Coffee heat rising

Pets

You load 16 tons…

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and whaddaya get?

Well, if it’s dog meat, you get about 26 tons of dog food…

Today is Dog Food Prep Day, the human having failed in its untiring efforts to avoid working on said project. We’re almost out of prepared dog food; the package holding two large chunks of Costco pork has been defrosted for the past two or three days (in the fridge of course), and we still have a pile of leftover roast chicken.

The pork made a vast pile of ground-up cooked meat. Tossing the aging chicken in the food processor increased that cache by about 30%. Two or three cups of Coach’s Oats are now sitting there cooling down, so’s I can mix the whole shebang together with a mound of pulverized mixed vegetables.

I figure this will make about two weeks’ worth of doggy meals. Each dawg eats a half-pound a day; that adds up to a total of 1 pound a day to shovel into the wild animals’ maws. So…14 pounds, maybe? Possibly even more…I haven’t mixed it up and measured it out into refrigerator containers yet. But my guess is, pretty close to two weeks of food. I hope.

Because I don’t wanna do this again any sooner than two weeks from now.

***

Okay. Slight overcalculation: The mountain weighed out to about 9 pounds. That’s less than two weeks’ worth, dammit. In 8½ days, I’ll have to drop by Walmart and pick up a roll of FreshPet, which will hold them for another week.

So, this is the disadvantage of having two dogs: if it were only Cassie (or only Ruby), 9 pounds would last one 20-pound corgi for 18 days. That would be good. Very, very good.

Dog Dunes

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You think I exaggerate, don’t you, with that turn of phrase? Really?

Yes. That is from one (1) twenty-pound dog. A mound of hair larger than Ruby’s head!

Is there any question why I seem to be developing an allergy to dog hair?

Well. Yes, there is. This being lovely uptown Arizona, great swaths of dust accumulate on the floors, too. I dust the floors every day… And here’s the accumulation of one (1) twenty-four-hour period:

Yup. As a practical matter, even more dust than dog hair has settled in the course of one day. And nothing is going on. The air is perfectly still: no breezes blowing, no monsoons wailing, nary a soul tracking in and out of the house.

Arizona. It’s where you come to find out what your allergies are.

😀

Doggy Diagnosis

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So, here we are back from the vet — WonderVet, we might add. He took one look at the dog and said: “abscessed tooth.”

There’s a suspicion I’d have preferred not to have had confirmed. As I mentioned earlier in the day: a look at her big back-of-the-jaw bone-crunching fang shows that it’s not in good shape.

He said it’s not uncommon for a tooth abscess to present this way in a dog.

Fortunately, this is a vet with common sense and an underdeveloped sense of greed. He said there are two possible courses of action:

• A root canal, which has to be done by a specialist
• Extract the tooth

I asked if there was any real advantage to a root canal and, presumably, a crown (no joke: one friend’s dog was actually given crowns). He said that if I took the dog to the veterinary dental specialist, the guy would give me all sorts of great reasons…but that in fact there really is no advantage. He said the dog’s teeth might migrate over time. I pointed out the dog is over 11 years old…they’d have to gallop to do her much harm between now and the time Gabriel’s horn sounds for her. He allowed as to how that is exactly so. Asked which he recommended, he said extraction is the best strategy: less stressful for the dog and it doesn’t cost $2500.

Root canals on your dog. Dayum! Once again: we are in the wrong business, my friends.

Other vets have thought her teeth were in fine condition; I haven’t had them professionally cleaned (mostly because that way lies fleecing). He said professionally cleaning a dog’s teeth would not stop her from developing an abscess. But he will throw in a tooth cleaning, long as he has her knocked out. They also will do bloodwork and a cardiac test, so she’ll get a very thorough middle-aged dog exam.

So, there we are: that should set me back another thousand bucks. {sigh}

Exeunt Ruby, Stage Left

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Ruby the Corgi is vacationing at my son’s house, keeping Charley the Golden Retriever company and taking a break from Cassie the Corgi. And I feel like a boulder has been lifted from my shoulders.

My poor little Cassie has been totally harassed by this puppy. Really, I think at seven she was probably too old to have a pup come into her doggy life, which was happy and settled. It’s not that she seemed unhappy about the puppy…most of the time. But…

Ruby proved to be the more assertive dog and, after a year or two, displaced Cassie as Queen of the Universe. Cassie moped but seemed to adjust. I guess.

More recently, though, they’ve taken to engaging in what can best be described as sparring matches. You know how little kids play “swordfight” with a couple of sticks? Well, these dogs would have schnozz-fights…just like that. whack whack whack whack whack! Only with their muzzles, not sticks. Teeth would be bared, but they weren’t exactly fighting; not in a serious way. Yet.

But now Cassie shows up with a gouge on her face, just barely missing an eye. I didn’t see this happen, but I believe it to be a dog bite.

If it’s an injury and not a hot spot, it could be one of two and only two things:

  • Dog bite
  • Twig poke, incurred while rummaging under the citrus for the precious mummified oranges

Either is possible. Dog bite seems most likely to me, since Cassie has been rummaging for many a year and never poked herself in the face.

Meanwhile…

I have been sick for six months. Whatever I came down with in March has never gone away! After much consultation, three docs suspect allergies. One is the alarmingly commonsensical Young Dr. Kildare; one is a gastroenterologist who believes it is not a recurrence of GERD, and one runs on high-test fuel at the Mayo. And in all cases, as soon as they hear “…and yes, the dogs sleep on the bed,…” they can be seen visibly restraining themselves from rolling their highly-trained eyes heavenward.

It became more and more clear that one or both dogs were going to have to go.

So I emailed my son, who has conceived the idea that Charley the Golden Retriever is so lonely he needs a companion, and asked if he would like to have Ruby. Otherwise, she was going back to the breeder.

Well, that was like plugging him into an electric outlet.

Forthwith he showed up to pick up the dog, all the while assuring his neurotic mutther that if she had second thoughts, all she had to do was say so.

Hm. I felt a little sad to eject Ruby, who is a cute little puppy as long as you don’t mind being dominated by a dog. But…

But…

Y’know, when the kid went out the door with that dog, I felt like a three-hundred-pound weight was lifted from my shoulders.

§ § §

Spent the entire rest of the day cleaning and dusting and laundering and laundering and laundering.

Under the bed, I found a lake of dog hair and dust, a good two inches deep. You never saw so much dirt and dog hair mixed together in your life! No wonder I’ve been sick!

What can a little corgi or two do? Well…hang onto your hat:

Thats’ just five days’ worth! This shack was cleaned from stem to stern last Tuesday! Now admittedly, it includes the dog dunes under the bed (which should have been eroded by the weekly dust-mopping). I’ve cleaned all the floors, swiffering and vacuuming and then swiffering again. Especially in the bedroom. Pulled all the bedding off, washed the blanket, washed the dog pads (twice), washed the mattress cover, washed the bathroom rugs, changed the sheets, laundered EVERYthing. Pulled out the bed, cleaned behind it, cleaned the wall behind it. Climbed up and cleaned the ceiling fan’s blades, carefully.

As for Cassie: can’t tell whether she’s depressed or relieved or what. In the absence of Ruby, she has almost completely stopped the incessant gawdawful  barking. Granted, it’s only been a few hours…but my gosh. It’s so quiet in here my ears hurt from the silence.

Cassie and I went for a doggy-walk this evening, the first we’ve had in several years that wasn’t a mile-long contest and the first enjoyable doggy-walk since the weather has begun to cool. She’s out of shape, so was tired by the time we got back to the Funny Farm. Just now she has resumed her position, at long last, as Queen of the Universe. And she’s sleeping in the direct line of the doctor-ordered steamer. I hope she’s feeling less allergic…

Charley Update

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So this morning my son reports that the hound appears to be “about 80% better; largely acting like his old dog self.” The hot spot has completely healed (reminder to dog owners: acquire hot spot spray from the vet…it works!), and though he still has a little difficulty getting up and down, mostly he’s walking normally and has returned to bossing the human around.

It’s amazingly good news. If you’d asked me ten days ago how long it would take the dog to recover — or if he’d recover at all — I’d have guessed it would take 6 to 8 weeks for him to arrive at the stage my son describes. And I’d have guessed he’d never get much more than 80% of his functionality back.

But if he’s that much better now, it looks like there’s at least a chance he’ll return to normal.

He must not have had a 107-degree core temp for very long. It’s a five-hour drive from Phoenix to Show Low, even if you fly low on the open road. But they didn’t do much aviation: the road was closed in the Salt River Canyon, and they were stopped dead for an hour. At 107.4 degrees, if he’d been in that state for even 45 minutes or an hour, he surely would have died.

Okay. So it’s good news and bad news. If my son is right that the dog worked himself into a state of hyperthermia because he’s that terrorized by a car’s interior, it presents a problem: you can’t even get that dog to a vet without taking him in a car. And when Charley is under the weather (he’s given to unexplained collywobbles), my son will usually bring him to my house on the way to work. Same if he’s going out of town or has some other reason to have the dog babysat. All of those escapades will now take two people — one to drive and one to sit with the dog and try to keep him calm. My son likes to go camping and fishing, and he’s always taken Charley with him — after this, the minivacations will have to be dog-free.

And why would a man go fishing without his dog, eh?

A Man, a Dog, and Its Neurosis:
The Malignant Hyperthermia Soap Opera

Day One
Update
Homeward Bound
Back in Town
Home Again
Crisis, Continued
Hot Spot!?!

Minor Annoyances of the Day

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Dogs…

…park selves at back door and arf. Human gets up (having just barely brushed the seat of its easy chair with its fanny) and lets the dogs out. Dogs go out onto the patio and stand there, staring expectantly at human.

Human: It’s 105 and overcast out here, and you want to go outside and stand?

Dogs: Well, yes. Yes. Of course.

{sigh}

Phone Solicitors…

…apparently are having a phone-solicitor jamboree.

Despite the wonderful call blocking device, quite a few still get through. They do this by spoofing phone numbers that are not in service (reinforcing one’s suspicion that Cox is in cahoots with them: how else would they get such extensive lists of out-of-service numbers?), or simply by calling from numbers that the device has yet to block.

Even the calls that get blocked still jangle my phone: they ring once and then are cut off. This has to do with the way the gadget has to be connected, because of the number of computers and phones and crap that are attached to the incoming cable. In one way, this is annoying: whatever you’re doing still gets interrupted, albeit very briefly. In another, it’s kinda gratifying, because you know the bastards are getting hung up on. The ones that do get through, though, set off your answering machine, so you have to listen to that thing yap. Sometimes they stay on the line long enough to cause the answering machine to pick up the “busy” signal that ensues, so you have to get up, walk to the machine in the back of the house, and delete the voice message that’s going beep-beep-beep-beep-beep….

Today I’ve had at least eight calls, about half of which have gotten through. That’s just while I’ve been here: left the house at 6:30 a.m. and didn’t get back until sometime after 11.

Whoops! There’s another one: the third from “Bountiful, Utah” today!

Mosquitoes…

…definitely are having a mosquito jamboree.

Don’t know when I’ve seen so many skeeters around. I think it’s probably because I left a dish of water out for the dawgs while it was excessively hot, because I was afraid Ruby would slip out unnoticed, as she’s inclined to do.

Cassie prefers to lurk indoors, but Ruby will go out and lurk in the yard even when it’s hotter than the proverbial hubs of Hades. I do try to check to be sure she’s inside, but given my growing level of incompetence, the chance remains that she’ll get herself stuck out there in the heat.

Even with water, she wouldn’t last long at 115 degrees. It’s cooled down to 105, so I brought the mosquito habitat inside. But that left, of course, a generation of little biters flying around.

There’s a chemical-free way to keep them from chewing on you, though: turn a reasonably powerful fan to “blast” and point it at yourself. Interestingly, mosquitoes are not very strong fliers, and they can’t navigate well in a breeze. Right now we have a large box fan roaring away. Whenever I work up enough energy to get up, I’ll turn on the other three table fans in this room. The box fan is sitting here next to the sliding door, because I take it out onto the deck at breakfast time by way of discouraging the little biters in the morning.

Incompetence…

…Really? Is it really possible that I could get the date of a Mayo Clinic appointment wrong not once, not twice, but three times?

Entre nous, I begin to doubt it.

The journey from my house to the Mayo is halfway across the galaxy. I just simply HATE driving out there. So when I needed to traipse across town by way of finding out why whatever ails me has been hanging on for the past five and a half months, I was not pleased.

I had a meeting in Scottsdale this morning, which would put me about halfway there. So I arranged an appointment at 9:10. This meant that the errands I needed to do while I was in the area where the group meets had to be deferred until next week, and some of them are things I would like to get done this week, not sometime in the far future.

So I leave the meeting early and fly across Scottsdale headed toward Payson — for reasons I can’t imagine, the Mayo built its office complex damn near out to Fountain Hills, which borders the freaking Beeline Highway. Naturally, Shea Blvd, the only way to get out there, is all dug up with “lane closed” signs all over the place. But I hit the campus just in time: run up the parking garage stairs and race into the reception area, only to be told…

“Oh, that’s not today: that’s next week! :-)”

Son. Of. A. Bitch!

This is the third time I’ve trudged way to hell and gone almost to freaking Fountain Hills and been told the appointment I had on my calendar was not for that day but for a week hence.

• The first time, I put it down to my usual old-lady incompetence.

• The second time, I was really pissed.

• But this time? Now I’m beginning to wonder.

Does it really make sense that I would get the date wrong for a trip I truly hate loathe and despise three times?

I go to a whole lot of doctors, dentists, veterinarians, car mechanics, and whatnot. Why would this keep happening only at the Mayo? It never happens with Young Dr. Kildare or CardioDoc or the glasses guy or the dentist or the hair stylist or the vet or the business meetings or choir…so why would it happen with the Mayo and only with the Mayo? Why would these errors consistently be exactly one week off, when they’re usually made pretty far out in the future? (This one wasn’t: I made it a few days ago, but mostly you’re scheduling three or four weeks down the line.)

(Wow! Here’s the fourth call from Bountiful! This guy just does not give up! Now we’re at about 9 nuisance calls today.)

So, yeah: does it really make sense that this kind of scheduling error would happen only with the Mayo?

If they’re deliberately mis-scheduling, why? Could that make sense in even the wildest scenario?

The only possible reason I can imagine is that the Mayo doesn’t like to deal with Medicare patients. Medicare doesn’t pay enough, and collecting is a hassle for them. The Mayo prioritizes private patients over Medicare patients. They may be quietly trying to discourage me from making appointments at all. If a person makes enough wasted trips — especially if the person is elderly or disabled and it’s hard to get out there at all — maybe she’ll just give up and go someplace else.

And I certainly would, if they weren’t about the only game in town.

Overall hospitals and medical care in Arizona are pretty piss poor. In the Phoenix area, only two hospitals are rated excellent; one is the Mayo and one is a facility way to hell and gone out in Sun City. I don’t know anybody who practices in Sun City, and I sure as hell don’t want to drive as far to the westside as I have to drive to the eastside to go to a doctor.

It’s late. I’ve got to get up and start preparing the walls for the upcoming paint job. And so, away…

Why? Because endlessly annoying Facebook will not pick up the image you want to illustrate your post. It wants to pick up the banner image, which, if it’s generically the same day after day, quickly bores readers or makes them think today’s post is a repeat of yesterday’s. So the only way to force FB to use an image that has anything to do with your post is to change the banner image to fit the subject of the day. That means today’s banner image (a historic photo of four Nazis, for example) bears no relation whatsoever to the topic of yesterday’s post (ruminations on power outages, for example). So annoying.