Showing posts with label reese. Show all posts

Over a year ago, Reese started limping after a trip to the doggy beach. We initially chalked it up to too much running around and merely needing some rest. Alas, this was not the case. She would rest (read: not get her tennis ball thrown every thirty seconds) for a few days, then immediately start limping as soon as we ramped up her activity level. It was time for the vet.

The Dr. Vet poked and prodded her leg and knee, while Reese glared at him. The joint was swollen and clearly causing her discomfort. We tried everything Dr. Vet recommended, such as anti-inflammatories, but nothing produced a lasting result. Finally, months later, it was time to visit Dr. Orthopaedic Vet.

Apparently when dogs tear their CCL (cranial cruciate ligament, the doggy version of an ACL), it is usually degenerative rather than acute. That means instead of a sudden tear and lots of howling, it slowly tears over a period of time. Dr. Orthopaedic Vet further explained that the ligament can't recover from tears, but it can be replaced with string and scar tissue. She couldn't be 100% sure about how badly, if at all, the ligament was torn prior to surgery, but, in her experience, it was torn and needed to be fixed.

After much debate, we chose the less invasive option to fix her knee. Basically, a bunch of fishing wire is wrapped around the knee to hold it together, and eventually scar tissue builds up and keeps everything steady. As the knee heals, stretches and increased mobility prevent the scar tissue from locking the knee in place while simultaneously building up strength.

We scheduled her surgery for as soon as possible. Afterwards, Dr. Orthopaedic Vet said her ligement was 90% torn. She kept Reese in the hospital overnight for observation, after which she was very ready to come home.

The blue dangly thing is a leash.

Sadly for her, Reese had two months of rehabilitation in front of her. At first, she was stuck in her crate most of the time, to prevent her from trying to walk around. At first, she was groggy enough to not care.

Zero dragged over his bed to keep her company.

What happens when you combine dogabetes and IBD? Pancreatitis! While the exact cause is not known, diabetes can bring it about. And just for funsies, a previous bouts is a possible indicator of future bouts. Since Zero can't exactly say, "My tummy hurts, I don't wanna go to school today," we discovered the problem the same way anything else is discovered with a dog - through a sudden change in behavior.

Normally Zero eats everything and anything you put in front of him. If it's feeding time at the O.K. Corral, he's front and center waiting by the trough. Except suddenly he wasn't. He was barely moving, just lying in bed. We coaxed him over for food, even brought food to him, but he was completely uninterested. Zero being uninterested in food means time for everyone's favorite thing - the vet!

Zero walked slowly down the stairs and tried to sit by the door, but it was obvious sitting was painful. I wasn't sure if picking him up would make things worse, so we ended up letting him walk to the car.

After an extensive medical history and some X-rays, the vet confirmed that Zero had pancreatitis. He had a minor case a few months before the dogabetes diagnosis, which required an overnight hospitalization, but he quickly recovered. This time wasn't so easy.

Reese was not a fan of leaving Zero behind at the vet. We visited him every day, and every day Reese would stop at the top of the stairs to wait for Zero.

Where's Zero? We can't leave without him!

At home, she went on a hunger strike, refusing to eat much of anything as long as her brother was missing.

Meanwhile, Zero wasn't getting any better. There isn't any miracle cure for pancreatitis. IV fluids, monitoring, and waiting are the basic protocol. Unless the patient refuses to eat for a few days, in which he gets a feeding tube up his nose, down his throat, and into his stomach. In case that's not bad enough, a couple of stitches hold the tube in place on his snout.

Let me out of this cage!

Now that I'm out, let's go home.

About five days in, Zero finally started to turn around. He became more active and even began eating on his own. Much to his delight, the feeding tube came out. One more night, and we were finally able to bring him back home. It took a few more days of rest at home, but he did recover.

Much better.

This happened nearly two years ago. For whatever reason (laziness), I never finished this post. On with the story!

Matt was in the front yard with the dogs when he heard a horrible screeching sound. Of course Reese located the source first, and proceeded to closely sniff the offender. At first, Matt thought it was an injured bird, but closer inspection revealed that it was a bat. A BAT. In the middle of the day. Not good.

Not a bird.

I called animal control, and they sent someone out to investigate. In the meantime, we were supposed to trap, assuming we could do so safely. The bat hopped to the side of our house, screeching all the way. We cornered it into a box, then wedged in a furniture dolly. Just in case the tiny bat grew super strength to move the box, we didn't want a super strong crazy bat chasing us.

Note: I do not recommend wedging things against the gas meter. In retrospect, not our smartest decision.

After merely half an eternity, Mr. Animal Control arrived with his official grabby tool. He informed us that if he had to take the bat with him, it would be euthanized and checked for rabies. In all of Los Angeles County, only around 40 rabid bats are found each year, so odds were against our bat being infected. It would be best for everyone, especially the bat, if it just flew off.

He carefully used the grabby tool to put the bat on a ledge, hoping it would fly off. It just laid there, occasionally hopping or screeching. Mr. Animal Control admitted this was not a good sign, especially with it still being daylight out.

*poke poke* You can fly away now.

Or not, apparently.

Good-bye! Never come back!

Now that the bat was safely in a box, Mr. Animal Control started asking questions about the dogs. "How close did they get?" "Is there any chance one got bit?" Apparently bat fangs are so sharp and tiny that not even humans always notice when they get bit. Finding a bat bite on a dog is like finding a needle in a haystack. In other words, time for booster shots!

I just noticed a superfluous post in my draft folder. In a fit of awesomeness, I seem to have taken a bunch of pictures, uploaded them, added captions, and then left the finished product to simmer for seven months. Oops.

While Los Angeles takes its sweet time with the Wilshire expansion, Reese and Zero have completed the Venice line.

Reese digging while Zero supervises.

Reese testing the hole.

Digging.

More digging.

A strategic pause for admiration.

Zero surveying the progress.

A non-union laborer.

If I fits, I done.

Reese conducting herding the first train into the station.

It's not entirely clear from the pictures, but the final hole averaged 1' deep, 1' wide, and 2.5' long.

A certain puppy decided to inconvenience us by outgrowing her collar while not growing enough to fit a medium Google collar. The nerve! To teach her a lesson, we took the Mutt Brigade to Petco to find a Reese-appropriate collar.

At first, Reese was nose to the floor, enjoying the myriad of smells. And then it dawned on her - FOOD!

Luckily for her, we had no idea where the collars happened to be, so she got to vacuum up the entire store. A morsel of something under a shelf three inches off the ground? That's no problem for the amazing collapsible puppy!

She managed to get in up to her shoulders before she reached her buried treasure. The amazing part? She got back out without any help.

Reese carefully inspected the merchandise before selecting a dainty black collar with pink skulls. Much to her embarrassment, Matt tried it on her for size right there in the aisle!

"Daddy! What if the other dogs see me?" But once it was on, she couldn't help but pose for the camera.

Where's Matt? I'll give you one hint: he's behind one of the 53" plush teddy bears. I wanted to bring a few home for the dogs, but Matt said no. He never likes my amazing ideas.

That's what Matt said when I refused to stop trying to yank open the stupid car door. He ended up opening the door for me, while I retaliated by kicking the door. It totally deserved it.

Meanwhile, Frankenboob has been inflated a total of three times, for a total of 370cc. It's now more ovular than ever, so I had to go buy a couple of new sports bras that would normally be way too big. For some reason, Victoria's Secret doesn't make anything for the irregularly shaped boob.

A weird bump of skin is poking out at the left end of the scar. It's gotten more pronounced with every inflation, even though I've tried to poke it flat. According to Dr. PlasticSurgeon, it's called a dog ear, and is caused by a pleat forming when the skin was stitched back together by Dr. Surgeon. She made sure to stress the part about Dr. Surgeon causing it. But not to worry, she can easily erase its existence when creating the nipple.

Reese, who finds it necessary to say hello to every dog in a five-mile radius, clearly heard about of Frankenboob's dog ear. Sadly, her version of first contact involved stepping directly on Frankenboob while in our bed this past Monday. Not understanding why I suddenly started screaming, she immediately froze. Matt, sensing something was amiss, came bursting out of the bathroom and removed the offending paw, along with the rest of the puppy.

Reese feins innocence, sleeping with what's left of her favorite toy.

Oddly enough, I woke the next morning to find a multicolored Frankenboob. And did I mention it hurt? As the day progressed, it changed from purple to a nice red. Time to call the doctor!

By that point, I had completely forgotten about Reese's attempt to compress Frankenboob into a singularity. All I could think of was that it hurt and it was an odd color, even by Frankenboob standards. Luckily, Dr. PlasticSurgeon's secretary happens to be my neighbor and knows that both Reese and Zero can be jumpy when excited. Perhaps one of them did it? How on earth I managed to forget that, I'll never know.

Since I already had an inflation appointment scheduled for the next day, I decided that I could wait a day for a thorough medical probing. In the meantime, I could continue taking prescription levels of ibuprofen out of an OTC Advil bottle.

At today's appointment, it took Dr. PlasticSurgeon about three femtoseconds to locate the point of impact. And then she jabbed it with a stick! Or she just lightly touched it to make sure nothing was horribly amiss.

Apparently it isn't the best of ideas to inflate a bruised boob, so that was delayed until next week. For today, her minion was dispatched to fetch the brown tape (as opposed to the white tape). I'm not entirely sure how it works, but a few pieces of tape are holding the bruised area in stasis such that it can heal in a more timely fashion.

In other news, this morning I inadvertently discovered that I can flex Frankenboob! It looks very similar to videos of Chippendale dancers flexing their pectoral muscles, except there's a boob on top. And no, I can't flex the right. Believe me, I've tried.

A certain creature, who we'll call "NotZero", decided to take all the moss out of a planter and spread it about the living room. Another creature, who we'll call "Zero", took one look at the situation and hid under the coffee table. Of course, he was still able to enjoy the show, since he wasn't the one in trouble.

Reese was less than helpful during the cleaning process, so she landed in puppy prison while we attempted to find all of the moss.



This escape attempt failed, but maybe next time she'll try to dig under the fence or shiv one of guards. Hmmm... perhaps I should go hide the toothbrushes.

While I do that, you will enjoy a game of spin the puppy, preferably before dinner.

Reese will eat anything small enough to fit between her jaws, and she'll do it in the blink of an eye. For instance, during the three microseconds it took me to open the gate, she took a bite of mushroom from the one that some mensa candiate pulled out of the grass and left on the edge of the sidewalk. I turned around just in time to see something white disappear into her mouth. By the time I bent over to pry the mysterious object free, it was too late. At least she left behind the telltale mushroom with an incriminating bite-shaped piece missing.

Well, fuck.

Not being a mycologist, I declared the walk over and dragged the disappointed dogs back inside. Matt found out what the suicidal puppy did while I was en route to the phone to call the vet. Not surprisingly, the receptionist said to bring her in immediately, with the remnants of the mushroom if possible. Matt loaded the puppy while I ran back outside to retrieve her leftovers.

The one benefit to emergency vet visits for poisoning is that your furry moron gets bumped to the front of the line. Of course, you get to pay the emergency fee for this nifty benefit, but we'll just ignore that for now.

After explaining Reese's new diet to the vet, I got to call poison control! Poison control, veterinary edition, charges $65 per case number, payable via any major credit card, to offset the cost of offering their services. But if the vet calls, poison control tacks on an extra $25 because they can. So the vet offered us the option of calling ourselves to save the extra $25, and I started dialing.

I had a nice little chat with the lady from poison control, in which I got to describe the offending mushroom in graphic detail. Of course the stupid thing matched three possibilities, one of which was nice and poisonous, and "not uncommon" in our area. Great!

She described exactly how the evil mushroom would soon destroy the poor puppy's liver and the symptoms for which to watch. I took notes. Then she described a host of precautionary procedures to cure Reese of the mushrooms.  I took more notes. Finally, she gave me a website with the email addresses of volunteers who identify mushrooms in possible poisoning cases. I ran out of space on the post-it note. Luckily, the vet picked that moment to reappear and I handed the phone over. I suspected that the professional would do a better job of describing the proper protocols to follow than I had any hope of doing.

First, they induced vomiting. Some poor vet tech got to examine the results and reported a small amount of white chunks. Next, Reese was given activated charcoal to absorb any poison that made it to her intestines. This delicious snack was followed with medicine to protect her liver from doom. And finally, they drew blood to establish a baseline for liver function, which they would compare with blood drawn 24 and 48 hours later.

When we finally made it home, we took close-up pictures of the offending mushroom and went to the internets. The website to which the poison control operator directed me didn't list anyone who was anywhere near Southern California. After a bit of debate, we chose the expert with the Stanford email address under the theory that it was the most prestigious sounding of those located in the state.

The expert replied the next day with the good news that Reese's preferred nosh was not poisonous. He did, however, decry the quality of the pictures. But that wasn't nearly as important as the no dead puppies part of his message.

Matt noticed the email address from which the expert replied - cern.ch. As in those guys who tried to destroy the universe with their Large Hadron Collider. Since we no longer had to worry about Reese keeling over, this email address was hilariously funny. Unfortunately, most of the jokes were so horrible that I will not risk ruining the internet with them.

No puppy story is complete without pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.

I'm on the right

A less vomit-inducing meal

She never stops barking, even in her sleep

Reese's opinion of Zero

Dog fight!

I will sit on you until you shut up!

Pre-chomp...

Chomp!

Way back in the before time, Matt and I visited a Swedish Valhund breeder to get Zero a spiffy new puppy. After I got sick, we waitlisted ourselves for a myriad of obvious reasons. Then, on Friday morning, Matt got an email. A female, long tailed puppy was returned because the couple that took her home were not actually ready for puppy, much less a squeaky one. Would we care to take her home?

It's one thing to say no to a theoretical puppy. It's quite another to say no to an actual puppy shown in actual pictures. In other words, by the time Matt called me at work, the decision was already made for me.

We tossed Zero in the car and drove up to Morro Bay on Saturday. On Sunday morning, we went to the farm to retrieve the puppy currently named Ginny. Pure bred puppies require long fancy names, so she also ignored her full name, Ginevra Weasley.

Ginny, Zero, and a couple of the other dogs got to know each other during a boat ride on the creek that runs through the breeder's farm. The breeder gentle paddled, while pointing out the various sites along the haunted Halloween cruise. My personal favorite was the gnome village, complete with gnome houses and staked gnome vampires. Apparently Zero agreed, as he picked that point to jump in the 28°F water for a closer look.

He instantly regretted that decision and hauled himself out of the water, onto a mostly submerged tree. The breeder was closer, so she scooped him up and deposited him back in the boat. As Zero had no intention of freezing alone, as I was soon equally wet, despite having wrapped him in my now filthy sweatshirt.

Upon our return to dry land, I hung out by the nice, warm fireplace. Zero alternated between cuddling with me and barking at the cat. Ginny happily ran around her exercise pen. And Matt got to discuss important things with the breeder.

The car ride home took forever, but that did give me plenty of time to decide upon her name. Eventually, I chose Rhys, a Welsh name meaning enthusiasm. Matt objected to giving her a male name, despite the fact that he kept using a male pronoun when referring to her. I acquiesced, and she was duly crowned Reese.