Psychotomy

So, dropped K off for his comprehensive exam this morning at the vets. We have the pet insurance, and so everything I was dropping him off for was covered. Except they wanted to give him some antibiotics with the teeth cleaning, they wanted to run an EEG (EKG?) to check his heart so they could do a bang on job with the anaesthetic, some anti-inflammatorys … those weren’t on the coverage. I declined most of them :o

Then I get a call, he had a lot of bacteria in his mouth, and since they did the cleaning, the doctor REALLY wants he should have the antibiotics, so OK. And they want to run a skin test because he has a rash on his stomach (I think it might be from the weeds I was pulling yesterday, but to be safe). And they want to give him some anti-inflammatories for the rash. And do an ultrasound on his bladder …

Bladder’s fine, but run the other tests. Then they want to give him about 3 more meds to clear up the rash an’ stuff. So I agreed to that too. Because he’s my pups!!!

All told, the 100% covered appointment is costing me 150$, and that’s with me declining another 50-100$ of stuff.

Of course, just thinking about K not being OK has me in tears, so it’s worth it. He’s my puppy !!!

Posted in: k-line by attriel /
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so, i took dk up for his nap after lunch. he played in his room, but not interested in napping. i give up just as kiir’s bringing pi up and going to lay down to take a nap.

so I tkae DK downstairs, figure we’ll play xbox. frankly, he’ll probably fall asleep on my lap, but if not, no nap means early bedtime, so that’s fine too.

10 maybe 20 minutes in, kiir calls me to come get PI. Obviously I can’t hold pi while dk sits on my lap, so i save and quit the game so I can put something on for him to watch when we get back down.

excpet he decides to stay up and snuggle up to mommy. half an hour later, they’re both asleep (fairly sure K is keeping a corner of the bed warm too) and I’m sitting slouched in the dining room chair so pi can snuggle up and sleep on my shoulder …

meaning I’m the ONLY person still awake, and I can’t do anything but type on the computer or risk waking everyone else up. oi!!!

Posted in: DK, general, k-line, PI by attriel /
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So a while ago I was out with K for his evening sabbatical. I usually just take him up our side of the street in the evening for a short walk instead of crossing to the wooded path. I happened to glance across the street and a deer standing at the edge of the wood. It stood there for a while, and K watched it, and it suddenly bounded back into the woods.

Well, heck, no WONDER he barks at those woods so often when we’re walking! I figured he was hearing squirrels or something!

As we were headed home, the deer came back out, followed by 2 or three more. They crossed the street (Funny thing: they were crossing a corner, and instead of going diagonal, like i was anticipating, they actually crossed one street, turned 90-degrees, and crossed the second one!!!) and bounded into the woods at the end of our street.

I guess maybe there’s deer in the woods :o That’s cool

Posted in: k-line, Wildlife by attriel /
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K’s been sick the last few days. I think it was related to the beets tuesday. FYI : Beets should be cooked like potatoes. The recipe that said to put them in an inch of water to cook? Bullshit. Pure and utter BULL. Because then? After an hour? They’re still rather hard and inedible. But DK and I tried them, and I think I gave one to K (and DK probably tossed him some)

Except it turns out that, while beets are not toxic to dogs … they don’t agree with one another. *sigh* So K’s been sick the last two days, today I took him to the vets. 130$ worth of stuff (well, 900$, but because I went ahead and upgraded to the higher level pet health plan, a bunch more was covered) (that’ll cost like 200$ a year, but I was planning to do it in the next year or so anyway, because the one we were on was basically “well puppy visits”, and between being six and having DK around … K’s gotten sick more in the last year than in the previous 5 combined), and they decided that basically he ate something. That was their initial estimation too, but they ran the tests because the symptoms were the same as a bunch of really bad shit :/ tests came back negative though, including the (now included) X-Ray :o

They did decide that he had some infection (the nurse had said something about pancreatitis or something making him mucus-y, so I assume it’s the same one), and they gave him an anti-biotic for it. Some shots and meds for his tummy, but basically said he was fine. YAY!

And NEVER, EVER read the pamphelets they have in doctors (or vets) offices. Especially if you’re there with a sick baby or puppy. Because those things sound like whatever you’re looking at! HOLY CRAP! ACK! AUGH! *whew*

Got home and he’s already eaten a scooby that he’s been carrying around since Wednesday. So I think he’s doing better yay!

Posted in: k-line by attriel /
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So, K had his “comprehensive physical” today. Basically they have me drop him off before 9 and pick him up after 3 (so, 7 and 5:30 :/) for what is, really, about 30 minutes of tests. When I worked at Goddard and could stay home easier, or take half days meaningfully, I’d usually go in and sit in one of the rooms for the 90-minutes that it drags on. But I can’t do that now, so he gets to sit in their small metal cages and be bored out of his effing mind all day :/

OTOH, the physical is free annually (or twice annually maybe?) and so are his shots, covered by his plan (so, not really free, since I’m paying a monthly fee, but whatever). I signed a bunch of forms and filled out a bunch of information they should really already have (like, pets name, phone #’s, etc) and on the billing form I wrote in to call me if the price was over 25$.

Got a call ~10 or 10:30 (told you it only took like an hour). So, first off, I’m worried because they really have no reason to call me unless there’s a problem. Turns out K has an ear infection. Last time, this was a PITA because he did NOT appreciate people playing with his ears when he had an ear ache. Shocking, I know. But OK, we’ll cope. They want permission to run a 40$ test to find out what kind of ear infection, so they can prescribe the right meds. OK, sure, makes sense.

I go to pick him up. “Your total comes out to be 257$” Woah, come again? Last I heard it was around 60, counting the 40$ procedure. Are you telling me there’s 200$ worth of medication? “Oh, no sir, lets see. There’s X for his ears. Then there’s Y, that’s an antibiotic” “uh, then what was the first one?” “Thats for his ears” “For the EAR infection?” “yeah”

she pawned me off on the doctor because I wasn’t understanding “there’s these drops for his ears, and then there’s this antibiotic”. Doctor came in (oh, look, another new vet; criminy), and started telling me that this is for his ears, 3 drops, each ear, twice daily. “I thought he only had an infection in one ear?”

Then he went into a long thing about how animals were like people (really? mammals share traits with other mammals? Oh Em GEE!) and the ears, the nose, the eyes, the mouth, were all openings to a central shaft (uh, that’s not quite accurate, but thanks for dumbing it down) and if we just put drops in one ear it moves to the other, and if we put them in the second it moves to the first so we have to put drops in both ears so it has nowhere to move to! (uh, you just said “central shaft” and named 7 openings. Having now covered 2, technically, don’t I need to put drops in his mouth, nose, and behind his eyeballs? dude, c’mon) But OK, that makes sense.

“And this is the antibiotic” “uh, wait, what was the first one then?” “that’s drops, for his ears” were back to this are we? Another 5 minutes of him treating me like a moron, I finally get him to use his words long enough to establish “Oh, he has two kinds of ear infections?” He has a yeast infection in his ears, thus the eardrops, and a bacterial infection in his bloodstream, thus the oral antibiotic. Although I’m not sure the latter is actually an ear infection, but DK’s ear infection was handled by oral antibiotic, so I’ll accept it.

But I turned down the ear wash. I’d rather just fight for the ear drops, not pouring saline in his ears too. “well, this usually lasts people for years” Excellent. so it’s not really NEEDED per-se. I mentioned that he was handing out meds like an HMO doc. “I’ll prescribe everything I can think of, and hopefully I’ll get paid from something”

But, since I don’t have my research an’ all, I couldn’t really decide what I could skip, so I paid the 260 (I’m sorry, 240, I declined the wash. Three times) and got the meds. They tossed out during payment that apparently they gave him like 3 shots for the ear infection, too, arleady, bringing up the price.

But 60 to 260, and no one thought to say a gods damned thing? 100$ in meds, 100$ in meds they gave him without asking??? I’m trying to decide if I’m pissed enough to go back tomorrow, or just accept it since I do want K to get better and if they’d asked I probably would have granted the permissions. But approving a 40$ test does not automajikally approve the next 100$ worth of crap you feel like doing.

And WTF didn’t anyone explain WHAT they did? I’m reading the billing invoice, and it’s not exactly laymans terms. It’s a freakin’ BILLING INVOICE. The nifty directions for the meds, a full page, say “use as directed by the doctor”, but with a lot more words. Hello? Isn’t that what this page should include? Direction by the doctor???? Especially since I only talked to the vet b/c I was bitching about the 200$ in meds???

*sigh*

Posted in: k-line by attriel /
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I’ve gotten into the habit of taking K out every night when I get home. We’ll pass when it’s raining bad or exceptionally cold, but I think I’ve taken him out for a walk ~55 of the last 60 days or so. we walk up to the lake and around part of it. doing it daily, he stays down enough that it’s reasonable in the evenings. It works better than him going into trot when we throw the ball, and it gets me some exercise.

Speaking of which, between eating better (we started making up weekly, now monthly, menus) and the daily walks, i’m stayng around 212 right now. it’s not great, but it’s better than 3 years at 220. and despite my doctor, it’s a start.

current habit in motion is 1L of water a day. I’ve managed it about 5 of the last 7 days, so it’s going to be another week before I get the 10-in-a-row for building a habit. But I’m working on it, and I really do need the water.

Posted in: fitness, k-line by attriel /
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So yesterday kiir wasn’t feeling well, so I stayed home so she could rest and I’d watch des.

Around lunch, K kept barking and wanting to go out. I’d take him out, he’d wander around for five minutes, usually with Des inside screaming about abandonment issues. Then he’d look at me like i was a nutjob for bringing us out here. go figure.

Anyway, it started getting on my nerves. A LOT. Eventually I just snapped and screamed at him to shut up. Which scared Des, didn’t make K stop, and apparently woke Kiir up. After yelling, however, I realized that I was being irritable, it wasnt’ just K at fault. So I put on my jacket, I put on Des’ pants and jacket and put him in the stroller, got K’s leash and puppy treats.

And I walked the impossible walk! I took them both up the street and over to the lake. K only went around to the pavilion, but since he was then tired for the rest of the evening, I’m OK with that.

This afternoon we three did it again. Des isn’t terribly impressed by the whole thing (that might be b/c I keep ending up with his hood over his eyes). K’s leash keeps tanglging under the wheels, and my hand starts to hurt from gripping the leash and stroller.

It’s difficult, it’s complicated. And I’ll grant that I may be the only one with the height and experience with K to pull it off. But I walked the impossible walk!

Posted in: k-line, PI by attriel /
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K hasn’t been to his daycamp in over three months. It’s a nuisance, b/c he IS a jack russell. Parson Russell. Whatever.

So we were taking him to the dog park. Our original trainer, who used to watch him when we were out of town (because there was no petshotel at the time and we dislike plain kennels), took him there a few times and he loved it, apparently. It’s only been 4 years since she moved away. We finally got around to registering K with the county and getting him a pass for the park. That was working well, I throw his lacrosse ball around for 30-60 minutes, he gets tired out, everythings decent. He doesn’t lke hanging with the big dogs, so we’re usually down by ourselves in the small dog area. But that’s fine, I don’t really care.

Of course, two months ago, DST ended. Which means it’s now dark when I get home at five. The park is open 7am to dusk. 15-20 minutes to gethere during traffic, and it’s going to be well dark and closed. So we go out to the soccer fields. November sucked for that, b/c the fields are used by the young NFL or whatever and they had games and practices at 6pm every night. And they’d turn on their gas generator floodlights any time after 5. K, not a fan of the gas generators. Which meant we were done when they came out.

But they ended. And things were OK for a few weeks. I’d get home, take him out and throw a tennis ball for an hour or so, he’d get run down. It wasn’t optimal, but it worked. And now it’s winter. He doesn’t like getting cold. When we start up, he runs hell bent for leather, as it were, and gets a lot of running and bolting. For about 15 minutes. Then he settles into a groove. Instead of galloping, bolting, and racing, he starts to trot. And just like a horse, it’s a ground eating, energy saving, trot. Which Is probably why it takes an hour or so normally to run him out. 20 minutes high burn , 30-60 more on slow burn. But it’s cold, right? And that energy saving trot? It doesn’t generate as much heat, b/c it’s saving energy right? Which means K starts to get cold. He’ll start running the ball past me, ~2-6′. Slowly walking me back towards the edge of the fields and the path home.

It’s not that it’s dark. Yeah, he’ll lose it occasionally if I throw it just as he looks the wrong direction, then we go out to find it together. As long as I can see, he’s always still been happy to play. But it’s COLD. And wtf wants to be out freezing their ass off? He’s not dumb. He wants to go home where it’s WARM.

What does this all mean? It means that from December until probably February (and mid-June to August, for heat) he’s inside and hyper. Barking at this, running around there, not settling down at all. It’s to the point where I have to put him out the baby gate after a while in the evening and just tell him to go upstairs. And if he keeps barking and whining at us, kiir ends up playing with the printer which makes him run up. I mean, I think he’s running away from it, which means basically we’re torturing him every couple nights for our own pleasure :(

I feel really bad about it, but he doesn’t want to play outside long enough for the park to even be worthwhile, he doesn’t want to run down on the fields, and the whining and barking gives me a serious headache. And I have a headache most evenings by the time I get home anyway :(

Posted in: k-line by attriel /
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So, I didn’t post about this at the time b/c it really pissed me off. Then for two weeks we were out of town on vacation (different post).

We went to kiir’s cousin’s wedding and left K at camp/overnight whilst we were gone. B/c he couldn’t really just chill at the house, he could run out of water or hurt himself (ok, so except for a hamstring pull while he’s chasing something in his sleep, it’s unlikely, but he could choke or something).

When I dropped him off, they told me they don’t allow plush toys anymore, b/c the dogs could rip them open (check), pull out the stuffing (with me so far?), and choke on it … uh … gee, he’s never done that before … but they let him take his toy for the weekend b/c we didn’t know about the rules change

Additional things we didn’t know: The manager we liked? quit. The new managers? corporate yes men (well, the asst manager. I have yet to see the new manager manager ; and our manager quit ~3mo ago it seems ; we thought she’d just been on vacation or just in at different times). The staff we liked? gone. Toys they’re allowed to bring: None. All they can have is nylabones and kongs (hard rubber). Oi.

So, when we went to pick him up we found out new stuff.

K-Line has been permanently banned from camp. Because he apparently bit another staff member (it’s happened a few times lately, the trainer’s been trying to work with him). “He bit her on the way up this time” wtf does that even mean? Upon futher investigation, he jumped up, and his mouth hit her pants, left no mark inside her pants, and probably wouldn’t've been noted at all except i think the new asst was watching.

But K is too “agressive” for camp. He’s “dangerous” to have around other dogs. When I asked about that one, she pointed out that a month ago they called us b/c he got into a fight with another dog. “Uh, from what I understood, the other dog antagonized him, and he just defended himself” “Well, yeah” “Uh?” “Some dogs would have just laid down and taken it” … so he’s in trouble for not being a complete pushover?

And as for the people, this is why he’s always supposed to be taken out of camp first by your predecessors rules, so this DOESN’T happen. But apparently someone else was checking out and they just figured it wouldn’t be a problem. Uh? Well, what about the option of tieing him up while you get the other dog out, since that was the other standard option for restraining him? APPARENTLY they can’t take the time to tie him up every time someone comes in or out (i guess they have a constant stream or something? I never realized they had people in and out that often. and as he doesn’t give a shit if you don’t try to close the door, stepping into the attached and enclosed bathroom for the mop isn’t a problem unless you try to close the door and leave)

Of course, the trainer had trained most of the old staff on how to act and how to control K verbally. Apparently the new manager decided they didn’t need no stinking training when they could just ban dogs that didn’t just lay there.

Bleah. And I had to take him in for our vacation, since this all occurred two weeks prior, so there wasn’t any time to look for an alternative (mmmm 12 days stuck in a fucking room ; we got him a couple “double play” sessions (one hour of playtime … it used to be either 2 1-hr chunks or 2 30-min chunks; i think it started at 2 1′s and then became 2 30′s, and then they recently (new management) combined them into a single 1hr chunk … which causes me to question the term “double” play …), and asked the trainer to “work” with him whenever she had time (that was also the first she’d learned of his banishment, and she knows it isn’t K))

He’s gotta go back this weekend (christening event), mid november (baby naming), end of november (t-day) b/c there just isn’t time to find an alternative really. Although i may try ringing up the trainer, seeing if she’d take him for the same $$$, since i know he’ll get more fun there :o (and the old trainer was taking him before the hotel opened up)

But 23$26$/night is outrageous for him to sit there, IMO. yeah, it was 39$/day for him to have the overnight and 8hrs of play, but at least it would run him down. without the play, i can get it cheaper IMO. And they raised prices apparently.

Posted in: k-line by attriel /
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Actually, I have no idea what caused it but …

apparently, K bit someone at camp today. I don’t know if it was a person, or another dog, or himself, or what. They weren’t clear on the phone. Except that they will have to ban him from camp if he does it again.

He’s bit a handful of people before, but it’s usually been due to one of the following:

• Door aggression
• Attacked by another dog first
• Pissed off by the other dog

This time, however, they make it sound like he just walked up and bit them. Which I doubt, strongly. My best guess is the door agression thing, since they’ve had so many new hires lately i doubt they’ve all been well versed in K’s little psychosis.

But someone might have reached in to stop a fight again. Or he could just have bit another dog that attacked him. We called the trainer to ask her to work with him some more. I’m afraid he’s acting out b/c babe’s getting all of what used to be his time. But it’s not like babe’s going anywhere, so I may have to start taking him on big long walks. Daily. Won’t that be fun. Get up at 6:30, go to work, get home at 5, take K for 2 hours, make dinner, spend 10 minutes with babe before he goes to sleep …

Oi.

Of course, it’ll save us a bunch of money not spending 60$/week on camp … but not really how I want to save money.

Posted in: k-line by attriel /
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