Working to death...

I know it's been a long week.  We've had lots of pets in and out, and mother's stayed busy in the no-awake-dogs-allowed room, cutting the strange looking lumps and bumps off.  I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend at the den.  But I was still surprised with how tired Sally looked when I came into the clinic today.  Hard work really takes it's toll on the humans.  Vonnie says "we worked Sally to death".  I guess she needs a quiet weekend at her den too!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!

Alien creature found on golf course

I know that I usually blog on and on about the dogs and cats that come to visit my clinic.  But I sometimes forget that the people that belong to the dogs and casts are important too.  At least they are to my folks and their helpers.  Somtimes, the humans get really close to one another, almost like one of the pack, especially when the dog or cat has to come here all the time to get pills or pokes or the red syrup taken.  This was the case with Feisty and his mom.  Fiesty got sick last year and after lots of visits and lots of medicines he ended up taking his final sleep.  None of us had seen Feisty's mom since then.  That was until today. 

 So it was a big surprise when she walked in holding a box saying, "You'll never guess what I just found on the golf course."  Which was followed with a chorus of "Awwww' and "Ohhhhhhh" from Sweet Sally, Vocal Vonnie and Dancing Debbie.  "We're going to keep him," said Feisty's mom " we're going to name him Kane."  Vocal Vonnie picked up the tiny creature that didn't look like any kind of animal we normally see here and said, "Oh, Kane you're so cute. But you're covered in fleas so we need to give you a bath right away.  Actually, Mom, maybe you should probably name him Kandi instead of Kane because he's a she!" 

So it was that Kandi came to stay at the clinc for the soap treatment.  I was pretty sure that the tiny creature was not one of my canine brethren and was even more convinced once it got wet.

It sure looked like something from a far off land that I've never seen before.  None of the humans could get over how cute she was, none except mother.  "Kittens at this age just look like aliens to me, they're all ears, bellies and eyeballs"  she said.   "Just in time for Halloween then" Vonnie added.  Vonnie loves Halloween, in that same strange way I love to clean Bea's ears and Brawny Brandon loves anything edible.

I'm glad that Kandi found her way off the golf course and into a great home;  Feisty sure never had any complaints.  And lucky for Kandi, she won't have to wear a silly costume for Halloween, according to mother she's ready to go! 

Here's to wagging tails...

So last week I barked on about all the sick pets that came to visit.  Well, today we got to see first paw, one of the happy endings.  We've known Arnold since he was a puppy.  Well he's 3 years old now, and one day last week his legs stopped working.  Mother said "He's ruptured a disk in his back and it's pressing on his spinal cord.  He's going to need emergency surgery to get his legs moving again."  Arnold's mom wasted no time in getting him to the nerve-ologist.  Arnold had to spend the past two weeks at that clinic recovering from his sleeping procedure and learning how to use his legs again.  Apparently, once a disk gets ruptured you forget how to use your back legs.  But judging by the way he was waddling around today, his sleeping procedure was a success.  Those dachshunds have such short legs it hardly seems like anyone would notice if his legs didn't work, but I guess Arnold would notice. 

I could hardly keep my tail from wagging, I was so happy for him.  Way to go Arnold!

The Eyes have it....

Today was all about eyes.  I've always thought of eyes as producers of crunchy, salty goo that tastes delicious just after breakfast.  And I know that when I close my eyes, I can't see anything, so I figure they must be pretty important. My parents are always seeing pets for eye exams.  Lots of dogs, like my Aunt Becky, have trouble making enough tears.  Those dogs get green goo in their eyes, instead of brown crunchy goo -- it tastes different, still good but different. 

We had one dog come by today to get her "take-a-nap-and-dream-wake-up-with-teeth-clean" procedures.  Her name was Melody.  She's a Shih-tzu, so somewhere back we could be related, because I am half Shih-tzu too.  Anyway, all mother and Vonnie could say was "Wow, her eyes are so big.  Don't hold her too tight, her eyes could pop right out". And every time Vonnie touched Melody's face she said "Ewww, I think I touched her eyeball." Melody went to sleep and woke right back up with sparkling clean teeth.  Her eyes were as big as ever when she woke up and as she batted them at people walking by they couldn't help but stop and pet her.  Us Shih-tzu's really know how to work it!

The other case we had of eye trouble belonged to one of mother's favorite patients -- he's a boy Cocker spaniel named Fella.  Fella has had every problem a cocker spaniel can get, at least that's what Vocal Vonnie says, "He's got allergies, ear infections, bad teeth, glaucoma, torn cruciates, hypothyroidism and skin cancer -- it just figures, because he's such a sweet dog!"  So I guess according to Vonnie -- Terrible Tara will live forever.

So Fella was in to have a growth removed on his side, but since he had the glow-coma in his left eye and it had gotten all stretched out, mother recommended to remove his eye too!  Bea and I sat in silence as we watched Fella's eye get removed from his head! I was really glad that he slept through that.  Of course when he woke up, he was more upset about the sore and strings on his side than the eye missing.   He told me that he couldn't see out of the eye anyway, so the fact that he couldn't open his eyelids anymore didn't really bother him.  I can see why mother likes him so much.  I told him when he feels better he should chew something up in his house, drop some nuggets on the floor, or bark everyone up at 3 am;  that way he should be able to live forever.

It's been a whirlwind of a week since I last got to blog.  So much has happened. 
Last week we had a visit from Dr. Quinn - surgery woman, to fix a knee on my good maltese friend, Bruce Lee.  Dr. Quinn said he'd be doing high kicks again in no time.
We had two sad dachsunds get rushed in -- on separate emergencies -- one for not being able to move his back legs, and the other sick in her stomach from eating spare rib bones.  The first one, Billie, took a trip to the nerve-ologist to have back surgery.  He had to spend the whole week in the hospital, and now his legs have started working again.  The other little dachsund was not so lucky; she started with red syrup coming out where the nuggets come from, and while mother was trying to "stabilize" her, red syrup began to pour out of her mouth.  She went to the forever sleep shortly after that.  I don't know if I have any spare ribs, I'm pretty sure that I need all of mine, but even if I did have some spares I've definitely learned not to eat them.
Over the weekend, my folks went away to get something they call "continuing education" and Bea and I stayed with our Aunts Tara and Becky;  my girl Anna came too.  Tara is what mother calls "Tara-ble" around toys and loves to steal them and chew them up.  My girl Anna lost a toy to Tara-ble Tara this weekend, and before I knew what happened Tara ended up in the toilet.  Everyone got really angry with Anna. I knew there was a reason I left her toys alone!

Today, the clinic was filled with the sound of happy barks and purring cats. Mother was pleased that she got to see 4 poodles today, I think she said that was some kind of a record.  I started to think that poodles were taking over the world when No-more-hair-ica Erika showed up with her crew.  Bea and I were quickly informed through thick accents that the band of black giant dogs were in fact Portugese Water Dogs.  I thought that their barks sounded different.  Bea says she doesn't bark Portugese.  Well, neither do I, but that didn't keep me from announcing their arrival and warning them to watch their step -- after all, they were in Ronnie territory; at the Her-Ron Creek Animal Hospital.  I guess they really didn't understand my American barking because they seemed to ignore every bark I said.  Instead, they acted as if they owned the place.

Guess I have to add learning to bark Portugese on my list of things to do.....

So far the week is not off to a great start.  We had another cat get sick and depart after not being able to get his yellow marking liquid out.  It may have been because at the end his yellow marking liquid looked and smelled a lot like red syrup. His name was Gadget and seemed really cool, for a cat.

One of our other really sick cats seems to be feeling better these days.  His name is Ivan and he has what father calls 'can't sir'.  I'm still not sure what he can't do, except that when he first started to visit he didn't want to eat much at all.  I think he could, his mouth smelled ok and his licker seemed to work, but he just didn't want to.  Vocal Vonnie says Ivan is more famous than me now, on account of the fact that he got his name in the newspaper.  I wanted to tell her that I use newspapers for my marking liquid, but I was a bigger dog than that and focused my frustration on cleaning Bea's ears.  Her ears are very clean now.
Mostly Vocal Vonnie is upset that her new cats have to eat the wet kibbles in the cans in order to keep away the very problems that Snuggles and Gadget struggled with.  Vonnie blames mother for recommending the smelly food, that she says "her cats crave like addicts" and that the cat litter box smells bad.  Of course I heard her dogs bark a different story about the litter box.  They say it's delicious.  Mother says "canned food is a small price to pay for a healthy urinary tract.  All of the current literature supports canned food as the best choice for cats", and although I can tell that it pains Vonnie, she knows mother is right.  I know it's a tough lesson to learn Vonnie, but barking from one who knows, it's easier to learn it now than the hard way. 

Fall is here

Summer seems to be over. The days are getting shorter, a cool breeze is in the air, and Bea shows flashes of puppyhood as she tears around the yard, thinking she can run faster than me.  Of course, her long legs make it look like she's faster, but I always catch her. More and more visitors come to the clinic every day too.  Some are stocking up on kibbles for the winter, while others heard about Big Mike and want to do whatever they can to keep their pets from getting sick .  I like to think that I am responsible for getting the bark out on that one.

Mother's helper are acting different too.  Today, they just would not stop laughing.  It started with Taco the poodle.  Taco is one of our regulars and on mothers favorite list on account of the basic fact that he's a poodle.  He came in for the take-a-nap-get-clean-teeth routine, but was supposed to give mother some of the yellow marking liquid before he went to sleep.  Turns out, he only puts his yellow marking liquid on top of his sister's yellow marking liquid, and nowhere else.  Of course, Alice didn't come to the clinic today.  So mother decided to get the yellow marking liquid from Taco while he was taking his nap. The laughter started when mother asked Sweet Sally to hold Taco's boy parts so she could put a tube in to take the liquid out. It only got worse when Dancing Debbie was unpacking some boxes during the procedure and Vocal Vonnie asked, "Hey, what's that?"  Smirking, Sweet Sally replied "Gee, Vonnie you can see what I'm holding, do you really have to ask?"  Mother finished her work quickly, and said "Sorry, Taco, if you'd just have peed in a cup like we asked, we wouldn't have had to do this the hard way".  Which, for some reason, made Vonnie and Sally both break out in laughter again. 
The strange human barking continued into the afternoon.  Taco and another girl dog, Dizzie, were getting picked up by their parents - something mother refers to as 'discharging' them.  Taco had just left and Dizzie's parents were on their way in.  Vonnie didn't realize that Dizzie hadn't left yet and asked mother, "Aren't you done for the day? Are you going to head out?"  "No, I can't leave yet" mother replied "I have a discharge".  At the same time, Sweet Sally and Vocal Vonnie's eyes grew big and they laughed "Thanks for sharing Dr. Smith, but it's ok to keep some things to yourself!"  Mother grew red in the face and walked off, I can honestly say I've never seen my mother speechless before.  And just as I turned in disbelief, I heard her grumble "....children.." under her breath.  I think all the laughing is what the humans do instead of having tails to wag. 
So far, as much as I miss the warm days of summer, fall is turning out to be pretty interesting!

Last week there was a lot of growling and grumbling from the humans, I often ignore many of their strange noises unless they're making important words like cookie, cheese or car-ride.  But I couldn't help but listen when they were talking about dogs getting sick.  Turns out that some of the dogs that had gone overnight camping at the special dog-only camps, were coming back sick; sick as dogs.  I guess that's where the phrase comes from.  I wasn't worried at all about getting sick myself -- mother said she was worried about the dog flew, which I know I can't get because I do not know how to fly. Bea had to go on an airplane to come to our den, so she flew, but she never got sick. 

Big Mike, one of our regular visitors, goes to day camp a lot.  On Thursday, he was Sad Mike and kept snorting and sneezing, and didn't even try once to get a treat off the counter.  Mother took some red syrup and some black and white pictures of his chest.  "Mike's got pneumonia,  but I think we caught it early.  We'll get him some antibiotics and he should be feeling better in no time." mother advised.
Vocal Vonnie took some of the goo out of Mike's nose and sent it off in a tube.  We found out today that Mike must not have flown because he did not have the flew, instead it was something I'd never heard of, called Mike-o-plasma.  Go figure, Mike would get something named after himself.  Lucky for Mike, the bug is treated easily with Antie Biotics and as expected Big Mike was back to stealing-treats-off-the-counter Mike by today.
Mother's worried because more dogs might get sick from the Mike-o-plasma disease, and there's no poke she can give to prevent it.  She says camping dogs, or dog park dogs, and those dogs that have to go to school should all still get the flew shot, even if they don't plan on flying, better to be safe than sorry -- or sick as a dog!