As much as I love dogs and all my surrogate dogs and all my customers and as much as I love my real estate job and all the agents I work with, everyone needs a break once in a while. Pretty much for the entire months of June, July and August I'm working 7 days a week. This time of year produces nary a day off so after a long, hot, sticky, bizzy summah when my annual time off finally comes at the end of august thru labor day I'm literally ready to kill someone. No-yeah, LITERALLY! Shoot I hope I don't actually kill someone--Now that I've put it in writing it could be misconstrued as pre-meditated (life in jail) rather than a simple manslaughter (10 to 20). I don't want to see another dog, a poop, a wee-wee, a dog hair or a dog toy! I don't want to get another email or phone call or purchase and sale agreement or chase down another single document. I don't want to see or talk to another person in the human race. This time of year I shut it all down. No email, no face book, no phone calls, no friends, no nuthin' ... just me & hubby chilaxin! After all isnt' that what you all do when you go to your Cancun's and Bahama's and Turks & Cacaos and Cruises and Aruba's? Why should a staycation be any different?! That's how we recharge and refresh our brains! And my brain needs some serious recharging! SEE YOU IN 12 DAYS! Enjoy the rest of summah! Have a happy & safe Labor day!
This post has nothing to do with dogs...how refreshing...but you know me, I'm sure I'll fit in something about DOGS somewhere.
After hearing about Keratin treatments for the last several months and asking my hairdresser a thousand annoying questions about it I decided to go for the Keratin Express. How could i NOT do it; she gives me a huge discount because I take care of her dog! Plus I love her, she's awesome! Keratin treatments for those of you that don't know is a chemical that's put on your hair, then it's blow dried and flat ironed to seal it in. It fills in any gaps and dry spots and smooths the hair shaft to make it straighter, shinier and less frizzy and is also supposed to help your color last longer. Keratin Express lasts around 6 weeks. The full Keratin treatment lasts several months. The more you do it the longer it lasts each time as the chemical builds up on your hair. You have to use a special sulfate-free shampoo which I already have but I ordered the Wen Shampoo online. It won't arrive til next week and I'm NOT waiting that long to wash my hair! And yes, in addition to being a dogaholic, I'm a shopaholic. SEE i told you I work dog into this post! OK enough education on Keratin treatments. This is my keratin express hair diary:
Day one: Just stepped out of the salon and OMFG! My hair looks freaking amazing. I need to go clubbin or something to show this shit off! (i know--i'm not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition but DANG this shit needs to be showed OFF! And besides I told you a long time ago I make up my own rules when I blog) My hair is soft like buttah! and stick straight and feels thick! I have some fun funky colors in there too (pinks & dark purples) so i totally look like a rock star! I couldn't resist texting a few friends a pic of my new hair. Here see for yourself:
Rock star, am I right??? LOL
Day two: Slept on my hair and MAN is it flat today. Flatter than yesterday! Not sure I like day two but the softness it out of this world! Not gonna wash it for a few days just to preserve the treatment. (I only wash it every 2nd or 3rd day anyway). By end of the day I'm DYING to wash my hair to get the residue out but that's just me. I can't even stand hairspray in my hair. I don't use many products and if I do they are light such as leave in conditioner spray or anti-frizz spray. No mousse, gels or hairspray for me. Which is a sharp contrast to my party days of the 90's...WHERE'S MY AQUA NET??!! Yes it was I that killed the ozone layer! Oopsie, sorry about that.
Day three: Goin to the beach today so no real reason to wash my hair but i need a shower bad so I'm just gonna rinse it while I'm in the shower. ...OMG my curls are like gone! Did I just sound like a valley girl or WHAT? My hair is wavy but I can't be confused with Shirley Temple any longer. On the good ship lollypop!
Day four: Pony tail for work. Hair definitely looks a little greasy but it still feels so soft. I MUST wash it tomorrow for sure! I ordered the Wen Shampoo from QVC but it won't be here til net week (that will hafta be another product review blog post) so I'll be using my Enjoy Sulfate-free Shampoo and conditioner. The conditioner is DABOMB!
Day five: MUST....WASH....HAIR!!!!! ok I've gone four days without washing my hair and I'm freaking out. Can't take it anymore! BRB after my shower.........wash, rinse, repeat. ((play theme from Jeopardy here)). I'm BACK! The Keratin treatment is supposed to hold in color but some of my color isn't really permanent color--it's more play color, so just like before it looks like I killed a purple dragon in my tub! Purple blood spattered everywhere so that was a little disappointing but on the other hand my permanent auburn hair color for covering gray stayed put. (yes, I just admitted I have grays!) The best surprise so far was that after I towel dried my hair there was hardly any purple color on the towel! Next I just spray in a little leave-in conditioner and anti-frizz and out the door I go for a ride in the convertible. Yeah, that's how I dry my hair in the summer. Wait, back up a minute--I DID put some clothes on in case you thought I missed a step in my post-keratin-shower excitement. Letting it dry naturally, it dried wavy so Keratin treatment does not completely straighten your hair--at least not my hair. However, it's about 70% less curly than my natural hair and there is not one bit of frizz and it's super soft and shiny!! So far I'm loving it. Tomorrow we blow dry! How exciting!
Day six: Today was a miserably rainy muggy humid day--PERFECT for hair experiments! Got up, hit the gym, sweated my arsss off, got caught in a downpour on the way out of the gym and then proceeded to go in and out with the dogs all day. OOOH another dog mention! My hair was in a pony tail all day but there was some frizzing from all the humidadation (made up word--sorry i like to throw those in to make sure you're paying attention). I kept procrastinating my shower in leu of cleaning the house so here I am at 9:09pm just finished the day's hair adventure. The last thing i felt like doing was blow drying my hair but I did promise it to you yesterday so in the shower i went but i didn't wash my hair, just rinsed it. Afterward I combed in my usual spray leave-in conditioner and defrizz (pantene and john frieda if you must know) and blew it dry, no flat iron. And I'm glad i did blow dry it because OMG i'm GAWGEOUS! The dry time is not cut in half but it's definitely dries faster than before the keratin treatment and it's super glossy shiny and soft and there's no frizz at the ends like there would normally be when i blow out my locks. See for yourself below...apparently my laziness supersedes my vanity because I couldn't be bothered to put on make up for the pic so there I am in all my natural glory. So far I'm loving this Keratin treatment. The big test for tonight will be to go outside for a few minutes and see what this muggy weather does to my hair. I'll let you know tomorrow cuz I'm goin to bed!
Day seven: OMG today had to be the frizziest day of the year. I was in and out all day with the doggies (oooh another doggie mention) and not ONE frizz i tell ya! And I got so many compliments on my new hair! This Keratin shiznit is the shiznit!!!!!!!!!! I'm totally hooked! Oh great, another addiction!
OK so you're all wondering what my hair looked like BEFORE the Karatin...here you go: (i'm so freakin brave--i hope you appreciate this!)
I finally just finished my video tribute to Alexis yesterday. I've been trying to bring myself to work on it for 4 months and just couldn't do it; part procrastination/part denial because if I don't do the video then she's not really gone. I also haven't been blogging consistently for several months either. I didn't want my blog to become a sad graveyard but all I felt like writing about was how sad I am so in typical Amy fashion, i avoided it. But today I got inspired. I was catching up on the Queen of Cuisine's blog posts and read the one about her divorce (I'm such a bad friend and haven't read it in weeks and I know how she loves to get comments) A blog post about a divorce is an odd place to find inspiration, I know, but inspiration can come from anywhere and it usually comes just when you need it. I thought if The Queen, who keeps her feelings closer to her vest than I do, can put it all out there then so can I. That's what a blog is for isn't it? After all it was The Queen who inspired me to start this blog in the first place....And I'm so amazingly fabulous that people want to hear what I have to say whether it's good, bad, happy or sad. RIGHT? LOL I'm so full of myself!
Believe it or not when Alexis died I was perfectly ok with it; alright, maybe not perfectly ok. I bawled but my utter gratitude for having this amazing animal in my life kept me from really feeling any grief at all. (thank you The Secret) After the first several days there was really no crying, just pure gratitude and lots of denial and bits of anger. I literally had to force myself to cry. I was worried at the lack of emotion over losing something that I told myself for 12 years I would not be able to live without. I thought there was something wrong with me but I also knew that my brain was probably in survival mode and the real grief would come soon enough so enjoy this while you can.
Shortly after Alexis died I went to a birthday party for a friend. I was a little nervous to drink because that usually sets emotions free and gets the waterworks started...nope! Shortly after that we went to dinner with friends and ended up at karaoke. Translation; copious amounts of drinking and vomiting but still no crying. Shortly after that was my own birthday party...drinks ahoy, bar hopping, no driving, party-party-party but still no waterworks ...Hey maybe I should have called this blog "My Kingdom For A Drink!" But then slowly somewhere into the 4th month after Alexis died (which seems like a friggin eternity by the way) the sadness has crept up on me. I told Dave I think I'm a little depressed and he said "oh, you're more than just a little depressed." Here I thought I was hiding it so well. I've apparently approached the curled-into-a-ball-weeping-inconsolably stage of grief (no, that's not in the handbook) and I cry every day now. Certain songs make me cry. Certain moments make me cry. Pictures make me cry. I cry driving in my car....hell, a tampon commercial makes me cry! It starts off as a weepy sadness then that burning in your nose starts and then comes the sobbing. I have little control over it so I just let it happen. Yes I'm crying right now in case you were wondering. Tito get me a tissue! (Thank God I still have my sense of humor!) I'm just so lost, weak and broken with out her I don't know what to do. The other night I missed her so bad that I asked her--no, I begged her to come to me in a dream and SHE DID! It was soooo real; she was curled up in bed with me. It was a great dream; one of those dreams that when you woke up you thought it was real...but it triggered a lot of emotion that won't stop rushing to the surface. There's nothing I can do I guess so again in another form of typical Amy fashion, I'll just write about it.
I'm a firm believer in allowing yourself to feel your feelings even if it's only in private when no on else is around. Life is meant to be lived and FELT! That's how we grow, evolve and gain wisdom. I'm also a firm believer that time heals all wounds and I know this too shall pass and I will arrive at that place where a scab has formed on the wound and I can have fond memories of her without crumbling into a heap on the floor. But can someone please tell me when that's supposed to be so I can mark it on my calendar along with the end of the world, hell freezing over and pigs flying, thanks.
Suffice it to say, in 9 years of doggie daycare the only real PIA barker was none other than my ALEXIS. Sure there's been a few yip yaps here and there but nothing too terribly out of control. Barking is not allowed at D2D and I've done pretty well to hold all the doggies to that rule for 9 years...that is, until Max the Great Dane came along! "Big Mack" I call him! A sweet, goofy, love of a dog but he's a bit on the insecure side and never gets used to the every day noises in his environment so he's always on guard plus he gets so darn excited at the prospect of meeting someone new; at home and at D2D. And it's a big bark too...140 lbs of bark to be precise. He just goes coo-coo-crazy-nuts-for-you when every dog gets dropped off and picked up. As soon as someone pulls in the driveway he starts up. I can usually get him to calm down but the minute I go out the door to greet someone he starts back up and obviously I can't be in two places at once so for the most part there's not a whole heck-of-alot I can do about the barking. Some days I have 10 dogs here so that's 20 barking fits plus when the neighbors go by walking their dogs and the kids on bikes go by. With Max's owners permission I got a citronella bark collar and put it on him today.
He didn't mind the collar being on at all. I ignored the package directions that said to let him get used to the collar for a few days--Who has time for that in this hurry-up-and-wait-I-want-instant-gratification society? Besides, I'm a rebel! Of course my first attempts to psyche him out by knocking on the door and pretending I was talking to someone outside failed to produce a bark. (Alexis ALWAYS fell for that one!) That's always the way isn't it though...you take your car to the mechanic but they can't reproduce that funny sound it's making! So I waited like a hunter in the brush for the the neighbors and their dogs to go for their daily walk; I left the front door open so Max had a clear view. Once he saw them he let out a low bark and the thing sprayed him in the face like a skunk. I half expected him to jump up and hit the ceiling but he just jumped back a bit and I'm preeeetty sure I heard him say "good gawd what in the name of all things four legged was that??" But it shut him right up! So then I led him out into the front yard so he could get a better view as they walked up the street and he let out a little huff bark and SWISH he got another blast. About 10 minutes later they came walking back and by now I think he's picking up on the fact that he shouldn't bark and he lets out a low guttural growl instead and SHHPURT again, the growling immediately stopped. (spell check is gonna hafta work overtime on this post!) So far so good! Let's see what later today brings during doggie pick-up time! Can't wait! Hopefully Max remembers this mornings lesson.
OOH WAIT! unexpected mid-day lesson; the unpredictable sometimes-at-10:00, sometimes-at-noon, sometimes-at-2:00 mailman happened to drive by as we were outside so I let Max have at it. He ran up on the porch, gave a low bark and PHHSSST! Then he ran up to the front gate, gave another low bark and SSHPPPRITZ! So far so good, he never does more than one bark with this collar. Normally he'd go into a bit of a barking frenzy. The true test will still be later on when people start pulling in the driveway for pick up time. So far I'm liking this collar. Very effective. I better refill the citronella to be ready for later.
Oh such disappointment at pick up time! I had such high hopes but Max couldn't contain his excitement when all his doggie friends' parents pulled in the driveway. He barked so much he emptied the citronella reserve at pick up time. I tried again 2 days later when he returned for daycare that week only to repeat the emptying of the citronella reserve at a.m. drop off time. Alas, the citronella bark collar will be hung up on a shelf right there with the pet rock and the dog snuggie.
I'm not really sure about the direction or future of My Kingdom For A Dog blog without Alexis. I have a few draft posts on file about her so I will definitely be finishing those up and posting soon and then see where it all takes me. I still haven't brought myself to be able to work on her photo collage video tribute so that'll be a nice blog post as well. I guess there's still work to be done so the dog show must go on.
I wrote this blog post below over a year ago when one of my D2D dogs passed away ... I never published it, not sure why. It's certainly a lighter perspective than the one I have today having lost my precious Alexis. But I know I will return to that perspective again and be able to focus more on celebrating the life and not so much on mourning the death. Not to downplay any ones loss but death is part of life. We must endure the sorrows as well as the joys to fully experience this thing I call a wonderful life.
"2/7/10: People are often caught off guard by how grief stricken they are when they lose a pet. Many people experience more sadness and grief by the loss of a pet than a family member or friend. But if you think about it, it makes sense. Whats the worst possible loss one can experience? I'm guessing it's the loss of a child. Not to insult people with children in any way but many pet owners simulate their relationship with their dog as one of parent and child. How often have you heard someone say their dog is "my baby" or "part of the family" or my very own "we don't have kids, we have fur-kids" so it would stand to reason the level of grief is elevated. After all, in my estimation, there is no other being on the planet like a dog that relies solely upon us to take care of them for their entire life and in return gives us unconditional love and never judges us, never tries to change us, gets excited to see us return whether we leave for a minute or a month, doesn't get mad if we leave dishes in the sink or come home late or leave the toilet seat up, loves us for who we are and doesn't care if we lounge around in our sweats all weekend or how much we weigh or what our breath smells like (in fact they'd much rather we didn't brush out teeth quite so much) or if we hog the blankets, eat the last of the ice cream or drink out of the milk jug (just as long as we don't drink out of the toilet--hey that's their territory!). It's as true and honestly unconditional as you can get. No other relationship on earth is like that. No wonder our world crumbles when we lose our best friend. I know I will crumble when I lose Alexis but it's a fact of life that I can do nothing about so I will crumble but I will put the pieces back together. The pain in the end will be worth it for all the joy that preceded it. That's certainly not something we feel at the time of the loss but it's true anyway. There was a time that I thought about my late Cornelius in such a way that "this is it, I could never love another dog as much as I love him; no way no how" but never say never and here I am thinking that very thing about Alexis. But to be totally cheesy and coin a phrase from a very popular song, i know my heart will go on. My heart breaks wide open every time this earth loses a dog but each crack inside makes more room to love the next dog that comes into our life. "
By now, most of you know that we lost our beloved Alexis suddenly last week to what we believe to be a heart attack. She passed at home with me by her side, in her bed, under her favorite "woobie" that she had since she was a pup. It's a devastating loss. So if this post makes little or no sense or tends to ramble and babble on, well, then tough shit. Oops must be in the "anger" stage of my grief.
My heart is broken. My tear supply is gone. My soul is empty. My mind is numb. This page is blank. I don't know what to write. I don't know what to do. And I don't know who I am. So I keep myself bizzy to avoid the volcano eruption that is bubbling beneath this everything-is-fine-I'm-ok-don't-worry-about-me surface. I'm Doberman tough after all.
They say you don't know what you've got until it's gone (whoever the hell THEY are). Screw them, I knew exactly what I had! I had a sweet, amazing, incredible, strong, gentle dog that I was literally in love with, in awe of, and had a once in a life time connection with. A dog that I am ever so grateful for having in my life for almost 12 years. A dog that I fooled myself into believing would live forever. I just didn't realize how much of my identity had become being this Doberman's owner. Doberman this, Doberman that. Doberman pictures. Doberman quotes. Doberman screen savers. Doberman hats. Doberman tee shirts. Doberman friends. Doberman envy. Feed the Doberman. Ask the Doberman if she wants to go out. Let the Doberman back in. Let her back out. Watch in awe as the Doberman sprints around the yard. Tell Doberman not to eat the snakes. Play fetch with the Doberman. Watch Doberman play with all her day care friends. Bring Doberman over her BFF Willow's house to hang. Be awakened by the Doberman to snuggle. Be nudged by the Doberman when she wants something. Try to figure out what it is the Doberman wants. Be followed into every room by Doberman. Don't stray too far from home so you can get back soon to be with the Doberman. Don't go on vacation because you'll miss the Doberman too much. Jump up to get to the door before the Doberman does when someone knocks. Let the Doberman out on the front porch when suspicious characters are around the neighborhood. Blog about Doberman. Post Doberman pics on Facebook. Beware of Doberman signs. Doberman farts! (Don't laugh--ok you can laugh but it's a big part of who a Doberman is. Hey they're gassy!) Fluff the Dobermans bed. Take Doberman on trips to pet store to pick out toys and bones. Receive Doberman kisses & Doberman high fives. Dance with Doberman. Do Yoga with Doberman. Have snowball fights with Doberman. Take naps with Doberman. Buy matching ottoman as one of Doberman's beds. Watch Doberman fall asleep standing up with head in laps of friends and family who come to visit. Watch Doberman turn fearful people into ones who look forward to seeing her again. Take pictures of Doberman when she's not looking. Take pictures of Doberman when she is looking. Hug Doberman. Kiss Doberman. Touch Doberman every five seconds. Twirl Dobermans ears. Sing our song to Doberman. Tell Doberman you love her more than anything in life. Beg Doberman not to leave you. Ask Doberman what'll I ever do without her. So much for not knowing what to write. But I still don't know who I am.
...Sounds like a good title for a Stephen King book doesn't it? There's this one quirk that Alexis has that has puzzled us since the very first snow storm she ever experienced as a pup. If she's in the vicinity while your shoveling snow she will attack the shovel! Best as I can tell she thinks the shovel is an evil monster. She crouches down, bites and barks at it. It's funny to see and hard to explain because it's not her usual I'm-gonna-get-you-sucka bark. It's more like a combination of her "help I'm stuck" bark peppered with her "c'mon let's play" bark with a dash of "i want to kill you." (My friend The Queen of Cuisine will simply love my food references) She even started to do it to the rake in the fall. Could it be that Alexis simply doesn't care for yard work!? Like mother like daughter!
I know being mad at God is about as illogical a thought as you can have but I'm no Mr Spock so mad at God is how I feel today. I know it's wrong but I'm sure many have felt this way at one point or another in their life. I don't get mad at God very often, in fact it's a very rare occasion. Life is wonderful, life is great and when it's not; bring it on God, gimme your best shot. I'm gonna bounce back no matter what, just give me the strength to get through it is all I ask. EXCEPT when a dog dies. THAT takes me a little lower and a little longer to bounce back from that dark place. My heart shatters into a million tiny little puzzle pieces every time this world loses a dog. And it's been a pretty rough several months in the passing-of-dogs department. We lost Brady, Daisy Mae, Cinnamon and now Ty, a 5 year old amazing Boxer who had debilitating bone cancer that had to be put down yesterday. These aren't my own dogs, they are dogs I take care of for my clients but I treat them and love them as if they were my own and they died too young. Ty died too young dammit! And that's really why I'm mad at God today. If I'm mad can you imagine how their owners feel? I weep for their sorrow. I sob for the dogs pain and passing. I cry for myself that I'll never see them again. How can i NOT be mad at God? Surely there are other creatures on this planet that are ripe for the taking; a wild animal just hit by a car needing to be put out of its misery. Or an elderly patient suffering from end stage cancer. Or a criminally insane death row inmate convicted of doing unspeakable things. Or a young driver in a car accident laying in a coma never to recover. Surely, surely God you can take them and leave us to love our dogs just a little bit longer. A selfish request, I know. One for which I will not apologize. The only thing that can keep us going is the wonderful memories. We must somehow find solace in knowing that a body is just a living, breathing, temporary container that begins to die the minute it's born that houses our spirit. When the body dies that spirit moves on to live in places that we are unaware of except for that little bit of spirit that takes up residence in our hearts forever. Once we get past the grief we should consider ourselves lucky if we have a dog's spirit living in our heart.
...it has been four months since my last blog post. At least i THINK that's one of the deadly sins right? I think ten hail Mary's oughtta put me back in the blog God's good graces.
Well it certainly was a super bizzy summah! I had dogs galore all summer and Dave was up to his eyeballs in property maintenance jobs (WHAT recession??). He spent just about every weekend working which leaves me time to lounge by the pool, true, but I don't like to swim alone (must be fear of that whole pesky drowning thing ... Don't wanna end up like William Shatner's wife now do we?) so I didn't get to enjoy the pool all that much, on the weekends anyway.
As most summers go there were parties and BBQ's and beach trips and our jam packed end-of-summer vacation. I know, I know, it seems like we JUST got back from Bermuda and there we were taking time off again. Time flies when you're having rum though, oops spell checker must have missed that one...time flies when you're having FUN!!
We did some pretty amazing stuff on vacation: -Codzilla -Block Island -Jim Gaffigan comedy show -Plymouth Waterfront Festival -Annual Wrentham Outlet shopping trip -Labor Day Karaoke party
Needless to say it was all good clean wholesome fun up until the Labor Day karaoke party. Cuz lets face it; ya gotta be highly intoxificated (made up word) to do Karaoke (well atleast I do) and my poison of choice was Smirnoff Vodka. Anyone who knows me knows that i ONLY drink Absolute if I'm drinking "vokka". I've tried and tested them all in every night club, divey bar, limo ride and back yard party there is and Absolute gives me the least after-effects the next day so I've sworn off all others, even Grey Goose but ESPECIALLY Smirnoff...Normally I drink Black Opal Shiraz wine which also results in nary a hangover but Smirnoff was all that was available at this party so I took a chance. Oh what a super fun, ugly, messy, vomitous, blacked-out chance it was. (Go ahead, I'll wait here while you google "vomitous" to see if i made up that word too). Anyway, there's nothing like a good, summer's end hangover with dry heaves to make you crawl under a rock for two days and put you on the mother of all wagons for a few months. I'm just now tip-toeing myself back into the world of Shiraz (just in time for he holidays)...Vodka might take a while longer, or will it?
THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND-AND-ROUND yup that's right we rode a school bus en route to the Falcon Pier, Boston. We took the commuter rail to South Station (way WAY cheaper than a cab) but who knew they were working on the tracks between Holbrook and Braintree for the next few months? (I never got the memo!) So they announced we would be shuttled by bus between these stops. Now I'm thinking Greyhound or the Plymouth-Brockton Bus...you know; tour bus type. Whenever we pulled into Holbrook station I just about fell off my chair and tripped over my jaw when i saw yellow school buses!! Yes apparently now I'm a bus snob. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CANES, WALKERS, SCOOTERS, OH MY! The Boston to Bermuda cruise is like the cruise of the living dead! Many, many senior citizens. And not that they shouldn't enjoy a nice vacation; hell they paid their dues but it just surprised the shit out of us how many feeble, hunched over, ghostly, elderly people with canes and walkers and YES even rented scooters monopolized the guest list on this cruise and chose a floating, heaving, hoeing, weaving, waving hotel as their destination. We saw several blue-heads take a flying leap! Screw life jackets; I hope they had extra hips on board! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
YOU KNOW YOUR ON VACATION WHEN...U DON'T EVEN WANT TO TALK ABOUT DOGS except for the towel dog left on your bed by housekeeping that is. On a few of our excursions we made some friends and ended up at karaoke with them. Sitting around the table the conversation went to DOGS (always does) and i found it to be the LAST thing i wanted to talk about. I tuned out and did some chair dancing to the gawd awful karaoke going on in the background. Surprising, i know; Amy didn't want to talk about dogs! Kinda like Glenn Beck not breaking into a crying fit on air or Donald Trump not wanting to fire someone.
WHERE CUP HOLDERS OUGHTTA BE I don't have a picture of this one but DANG i wish i did...there were actually cup holders in the stalls of the restrooms all over the ship. Ishityounot! No pun intended. (In the stall next to me were a mom and her little girl screaming "I want daddy!!!!!" ...yeah that'd be me if we ever had kids cuz, after all, everybody loves Dave! 'quite an epiphanic moment for me)
WOULD YOU CARE TO DANCE? No island vacation would be complete without the ridiculously expensive SWIM WITH DOLPHINS excursion. We were gonna scrap it because of the price but Dave won $300 at roulette (go 21!!) which paid for MOST of the excursion. It was INCREDIBLY EXHILARATING! I highly recommend this excursion on any vacation! Even if you're a water-phobe like me! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
VIEW OF KINGS WHARF BERMUDA FROM THE SHIP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A FEW OF THOSE CHEESY, OVERPRICED, SHIPS PHOTOGRAPHER PHOTOS THAT YOU MUST HAVE!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WE SURVIVED THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE AND LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5/21/10 There's nothing like going on vacation to make you appreciate coming home. Vacation was awesome but I had a shit-eatin grin on my face the whole ride back to Middleboro (often referred to as Wheel barrel). I couldn't wait to get back to my dogs, my house, my bed, my life! I even gave my car "Ruby" a hug when I got out of the cab. (Ok we've already pointed out that I'm crazy so hugging my car should HARDLY come as a shock to you.) I felt like George Bailey when he got his life back as he ran through Beford Falls with such excitement at the reunion with the wonderful old Bailey Building & Loan, the Emporium, the Movie House and even Mr. potter and not to mention the rickety stair ballast post at home in his drafty old house! I finally figured out why going far away is hard for me. I LOVE my life! So why do I need to leave it? That's not to say I don't like taking time off from work; cuz I love that too. I just prefer to take it off at home. I don't need a vacation from life, just from work. Home Sweet Home!
Incidentally, "It's A Wonderful Life" was originally going to be the name of this blog but it was already taken.
I DIDN'T BLOG WHILE ON VACATION BUT I HAVE A FEW INTERESTING THINGS TO SAY ABOUT IT SO STAY TUNED FOR POSTS AND PHOTOS FROM BERMUDA!!
5/10/10 Dear Diary, OMG! OMG! vacation is just four days away! I'm half-way between excited and overwhelmed. There's so much to do and plan...and OMG I'M LEAVING MY DOGS FOR SEVEN EFFING DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! < < SLAP > > Thanks I needed that! As a person who takes care of dogs for a living I see people come and go on vacation and leave their dogs like it's just another day of the week. Why, oh why, can't i?
5/8/10 Dear Diary, Our trip is just under a week away...It could just be from sheer exhaustion because I was Dave's job site slave today and my sciatica is actin up but I have very little excitement at the moment about this trip. I think it's a survival-mechanism; one of my brains inner panic-prevention measures. Instead of getting all worked up, all emotion is removed so I feel nothing. Yeah, just wait until the night before the trip, there will be an avalanche of emotion and I'll be doing the conga in the kitchen! The trial sleep over with the dogs at Lisa's went great last night except for a little wee-wee accident and trying to walk on the pool cover. (Apparently they are NOT strong enough for an elephant to walk on like the commercial says...so any of you that HAVE an elephant, don't let them walk on the pool cover.) Nobody got in a fight, nobody escaped and nobody got scooped up by a chicken-hawk! But still, I have little motivation to prepare for this trip by digging out summer clothes from storage in the basement and washing them, packing, packaging the dogs food for their stay at auntie Lisa's, get a mani-pedi, color my hair, organize our passports & cruise tickets, arrange for a ride to Boston AND clean the house. That's right, clean the house! I can't possibly be the only one who likes to come home to a clean house after vacation, can i? Oh it's just one of my many quirks...And apparently I like the added pressure of jUsT oNe MoRe EfFiNg tHiNg on the to-do list!! I'm a huge procrastinator and last-minute-lucy when it comes to any monumental task. I blame that on Scarlett O'Hara, she's the one who taught me! "But I can't think about that right now. If I do I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow." Scarlett came up with the best ways for dealing with stress...I'll take her cue!
5/7/10 Dear Diary, We dropped the dogs off earlier tonight at auntie Lisa's for their trial sleep over. Annabelle sniffed around here, there and everywhere then went out side and pee'd here there and everywhere. Alexis, having been to Lisa's before, felt right at home and went straight for the doggie toy box but noticed a cardboard box next to the fish tank and was eyeballing that for a good chew instead. (Cardboard trumps ALL dog toys just so you know!) Go figure. Back at home, the house is quiet and empty tonight without them. I hope I can sleep. 'Trying not to let my neurotic thoughts run away with me. Runnin runnin and runnin runnin.
4/22/10 Dear Diary, ok, just added another wart to the worry list: Lisa has a huge plate glass window in her living room. What if Alexis sees the UPS guy or a cat or a bird or a leaf and jumps through it????????????? It could happen.
4/8/10 Dear Diary, Before going to, appropriately enough for me and Lisa, a Mexican silver jewelry party tonight we headed out for a pre-party glass of wine at a trendy Plymouth waterfront local spot that had funky lamps on the bar made of barbie dolls sitting in mini Adirondack chairs. So cute! So cool! Of course the topic of our dogs came up--always does. We love them so! Lisa asked what am i so afraid of when I leave the dogs with her to go on vacation. Gee when you ask it so simple and 'matterafact like that, I almost couldn't come up with anything logical. My answer would only give her another sneak peak into the well hidden, crazy inner-workings of my mind. Aside from the hawk paranoia, I'm not entirely confident in Alexis' ability to sleep away from home with someone who works full time without having an all out panic-shit-yourself-attack. It's not uncommon for dogs to have a nervous bowel movement. I see it all the time in new dogs to the daycare group. Often on their first day they'll have to make a bowel movement within seconds of arriving and if i miss the signs, my kitchen floor is just as good as a patch of grass in the yard. Alexis does what Dave and I jokingly refer to as a "stress poop" but I assure you it's nothing funny! If she is stressed out over a long period of time it will eventually result in a diarrhea poop explosion. So I told Lisa of this delightful little tidbit. She was surprisingly unphased by it and said poop can be cleaned up, don't' worry about it so i said ok. Now that we have the hawk thing covered and the poop thing covered things are looking up.
Wednesday 3/31/10 Dear Diary, I have a secret fear and it's like something out of the Twilight New Moon series...It's that poor little Annabelle would be swooped up by a hawk. This is something that can actually happen out here in the boonies where a plentiful abundance of owls and hawks the size of a Yaris swoop down and make off with our cats and tiny Paris Hilton dogs! I've never verbalized this fear to anyone, not even Dave, but it was something I was going to eventually warn The Queen about before she dogs sits while we are in Bermuda, of which i fully expect her to laugh at me and pee herself while doing so. Just imagine my shockorror (shock and horror...i told u I make up words!) when The Queen tells me in passing conversation today that she has a hawk living in her trees. Oh! My! Effing! Gawd! I explain my secret fear and we have a good chuckle. This is going in the dear diary blog I tell her. She laughs and tries to calm me by telling me it's just a one eyed disabled hawk. Ok so that means it will just run Annabelle over with it's handicapped accessible van? Does it have a handicapped placard to prove said disability? A Doctors note even? Hawks can't be trusted! You've seen Warner Brothers' Foghorn Leghorn get his ass kicked by that unassuming little chicken hawk in those cartoons haven't you? Not to be trusted I tell ya! "Go away boy, ya bother me!"
We just booked a Bermuda Cruise for our 15th wedding anniversary and it is with much trepidation. How can this possibly be you ask. Any great length of time spent away from home, away from my pack is, has always been and will always be, a bittersweet experience. Even long before Alexis came along. For example, three days into our trip to France in 1999, I missed the Yorkies so terribly that I would have gladly gone home early. It didn't help that I felt like we were in a galaxy far far away. I'm a homebody at heart so going far from home is hard for me...unless of course it's the type of vacation that I can bring my home with me. How redonkolous but it's true. Once Alexis came into the picture it became more difficult to pawn off 3 dogs to go on vacation (see my previous blog on that subject too) so we got creative and planned vacations where we could take the dogs with us. RVing. Beach House rentals on the cape. Stay-at-home vacations with day tripping. You get the pathetic picture. We finally got up the nerve to take a real vacation for our 10th anniversary five years ago; a mini 4 day cruise to the Caribbean. We had it all planned out; a family member was going to house sit and take care of the dogs. Except 2 days into it we found out that family member wasn't comfortable being away from HIS pack either (home & computer etc) so he left my sister holding the bag to come feed and let out the dogs twice a day. It was a total bummer but it all worked out ok. So here we are five years later, one less dog and ready to go on a real, 7 day cruise to Bermuda. I think I'm more excited to be cruising out of Boston with NO flying than I am about the actual cruise itself. And I must add that this would never be possible without our good friend Lisa Henning a/k/a Queen of Cuisine. Sure, as soon as i booked the trip I was playing steel drum Caribbean music dancing around the house. Really, it's true; ask Dave! Yes, I'm goofalicious! Like you didn't already know that! But now reality has set in, the music has stopped, the steel drums have been silenced, the dancing shoes have been put away and here I am with my thoughts about leaving my dogs...
Sunday 3/28/10 Dear Diary, Yesterday I was dancing to steel drums, today I'm petrified to leave my dogs. Oh I'm sure they'll be in good hands with my dear friend Lisa but I'm a worry wart and I'm thinking about all that could possibly go wrong. What if she forgets the garage door is open and she opens the door and Alexis gets out? What if Annabelle pees on the carpet? What if Alexis misses me as much as I miss her and she turns into one of those separation anxiety ridden dogs that I have to kick out of D2D? What if? What if? What if? OMG somebody slap me! This is the part of me that I hate ... and for most of you that know me I'm pretty full of myself so this flaw in my fabric is troubling. It has all the makings of a scene out of Analyze This! (I would be the Robert Dinero "tough guy" character in case you were wondering.) Ok I'm sick of thinking about this right now. Gonna go back to folding laundry (a/k/a laundry therapy).
Wave your fingers in Wayne's World fashion and let's get back to 1999 OR you can plug your DeLorean into the flux capacitator and get it up 88mph to generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, whichever method you prefer ...
As any good dog owner would do, we signed up Alexis for obedience classes toot-sweet as soon as her breeder, now trainer, would take her...around 4 months old. So that takes us back to around July 1999. Ahhh the 90's, i remember them well.
Trainings were held in the basement of some big old church by the Bristol County Dog Training Club of New Bedford which Alexis' breeder was part of. Our first training class was just that; a class. All the dog owners sat in chairs with the trainer at the front of the group, kinda like first grade. Hindsight being 20/20 i think this was nothing more than an opportunity for the trainer to weed out the idiots from the half wits and the geniuses. I ain't gonna brag here...i was one of the idiots but at least I knew to keep my mouth shut. One of the topics we discussed was pet nutrition, which by the way was a turning point for me in biblical proportions when it comes to edumckating dog owners about what's in their pets food. I owe the entire life of my dogs to this class and this trainer! One of the first questions she asked was "is it ok to feed dogs raw meat?" I didn't really know the answer so Tar-baby just sat thar ain't sayin nothing! But someone yelled out "no, because it gives them a taste for blood and they'll want to kill." Holy crap were we in the werewolf class or something?? Did i make a wrong turn somewhere in the Whaling City? But in amazement, alot of people agreed..."mm-mm that's right." It was probably all the trainer could do to contain herself and keep from goin all Jackie Chan on that guy but I have a feeling she'd heard it before so for now, his life was spared.
Our trainer was not much of a preacher; she relied more on the power of suggestion. She suggested we all go home and do an internet search on "pet nutrition" and she told us we would be amazed and horrified at what we found. (This was LONG before the days of "google it" ... how did we ever survive!?) That's all she said; that was our homework assignment. No clues, no hints, no indications as to what exactly we were looking for or what we were supposed to find in this Sherlock Holmes-esque assignment. I suppose the people who really cared about their dogs went home and researched it on their big clunky hard wired computers with dial-up internet. The ones who didn't care, well, their dogs have probably left this earth from the various ramifications of poor pet nutrition. NOT ME!! As you all know, Alexis is still here, healthy as a horse, strong as an ox, alive and well, thinking she's 5 years old instead of nearly 11. What did I find out about pet nutrition on the internet, you ask? Dare I leave you in suspense and make you do the very homework assignment I was given some 10 years ago to find your own answers? That would be cruel...and besides I love to hear myself "write." What I found was that the brands of food you buy in the supermarket and many retailers are downright inferior and dangerous; many of the ingredients used are killing our pets! The commercial pet food industry is a sub-industry of the human food/agricultural industry. Anything unfit for human consumption at slaughterhouses such as waste & grain remnants that end up on the floor ends up in our pet food. I bet you never really thought about that did you? Whats worse than that is useless and dangerous, indigestible ingredients are used as fillers in pet food so that these large corporations can save a buck! Whats even double-dog-dare-ya worse than that is research has shown that euthanized animals have been used in pet food. Have I got your attention now? As an answer to sub-standard pet food, premium brands were created by veterinarians, breeders, etc. and use only top grade, species appropriate ingredients that are fit for human consumption. (But beware; some self-promoting premiums are anything but!)
I now give this research homework assignment to every new customer that passes through my door and any one I know with a dog. I tell them to google "pet nutrition" and see what you find. Of course I help my customers along by giving them a printout of my "Pet Nutrition; It Can't Be Found In The Supermarket" article that appeared in two issues of The Pet Gazette last year, which has a mini analysis of the most popular brands of dog food and shows you how to decipher the ingredients list on your package. You can see the entire article at www.dedicated2dogs.com/petnutrition
Pet nutrition has become my soapbox (anything to make me taller, right?) I believe that what you feed your dog is the single most important decision you have to make when it comes to the physical health of your pet. Education is power; don't just take the word of me, your veterinarian or anyone else what to feed your pet. Do the research yourself. Our pets rely on us to take care of them. Pet ownership is a huge commitment that should not be taken lightly. What you feed them should not be taken lightly either. Although many will eat anything, Dogs are not garbage disposals. Dogs (and cats for that matter) are carnivores (meat eaters) and simply lack certain enzymes to digest and process many of the foods we eat such as grains and plant based materials. You can see by their TV commercials taunting us with yummy vegetables and stew-like foods that many of these corporate, commercial brands are trying to fool us into believing that dogs and cats are omnivores like us (meat AND plant eaters). They are not! It's important to make yourself aware of those ingredients and avoid them or I promise you, you are shortening the life of your pet!
Ok I'm stepping off my soapbox now before my head pops off. After you read this blog and my Pet Nutrition page you will be wiser....Use your power for good, not evil! May the force be with you. WOOF!
OK so it wasn't a DATE ... we just went to see him live on stage with a few thousand other people. Either way, Cesar is just as magnificent live as he is on the National Geographic channels' "Dog Whisperer" show. When you watch the show you might think how the dogs just magically behave when Cesar takes hold of the leash is some kind of back-room-editing trick; kinda like how Julia Child would put a roast in the oven after she cut the dickens out of her finger and the roast would mysteriously be ready before the show ended. But I'm here to tell you there's no editing when you're live...Cesar is the real thing baby! He had four people come up on the stage with their dogs with various issues (aggression, shyness, hyperactivity, etc) and it was like watching the magician saw the girl in half leaving you saying to yourself "how did he do that?"
The main focus of Cesar's message is about your energy and state of mind in your relationship with your dog. If you are tense or nervous that energy will translate to your dog that you are not a balanced pack leader and you'll end up with a tense or nervous dog that is constantly trying to figure out who his leader is. The gist of it is that your calm assertive energy will result in a calm submissive dog. (Don't confuse assertive here with aggressive or submissive with fearful!)
Secondary to your energy is to view your dog in a particular order; first as an animal, second as species, third by breed, fourth by name. We humans mess it up by viewing our dogs backwards and impose all our human emotions and irrationality onto our pets. No wonder they're F'd up! I've never had a problem viewing my pets as animals; that's what they are. (My issue has always been my energy; it's rather frenetic!) Dogs are not people; I get that. They don't understand happy, sad, guilt, anxiety...they understand ENERGY. That's not to say they can't probably experience these energies when we mistakenly encourage bad behavior with a nurturing "it's OK" or pat on the head while our dog is in the midst of unacceptable or negative behavior.
Thirdly when we greet a dog, practice no touch/no talk/no eye contact if you want to gain any respect from the dog. It's funny to watch Cesar jokingly mock the way we greet dogs; our bodies wiggle, we bend down to the dog's level and in our highest pitch voice we squeal "hi cutie schmookie pookie schnookie bum!" Everyone in the audience had an LMAO moment with that because let's face it; that's exactly how we do it! It's good we can laugh at ourselves and not take the whole thing so darn seriously.
Fourthly, (is fourthly a word? eh tough I'm goin with it...Probably a good time to remind you of my legal disclaimer that I make no promises in my blog for proper grammar, punctuation and the like. I'll save that task for my publisher one day) Cesar swears by his formula of exercise + discipline + affection + rules/boundaries/limitations = a balanced dog. Having a balanced dog is what Cesar is all about. We cannot have that until we apply this formula AND remove our over emotional attitude and pleading negotiating games we play with our dogs to get them to do what we want.
Not every trainers' methods are going to jive with every pet owner. But if you really listen to Cesar's message you'll see he is totally in the mindset of a dog! And how better to know someone or something than to get inside its head. "Think like a dog" I always say! (that's also the title of a book I'm working on...Geesh if I ever finish a book instead of just starting one I might actually get rich, but that's just my Gemini nature which is a story for another day...oooh or a book for another day! there I go again)
I must make mention of Cesar's foundation, which has many programs but there was one that he highlighted during his tour that I thought was just an amazing concept. The program goes around to U.S. schools to teach preschool and primary grade students essential skills for caring, empathy and respect, building relationships, acting ethically and responsibly then applying these skills in their interactions with people and animals. If our young children can learn at an early age how to respect animals they can grow up to be responsible pet owners and we might just have less issues with aggression, lack of training, lack of socialization and less dogs given up for adoption. I love it!
I sit here and stare at the blank text box for my next blog post not knowing what to name this post or even where to start. All I know is that it's dedicated to my late Zig-Zag kitty and the rest will come to me as I go; that's pretty much how I do this thing called life...make it up as I go. This blog is supposed to be all about Alexis, my Doberman, but she and Zig were so much a part of each other that I think it's appropo to memorialize him here.
Zig-Zag kitty's life had a tumultuous start and so I suppose the rest of his life just followed suit and mimicked that tumult. (Yes, I've been known to throw a bit of Yiddish into my blogs.) Unbeknownst to us, Zig was born under our deck in August, 2003 only to be abandoned by his feral mother 10 days later. We were never sure why she abandoned him; maybe he was sickly or maybe there were just too many dam dogs in the yard and she couldn't come back for him. (chicken shit!) She wasn't winning any mother-of-the-year awards on this one. Either way my fenced backyard where I run doggie daycare was an odd location for her to pop out a litter of kittens in the first place but when I look back on it maybe there was some infinite wisdom there after all. None the less, Alexis found the kitty under the deck tucked away behind the usual stuff that is stored under decks; garden tools, bikes, (i have a bike?) lawn tractor and the like. Oh how he cried out for his mommy! We left him there all day but checking on him every few hours, hoping the mother would come back for him but by night fall she did not return so we took him in. The rest, as they say, is history but what an expensive history lesson it was!
Do you have any idea how to take care of a 10 day old kitten? No but I was sure it involved a bottle and some formula so off to the pet supply store we went. It just so happened the Taunton Animal Shelter was holding their cat adoption day there so we sought advice from them how to care for such a young animal. We were a little horrified to find out that kittens this young cannot "relieve themselves" on their own. The mother has to stimulate them by licking their bottoms to get them to pee and poop. OOps sorry should have warned you about the gross factor! We were also told that this kitten would likely not survive. OK miss negative cat shelter lady but you don't know me very well! No kitten's gonna die on my watch! We had our work cut out for us but little did we know we had miss Nightingale to help us...Alexis' maternal instinct kicked into high gear and she actually helped take care of the kitty. Usually she just wants to kill kitties she sees outside but close-up she turns into, well, a pussy cat. She would lick his face clean after he ate his formula, she would lick his ears clean and she would also have the unfortunate task of stimulating the kitty so he could empty his bladder and bowel. Of course she didn't seem to think it was as gross as we did. (Kinda makes that whole human baby diaper changing task sound easy doesn't it?) If Zig cried, Alexis came running! This went on for a few weeks until kitty was out of the danger zone for survival and until he could go potty on his own. Many days and nights of wrapping him tight in a towel like a kitty burrito and holding him like a tiny, little baby to give him his bottle. He would claw and cling to that bottle for dear life! Weeks of watching him grow stronger. Weeks of watching Alexis take care of her baby. By week three I had sent out emails that we would need a good home for this kitten in the near future. But who the heck can give up a cute little kitty burrito after all that? One day I found my self just looking down at him all wrapped up in his baby bunting and it hit me; "oh-oh I love him and I want to keep him". Dave was thrilled (NOT). Naming him was easy! He had this funny little white crooked stripe on his tail and back and he would literally zoom from room to room, from one direction to another. Zig-Zag Kitty was beyond a perfect name for him. The rest is history and what an expensive history it was. Oh shoot, I already said that...well the name of this post IS "Five Thousand Dollar Cat" after all.
The first few years were typical; vaccinations, neutering, watching Zig & Alexis become more and more inseparable, etc. BUT (there's always a big BUT) four short years into our life with this black and white tuxedo wearing zigging and zagging back and forth dog loving cat his bladder became blocked. This is very common in house cats (not sure why but every cat I've ever had has developed crystals in the bladder which end up getting blocked so they can't pee, a/k/a Feline Urological Syndrome or FUS). You wont mistake it for anything else. Besides the obvious straining to urinate and spending copious amounts of time in the litter box with little results, a cat with a blocked bladder will symptomatically crouch and become very vocal. Wouldn't you? Unblocking them is simple, if you've spent 6 years in veterinary school, that is. The animal is sedated and catheterized and the bladder is flushed with saline to remove the crystals. Badda Bing Badda Boom! This has been a typical, non-eventful procedure every time in my other cats. Oh but not THIS black and white tuxedo wearing zigging and zagging back and forth dog loving cat! We brought him to our regular vet who shall remain nameless....awww what the heck I'll tell you. It was Hanson Animal Hospital. They performed a flush earlier in the evening but it didn't quite work so they kept him overnight so they could try again. Well during that 2nd try they accidentally perforated the bladder!! We got a very matter-of-fact-non-apologetic call at 11:00pm that the cat needed emergency surgery and we would have to take him to a 24 hour facility. Say whaaaaaaat? and oh by the way, before you can take him you owe us $1,000. Say whoooooooo? Those of you that know me can imagine my disgust and anger, which was not held back during that 11:00pm phone call, at the fact that I had to PAY them to almost kill my cat. Well Hanson Animal Hospital had us by the schnarglies; what could we do? Thank God for credit cards and equity lines of credit that's all I can say. We arrived around midnight with said credit cards and checkbook in hand and brought the semi-sedated cat with a catheter in one end and IV in the other to Westbridge Animal Emergency Hospital. If you know anything about 24 hour emergency animal care the price depends on what time you walk through the door. The price at midnight is higher than at 11pm. Now had we walked in at 11pm we probably could have saved a couple hundred dollars but I don't have THAT much control over the universe no matter how many times I watch The Secret DVD. We arrived around 1am. Because we called ahead they were ready for us and they scooted him into surgery. But no sooner had we let out a breath of relief had the receptionist whipped up a nice hefty estimate for us to the tune of $3400 of which a 50% deposit is required on the spot. Again, thank god for the credit card and equity line. Mind me when I tell you this was all the EASY part of the story! Yes it gets worse. What could possibly be worse you say? Well, he was supposed to only be in there for a few days. But three days turned into four and four turned into five and so on, of which every day they said "he should be able to go home tomorrow". If only i had a thousand dollars for every time they said that I could have paid the bill in cash! The issues is, the same as it is with people, when a catheter is removed you can't go home until you can pee on your own. Well Zig Zag kitty was having severe urethra spasms and he couldn't urinate so they had to keep reinserting the catheter, which in itself is traumatizing to the urethra and can cause scarring. OK so stop doing that! This "he should be able to go home tomorrow" went on for a week and a half to the high-pitched tune of $250/day ON TOP of the surgery cost plus trying every medication under the sun to try to relieve the spasms! Needless to say we blew their original estimate out of the water like open season on a mallard! I don't even want to tell you how much the final bill was. YET! (I can hear your internal calculators going CHA CHING) Every day we grappled with spending that much money vs. having him euthanized. I'm not going to lie; Dave and I argued about this every day during this ordeal. He would ask "what's the line in the sand, how much are we going to spend here?" and I couldn't answer the question. All I could say was "I don't know" ...I did know that I didn't want to be one of THOSE people who put down an otherwise healthy, young animal because we didn't want to spend the money. I felt his frustration. He felt mine. We were emotionally drained and soon becoming financially drained. The piggy bank was becoming anorexic! We jokingly referred to it as a money hemorrhage. We visited Zig every few days and even started to bring Alexis with us hoping that would help him along faster. I'm not sure it did but it made us feel better I guess. Approaching the end of the second week they told us once again "he should be able to go home tomorrow." It was like a bad version of Groundhog Day minus the "I've Got You Babe" song. Well, Dave just about lost his mind and told them that Zig is going home tomorrow come hell or high water. We went in the next morning with check book in hand to pay their rent for the next few months and brought Zig home. All told between the Hanson Vet bill and the Westbridge vet bill we spent ((drum roll please))...wait for it...$4973!! I know, you're gasping for air right now aren't you?!
John Howard Payne wasn't just whistling Dixie when he said "Amid pleasures and palaces though we may roam; be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." Neither was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Zig started to improve immediately as soon as he was back with his beloved surrogate Doberman mother, Alexis. Geesh we shouldda brought him home sooner. We still had a long row to hoe but there was a light at the end of the tunnel that he would be ok. For several months after we had to force feed him his muscle relaxing pills twice a day. We had to survey the litter box every time he went in it, which was probably 5-10 times a day, to monitor his output. We added Chinese herbs to his food to aid in his bladder function. And best of all we had to switch him to a very expensive food that would prevent the crystals from returning. We also had to tell the entire family that year that we had to scale back on Christmas and that we would only be buying gifts for the youngest children of which there were few of.
Eventually Zig fully recovered and never had another episode. He went on to be a healthy, happy cat for the next two years but remember my previous reference to his tumultuous life ... Healthy and happy until his stroke this past October. It just came out of the blue. We woke up one Friday morning to find him paralyzed from the waist down. It didn't really seem to stop him though; he dragged himself around pretty good. But I knew this was bad! Dave brought him to the vet; I could not go as I had daycare dogs to tend to. I thought maybe he fell or Lexi stepped on him in the middle of the night but the vet could find no injuries on the xray or anything else conclusive in the blood work. Over the phone we made the decision to euthanize him but I made Dave bring Zig home first so we could spend the rest of the day with him. I kept it together until my last daycare dog had gone home. I laid on the couch with Zig and just bawled! Dave and I returned to the vet that evening together with Alexis to give Zig a proper farewell with his "pack" around him to send him off to the next world.
I must mention Zig was an integral part of my doggie daycare business over the last five or six years. Many times customers would come through either with an adopted dog or young puppy not knowing if their dog got along with cats. Zig made sure they did. He's even responsible for fully rehabilitating Brady the Boxer who had a less than healthy appetite for cats when she first started coming to D2D. Because Zig grew up with dogs all around him he was fearless of them and acted very much like one so he would always make an appearance at the meet-n-greets to sniff out the new dogs. And he would often play, nap and eat among them during daycare and boarding. As a result all of my dogs had some exposure and interaction with a cat, which enhanced their social skills and allowed my customers the possibility of owning a cat one day as a companion to their dog. My remaining cat, Tiny Tim, has some big shoes to fill. 'Not sure if he's up for the task...Zig always held his ground when encountering dogs. Tiny on the other hand, will run for the hills. If it runs, a dog will chase it. Zig knew that somehow so he stayed put and claimed his territory and won out every time. 'Shouldda named him Alpha Cat.
I'm glad Zig was able to make it into one of my blog posts before he died. My "What's In A Name" post gets rolling with the many nick-names of Zig-Zag kitty so be sure to scroll back and read that one.
I've had pets all my life. I've loved and lost many. I go into it every time knowing full well that some day I will have to usher them into the next life. That's just how it goes. But this one made me a little angry. What was it all for? All that saving and rescuing we did. All that money spent. Only to get a measly six years worth of living and loving. But you know me; I can find the "everything happens for a reason" in anything so I've gotta look at it like this... If we had never found him under the deck he probably would have died. Or if his mother never abandoned him he probably wouldn't have survived in the wild to six years old anyway. (Ferals typically live shorter lives) Or if he did survive to six years old in the wild he would have woken up paralyzed one day out there, instead of in our warm toasty house and he would have struggled to survive or would have become a sitting duck for coyotes. So I guess in the end we saved him from a savage death no matter how you look at it. Not exactly the nine lives I was hoping for but I can live with that.
Now Zig lives in my heart, and on my screen saver. I get to see him in the sink every day like he never left. And I have a video of him and Alexis cuddling so that I can hear him purring any time I want. Modern technology does somehow ease the pain a bit.
We never did go back to Hanson Animal Hospital. We moved all our pets and their records to Westbridge because I can just about guarantee that if an emergency is going to happen with our pets, it's gonna happen at midnight.
Zig was a truly unique cat and he will be missed by humans and dogs alike! Bye Bye Boop Kitty!
"IT BREAKS MY HEART EVERY TIME A BELOVED ANIMAL LEAVES THIS WORLD ... BUT A BROKEN HEART MAKES MORE ROOM TO LOVE AGAIN" ...ME
BELOW IS MY ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION; I DONT DARE CHANGE IT. IT WILL REMAIN AS A MEMORIAL TO MY FOREVER BELOVED ALEXIS BUT LIFE HAS TO MOVE ON AND MY WORLD MUST REVOLVE AROUND ELVIS NOW, OUR NEW PUPPY. I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE NEXT LEG OF MY DOG JOURNEY..................
I love dogs, what can I say but who doesn't? Well, specifically I am in love with my 11 year old Doberman Alexis, to whom this blog is dedicated. No really, IN LOVE! She is my life! (Do not tell Cesar Milan I said that; it goes against all the rules.) And I'm pretty sure I am her life too because whenever I leave the house she cannot settle down even if my husband Dave is here with her. A little separation anxiety going on there or what? Even if I leave for an hour you would think I was gone for a year. I wonder how the heck she got along without me when I went to Mexico? A side from that I am "Dedicated To Dogs" homestyle doggie daycare & boarding and private training ... You'll feel like your dropping your dog off at a friends and your dog feels like it's their second home! Find more info on daycare, boarding, training, pet nutrition, photo galleries, etc. at www.dedicated2dogs.com
