Turnup
Her name is Turnup, because she "turned up" at someone's house, many years ago, and they decided to let her stay. But I think her name should be Turnip, because that's what she looks like. Short and really, really round. And I mean round. She was given to me as a foster dog because I'm good at getting dogs to lose weight. I don't seem to be very good at getting myself to lose weight, but boy am I good at it with dogs.
It all started with Boomer, a beagle with a heart of gold, but that heart of his wasn't going to make it many more years if he didn't drop 15 pounds. Which I'm proud to say he did. Poor thing got turned in to us at our dog rescue 'cause his family's house went into foreclosure. My only guess is that if they were suffering financially, they must've stopped buying dogfood at some point, and started feeding him table scraps. HE WAS ROUND. When he first moved in with me, he could barely climb the stairs. He couldn't jump up on the sofa, much less the bed. And when we went to the dog park, he gave me a look that said, "are you crazy? You think I can run?"
But fortunately for Boomer, he liked green beans, and that's the best thing there is for rotund pooches, no pun intended. So he went on the famous green bean diet, and the pounds started to drop. It was so successful, I told Todd that maybe we should both start eating the green bean diet. And you know what? Boomer started bounding up the stairs in my house. He was able to jump on the sofa. And one day, he picked up a ball at the dog park, and brought it to me. And when I threw it, and he ran and fetched it, and brought it back to me, and ran again, I almost fell over. Boomer was ready.
Boomer found a loving family who takes him on walks all of the time and spoil him rotten. Just not with treats. So when a man called our dog rescue and said his momma had Dementia, and could we help with her dog, we said yes. And when we saw Turnup, we knew what had happened. Momma wasn't remembering she'd already fed Turnup, so she fed her again. And again. And again. And Turnup, being the gracious dog she is, wasn't going to "turn-up" her nose at any food given to her. So once again we've got the rotund pooch problem. Now it's back to the store to stock up on the green beans.
It all started with Boomer, a beagle with a heart of gold, but that heart of his wasn't going to make it many more years if he didn't drop 15 pounds. Which I'm proud to say he did. Poor thing got turned in to us at our dog rescue 'cause his family's house went into foreclosure. My only guess is that if they were suffering financially, they must've stopped buying dogfood at some point, and started feeding him table scraps. HE WAS ROUND. When he first moved in with me, he could barely climb the stairs. He couldn't jump up on the sofa, much less the bed. And when we went to the dog park, he gave me a look that said, "are you crazy? You think I can run?"
But fortunately for Boomer, he liked green beans, and that's the best thing there is for rotund pooches, no pun intended. So he went on the famous green bean diet, and the pounds started to drop. It was so successful, I told Todd that maybe we should both start eating the green bean diet. And you know what? Boomer started bounding up the stairs in my house. He was able to jump on the sofa. And one day, he picked up a ball at the dog park, and brought it to me. And when I threw it, and he ran and fetched it, and brought it back to me, and ran again, I almost fell over. Boomer was ready.
Boomer found a loving family who takes him on walks all of the time and spoil him rotten. Just not with treats. So when a man called our dog rescue and said his momma had Dementia, and could we help with her dog, we said yes. And when we saw Turnup, we knew what had happened. Momma wasn't remembering she'd already fed Turnup, so she fed her again. And again. And again. And Turnup, being the gracious dog she is, wasn't going to "turn-up" her nose at any food given to her. So once again we've got the rotund pooch problem. Now it's back to the store to stock up on the green beans.
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