Dogs (mostly)
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Catching Up
It looks like I took a little blog break there. I’m back today, and have a few minor tidbits to share. First off, this is the same beautiful magnolia/tulip tree that I shared with you a couple of weeks ago. It’s downtown, and likely the next time I walk around the area, it will be bare. We’re having rain again, after a very dry period, which is welcome, but I imagine will knock down most of these blooms. Saturday morning, Maya had an appointment to get her hair done. I dropped her off and then walked around our little downtown for awhile. I like to explore, and went down a…
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Next Door Neighbor
We came across a video of the top dogs from the 2022 Westminster Kennel Club Masters the other day, and just fell in love with this dog, whose name is ‘Bee’, but whom we call ‘Next Door Neighbor’. All Shetland Sheepdogs, in our mind, are named either ‘Mommy’ or ‘Next Door Neighbor’, which is a throwback to our sweet girl, Genevieve, who was half Sheltie, half Keeshond (which is Mulder’s breed). Anyway, if you need a smile, watch ‘Next Door Neighbor’ do her thing with SO MUCH ABSOLUTE JOY. I love her so much.
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Miscellaneous Monday
I don’t know what to write about today, so I’m going to just throw a bunch of stuff at you. Here goes. Regarding the meme above, this is how I felt when we were in France last year. The names of the towns we stayed in were pronounced completely differently than they looked to my American eyes. Mougins is pronounced ‘MOO-jan‘ with a soft j, short a, and a soft n. Click the link to hear. Vincennes is a little closer to how it looks, VA-sen, with a short A. One of the stops on our train ride between Paris and Vincennes is Nation, pronounced NA-si-on, with all short vowels.…
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Intention vs. Accountability
There are things that I intend to do, or not do, but then things fall apart when faced with reality, and I fail on my intention. I have an ongoing issue with my love for potato chips. I do not intend to eat them practically every day. I don’t keep them in the house, usually, because if they are here I will eat them. Especially if they are Salt and Vinegar Kettle Chips, or sometimes, Doritos. So I start out my day just fine, but then I go to the grocery store on my lunch hour, and I get to the check out line, and there they are. Somehow, magically,…
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Morning Walk
Just a quick post tonight, Ted is making dinner (Dungeness crab, caught by a friend’s fisherman son yesterday, fresh fresh fresh) and then we will be watching Maya’s new zombie show, The Last of Us. Here are some photos from an early morning walk Mulder and I took recently. Actually, looking at the photos, I can see that I cheated, these are not all from the same walk. Pretend you don’t notice that the leash in the last photo is different than the leash in the first photo. The picture above is the sun coming up behind Mt. Diablo, and Mulder looking handsome near the little lake in our nearby…
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Friday 5
Today’s post will be 5 things I’m thinking about.
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Mulder’s Fabulous Friday!
Hi everyone, this is J’s puppy-boy (PB), Mulder, and I’m here to tell you about the Fabulous Friday that I just had! I have three bosses, my Big Boss, (Ted), my Medium Boss (Julie, aka, J), and my Little Boss, Maya. Medium Boss and I started out the day with a nice walk downtown, She thought we might try to find some new pianos to take my picture with, but they are gone. She was sad about this, but really, I can’t play piano very well, and during rainy season, it is probably a bad idea. Is she even thinking? In the place of the pianos, there is a lot…
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Picture of the Day – Mulder
Mulder has now finished his first 2 months of weekly chemo, now he is moving on to the next phase, which is chemo every other week for the next 4 months. His weight has stabilized, he doesn’t seem to be losing weight anymore. He is not tolerating the chemo as well as he did at the beginning, meaning for the first 6 weeks, he only had one instance of losing appetite and diarrhea, and more recently it has been every time. It lasts a day or two, but is controlled by medication and us tempting his appetite with chicken and rice or scrambled eggs, which he gobbles down. He’s lost…
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Mulder Update
I thought I’d let you know that Mulder is now 1 month in to his 6 month treatment plan. He was a little lethargic and had some tummy issues after the first treatment, but they gave us medication for that. Since then, he has been his normal happy self, no problems other than he is losing weight (but still eating normally), and that generally resolves itself soon enough, so our vet is not worried about it. She said his numbers are all looking good, he is responding well to treatment. One more month of weekly appointments, then the next four months will be every other week, and then he will…
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Updates
I think it’s time to fill you in on the life of J. First and most importantly, Mulder had his appointment with the oncologist on Thursday, and she said he is a very good candidate for chemotherapy, with a six month protocol having an 85% chance of putting him into remission for at least a year, though he has a marker that often means remission can last longer. We have decided to try this treatment, so he will have weekly appointments for 2 months, then maintenance appointments every other week for 4 more months. It is expensive, I would not buy a dog for that kind of money, but he…
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Mulder
We received some devastating news yesterday. Mulder has lymphoma. I was petting him on Saturday and it felt like the glands on his throat were swollen. We got him into the vet on Monday, and she took a bunch of tests which confirmed the diagnosis. She could feel that it was not just the lymph nodes at his neck, but all of them that she can feel, they are all swollen with fluid. After the diagnosis yesterday, she then sent out for some more tests to determine what kind of lymphoma he has. What we know so far is that it is ‘intermediate to large cell, high grade’, and the…
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Wordless Wednesday – Birthday Boy
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Meme Monday
I saw this meme the other day, and it made me laugh. Giving cats medication can be extremely difficult. Ted is deathly allergic to cats, so I haven’t had to deal with this particular problem in almost 40 years. When our sweet dog, Genevieve, was elderly, she had to take a lot of medication. One of the medications she had to take was a particularly nasty tasting powder…I accidentally got some on my finger once and licked it off in a moment of stupidity. Horrible. So she hated it. I worked so hard to get them in her…I used to buy capsules and fill them with the powder, then wrap…
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Wordless Wednesday
Photo seen on a Facebook page called ‘WoofWoof‘
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Wordless Wednesday – Bath time edition