dogs

musings about my dogs

Nerves, Waiting is the Hardest Part, and Sympathy for Sheena

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At one time in my life- before I discovered I have absolutely no aptitude for higher math- I considered a career in veterinary medicine.  I’d never made it through the algebra and chemistry, but I still have a passing curiosity for things medical and technical.  Blood and guts (as well as puke and crap) have never phased me, and I have a very limited sense of smell.  Had I just been able to somehow comprehend higher math I’d probably gone on to a veterinary or medical career.  Unfortunately my math abilities end at what I would call business math, and I still wonder how I made it through- with “B’s” no less- three quarters of accounting in college.  So I ended up in automotive. Still technical, but as long as you aren’t designing them, the necessary math skills seldom go beyond percentages and ratios.   Even I in my mathematical weakness can cope with those.

I dropped Sheena off this morning to be spayed- pretty sure that she was neither in heat nor pregnant- and figured she would do quite fine and the process would proceed uneventfully.  I didn’t think she would be old enough to have mammary tumors- a condition that claimed my very dear cat Daisy many years ago- so I was a bit shocked when the spay clinic called back and said she had two “small suspicious masses” on her mammary glands.  So not only does Sheena have to endure the spay surgery, she’s ending up getting a mastectomy as well.  I am still waiting to hear back from them.  I wonder if she is doing OK, if she can still come home tonight, and I wonder a lot of other things too.  I know that mammary tumors in dogs generally only have a 50/50 chance of being cancerous, and even if they are, if they are removed early, the cancer generally doesn’t spread (as it almost always does in cats) and the dog lives a normal life.   This really surprises me because Sheena is not at all body sensitive and I didn’t observe or feel any kind of lumps or bumps on her other than an innocuous, small lipoma on her right leg.   So if the tumors were so small that they could only observe them when the skin was pulled back during surgery, I would surmise that mastectomy should eliminate any risk of the tumors spreading.  My curiosity is if they are simply going to remove the just the affected gland(s), or if they are going to be a bit more radical and remove both mammary chains.  I’ll find out soon enough but I hate waiting and being in suspense. 

Of course had poor Sheena been spayed at four or five months of age she wouldn’t have mammary tumors.  In some ways I feel like we’re shutting the barn door after the horse has already escaped. I know the value of being sure to spay a non-breeding dog early, but we didn’t get to her early, and some people are just plain ignorant.

I will check Lilo when I get home, and Clara too, even though Clara is not as high risk for mammary tumors because she was spayed earlier and never had pups.  That is one disease that scares the hell out of me even though I’ve been assured it’s not as serious a thing for dogs as it is for cats. 

Poor Sheena.  She is going to be a basket case.

Anyone who is stumbling upon this, listen to me.  SPAY your dog.  Do it early.  Find a way.  Most dogs are not suitable for breeding anyway, and you don’t want to deal with heat or puppies – or the risk of mammary tumors and pyometra and all that other stuff.  We are trying to do right by Sheena now, because we didn’t have her when she was younger, but for other people with younger dogs and pups- DO IT NOW.  Or I will come and torture you.

Diarrhea of the Non-Metaphorical Kind, aka “The Lost Brown Weekend,” and Dog Pack Dynamics

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The above pic is for the benefit of friends who often accuse me of being too graphic and earthy when describing things scatological.  I will gladly provide a friendly disclaimer. I can attest that my past three day affair with the porcelain throne has not been as antiseptic and aesthetically pleasing as the above pic would imply.  Not by a long shot.  I do like the pink toilet seat cover, and if I ever become the weird old lady who lives alone and screams at kids for stealing snow, I will consider this bathroom decor.  Of course if I ever have the opportunity and the budget to pursue my own preferences in interior decor I can guarantee I will be the only one who likes it.  If I ever do live alone and have opportunity to pursue my own preferences in interior decor, my reply to others’ dislike of my incessant use of pink, bright colors, bold patterns, funky old ad art, and eclectic mixes of just plain different stuff will be, “screw you.”  I never claimed to be Martha Stewart.  As long as I like it and the dogs are comfortable, that’s all I really care about.

So after missing a day and a half at work, my church retreat which I had been looking forward to for some time, and plowing through a ghastly amount of toilet paper, (my apologies to the trees) I think I may remotely be back among the living.  Maybe.

Ok, so any excuse to post a pic of a pile of TP is a good one.  I don’t think I had to use quite this much but you get the picture.  Montezuma has been having a lot of fun with me since Thursday afternoon.  Thursday morning I thought it was just a headache until the headache moved south and then you can use your imagination from there.  So much for the Lost Brown Weekend.  The first person who makes any comment about me calling off on a Friday can kiss my rosy red ass.  I would much rather have been at work Friday than crapping my guts out all day, believe that.  I am glad that if I had to get this crud that I wasn’t already at the church retreat, 75 miles from home and at some points along the way more than an hour away from the nearest toilet.   It would have been most embarrassing to shart myself in public regardless- but I don’t want to ruin the upholstery in the car or worse, infect others with this contagion.

It would be easier for me in the battles of intestinal distress if I could puke.  It is very rare for me to be able to puke.  Sometimes I wish I could just puke so I could get the misery over with, but for me usually it all has to work its long and torturous way south on the brown agony train.

No matter how good the quality of the toilet paper is, when one has a long battle with Montezuma it gets to the point where you might as well be roto-rootering the One Brown Eye with a scrub brush, sort of like this:

I know, I should refrain from redneck jokes, out of consideration for my in-laws and for the fact that my Dad’s middle name is LeRoy.  Yeah, spelled just like that.  I don’t know what Grandma was thinking, but I’m glad she had a sense of humor.  Still, the idea of someone wiping with a toilet brush is funny.

The dogs are learning how to get along together better.  Sheena is young and stubborn which is a bit of a challenge, but she is learning the routine and proper etiquette.  Getting her to be a bit more polite at mealtimes is taking some work as well as keeping her from trash-digging.  I just hope Sheena doesn’t get in heat before her spay appointment.

 

She’s Back…Three Dogs Again After All, and Looking Forward to a Get Away (Sort Of)

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I should have not spoken so soon.  In a way I am pleasantly surprised, but I still scratch my head.  Sheena’s back.  It seems her potential new owner was scared off- after taking her to a vet for evaluation, heartworm test, shots, etc. because it’s likely Sheena has hip dysplasia.  I am not surprised by that as HD is extremely common in GSDs and many other large breeds (Lilo has HD and gets along quite fine) but she had difficulty navigating stairs.  In a split-level house that’s a concern, although I think in time she would have been acclimated to stairs soon enough.  Our dogs seldom have to navigate stairs, and we don’t want them in the basement cat area anyway. She has no problem getting on our beds and even up on the coffee table, but this is neither here nor there.  I don’t think she has any serious mobility issues but even mentioning possible HD can scare off some people.   In our household of misfits and basket cases HD has proven to be manageable (Heidi had HD also, and Kayla may have too- Clara is the only dog of ours so far that has good hips) as long as you don’t expect the dog to do agility or schutzhund and you keep the dog’s weight down.   We told the guy that if for any reason he didn’t want Sheena to bring her back to us, no questions asked.  He didn’t even want his $124 in vet expenses back which again was surprising, but at least he had some integrity about it.  There are still some good people out there, and I would be remiss if I didn’t admit the help there was much appreciated.

Other than postulating that Sheena likely has hip dysplasia, this particular vet estimated Sheena’s age at 18 months-3 years.  I had guessed 3-5 and still think the 3 year or so age range is accurate.  I was spot on at guessing her weight at 70#.  She weighed in at 70.5 although I think this vet is nuts in saying she’s 5# underweight.  I think her body condition is a healthy lean and with possible HD I will try to keep it that way.  At least we know Sheena doesn’t have heartworm  and she now has a rabies tag.  Two weeks from today she has her spay appointment at the spay clinic.  Our vet is scheduling surgeries in January and I really don’t want to wait that long because it would be my luck she would get in heat and I really don’t want to deal with heat.  I don’t want to try to keep every intact male dog in the greater Central Ohio area from descending upon our home.  I don’t want to deal with blood stained everything either. Sheena has had pups in the past but an HD dog should NEVER be bred regardless of lineage, and she’s a crossbreed anyway, that should NEVER be bred- so spay is the only way.   At least the spay clinic is close by so it will be easy to drop her off and pick her up even though I am nervous as hell about anyone other than our regular vet doing surgery on our dogs.

Clara and Lilo didn’t seem to be too rattled on Sheena’s return.  Sheena was rather worn out and seemed to be happy to be back with us.  She slept like a big white rock.  Now if I can just convince Fanny and Fluffy-Butt that it’s cool to come up from the basement.

Apparently Sheena is meant to be with us.  I told Jerry we aren’t going to subject her to any more interviews or potential alternative placements.  She’s had enough trauma and at this point she needs stability and routine if she’s going to become a stable and mentally healthy dog. 

This weekend I am going on the retreat with the church ladies which will definitely be fun.  I am speculating though that I may leave Saturday evening instead of Sunday morning so that I can get back home in time to give Jerry a break from having to play dog mom while I’m gone.  Clara and Lilo by themselves are easy but with Sheena in the mix it gets a bit more complicated.  Oh, well.  Some forms of complexity are better than others.

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One of my pet peeves are people who are never available and don’t seem to know anything but are in high positions of control and make more money in a week than I’ll see in a lifetime.  I experienced this a lot in dealerships, especially ones in which the owner’s offspring were foisted off into management positions that they couldn’t pronounce let alone perform.   Nepotism sucks unless you have well connected relatives.   I guess one has to be a.) born into influence and affluence, and b.) too stupid to be able to do any actual work.  Sounds like our government, the school systems, etc. 

Why couldn’t Bill Gates have adopted me or something?

Just When You Think You Called It Right, Not-So-Innocuous Kids’ Ditties, and “Normal” is a Relative Term

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I dare to show my ever advancing age here.  I graduated from high school (1986) and college (1989) long, long before Columbine.  When I was in elementary school- back in the dark ages when the apex of technology was the Atari Pong game, and people thought we were “rich” because Dad was one of the first in town to insist upon having the wonderful thirteen channels of Cable instead of endeavoring like everyone else to get the three Columbus channels that were almost impossible to get even with an antenna- we used to sing a nice little ditty in honor of teachers we disliked:

(To the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic):

Glory, glory, hallelujah, teacher hit me with a ruler  / Came in the door with a loaded .44, now teacher ain’t teachin’ no more

I really can’t imagine any kid belting out this little song today unless they really want to be sent to the school psychologist,  suspended , expelled or all three.  Kids get sent home for having plastic Army men with guns on them.  What are the Army men supposed to have?  Earrings and tinklebells?  I shudder to think of the ongoing wussification of the young, but then again, kids today take statements such as “came in the door with a loaded .44” a lot more literally these days.  Back then no one would have actually thought about shooting a teacher- it was merely a humorous visual like the stuff we would see on Tom and Jerry cartoons. 

Now I am all about identifying truly psychotic and homicidal rug rats early on, but singing a funny little song is not quite the same thing as displaying elements of the homicidal triad, which are: 1. Bedwetting, 2. Fire starting, and 3. Torturing animals.   Usually the schools aren’t in the position to observe those signs, unless the kid sets a fire in the school.  We did have a couple of fire bugs when I was in school who set fires in the trash cans so they could get out of school on a fire drill.  I think the principal beat one of them within an inch of his life, and the kid’s Dad whaled on him again when he got home.  I don’t think he set any more fires.   From what I’ve seen of the school system mentality they are so paranoid about a replay of Columbine that the kid who forgets he has his pocket knife in his pants,  or a kid who brings an Army man with his harmless tiny miniature plastic M16 to school is subject to extreme prejudice, but from what I see the little psychos go undetected.  

Another lovely little song we enjoyed singing that would raise eyebrows today went as followed:

Comet, it makes your mouth turn green / Comet, it tastes like gasoline / Comet, it makes you vomit/ So try some Comet and vomit today!

I can just imagine some little dumb ass trying this one.  The lawsuits…

Of course we were not politically correct, either.  Few kids got more teasing than the fat kids.   Granted back in the day everyone was poor so there were a lot fewer Really Fat Kids.  Today there’s a lot more kids in the “fatty fatty two by four” category, so there probably isn’t a lot of fat harassment.  The skinny kids, being in the minority, likely get the shit now.

Who doesn’t remember taunting the Fat Kid with:

Fatty, fatty two by four/ Couldn’t get through the bathroom door / So he did it on the floor / Licked it up and did some more/ Fatty, fatty two by four

I usually left the Fat Kids alone though, because being the Biggest Nerd in School who got beaten up everyday and whose wardrobe looked like there had been an explosion at the thrift store, was even worse than being a Fat Kid.  Besides, I was very tiny for my age in elementary school, and I was very frail for a long time after I had rheumatic fever.   I didn’t want any of the Fat Kids to pin me down and sit on me. 

Normal is definitely a relative term.  What is normal for me is most certainly abnormal for the rest of humanity, which is fine- I am used to my own parameters and I learned at an early age that the only opinion that really matters to me is my own. 

Our household has returned to some semblance of normal since last night.  I didn’t think Jerry could bear to let Sheena go, but we were really surprised when someone contacted us from the Craig’s List ad (and yes I am extremely cynical of using Craig’s List for anything) wanting to take a look at Sheena.  Come to find out the guy is former military and had experience with military dogs, which is why he wanted a GSD.  To make a long story much shorter, we interviewed him pretty heavily.  He brought his dog to come and visit and see if he (the dog) and Sheena would get along.  I think it will be a perfect fit for her as they have a good sized home and lot up in Delaware County and he has promised to keep in contact with us.  He is taking Sheena to the Vet today to get the ball rolling on her vacs, determing health status and hopefully to schedule her spay surgery.  He and his kid and their other dog seemed delighted with her and I feel good about the placement.  I don’t mind just having two dogs.  Clara and Lilo are used to each other and we’ve already gotten past the high-maintenance phase with them.  Of course if this guy changes his mind about Sheena we will gladly take her back, but at this place and time I think this is the best thing both for her and for us.   We can care for her well enough but this guy is equipped to do even better for her than we can.  Fluffy-Butt and Fanny have finally come back up from being in hiding in the basement.  It was nice to actually see and interact with all three cats this morning.  Isabel isn’t phased by dogs one way or the other, but the other two cats really only tolerate Clara and Lilo.  In a way I will miss Sheena- and she is a lovely dog- but I don’t miss playing food referee or going through the attention and territory wars that are inevitable when you add a dog.  Heidi was easy because she was old and only really concerned about meals, comfortable napping spots and an occasional roll in the warm grass.   I missed the judgment call on that one- I didn’t think Jerry had it in him to let her go- but I really believe Sheena will do as well if not even a bit better in her new home.  It will certainly be a damn sight better than scavenging around the campground all winter or being confined in a small pen and left to gnaw on cage bars, which is what would have happened to her had we left her there, or even worse.  We may not be the Ritz-Carlton but our home is very dog-friendly.  Clara and Lilo are not lacking anything, and I think they prefer their close knit little sorority of two.  They complement each other, and they got their fighting and competition out long ago.

 

Expiration Dates, Fascination With the Macabre, and Sheena of the Jungle

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I hesitated to say anything about Sheena for a number of reasons, one, that Jerry insisted that we were only taking Sheena home to *find a new home for her.*  Famous last words.  He said that about Isabel (our very tiny but domineering black cat) 12 1/2 years ago too, but once I had her spayed and declawed and all that, suddenly “three cats aren’t that many.”  At certain times we have had four cats at one time. Now we are at three cats and I’m cool with that.   For most of the past 5 years we have also had three dogs.  We have three dogs again now.

Sheena, like every other dog that has crossed our threshold, is a basket case.  She is a very lovely GSD/Husky mix, about 70# of unsocialized, attention-starved dog. 

Her story is yet another that inspires the misanthropist in me though.  She came from near the campground, from a nasty little trash pile that I shudder to think was a habitation for scavengers, let alone humans, but there were people living there in a derelict house trailer with various car parts, disassembled appliances, a PortoJohn, and piles of filth and trash.  This poor dog was a refugee from this disaster hole when the human denizens disappeared a few weeks ago.  She had been scavenging around the campground and accepting food from anyone who would give it to her.   Sheena was more fortunate than the min-pins they had locked in cages behind this cesspool- they were still alive but half starved. We left them food and called the Humane Society.  The Humane Society picked the min-pins up.

The main thing that breaks my heart about Sheena is that she lived most of her live in a small pen.  Because of this she became a cage biter- gnawing on the metal bars of the pen until she wore her incisors down to the gums and her canine teeth are little stubs.  She also appears to have had multiple litters of pups from the look of her belly.  I just hope she’s not preggers now, and that she doesn’t come into heat before we can get her spayed. 

Some people just plain suck.  Sheena is adapting well to life with the crazy dogs (Clara and Lilo) but nothing can fix her dental issues.  For the rest of her life she will have to either eat wet food or dry food stuck together with wet food or gravy, because the only teeth she has that are intact and functional are the molars in the back.  I have heard of military and police dogs getting dental implants and/or protective crowns, but short of us coming into some sort of fantastic and overwhelming financial windfall, I can’t see us being able to come up with thousands of dollars for poor Sheena to be fitted with crowns – an expensive endeavor which is only nominally successful in dogs anyway.  Since her gums don’t appear to be inflamed or infected I really don’t think her existing tooth roots/stubbies need to be removed or that her dental issues are going to impact her health or quality of life too adversely.  That will be another question for the Vet.

I find it amazing that everything from car wax to Cheetos has an expiration date stamped on it.  If modern packaging is supposed to halt the inevitability of decay for an inordinate amount of time, who sets the arbitrary limits?  Who is to say that an unopened bag of Cheetos is good until December 15?  Does this mean you can’t eat them on December 16 or even February 4 for that matter?  Is there research behind this and if so, why was I not stamped with an expiration date?  That would be an interesting tattoo- not that I am into tats nor do I ever anticipate getting one- but for the sake of the argument, let’s say the tat could say, “Fresh until July 14, 2041” or something like that.  It would be a conversation starter if nothing else.  Obama could get an expiration date tat too: “Discard Immediately: 1-20-13.”