My New Old Desk

Mom and Ronnie went out to Krysti's this weekend and picked up Dad's old roll top desk. Ronnie added some reinforcements for stability and a light coat of stain to get it back to its original color. The desk has a bit of water damage along the bottom, unfortunately, but overall its in decent shape. No one knows when Dad got the desk, but we do know it pre-dates Mom and Dad's wedding, which was in 1974.

I really love all the little drawers and shelves for stashing items.

Another neat thing about the desk - the transport stickers that were put on the desk when Mom and Dad moved to Alaska are still on the back. How cool is that??

Now I just have to figure out how I want to reorganize my office....

Its Been A Long Six Weeks

That mass on Reyna's belly that was nearly gone when I posted last? It went away. And then it came back with a vengeance. It was barely visible the morning of September 12. By the evening of the 13th it had gone from nothing to a huge mass to a giant hole in Reyna's belly. It didn't behave like any of the masses she's had before. I actually intended to post about it and include some photos but never dug up the motivation to do it. We had an appointment with Dr. L already scheduled for the 15th - the first thing he said when he saw it was "Oh, crap!" Never a good thing to hear from the vet... The second thing he said was "You need to go to the vet school." So we did.

Reyna ended up having a CT scan done at the vet school. They were so bewildered by what was happening with her belly that they had Internal Medicine, Orthopedics, Radiology, Soft Tissue Surgery, Dermatology and Neurology (a vet on rotation) all examining her and looking at the scans. All they really determined was that the drainage tract goes from her belly straight towards her hip implant. Unfortunately, the artifact from the implant made it impossible to see where the drainage tract stopped. The implant looked good, so they don't think its the problem. They do think its possible that all of this could be caused by a piece of suture, one of the wires around her femur, or some random foreign body. The major concern is infection getting in through the drainage tract and causing trouble with the implant. Their recommendation is exploratory surgery when there's another active mass. They would follow the drainage tract to wherever it goes and hope to find the piece of whatever that's causing the problem. They did admit that its also possible they might never find the cause, no matter how hard they look. Isn't that reassuring? I'm holding on to the hope that this was the last mass and that the reason it was so different from all the others is that whatever caused all this trouble has finally worked its way out of Reyna's body.

While Reyna was dealing with her drama, Duncan was having his own issues. He had the two seizures after I got home from my trip, and then 19 days later, another seizure. Interestingly enough, Kodiak actually alerted me to this one. I was in bed and almost asleep when I heard Kodiak give one sharp, deep bark. I've never heard him bark quite like that before. When I got to the living room, Duncan was in the midst of a grand mal. He was on the rug, so its a good bet that I never would have heard him. Unfortunately, he had another one the next day, giving him two within 16 hours. He made it 21 days after that. This past Friday, Duncan had three grand mal seizures within 20 hours. Kodiak alerted me to the one that happened just after midnight. I'm so glad Kodiak has turned into Duncan's seizure-alert dog. These were particularly hard on Duncan - he didn't really get back to normal until today. He had a lot of trouble walking over the weekend, running into walls and furniture, not really in control of his back end. Sunday, he woke me up at 4am screaming at the living room wall. I have no idea what brought that on, but it certainly increased my level of worry. Duncan has an appointment with a neurologist at the vet school next Monday. Hopefully something useful will come of that.

To add to the fun, Kodiak pretty much lost his mind this weekend, thanks to the stress of Duncan's seizures. He spent Friday evening flipping between cute and Cujo. He went after both Reyna and Duncan several times during the evening and even growled at me twice. Interestingly enough, he didn't try to bother Duncan during the last seizure. Mixed in with the bad moments were "I'm sorry I'm psychotic" cuddles. He was calmer Saturday morning, but I could tell that it wouldn't take much to push him over the edge. Sunday wasn't much better, which meant we didn't get to go to the herding trial that I'd really been looking forward to. He's done well tonight, only threatening to go after Reyna once, which I shut down pretty quickly. If Duncan can stay seizure-free for a few days, Kodiak should be back to his normal mildly-psychotic self soon. I really never thought Reyna would be the sane dog of the bunch....

Some good critter news - Belle has regained most of the use of her back leg. She still has spots with no feeling, but she's walking almost normally - the foot isn't dragging and the toes aren't knuckling under. No idea why the improvement suddenly happened after nearly three months, but I'll take it.

On the human side of things, I was offered the position that I interviewed for right before I went to New Jersey. I started on October 8. Finally, a permanent job with full benefits and paid time off. To make it even better, its only 11 minutes from my house via back roads. I don't have to sit in traffic any more and a week of work only takes a quarter of a tank of gas.

I think that covers all the important stuff that's happened lately. If I think of something else, I'll be back...

Home Is Always Best

Work sent a group of us to New Jersey for a couple of days last week. We were there to check a couple of the substation sites we're building and conduct training. It started with a 4am alarm Wednesday morning so I could get to the airport by 6:00. At my layover in Charlotte, I found out the person who was supposed to be traveling with me (and paying for food, etc, since I don't have a company card) changed his travel plans Tuesday and forgot to tell me. I got to Newark about 11:30 and had to wait until the others showed up at 1:00. Thanks to traffic, we didn't make it to the first site until 3:15. We toured that site then drove over to the second site. We finally got to the hotel at 6:00pm. Checked in and did a quick luggage drop-off, then back out the door at 6:15 to get to the group dinner. We ate at a place on the river with a gorgeous view of New York City.

We finally made it back to the hotel around 10:00, and I was asleep maybe 15 minutes after that. At 1:37am, I was rudely awakened by the fire alarm.

We were kept outside for nearly 30 minutes. Luckily, I was asleep within a few minutes of getting back to my bed. I found out the next morning the alarm went off because some idiot decided to smoke a cigarette in the stairwell.

Thursday was training day. We were supposed to finish at 4:00pm and then go into NYC for some sightseeing. I was the only one in the group who hadn't been there before. NYC is one of those places that I wouldn't necessarily pay to go visit, but if the company wants to send me, I'm definitely up for seeing the sights. We did actually finish the training at 4:00, but then it was decided that we should change to a hotel closer to the airport so that we wouldn't have to worry about traffic in the morning. By the time we relocated and turned in the rental vehicles, it was after 6:00. We finally made it into the city at 7:00. We did a really fast walk through Times Square, sat down for dinner at 8:00, left the restaurant at 9:00, hustled back to Penn Station and made it back to the hotel at 10:15pm. I have to say that I was really disappointed with how that all worked out.

Back to the airport at 6:15 Friday morning, then finally home by 1:00pm. Sooooo happy to be home. The pups were just as happy - lots of wiggles and kisses from them. Belle gave me the evil eye and the other cats stayed in hiding until dinner time. So, pretty much the normal reaction.

While I was gone, John came over twice a day to feed everyone and monitor a few issues. Reyna developed a mass on her belly on the 3rd, so I figured it would rupture while I was gone. Surprisingly, it didn't. More surprisingly, its almost disappeared now. I talked to Dr. L about it Friday afternoon. We're both happy it didn't rupture, but concerned because that's just not how Reyna does things. She causes us enough stress without suddenly doing things differently.

Poor Duncan had a grand mal seizure Friday evening. He made it 25 days past the last one, which is good. What's not good is that he had another grand mal Saturday about 12:30pm. Two seizures in 16 hours is worrisome. Dr. L and I chatted again and agreed there really wasn't anything to do but monitor him. I can't afford to add other medications and he reacts so poorly to increasing the phenobarb. Thankfully, he hasn't had a seizure since Saturday. I'm hoping the two were the result of the stress and excitement of me being gone and coming home, rather than an indication that things are getting worse. We'll just have to wait and see.

Buh-Bye, 2011

I have to confess, I'm glad 2011 is over. Don't get me wrong, good things happened, but the bad things were really stressful.

In the good column (in no particular order):
Kodiak officially joined the family.
Reyna became a therapy dog.
All of the pups learned new skills and earned various titles/certificates.
I learned to crochet.
After two years, I finally got a job that pays reasonable money and might actually last more than a few months.
I started selling Mary Kay.
We had a successful raffle raising money for Reyna's medical bills.
I met a great guy who gives me deer parts to feed the animals.
The switch to raw has been great for pups and kitties alike.

In the bad column:
I had to stop working with a great pup trainer due to schedule conflicts (this one isn't bad like the others, it just makes me sad).
I had massive financial issues due to lack of work, stress over potentially losing the house, problems with the state about taxes, and general "how do I pay for this" worries.
First there were problems with Reyna's kidneys, then we spent months dealing with multiple masses on her belly, including surgery and so many useless trips to the vet.
Duncan had two grand mal seizures in June and what appeared to be a mild seizure shortly before Christmas.
My sweet Mikey was diagnosed with lymphoma two weeks before Christmas. He's still fighting, but he's having a rough time.

So, yeah, I'm glad 2011 is done. Paws crossed 2012 will be better.

Yeah, I Know...

I'm way behind. Its been mentioned more than once. The last several weeks have had a lot going on, some good, some not so good, and even though I've intended to update the blog several times, the motivation just hasn't kicked in. I've got a few individual posts in mind for some things that happened over the last month (not to mention a ton of photos to share), but this one will just be a (relatively) brief sum-up.

The vets still don't know what's causing the masses on Reyna's belly. Another one appeared in early November and we managed to get her to the vet school before it ruptured so they could take samples for biopsies and cultures. They admitted that they didn't give her enough pain meds to keep it from hurting when they took the samples, and it was obvious to me that she wasn't sufficiently drugged. The soreness unfortunately got her fixated on her belly and I had a lot of trouble keeping her from licking this time around. For whatever reason, she still has an open sore from the biopsy, when she should be completely healed by now.

The Derm vet is apparently still running things, so he and I have talked a few times since the biopsies. They didn't get any definitive answers from the biopsies or the cultures. They requested the slides of the samples taken during the surgery so they could do a comparison - nothing useful came from that. The last time I talked to the Derm vet, they were running a special stain on the samples to try and determine if she has a microbacterial infection. They can't find anything else, so that's their current guess. To add to the fun, if the stain comes back negative, it doesn't actually mean there aren't any microbacteria - it could just mean they took the sample from the wrong place. The vet put Reyna on two new antibiotics (microbacteria are apparently resistant to the various antibiotics she's already taken) to see if that clears up her belly. I picked up the new meds yesterday and gave her the first dose last night. I woke up this morning to discover that Reyna's face, head, and forelegs were swollen - one of the less-likely but still possible side effects of these particular antibiotics. I've been dosing her with Benadryl, but her head is still a bit puffy. At least she can open her eyes all the way now.

Kodiak earned his Junior Herding Dog title at the end of October. I have videos of both runs, and someday the woman who took pictures of his runs will get around to letting me have copies. I was really pleased with Kodiak - even though other things at the trial freaked him out, he was able to focus on the sheep and do his job.

Reyna had a nose work seminar this past weekend, and I took all of the pups. The last time I left Duncan home alone for two days, he was a basket case for several days after we returned. I think he was much happier traveling with us, despite the cramped truck and hanging in a crate all day.

The pups had their Santa Paws photos taken recently. Still debating going back for a re-try, since I only really liked one of the photos.

I started feeding all three pups a totally raw diet several weeks ago. They love it, and I'm thrilled to report that Reyna has gained back all the weight she lost this summer. Their coats feel wonderful and their teeth are gorgeous. I met a fellow who processes deer and he's hooked me up a few times with meat, bones and organs. In fact, I got an entire deer from him yesterday. He's also talking to other hunters for me to see if anyone would be willing to shoot a few deer for me. So far, I've gotten about 80lbs of meat from him. There's still about five weeks left in the season, so hopefully I'll get a lot more before its all over.

I recently started selling Mary Kay to bring in a little extra income, and shortly after that I got my first real job in two years. Its a contract position that's currently scheduled to end in May or June, but we'll see what happens when we get closer. The wonderful thing is that it actually pays real money. The bad thing is I have to figure out when to squeeze in all my dog activities...

I think that just about covers the highlights of the last several weeks. Photos and videos to come later.

A Smidge Creepy

I was outside playing with the this morning pups when I noticed four areas of this on the ground below the tree:

I looked at the tree to see what might be causing this mess, and I saw this:

And this:

They've already stripped three branches almost completely bare. When I went out this afternoon, the leaves they were sitting on when I took the photos were gone.

At this rate, the tree is going to be completely naked in a week. Unless the hurricane gets them tomorrow....

Its That Time Again

Considering that I had to sit for two and a half hours at the DMV to renew my license, I'm really glad they gave me the eight year version this time. And that was at the DMV office that has a reputation of being one of the fastest in the area. I briefly considered leaving and coming back a different day, but I just knew that if I didn't get it done today, I'd suddenly be too busy to get it done by Wednesday, and Thursday I'd get stopped at some police checkpoint and be caught driving with an expired license. Cause that's just how my luck runs. I almost wish they were still doing the 5 year version - it'd be a lot easier to remember in connection with turning 40 than with turning 43....

NIMBY

When I took the pups out last night for their pre-bedtime potty, I looked over at the catiary and saw that Khar'pern was playing with something. At first, I thought a bug had gotten inside and she was tormenting it. Or maybe even a toad. When I walked over to see what it was, I realized she was hissing and pouncing at this:

I firmly believe that snakes have a place in the world. I just as firmly believe that that place is not in my yard, in my catiary, in my house, or anywhere near me, my dogs, or my cats. I don't know what kind of snake it was (waiting on my snake expert to get back to me on that), and it was a little thing, thank goodness, but I still didn't want it in the catiary. You can't really tell from the picture (I was focused more on getting the color than I was the position), but it was holding about half of its body off the ground while it hissed and snapped at Khar. After throwing gently encouraging Khar back into the house, I took a couple of photos for identification purposes, and then I proceeded to hack the snake into multiple pieces with my (what else?) hacksaw. I felt much better after tossing the pieces over the fence into the woods. Now I just have to figure out how the thing slithered into the catiary. I'm thinking there may be a small hole that needs patching...

Mother's Day

The kids gave me a great present – they let me sleep until 7:30 Sunday morning! The cats usually wake me up at least once before 6am, and the puppy normally forces me to get up absolutely no later than 6:30, so 7:30 felt downright decadent.

Catching Up

Yes, I know, its been over a month since my last post. There's been a lot going on, but I just haven't felt like getting on here and writing about any of it. I'm starting to feel motivated again, so I will catch up on most of the goings on, but it'll probably take me a few days. I guess its a good thing I don't have any plans for the weekend....

To get things started, here's a quick sum-up:

We survived the tornadoes that came through the area on the 16th. We were very lucky, because there was significant damage pretty close to our neighborhood. Thanks so much to everyone who checked on us!

The cats are...well, they're the cats. Not a lot going on with them. Five of the six are using the catiary on a regular basis, which is good (Belle prefers to spend her time on the love seat in the library).

Reyna has been having a lot of bad days lately. She's started falling a lot and needs help getting into the truck every time now. She's shown a few other odd behaviors, but she still occasionally acts like her old self. She sees the vet this Friday for her annual exam, and the nice receptionist booked us some extra time to make sure we're not rushed.

Duncan's butt is still having difficulties. He's been back on his old kibble for more than a month with no significant change. His fecal exam came back negative for parasites, so the vet's still scratching his head over this one.

Kodiak is doing really nicely. He's gaining more confidence every day and I think he actually stands a chance of Q'ing at the upcoming rally trial. My Great German Chow finally has his official name: ReyDunc's Wiley Little Bear.

Here's how Kodiak likes to ride in the truck. Notice the nose sticking out the window behind him? That's how Reyna likes to ride...



Mary and I took Kodiak to Crowder Park for a Doggy Easter Egg Hunt on the 23rd. He wasn't the least bit interested in the kibble-filled eggs, but he did a great job of interacting with the other dogs and people. He even managed to relax enough to pose a few times.

Here's Where I Whine A Bit

This has been a really crappy week. Duncan's colon is apparently still annoyed, even after his meds. Reyna's managed to vomit up some very nasty stuff on the one piece of carpet I have in the house (naturally). My butt still hurts from the long drive and a day spent in a very uncomfortable chair (the trip itself was fun, more on that later). Wednesday, I picked up Mikey for some petting and he somehow managed to dig a rear claw into the exact center of a very sensitive part of my anatomy. The darn thing still hurts. Woke up Thursday morning to discover that my back is acting up and I'm having trouble moving my left leg. To top it off, I woke up this morning to discover a chest cold has come to visit. I'm not going to say it couldn't get any worse, because I know it could and I see no reason to tempt fate. I swear, I am so ready for this week to be over.

Okay, I'm done whining. For now.

There's A Mouse In My Pocket

Well, actually, it was under my sink. The other day, I noticed a few things under the sink that weren't there before. I didn't spend three and a half years investigating crimes scenes for nothing, you know. I know evidence when I see it. It took a couple of days, but last night I heard the snap of a successful mouse trapping. All three dogs glanced over towards the kitchen and then went back to what they were doing. I have to admit, I'm a bit disappointed in them. Duncan is the Mole Eradicator, after all, but maybe mice are too small to interest him. And with Reyna's personality quirks, I figured she'd be ripping the cabinets off the hinges to get to a warm snack. As for Kodiak, well, he can't find a hot dog on a bare floor...

What A Week

I know the week isn't over yet, but its already been a long one. I'm working 12:30-9:00ish pm at the temp job, which makes for late nights followed by early mornings because some puppy just has to go out and potty (or some cats decide to have a spat).

Speaking of some puppy, Kodiak was finally neutered Tuesday. I dropped him off at animal control that morning, and I may have hinted about how miffed I would be if I were to discover he'd been forgotten again. Thankfully, they remembered him this time. John picked him up and brought him home, since I was working. Apparently, Kodiak had an accident in his kennel at animal control and they didn't clean him up very well, so poor John was stuck with that, too. Kodiak's incision looks great and he seems to have completely forgotten that anything unusual happened Tuesday.

Last night at work I wasn't feeling too great, and I jokingly told my coworker that the place was making me sick. Turns out I was right. Woke up this morning congested, my eyes feeling blechy, coughing, and with a midget sitting on my chest mocking me every time I try to take a deep breath. Unfortunately, I can't call in sick because there's no one available to cover my shift. So I'll just spread the nasty germs right back to the people who gave them to me. Or people just like them, anyway.

The other bad thing about this sickness is that I had to cancel Reyna's first therapy dog trip. Obviously, we couldn't go visit sick people with me toting around a ton of germs. The poor girl suffered through a bath and nail trim yesterday, all for nothing. And Duncan's got his Rally trial this weekend. He's going to have trouble following instructions if I'm hacking up a lung while we're running the course. I think I'll be picking up a large bottle of vitamin C after work tonight.

It's A Long One...

This one took me a long time to post, partly because it took a while to get through the 400 pictures I took the Sunday it snowed. There are only a few pictures here, relatively speaking...

The three pups and I left early Christmas Eve morning, heading west to see the family. Lunch was with Mom, Ronnie, and Josh and his crew. Kodiak stayed in his crate while he was in the house, and looked like this for most of the visit.


Kodiak did go outside and enjoy his semi-freedom at the end of a 30 foot leash, although he really didn't know what to do about the fact that my niece was often holding the other end.

Dinner was with Dad, Krysti, Ganna, Aunt Merrill, and Josh and his crew. The pups all enjoyed the chance to run around the pasture for a bit. I only let Kodiak run free for a few minutes before putting him back on the long lead. I still don't trust his recall, and I didn't want to risk losing him in the woods.

Christmas Eve was very stressful for Kodiak, but he must have realized he wasn't going to die, because he was much more relaxed Christmas Day. We had a romp in the woods (Kodiak on the long lead) before breakfast, and then headed out before 8am to get back to Raleigh. For the first time, Kodiak actually sat up and watched the world around him, rather than curling into a ball on the passenger seat. He wasn't thrilled when we passed big trucks, but he was much better than he'd been the day before. He even walked a few steps at the rest stop, rather than completely shutting down.

Prior to Christmas, I'd apparently lost my mind and agreed to babysit (for a fee) a dog from the 26th through the 30th. I ended up getting Daisy after work on the 25th because of the bad weather. Daisy didn't seem to appreciate the humor, but I thought Reyna's initial response was pretty funny. She bounced up to Daisy, obviously doing the "Hi, my name's Reyna, and this is MY HOUSE" routine, right before she put Daisy on the ground. Luckily for everyone, Daisy was a very submissive 35lb girl, and was content to spend most of her visit hiding in her crate. She did try to play a few times, but she was very unhappy when she discovered that she couldn't outrun Duncan. Kodiak harassed her quite a bit, but by the last day, they were playing like good buddies. As long as Duncan and Reyna didn't get involved.

I had to work Sunday morning (and did not enjoy the slow crawl to the kennel before daylight), but it was still snowing when I got home. We ended up with 7 inches by the time it finally finished Sunday afternoon. The pups and I had a great time playing in the snow, and I just loved watching Kodiak bound through drifts that were higher than his stomach. I particularly like this photo, because even though the pups aren't grouped together, I think it gives a pretty decent idea of the conditions.


To make life a bit easier on me, I grouped the photos together, rather than keeping them in the order taken.

Here are a few of the pack playing together.





Reyna playing with Kodiak.



Duncan playing with Kodiak (love the one with all the teeth).






Reyna and Duncan playing together.






Moving on to the individual shots...

This is Daisy, our visitor.


Reyna...










Duncan...










And the freakish cuteness named Kodiak. The poor pup was covered in snow balls every time he came inside.













The snow was fun, but we were all happy to see it go. After we'd packed it down pretty good, it basically turned the yard into a sheet of ice. Not nearly as much fun as the soft, powdery snow.