11 posts tagged “dogs”

It looks like I may have to take one of my dogs to the vet tomorrow. My poor little DancerMan is having trouble using his back legs.

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I noticed this morning that he was wobbling around and I thought this was a prelude to one of his epileptic seizures so I gave him one of his phenobarbital pills. I can not tell if it has made any difference. I do not think he is worse, but he does not seem any better. He has some problems getting around right now. It looks like he may be having some nerve problems with his back legs. He is still eating and drinking so that is a good sign, and he does not seem to be upset or distressed by his problem. He probably is so used to experiencing mobility issues periodically due to his occasional seizures that he is not scared yet. I am going to watch him overnight and if he is still not moving well I am going to see if I can get him in to the vet tomorrow.

Its been a while since I have posted anything and although there has not been a lot going on there has been a few things.
 
Health:

I have been feeling a little down (not enough to go back on meds but just not peppy). I know part of it is just because of the frustration from being unemployed. I also know part o fit is from being worried about my health. There is nothing really big going on unless you consider that I am 'big'. That definitely is getting me down. Being unemployed so often I have gotten in to some very bad habits and also very sedentary behavior all which has allowed me to gain more weight than I am happy with. Heck gaining any weight is not something I am happy with.

Recently I had an IA attack and before it I had noticed something that I am not sure if it is connected to my IA or if it is another health issue. I have been having a lot of swelling in my legs and hands. I am not sure if it is symptom that can be tied to my IA or if it is a symptom of High blood pressure. (I have taken my blood pressure multiple times and it is borderline high [i.e. 135/85 or 128/87] it has not been extremely high but it has not been low {right now it is 119/84 so not too bad}). For right now I am going to keep an eye on my blood pressure, cut back on the soda, try to limit my salt in take and just in case it is a symptom of my IA I am taking an extra Benadryl once or twice a day if I feel the need. Of course taking the extra Benadryl is not helping my activity level, but I have noticed some of the swelling has gone down so maybe its the Benadryl or maybe it is just the reduction in soda and salt. I am fortunate that I have never been one that felt super sleepy from Benadryl but it does make it easier for me to sleep once I get to sleep so I do sometimes spend much longer in bed than I should be.

Friends & Family:

I gave one of my best friends a ride to get her cataract surgery. She is one of those fortunate people that have never had much need for any kind of surgery.  The only surgeries she has had were her tonsils out at the age of 5 and her wisdom teeth removed. Because of her limited surgery experience she was pretty nervous about the whole thing. She made it thru it just fine and is healing nicely. The biggest ordeal of the whole thing was the wee hours of the morning that we had to get up to make it to her surgery appt on time and to her follow up appt the next day. I do not blame her for being nervous about the surgery itself, after all it is her eyes that are being operated on. It does not matter that it is a very well practiced surgery that is supposedly pretty simple, there is always that one time that something goes wrong. I have  always had a  fear of loosing my  eyesight.  I  developed the fear as a child when I started getting glasses and there was a period  of time where I had  to get a new prescription  in as short a time as  6 months. I was afraid that my eyesight was eventually going to get so bad that I would not be able to see. 

My roommate has been considering adopting a rescue dog. He is a cute 3-4yr old beagle missing one leg. We have been keeping an eye on him on the groups list of adoptable pets on Petfinder.com . We were going to go see him last weekend but the weather was so bad that we made arrangements with the foster home to go look at him this weekend. I really was not super enthused about getting the dog, I was not against her getting a dog I knew she would take care of it. I just am feeling drained from being unemployed so I was not super enthused, but she wanted to get him so I agreed to go look at him. Did I mention that it is almost a 2 hour drive to get there, well it is. We drove all the way down there (mad-tante might know where I am taking about if I say Morse Mills) only to find out that he is not a cat friendly dog. {my roommate never thought to ask that, and I made the mistake of thinking that would be one of the first things my roommate would have asked since all our cats are indoor cats}. So we petted him and turned around and drove back home. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. I was glad that we were not getting him, I just was not ready for another dog. I was a bit miffed with my roommate for not thinking to ask, what I thought to be, the most important question. I was glad it was a nice day and the drive was a pleasant one. I felt bad that the poor dog was still going to have to be passed up, he is a very active energetic dog, despite having only 3 legs. He seemed genuinely upset that the people petting him were leaving him behind, yet again. I was glad that he was in this foster home where he got lots of attention instead of at a shelter in a cage.

General:

I took pictures of jewelry that I have made and just need to start editing them so that I can upload them. I will try to get some of those posted as soon as possible. We have been having some very warm weather here. I just wish the weather would level out in one direction or the other so that I get the temperature in the house steady. If it stays warm I am going to have to consider putting the AC on early. Since we spent most of today on the road I did not check out the lawnmowers like I planned. We have two different mowers, a push one for using in the dog yard and a rider for all the area outside of it. We really need to get the lawns mowed, all the rain we have gotten has made for a very plush lawn. Of course it is supposed to rain again, so now it will have to wait a few more days.

I have had a lot of problems with my Best Friend #2's dog Micheal lately. You may have read in a previous post about how we kind of take care of many things for BF #2, including trying to keep Micheal in line. Well because we have really not wanted to be the ones doing all the work Micheal is a bit wild and rambunctious, plus he is all muscle. About 75lbs of it. He is is a mix breed dog so we are not certain what all he has in him but we suspect Lab and Rhodesian Ridge Back, and possible some pit bull. I do not have anything against pit bulls and even feel they are often mis-labeled as bad dogs when they are just untrained dogs.

Micheal is about 4 years old now and he is getting more and more rough, and even aggressive to some of my dogs. Recently he attacked my long haired Dachshund, Malcolm (this time unprovoked by the Doxie) and he almost killed him with all the damage he did.

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2 comments

This ice storm needs to end soon!! I am almost out of Pepsi. LOL! I have one Pepsi and one Dr. Pepper left. I do not even have very much juice left. I may have to go cold turkey and drink plain water. Good thing I like water.

Even my doggies and kitties want the storm to end soon. Oh wait maybe they don't; I just gave them all canned food, because we are low on dry food and I wanted to stretch it so that I will not run completely out. So I imagine they are really happy that we are stuck here. Canned food is only a treat for my critters.

Now that it is about time for me to get moving and get things done for the day, I finally feel like I could actually fall asleep if I would lie down. I tried sleeping last night but all I did was toss and turn. As silly as it may sound one of the things that made it hard for me to sleep was my chapped lips. It was not the only thing just one of the contributing factors. With the temperature outside being below freezing the furnace was working even more than the last few days, this made the air in the house dry, thus my chapped lips. One of the other reasons I could not sleep was the fact that even though the furnace was running it was still pretty cold in the house. I apparently did not program the thermostat well enough to keep the house comfortable as well as economical. Even that should not have been too much of a reason for me to not sleep, because I have 5 lap dogs that sleep with me sometimes and I also have plenty of blankets available. I am not really sure exactly what made it so hard for me to sleep. Well maybe I do know. With all the problems we have had rain down on us my body can not make up its mind if I should be wound up or run down.

Oh well maybe after I put the dogs out (the big dogs not the little guys it is too cold for them), I might be able to sleep for a couple hours before I have to get cracking.

Our foster group has an unusual amount of good fortune at finding the homes of some of the rescued dogs. I think in the last two weeks we have managed to find the owners of 4 different dogs. 2 of them were returned home because they had microchips if they had not had them I doubt we would have found their owners. The other 2 were returned to their homes due to a chain reaction. Someone lost there dog and told these people, these people told some rescue friends about it and waa laa family and dog reunited.

We have another dog in the system at another foster home and it has been discovered that it has a microchip too. Teh chip is registered to the local Humane Society (I say local just because it is less than an hour away), so in the morning my roomate will be the one to call and see who the Humane Society has on record as the owners.

Micro-chipping is a wonderful way to help get a pet returned home when it goes missing.

I don't know what exactly made me think about our non-profit groups funds, but I did. We are all worried that with the rising cost of caring for animals, we will have emptied our coffers come this spring. I know this is always in the back of our minds. I guess what brought it to the forefront of my mind is the fact that my roomate once again gave the radio station (yep the one that is my favorite) a description of a foster for their Pet of the Week that they do every Sunday.

Well anyway I have been trying to think of a simple way to try and remind people that we could really use donations. The donations don't even have to be money, they can be blankets & towels, pet food (cat and dog), leashes, bleach, paper towels, even coupons for doggy and kitty supplies. All of these non money items can still help us save money to use for vet bills instead. The value of these items can also be taken off of taxes just like a cash donation can.

I was thinking that maybe a little sign posted in a few places might help get some donations.

Now I just have to figure out what to say on it. I was thinking of using the following line as the main intro:

okay I remembered what I was trying to post earlier. This is an email my mother forwarded to me about Daisy. I thought it was worth sharing.

NOT ALL HEROES ARE PEOPLE ~ ~ ~

James Crane worked on the 101st floor of Tower 1 of the World Trade Center . He is blind so he has a golden retriever named Daisy. After the plane hit 20 stories below, James knew that he was doomed, so he let Daisy go, out of an act of love. She darted away into the darkened hallway. Choking on the fumes of the jet fuel and the smoke James was just waiting to die. About 30 minutes later, Daisy comes back along with James' boss, who Daisy just happened to pick up on floor 112.

On her first run of the building, she leads James, James' boss, and about 300 more people out of the doomed building. But she wasn't through yet, she knew there were others who were trapped. So, highly against James' wishes she ran back in the building.

On her second run, she saved 392 lives. Again she went back in. During this run, the building collapses. James hears about this and falls on his knees into tears. Against all known odds, Daisy makes it out alive, but this time she is carried by a firefighter. "She led us right to the people, before she got injured" the fireman explained.

Her final run saved another 273 lives. She suffered acute smoke inhalation, severe burns on all four paws, and a broken leg, but she saved 967 lives. Daisy is the first civilian Canine to win the Medal of Honor of New York City.

There was a picture of Daisy attached but I was not able to copy it, I think it was protected or something.
I only know enough about computers to say I have a whole lot more to learn.

I am currently working on posting some of our foster crtters on our small piece of the Petfinder.com world. I sometimes regret my early eagerness to be the volunteer that post our group's foster animals on the internet. When I first volunteered I was so eager to learn something new (using HTML tags and such), but now I sometimes find myself bemoaning the mundane time consume nature of the reality. The worst times are when my ISP causes problems. I live far enough out in a rural area that I can only get one company's dial-up service my only other choice at this time would be to go satallite and that is beyond my budget. When I start complaining about all of this I have to remind myself that I chose to live this far out. (thats another story).

Today I have added a couple more puppy-dogs and 3 or 4 kitty-cats. I have to get up every so often to get away from the desk because my eyes get tired and the 24/7 numbness in my fingers gets worse with bits of pain added in.

Here are just a couple pictures of some of my own personal pets. Often my pets start out as fosters that I just can not bring myself to let go, but sometimes I actually go out of my way to find a new furry family member.