Teener's World

I'm Not A Vet

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:47:03 GMT

But I think this means Eli is feeling better.

Would it be immoral to withhold his pain pills for the sake of my house (and booze)?

Happy Husky Holidays

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:50:15 GMT

I debated about whether I should take the dogs to see Santa this year. On the one hand, the boys are in poor/declining health and Avery is, well Avery. On the other hand, with the boys in poor/declining health, this could be the last year for me to get a santa photo of them. And at least the inmates would be there to help control Avery.

Besides, Santa pictures support the shelter and since, in a way, the shelter is supporting me, it wasn't like I would be really spending any money. In the end I waited until the morning of so I could evaluate the boys and make a final decision. Of course, the decision was yes we'll go see Santa.

I've come to the conclusion there are two types of people who bring their dogs to see Santa. First, the people with the little frou-frou dogs that they pick up and hand to Santa. The dogs always look right at the camera and cock their head in a cute way. Then when it comes time to review the pictures it's "Oh Princess blinked. Oh Fluffy has hair in his eyes. can we take a few more pictures?"

Then there's me who walks in with the three dog wrecking crew. And getting them to pose is a bit of a challenge. The boys always follow the 180 degree rule - Quinn on the left and Eli on the right - so I figured I'd just use a second coupler to stick Avery in the middle. Yeah right, that worked so well.

When we went to review the pictures there were shots of two dogs looking at the camera and one (Avery) turned around looking at the backdrop. There were shots where the dog on the left was looking right, the dog on the right was looking left, and the dog in the middle was looking down. It was typical husky chaos. On the plus side, I think we dissuaded a potential adopter at the shelter from choosing the husky that was on the adoption floor.

My buddy Dave, the wonderful photographer who uses a picture of my boys & Santa in his display, did get one shot where all three dogs were at least facing forward and looking in the general vicinity of the camera. That was the picture I was going to order, until I saw this one:

yes it's a photo of a photo. I don't have access to a scanner anymore

Now THAT show the true personality of my dogs. Yes, they were surprised when I picked it as the print I wanted, but come on! How can you look at it and not laugh?

None Shall Pass!

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 20:18:10 GMT

Don't you just hate it when the troll comes out from under the bridge?

The Missing Link

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:43:15 GMT

How do you get your injured, elderly dog to use the dreaded orthopedic dog bed? You buy a $6 comforter at Goodwill.

Who knew that's all it would take?

OCD Behavior

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:36:48 GMT

We have a fairly regular routine around my house. Every night I take the dogs out to potty then I get ready for bed. Quinn goes into his crate and Avery & Eli go stand in the bedroom. When I get into bed, A&E get onto the bed and spend 10 minutes jockeying for the best spot next to me. 10 minutes later Eli moves to his regular spot on the floor next to the bed. 10 minutes after that I hear Quinn get out of his crate and settle on the love seat. Sometime during the night Avery gets off the bed and moves under it. This has been the routine for a year now.

Last night I got ready for bed, Quinn went into his crate, and Eli decided to get comfortable in the spot he'd been in all night. I decided to sleep on the couch to keep an eye on him since he'd had such a rough day at the vet. Avery, of course, slept on the couch with me. Quinn, on the other hand, stayed in his crate the whole time. Around 1:30 this morning I decided I could actually go to bed. I eased myself out from under Avery and went into the bedroom.

Avery followed me and went right under the bed (apparently she goes under the bed sometime before 1:30). 10 minutes later I heard Quinn come out of his crate and move to the love seat. Eli stayed where he was, but when I woke up a few hours later he was in his regular spot beside my bed. Apparently routine is very important to these guys and they were not happy with me for altering it. But they're not OCD or anything.

It's Always Something

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 00:39:06 GMT

Oh boy it's been a crazy couple of days around here. I'm starting to think the dogs are conspiring against me.

Saturday I came home to find Quinn sitting in the middle of the living room surrounded by a vacuum cleaner hose, a bottle of laundry detergent, an empty bottle of calcium (that had originally been half full), and an empty bottle of maple syrup (that had originally been a third full). He was just so proud of himself. I seriously started to think he's channeling Phoenix.

I was a little concerned about an overdose of calcium, okay and I was mad and spiteful, so I tried to induce vomiting. Three syringes full of hydrogen peroxide and the damned dog still wouldn't vomit. I swear he was holding it in out of spite. I crated both boys and went to take Avery to the state park for a long hike. After getting there and finding the park closed, we headed back to town to visit a different park. Halfway there she vomits in the back of my car. Okay, so Quinn gets the peroxide and Avery vomits. I guess next time I'll give the peroxide to Avery and see if Quinn vomits.

Sometime Friday evening, Eli got a little whiny. I figured it was his ears flaring up. By Saturday he was screaming for no apparent reason. Now understand that Eli is a major drama queen; accidentally step on his foot and he'll scream for half an hour. He rarely whines or yelps, he screams - loudly and shrilly like a girl - if he so much as stubs his toe. He'd be asleep on the floor, scream, get up, pace around, then settle back down again. This happened off and on most of Saturday. By Sunday he was screaming if anybody (okay, mostly Avery) walked past him. He was also limping a little bit and favoring his left front leg. Gave him some low dose aspirin (the only thing in the house) and he seemed to feel better.

Monday morning Avery was acting completely weird (yeah I know how can you tell?). Pacing around the house was okay but when she put herself into her crate and pulled the door closed behind her I knew something was up (although it was very cute and made me laugh). Turns out she was suffering some gastric upset. A trip outside and she had some diarrhea. An hour later another trip outside and more diarrhea. Come back inside and she pukes in the living room. I no sooner clean that up than she has diarrhea on the dog bed - the dog bed they refuse to sleep on. More diarrhea in the crate while I was at the shelter that afternoon, and topped it off by vomiting under my bed at midnight. And not to be outdone by the heathen, when I got home on Monday the boys had gotten into a bag of rice and spread it all over the living room - after eating half of it. The poop that came out of those dogs looked like they were infested with worms. I still prefer it to the stinky post-maple syrup binge that came out of Quinn on Sunday.

Which brings us to today. One of the boys left a pile of rice encrusted poop in the living room when I got up this morning. Okay, not a huge deal. Then after breakfast Eli started screaming again. This time he was in such a tizzy that he wouldn't let me touch him anywhere on his body. And he got so worked up he puked (more rice) all over the living room. Have I mentioned the living room carpet is pretty much a disgusting mess? He was also favoring his left front leg so much he wouldn't put any weight on it. Yet he had no problem jumping up onto the couch. Okay, this is more than just drama queen syndrome - time to call the vet. On the plus side, it did get me out of driving a transport (including my bottle fed puppies) to Merrillville in the rain, wind and snow.

My incredibly wonderful vets got us an appointment about an hour after I called. I spent the next hour with Quinn & Avery in their crates while I tried to get Eli to settle down. He finally did and I pretty much had to drag him out the door to go to the vet. They kept him so they could x-ray his leg to find out what the deal was. Called me back an hour later and told me he was OCD. LOL!

Okay, so what they said was he has an OCD lesion but given the fact that the screaming first started while I was watching the series finale of Monk, I found it rather ironic and couldn't get past the OCD part. But in fact it's an Osteochondritis Dissecans lesion. Basically some of the bone in his shoulder has flaked off and a piece of bone fragment is now embedded into the joint. Owie!! I saw the x-ray and it's got to be nearly half an inch long.

The ideal treatment would be surgery - surgery my own vets don't even do, it requires a specialist. Of course surgery on an 11-year old drama queen? Really not my first choice even if I could afford it. So instead we're going to treat him with some anti inflammatory drugs (at $2.50 per pill!) and see how that goes. Could be once his body gets used to the bone fragment in there, he'll be okay. I just have to try and prevent Avery from doing her traditional body slam greeting with him. Yeah like THAT'S going to be possible.

And Quinn, bless his heart, wouldn't come out of his crate when I came home from the vet without his buddy. He also decided to spread a box of mostaccioli all over the living room while I was at work. He knew he was in trouble and was hiding in his crate when I came home. But when he saw Eli come in with me he decided it was worth enduring the wrath of mom to come out of the crate and see his buddy. How can I get mad at him when he's so cute? Even Avery was slightly more gentle with Eli than she has been in the past.

Eli's now resting somewhat comfortably (translate: he's stopped screaming but still occasionally whines) and seems very happy to be home. I really hope the pills help him. I think they will since this condition doesn't come on suddenly but his pain seemed to. Tells me that maybe he's been hurting a bit for a while but didn't start showing until it got really bad. Hopefully the pills will take the edge off some.

I'm kind of looking forward to going to work tomorrow - I can't wait to see what the boys (okay, Quinn) gets into while I'm gone. I figure next he'll figure out how to open a can of soup and spread that all over the living room.

It's always something!

They're Baaack!

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:14:51 GMT

The prison called and said the puppies were eating solid food and pooping all over the place - so it was time to bring them back to the shelter. Here are all eight that we sent to the prison. I really can't tell which ones were mine anymore. I'm just glad they all survived and are ready to be adopted!

Happy Birthday Quinn!

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:12:29 GMT

Not sure when his exact birthday is, but we know that Quinn was born mid to late November. Which means he is now officially eight years old.

I have to admit, I never thought we'd see the day. Quinn's been my medical problem child since day one. The rescuer I adopted him from got him from her vet. He was brought to the vet as a puppy to be euthanized because he's missing a toe one one foot. The rescuer adopted him out and the people kept him a couple of weeks then returned him because "If he's missing a toe he could have other medical problems and we don't want to deal with that." Idiots. But good for me since I got custody of him after that.

Over the years Quinn has had chronic ear infections, emergency surgery for bloat (thanks to auntie dog footing the bill), and has seizures just often enough to keep me on my toes. And let's not forget the fact that he's autistic and hates to be touched or have his routine changed in any way. But you know, I don't think any of those problems can be attributed to his missing toe. The bad hips and arthritis in the back, on the other hand, can be attributed to the missing toe. But his chiropractic adjustments and acupuncture treatments do help keep him mobile.

So here we are, eight years later, and the old guy is still kicking. He doesn't do much these days but eat and sleep, but he's still my best boy and he knows it. Besides, despite it all, how could anybody have said no to adopting something as cute as this:

Then he grew into this:

I admit there were times when we had our differences:

But he always finds a way to make me laugh:

And he's always been everyone's buddy:

Everybody Loves Quinn!

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:25:56 GMT

Barely used 52" x 36" orthopedic dog bed.

Across the room is the beat up old 52" x 24" love seat.

In all honesty, I think I have used the dog bed more than the dogs. It's a great comfort when your back is bothering you and you can't afford the chiropractor.

Dirty Dawg

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:02:36 GMT

Doesn't matter how cold the weather, Avery still likes to swim. Weird combination of cold loving husky and swim loving who-know-what. The river is muddy and full of leaves, but does that deter my little heathen? You decide: