and you think you had a bad day

i had a game when i was a kid* called medical monopoly (you can probably guess how cool i was just from that sentence alone).  basically you got a card with symptoms and had to correctly diagnose the condition to move ahead...i know, totally awesome, right?  so today i’m offering up a little twist – are you ready to play veterinary monopoly?  here’s your symptoms: 

• large amount of arterial blood from penis
• no visible marks
• several hours post-seizure  

because zander presented with these symptoms he got to take a little trip to our vet today and the diagnosis pretty much surprised all who were present.  this xray is the last hint before i reveal the diagnosis:

diagnosis:  fractured penis

poor zanny broke his penis.  we’ve had several dogs with seizure disorders and for all intents and purposes zander’s are fairly standard with the exception of how violently he thrashes about.  unfortunately his seizures usually happen in the middle of the night when he’s asleep on the couch and by the time we’re awakened he’s already flung himself to the ground.  that is exactly the scenario that happened early this morning and at some point in the midst of the seizure the infraction (ha, i kill me) occurred.  i can’t believe zan broke his penis …and seems unphased by it to boot. 

*in the interest of honesty i should note that the game remains in my possession (i’ve only suckered dave into playing once)

the wrath of grapes

tuesday was not a good day and it turned into an even worse 48 hours.  i did a moronic thing and left some just washed grapes in the sink to dry…and let the dogs in and forgot about the grapes.  cue doom music, enter carly.  i came into the kitchen a short time later to find carly standing over some little tell-tale water marks on the floor, saw a few chewed stems and at first thought “oh carly” and then “oooh carly” (which doesn’t look  that much different but believe me it is).

i decided to do a quick internet search and i really believed because she weighs 110 lbs that i would find the amount she ate wasn’t an issue (similar to chocolate) but after reading for a few minutes it was clear there is really very little known about the toxicity of grapes.  i called the aspca poison control center and got some direction for inducing vomiting at home but after calculating the amount of grapes she ate and a comical first attempt at trying to make carly a vomitee we decided an er visit was the safest bet.

at the er they were able to induce vomiting quickly and, guess what guys, they even let me count the grapes!  that was fun! because there is so little known about grape toxicity the vets at the er always call poison control to get the latest treatment protocol.  because of her size and the likelihood that we got all the grapes (most whole with stems still attached), i had the choice of taking her home, watching her for 48 hours and checking kidney function at that time or being more conservative and diuresing her for 24 hours.  i chose the conservative approach and off we went. 

it has been a very long 48 hours but i’m elated to report that carly’s kidney functions were perfect this morning and she’s totally in the clear.  here’s my hard-earned advice:  (a) keep grapes away from your dogs and if you fail at (a) then call the aspca poison control hotline immediately for the most up to date treatment.  unfortunately i bought a very expensive bag of grapes but thankfully it was a bag of grapes i can forgive myself for.

aspca animal poison control center  888.426.4435

i've got some other good news (that doesn't start with bad news) but that will have to wait until later...it's a cliffhanger!

feeling lucky?

the first person to correctly identify which two dogs i had the pleasure of transporting to the vet early this morning gets an earthdog collar (elvis was just along for the ride)...leave your answer in the comment field. 

dave captured this picture as i was pulling out of the driveway...the fact that they both battled to get into the front seat before we left did not forebode a peaceful drive but they settled in once we got on the road.  their teeth cleaning today means two things for me: (1) for at least a few hours it won't feel like their breath is melting my face and (2) i can knock 2 off my long list of dogs who need dental cleaning...yay for me!

sleep is overrated, right?

i think we need somebody out there to remind us why we sleep (or try to) with 16 dogs in our bedroom.  lately we’ve been lacking in the z department due to two culprits.  the first is violet who is not a fan of her cage and starts whining anywhere from 2:30 am to 6:00 am.  as puppies go she’s been fantastic, so good in fact we tend to forget she’s a puppy…she definitely seems to be an old soul.  she pretty much does what she wants and we feel like she's safe to allow out of our sightline for minutes at a time, however we do insist she stay in her cage at night and when we’re not home.  the other day in an act of non-sleep frustration dave decided to try letting her sleep out of her cage (which i told him was a bad idea for numerous reasons).  all went fine the first night but the second morning dave was awakened by the sound of violet peeing (not that i’m saying i told you so but, well, i actually did).  violet is back to sleeping in her cage and we get to listen to her whining…it’s a lose–lose all-around.  yay for us! 

the second culprit is this guy:

to be fair it’s not phineus’ fault that he’s been itchy (we’ll try to forget he seems to have some strange nighttime-only itching phenomenon).  it’s also not his fault that he prefers sleeping on the hardwood floor and it’s certainly not his fault that our hardwood floor has the ability to make a petite noise sound like the clock just struck midnight at a raucous new year’s eve party.  benadryl has had no effect so for the past 3 nights i keep waking up to phat phinny scratching his belly, which makes his leg go crazy, which on our floor produces a sound akin to nonstop machine gun fire.  it seems like it’s been going on all night but it’s really impossible to tell because i'm apparently in and out of consciousness and phineus, being the man of leisure that he is, naps all day so there’s no way to tell if he’s actually tired.  i’m certain that he’s just developed a little seasonal allergy so today i broke down and gave him some prednisone which will hopefully break the cycle and allow us all to sleep a little more peacefully, until violet disallows us to all sleep peacefully.  ah whatever, sleep is just practice for dying anyway…even if it is practice i really, really enjoy.

on another note the little lady had her surgery yesterday to have her pin removed and was spayed at the same time and she’s back home recovering nicely.  while she was under the influence of the knock-out drugs she used her leg a little more and it seems something clicked in her noggin.  she’s  been using the leg to walk a bit and she’s got quite a unique, adorable gait which just makes me giggle.  

 

dieciséis again

we got a call the other day from an acquaintance who had “rescued” a dog from a bad situation and needed some help figuring out what to do.  unfortunately “the dog” had a broken leg and now the rescuers had had her in their care for a week without providing any care for the leg.  not knowing what else to do and realizing that this dog needed help we told them to take her to our vet the next day and we would pay to find out what exactly was wrong with the leg and what needed to happen and then we would go from there.  at the time the idea was that perhaps if the care was to be extensive that we could set up a collection or something to get her what she needed.  the next day i spoke to our vet after she had seen the dog and it became clear that the situation she was in needed to change.  she had a badly broken leg that either needed (hopefully) pinning but possibly amputation.  dave & i talked about it and decided the best thing for us to do was to take responsibility for her both financially and emotionally so arrangements were made for us to pick her up the next day and go from there.

dave was away the day/night that this all went down and i am embarrassed to admit that i just felt an overwhelming sadness, both for this dog and the situation she was in but also for us.  i just did not want another dog and hadn’t planned on another dog (not that these things are always planned) – i’m just not a fan of change and this change was a little more than i felt i could handle at the time.  we have just really gotten  to a new normal since adding benny to the pack and things are settled and moving along smoothly so to throw a cog in that wheel really was not what i wanted.  there’s also the sad fact that dave and i have not been away together for almost 2 years (i actually haven’t left the house for even a night in that time).  we haven’t had a pet sitter in that time, although to be fair we haven’t made a real concerted effort to find someone up for the daunting task, but still…

i was feeling fairly downhearted when we went to pick said dog up and then we introduced her to the pack and everything was better.  i have to tell you that we have some amazing dogs…i am so proud of how they accepted this little bugger and they were all just so lovely it’s amazing. “the dog," in her own right, is equally amazing as she took all the introductions in stride and was completely unphased and completely loving.

so it’s probably time for the introduction of this little lady that i’ve been rudely referring to as “the dog” so i am pleased to present violet:

she’s a female pit bull who is probably about 5-1/2 months old and she has coped amazingly well with a broken femur for over a week now (evident in the video below).  i am happy to say she had surgery yesterday and our amazing vet feels very positive about the result.  because of the scarring present (due to the time the fracture was given to heal on it’s own) some of her long bone had to be removed but we are hopeful she will have a fully functional, albeit shorter leg.  we’ll have some tough weeks ahead trying to keep a pit puppy calm and quiet when she’s feeling better but we are thrilled to have her in our life and looking forward to a lifetime with her.  

dear december, don't let the door hit you on the way out

not to be crass but december 2009 can go suck it - i have never experienced such a shit sandwich of a month as december 2009 in my life.  sadly it wasn't even the type of crappy month that once you get past it you can look back and laugh - it was chock full of "only time will heal" moments.  after demeter's diagnosis and the loss of astrid i couldn't shake that insipid "bad things happen in threes" idea and i really wish i was able to.  the day after christmas we were enjoying some down time when murray started acting funny.  he had gotten knocked over earlier and i thought he was having back pain because he was stumbling around and wouldn't sit down but then he vomited and then i looked at his eyes and 5 minutes later we were in the car heading for the emergency room.  his eyes were darting from side to side and my thought was that he was having a stroke.  after an interminable time in the waiting room we got to talk to the vet where finally we got the news that murray had idiopathic vertebral disease. ivd is also referred to as "old dog disease" - how the hell did we not see that one coming?* long story short it took a few weeks but murray has made a full recovery and lives on to slowly waddle through life.  a few days ago dave let it slip that when we were in the er waiting room he didn't think murray would ever be coming home.  i'm here to tell you that he is one lucky guy that he was wrong because, dear gravy, i would not have been able to come back from that.

so that was december 2009 and while i'm sure it meant well it sucked...bad...really bad.  as you know we've since lost demeter and sadly it's time for us to try to move ahead.  i hope for only joyous posts in the future but the reality is with the amount of dogs we have our chance of crud happening is exponentially larger and yet our chance of joy is also exponentially larger...so there you go.  

here's a recent shot of murray...could you die???

 *a proud direct copyright infrigement of denis leary "lou gehrig. died of lou gehrig's disease.  how the hell do you not see that coming?" and if you aren't familiar with denis leary get to be because he's hee-larious.

kissing fools

this is how wilson and astrid spend a good bit of their time.  if this video were in smellovision you would be stopping it immediately and waving your hand in front of your nose.

murray gets cracked

below is a video of one of murray’s chiropractic appointments with the great dr. triplett in nashville. it’s 7 minutes of a vet appointment so it might not be the most engaging video but i thought it would be interesting for people to see if they didn’t know what chiropractic on dogs looks like. if you can’t hang out for the full 7 minutes i strongly urge you to make it (or fast forward) to 2:39 where murray’s face first appears – i defy you not to smile at this stinking dog!

the most important thing to remember when viewing this video is this is the dog who historically has sprayed every vet’s office with unmentionables and bites me if i try to pick a string off of him. the night before this visit i was trying to cut a mat from his ear (that was so big i thought it might be blocking his hearing) and after him biting me and throwing a fit we finally had to resort to dave wrapping him in a towel while i deftly snipped the mat away. for some reason when he’s getting acupuncture and chiropractic he’s really relaxed, which i’m thrilled about as it has dramatically changed his quality of life.

murray update

for the last 8 months i’ve been taking murray for chiropractic adjustments and acupuncture and it has given him a quality of life that wasn’t predicted upon his original diagnosis. if you told me a year ago that murray would be receiving such care i would have guffawed right in your face. we’ve had murray since he was 4 weeks old and not once have we been able to take him to the vet without first slipping him a mickey. the sedation is not necessary to stop murray from being aggressive, if that were the case we’d employ a muzzle. in murray’s case he needs to be doped to stop large quantities of liquids from being rocketed from his orifices – creating a clearly messy and incredibly embarrassing scene. no rational person allows this to happen more than once before pharmaceuticals enter the picture – plus for murray’s sake it takes the edge off and allows him to relax (i use this word loosely).

when his back got to the point that the vet said he would probably soon be paralyzed i figured there was nothing to lose (other than mine and murray’s dignity) by trying the acupuncture – never in my wildest dreams did i think he’d tolerate it – and mickey-free no less. it tickles the crud out of me each and every time i look at him with the needles sticking out of him – seeing him with the chiropractor draped over him floors me. this is the guy who most of our friends and relatives have never gotten to touch – i’m pretty sure murray believes people are after his magic. i’m hoping to video his visit next month – if any of you have been considering acupuncture or chiropractic for your animals i highly recommend it and maybe seeing a video will help you make the choice. here are some shots of murray –the first two on the way to his appt and the last coming home.

sticking it to ya

last week we took murray to the vet for what we thought was a problem with his hips. x-rays quickly revealed that his hips are perfect but his back is a mess. i could give you all the medical jargon (which i love) or i can just say his back is f**ed up. our vet gave us a very bleak prognosis and i’ve been dealing with the news fairly poorly since then. after all i often say my heart is in the shape of murray and i absolutely refuse to lose him before his time (which i’ve scientifically calculated to be no earlier than 20 years of age).

today i took murray to a holistic vet for a consultation to see if acupuncture was a possibility. i am ecstatically writing this to say that the holistic vet had a much, much brighter prognosis and with some acupuncture and a combination of herbs and wheatgrass murray should be on course for a long, fruitful life. his back may be a mess but fortunately the rest of him is strong like bull. he’s pretty wiped out from his first acupuncture treatment but there should be sunny skies ahead.

now i just have to hope that acupuncture will solve the problem dave’s back will have after carrying the 54 lb cinder block that is murray up and down steps for the near future (hopefully we will have a ramp built by the weekend). my shoulder feels like it needs to be removed after hauling murray around all weekend while dave was out of town so dave, in true dave awesomeness, is picking up all the slack (in this case the slack being murray). unfortunately murray & dave have always had a rather cantankerous relationship so there is a lot of grumbling that goes on, although i do have to say most of it is from murray’s end. oh, my man murman – you crazy nut!!!