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Pets

Daily Doggy-Walk

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6:15 a.m.: Just back from a mile+ doggy-walk. Hot and humid: 98 degrees with 22 percent humidity.

The weather kept most the stupes inside this morning, though. So…that was nice.

We walked across a southerly street populated with big old classic North Central houses on big old classic irrigated lots. Whew! I am sooooo glad I no longer have to take care of one of those places! Even with a cleaning lady coming on once a week, keeping everything clean and running was a bitch of a job.

Here — in a house half the size of our li’l mansion and absent the kid, the husband, and the large dogs — the house stays pretty clean even with a cleaning lady surfacing only twice a month.

At any rate… We saw a white golden retriever over there, the spitting image of the Late, Great Charley the White Golden Retriever.

I don’t know if M’hijito is going to try to replace Charley with another golden...or with any other dog. He works out of his house, ever since his employer discovered how much moola is to be saved by shutting down the big offices and parking workers in front of their home computers.

That would, in theory, allow him to snab a puppy. Except…a puppy demands time, and all of his time is occupied with office work. In theory, it ought to be possible to socialize a pup to Life with Humans when you’re working from home…but…nice theory! He can’t be jumping up every half-hour to attend to a puppy while he’s supposed to be engaged in company work.

Welp…I’d better get up and get something to eat. Or…something…

And so, away!

Wow! What a ZOO!!!!

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LOL! Just back from the neighborhood park, along about 6.p.m. What a MOB over there!

So crowded was it, I was thinking it was a weekend. (When you don’t have to go to work, you never know what day it is…) But no! It’s a Tuesday afternoon!

You never saw so many people in your life! I counted EIGHTY cars parallel-parked along the north side. That’s just the street parking…along just one of the three bordering streets. Doesn’t count the parking lot in the middle of the park.

It’s kinda fun, because there are lots of kids, some of them playing baseball and soccer and volleyball, many just running around. But also there are a lot of dogs — some of them off-lead. And so I have to keep wrestling Ruby to evade fights.

The park is the crown jewel of our neighborhood. There’s only one other neighborhood in the city limits that has a park even faintly like it. Another one is out in Scottsdale, a long way from here. And there’s one on the west side, where the neighborhood around it is a little sketchier. So our park attracts folks from miles around.

At any rate, it was just crazy over there. Trying to keep Ruby from engaging in dog fights was…well…trying. Usually I do avoid the park on the weekends, because of the crowds. But…but…this isn’t a weekend day!!!!!!! It’s Tuesday.

So somehow I’ll have to figure out a way to avoid that mess.

Ruby dearly loves the park, because it has…WOW!! Grass! My yard, like most in these parts, is desert-landscaped. The grass must seem like some sort of miracle carpeting to her. But after this, we’ll have to go over there in the mornings or early afternoons, when the kiddies are in school.

M’jihito just called, having knocked off work along about 6:30 or so.

I do not think I would like to have to work from home — not to have any choice in the matter. That’s now the case with M’jihito: his employer, a large insurance company, shut down their offices, having discovered — thanks to the plague — that their employees can get their work down at home just fine, at no cost to the company.

When I was at the Great Desert University, I did manage to get them to let me put some (at first) and then (later) most of my courses online. That, I liked. But…it was my choice. I was not informed that I had to completely revamp my courses and my work habits so as to work remotely at all times.

Nor was I managing any underlings, unless you regard students as sort of like lower-level employees. He has to ride herd on a bunch of insurance agents, all of whom now are working out of their homes, too. That strikes me as not the best of all possible worlds.

***

And now it’s after dark. Quiet (not always the case in these parts). The dawg is zonkered out on the bed. It’s heading toward 10 p.m., so I reckon I’m gonna call it a day, too.

And so, awayyy!

 

WORSER & WORSER

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GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!  Want pain? Lemme tellya PAIN!

Spent the better part of y’day and this morning at the Mayo Clinic’s ER.

I fell face-forward on the tiled floor. Reflexively stuck out my left hand as I was going down. Whacked the Hell out of my hand. Busted the humerus, one of the long bones of the upper arm. Apparently didn’t break anything else (to my surprise). But oh!

Hurt?  Lemme tella HURT! 

And hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt and hurt… Holy mackerel, it hurts!

The little dog is accustomed to sleeping on the bed. But she’s too small to jump up here by herself: she has to be lifted.

They told me not to lift her onto the bed. (They who have no clue to what a corgi is…) So of course I’ve been lifting her onto the bed.

Just now: Slipped. Lost my footing. Dropped the dog. Wrenched the arm, And HURT!!!!!

Oh Dear GOD did that hurt.

This elicited a sky-splitting shriek of agony. Terrorized the little dog. She now refuses to come out from under the toilet.

That may be just as well. At least she won’t be out here banging on the bed trying to get up.

I don’t think Ruby got hurt. But I sure as hell did.

Ohhhhh well…  The worst of the screaming pain has about subsided

And hallelujah, brothers & sisters, Amazon carries little staircases to help a small dog climb on the bed!

heee! Have you ever seen such a thang?!?

I’m thinking that tomorrow, if I can drive (highly questionable), I’ll run over to the nearest Petsmart and grab one of these for Ruby. Failing that: order it up from Amazon.

Dunno, tho… Amazon shows several models that are cheaper. Oh, well. There’s plenty of time to think about that.

Wow! The Rip-off of the Day

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Tell me I’m doing the math wrong….please!  This simply can’t be right!

So M’jihito has taken off for a road trip across the country with his lifelong pal, who lives in Pennsylvania and has come down with a very probably terminal cancer. This is Dear Pal’s “bucket trip,” they say: a road trip from his home in PA, across the country, through the Midwest, over the Rockies, into California, and back.

M’jihito left his ancient golden retriever, Charley, with me, to be babysat until he gets back.

Charley has some painful health problems. One of them is bad joints — hips, shoulder, probably back. He’s pretty well crippled up.

I can empathize, because now that I’m old, I’m enjoying the same phenomena. And I’ll tellya: the hips hurt so much I can hardly stand upright.

But the most bothersome of his ailments, where the human is concerned, is vomiting. He barfs several times a day.

So Charley takes a turn for the worse. After consulting with M’jito, I call his veterinarian.

Over the phone, they urge me to buy a drug called “Cerenia,” which they assure me will ease his barfing. It’s available at a site called Chewy.

Yea,verily, here ’tis.

Can I possibly be understanding this correctly? $21 for four tablets. Plus another $20 for shipping.

Studying the ad…apparently that is correct.

What. An. Incredible. Rip-off!!!

Who the hell can afford something like that?

The veterinary in question is located in an upscale area — basically in Scottsdale. Certainly close enough to north Scottsdale to serve those tony regions.

Guess rich people don’t care if they’re ripped off.

Over to Amazon to see what a search for “Cerenia” brings up over there.

First though, we stop at Drugs.com. The stuff is marketed for dogs only, not for use in humans. This would mean, I expect, that it hasn’t been fully tested. Apparently it’s intended for use as a motion-sickness drug.

Charley is not suffering from motion sickness. Now, an anti-nausea drug might help him…but if his human goes bankrupt, the upshot will not be desirable.

Amazon doesn’t carry it at all, unless there’s a generic name for the drug I’m not finding.  Search for Cerenia brings up this stuff. It’s a homeopathic nostrum. Fifteen bucks. Does not contain Maropitant Citrate…which probably means it doesn’t contain much of anything.

I forget that my son wants me to feed this dog EIGHT TIMES A DAY. It’s after 3:00 and he’s only been fed twice. Dish up a quarter-cup of kibble. Offer it up.

REJECTO!

He refuses to eat it.

Ruby tries to grab it — she eats half the dishful before I trot back into the room and catch her in the act.

He may be hunger-barfing, then. Because I’m not feeding him enough. Because my memory is shot and I just plain don’t remember to drop everything and wrestle with yet another feeding. (Eight dog-food wrestling matches a day!)

Ruby is sneaking back up on the dish as we scribble…figures if she loops around the back, she can close in from behind and grab the chow. 😀

F*ck this!

I’m gonna try some canned food. Otherwise the dog is gonna starve. No wonder he barfs all the time!

****

WOW!!!

And HOLY MACKEREL!

Topped the dog-repelling kibble with a spoonful of canned mushy dog food, and voilà! He scarfed it right down!

Let’s see what happens next. Give it an hour, and then if he hasn’t woofed it up by then, I’ll heave out into the rush-hour traffic (wheee!!), drive on down to AJ’s, and buy some more of that stuff.

uh HUH!

Gut instinct, borne of heaven knows how many dawgs that have ordered me around over the decades, tells me that he’s hunger-barfing.

He’s not barfing because something is wrong with his digestive system. Or with any other system.

No, indeed.

He’s hunger-barfing: woofing-up because there’s not enough food in his gut. Dogs do that. It’s part of being a dog.

It’s not gonna hurt anything for my larder to stock a few cans of dog food. Ruby can eat it, if we find that it’s truly not good for Charley.

But…he’s flopped down on his mat and gone to sleep. The frantic panting has stopped.

Well…no…it just started up again. That’s a sign of pain, or of overheating. In this unholy summer weather, then, it could be either one. It’s overcast, humid, and hotter than Hell outside. Not that hot in the house, though, so probably the panting indicates the former variety of discomfort.

Matter of fact, I think I’m gonna go right now, before the rush-hour traffic seriously ramps up. He’s not barfing. And…well, I hope that if he does barf he’ll leave enough sign that I’ll spot it. He tends to lap it back up, which is why I want to sit here and see what happens.

Hmmmm, no. We have plenty of canned food for tonight and tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning I have to drive to the Mayo, a gawdawful long haul. There’s a HUGE Fry’s right on the way home. Dollars to donuts they’ll have this stuff. And if they don’t, I can swing down to the AJ’s — out of the way, but the 10:00 a.m. appointment will keep me out of the rush hour.

Minutes and minutes have gone by.

He’s dozed off.

NO BARFING!

Dayum!

What that is telling me is that what’s been making him barf is that expensive kibble.

Back awake: huffing and puffing again.

My theory (such as it is!) is that he hyperventilates because he’s in pain. We know his hips are bad. So they probably hurt — mine sure has hell do.

So…what if the frantic panting is not from gut pain or upset, but from something else: hip pain?  What if he’s barfing because of the stuff we’ve been feeding him — largely expensive kibble — and not from some pathological condition?

Great theory, ain’t it?

But I kinda doubt it.

Whatever can go wrong…

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WILL go wrong!

Somehow, WordPress deleted the post I was writing, when I took time out to clean up another puddle of dog barf. I can’t …remember what I was saying, presumably because the constant interruptions disrupt what little cognition I have left.

Oh, sh!t… Now he’s getting ready to barf again.

Poor old dog!

Yes. Out to lunch with my friend VickyC. She’s very concerned about the memory/cognition issue, and urges me to hire someone to come in to my home and ride herd.

It may come to that. Honestly, sometimes I can’t recall things that happened a few minutes ago.

Have an appointment on the 13th at the Mayo with a new doc whom I think they intend to be my new GP. I hope so…happy to give someone new a try. I never have much cared for the doctor they foisted on me after the beloved Dr. Daley retired — he whom I followed to the Mayo the instant they opened.

Charley the Golden Retriever is very much off his feed…he seems to be getting sicker and sicker. If he still won’t eat tomorrow, I’ll have to try to get him to a vet. Problem is…he weighs 80 pounds! I can’t even begin to lift him into the car.

There are some mobile vets here in town…but by and large they’re executioners. Not feeling very comfortable at the prospect of inviting one of those over here.

***

Shortly after sunset…

Poor old fella is obviously in pain. He huffs and puffs and huffs and puffs… Finally got him to lay down on a thickly padded doggy bed here in the bedroom. Now he seems more comfortable. He’s quieted a bit, anyway.

Not one chance in Hell that the human is going to get much sleep.

Lordie! Make it stop!!!

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4:00 a.m.

Charley, my son’s crippled, superannuated dog who is staying here while his human bucket(-list)s around the country with his terminally ill buddy, is up and stumbling around.

His nest has been in the family room, which is a sunken room (very stylish when this house was built) down two steps. Problem is, he can’t negotiate even two steps.

He woke up barking, rousted me out of bed about 20 minutes ago. Needed to go out, apparently.

This entails my having to haul him up off the floor, because he can no longer stand up by himself.

Understand: he weighs 80 pounds.

Poor old fella!

Now he was stuck on the floor. He couldn’t get himself upright.

I began to think I was going to have to call the fire department by way of getting some strong men over here.

FINALLY he managed to get enough traction to stand up.

Out into the backyard.

… ohhhh gawd, what am i gunna do if he gets stuck out there?
… ohhhh gawd, what if a coyote comes over that wall?
… ohhhh gawd, how’m i gunna get enough water to him and, if he can’t stand up, into him to keep him alive until I can get someone over here to help?

Back into the house. Back on the slippery tile floors.

Can’t let him go back into the family room…I’ll never get him outta there.

Grab the dining-room chairs, tip them on their sides, and barricade the ledge between the family room and the dining room/kitchen area.

Holeeee shee-ut!

Move his stuff into the dining room.

Now he’s in here (so am I, tapping away on the computer) and laying on his bed but partly off the bed…yeah, the part that presumably hurts is laying on the hard tile floor… I’m so upset I can’t even think about going back to sleep.

All of this drama in about 25 minutes…wheee!

This is what happens when you outlive your life.

Say a prayer, my friends:

God, please let me go
When it’s time for me to go…

My great-grandmother and her daughter, my great-aunt, each lived far beyond their time. Gree — great-grandmother — was well into her 90s when she passed…in the night after she had prepared a Christmas feast for 15 people and then cleaned up after it and mopped the kitchen floor. Her daughter Gertrude, who held onto her job as executive secretary to the president of a large international bank in San Francisco until they had to order her to retire, was similarly superannuated when she died. Around a hundred years old…her son having to take care of her for several years before the end.

Understand: they were Christian Scientists. They never, ever saw a doctor!

My mother smoked herself to death. Murdered by the tobacco companies. No telling how long she would have lived if it hadn’t been for the profit-making cancer sticks. She turned 65 on the day she died.

Ohh my gawd. Now Charley is back up. He wants to get back into the sunken family room, whence he can’t get out…. Now he’s standing there, panting miserably. It’s 4:30 a.m. sharp. And…he’s headed for the back door, meaning ANOTHER wrestling match to get him back in the house.

***

Back into the house HUFFA HUFFA HUFFA HUFFA steam-engine serenade.

The switch to the light in the side yard is busted. I can’t turn the goddamn light off.

Guess that’s better than not being able to turn it on. But now I’ll have to shell out another $75 or $100 (plus parts) to get the electrician over here to fix it.

***

Finally ensconced back on his bed.

Human stumbles toward her bed.

Ruby, who has been cowering under the toilet, emerges from her hideaway.

{sigh} Now it’s quarter to five. Wonder if I could get another half-hour of sleep in?

oh HELL!

I hear his claws clicking on the tile out there. He must be up again.

Welp. I guess that’s the end of sleeping tonight. Good thing I crashed in exhaustion around 8 or 9 last night….

****

Now he’s ensconced on his bed back here next to my bed.

When he breathes, he goes HUFFA PUFFA PUFFA HUFFA, a lovely lullaby.

ohhhhhh shit!!!!

He’s just settled down and now he’s up again HUFFA PUFFA PUFFA HUFFA…. Circle around circle around circle around doggy-dance…now he’s back down on his bed. Will he PUHLEEZE settle down enough for me to get another 20 minutes of z’s in?

Poor beast…

Settle down? Not a chance in Hell!

Up. Traipse up the hall into the kitchen. Guzzle water. Stumble around stumble around stumble around stumble around. Decide to go back to nest in living room.

Human loses patience.

Dog ensconced in living-room nest. Lights out.