Dogs (mostly)
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Dreaded Day
The dreaded day came and went this week. Gen’s medical conditions got the better of her, and we decided that we didn’t want to keep fixing one thing to just have another pop up. So we put her to sleep on Monday afternoon. We miss her sweet face SO MUCH. She was such a good girl, and we love her so much, and we’re so sad. But we know that she’s not suffering now, and that making sure she didn’t suffer was our responsibility. Damn it. I keep thinking, I want my dog back. But when I think that, I don’t mean the dog that paced the house for hours…
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Loving Your Aging Dog
There’s no two ways about it…Genevieve is an old lady. She takes 8 pills a day to keep her from having diarrhea, which sometimes works. She take 1 pill a day to help keep her from peeing uncontrollably. She takes 1 pill a day to help her appetite and cognitive function. She’s blind. She doesn’t leave the house anymore, except to go in the back yard to do her business. We take her out front sometimes, but after 2 1/2 years of being blind, I think it’s scary for her. I can’t leave her in the back yard, because she might get stuck behind the air conditioner unit or tangled…
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Friday Randomness
Nothing earth shattering today, so we’ll dive on in, OK? Just a bunch of randomness that’s been swimming through my brain a bit. We’re trying Genevieve on a new drug. She had stopped eating, which had us really concerned. Or, to be more accurate, her eating was very sporadic and unpredictable. She didn’t want her kibble, so I started making her some homemade food. She liked that for awhile, but then seemed to tire of it. We’d try to hand feed her, and she’d just turn her head away. She was always happy to eat dog treats, cheerios with milk, that kind of thing, but not regular dog food. She…
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Friday Randomness
I don’t have a lot to say, but I feel like I should say something…I mean, I like blogging, so I need to blog, right? OK. Here are a few random thoughts coming through my head right now. Is anyone else exhausted by the coverage of the anniversary of the attacks on September 11th? I know I am. That day will never be forgotten…it was a horrid horrid day, and it was captured on video, played over and over again for all to see. I don’t want to see those buildings falling, or people jumping to their deaths, or people covered in ashes, or the desperate ‘have you seen this…
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Update from Genevieve
Hi Everyone, this is Genevieve! Guess what I figured out? After all of these years with my pack, eating that stupid kibble they give me, being grateful for every day, I finally decided I had had enough. I just couldn’t take it anymore! I mean, they make all of this delicious smelling shash (J’s note…Gen calls food ‘shash’), and the best I can hope for is to smell it, and once in awhile I get a bite, and one scoop of stupid kibble in my dish. Not fair! So I went on a hunger strike. Oh my goodness, did I scare the bosses! They would coax and beg me to…
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Happy Birthday, Genevieive!
Hi Everyone, it’s Genevieve! Guess what? Today’s my birthday! I’m 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 today! Medium Boss keeps saying I’m 13, and that I’m no longer a tween and had better start acting my age, but that just goes to show that she doesn’t understand dog time AT ALL. Last week, Medium Boss took me to a new place to have a bath. It was kind of scary, and I’m sorry to say that I dug in my heels a bit and didn’t let her guide me to the car. But it was kind of loud! And there were so many interesting smells! And you know, since…
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Now I know where she got it….
Back before Gen went blind, this is the kind of playful she was. She loved to run around and sometimes spin. Now I know where she gets it…she’s half Sheltie! Watch some doggie and baby fun. Genevieve would say that maybe this dog is Mommy, since she says that about all Shelties. But I’m thinking this dog might be too young to be Mommy.
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Friday Randomness
Happy Friday everyone. I went to the grocery store today and got Gen a HUGE chewie thing, which you can see her enjoying in this picture. Had to snap a shot, since she looked so funny with her butt up in the air and her face down on the ground. She loved it. Hope we don’t pay for it later. She has a very sensitive tummy. Tomorrow I’m going with Maya’s scout troop to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, a place I’ll take over Disneyland any day of the week. The rides aren’t as good maybe, but it’s not NEARLY as crowded, it’s tons cheaper, it’s right there on the beach,…
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Friday Randomness
(This is a lovely hookworm…want this in your intestines? The answer…perhaps. Find out more, below.) I’m behind on this whole blogging thing. I’m behind on my book review, having finished ‘The Night Listener‘ and ‘This World We Live In‘, but I haven’t reviewed them. I’m halfway through ‘Three Cups of Tea‘, but I left it at cheer-leading tryouts last week, and it’s lost, so I went to get another copy from the library. Now I’m finishing up ‘The Bride’s Farewell‘, and then I’ll get back to ‘Three Cups of Tea‘. So I guess you’re going to see a lot of book reviews around here in the near future. I have…
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Friday Dog Blogging
(photo found here) Did anyone else see this story yesterday, about the poor dog that floated 75 miles down Poland’s Vistula River and into the Baltic Sea, and was lucky enough to be rescued by some Polish scientists doing research? The story is here. There’s video as well. The story is that firemen in a town about 60 miles inland saw the dog floating down the river, and they tried to rescue him, but were unable to get close due to the shifting ice. Eventually he drifted out to sea, where the research boat came upon him. The rescue was somewhat harrowing, because the dog slid off of the ice…
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Genevieve’s Corner
Hi everyone, it’s Genevieve! It’s been a LONG time since I’ve been around here, huh? I’ve missed your smell. (I can’t really smell you, you’re too far away, but that’s something that polite dogs say to each other. And my mommy taught me to be polite.) So guess what? I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the lights went out! It’s dark! It’s always dark! So I keep bumping into things, which is sometimes OK, and sometimes hurts. Like yesterday, I was really excited because it was time for my shash (J’s note…that’s Gen’s word for food), and I turned fast and bashed my face on the coffee table! Ouch! …
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Friday Randomness
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiNB4epGxK8[/youtube] First off, go see Ponyo. Right now. I’ll wait here. Seriously, we went to see it on Wednesday evening, and we LOVED it. So much that Maya and her friend went to see it on Thursday. And the friend said she now wants to see it again, with her mom. Such a sweet, lovely film. It’s made for perhaps a slightly younger audience than Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, but it’s so charming and delightful, I can’t think of a single age group that won’t enjoy it. That’s two awesome films in one week, and I have to say that I cannot imagine two more different films than Ponyo and District…
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Genevieve
(Genevieve looking somewhat crazed but happy, about 2 years ago) The health issues with our sweet dog Genevieve have been continuing. She is now almost completely blind. It seems to have come on very quickly, and we’re not sure of the cause. I’ve read that when dogs go blind, we don’t notice it until it’s in its final stages, which may be what’s going on here. It may also be the result of a tumor, or of something called Cushing’s disease. It does seem the most likely cause, and she has quite a few of the symptoms, but the first thing to do is to take her to an ophthalmologist…
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Sunday Dog Blogging
Regular readers will know that our beautiful doggie, Genevieve has been feeling poorly for awhile now. She isn’t her regular perky self, and we’ve been experimenting with different treatments to try to help her. We’ve had a ton of tests done, put her on pain meds, thyroid meds, and meds to help keep her from peeing on the floor. The thyroid seems the most likely to me, and she was on the meds for about 5 days, but we pulled her off this weekend. Why, you may ask? Well, yesterday Ted woke up to discover dog vomit at the top of the stairs. He cleaned it up, but later I…
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Friday Dog Blogging
Hi Everyone, it’s Genevieve! I have to tell you about the craptastic time I’ve had lately! You know how Medium Boss posted a video of me running around like a puppy? Well, that was about a month ago, and I haven’t done it since. So the bosses are worried. And what do they do when they worry about me? They take me to the vet! BAD BOSSES! Why can’t they just give me steak and see if I feel better? Sigh. So they first took me to the vet for my peeing, to see if I had something wrong like an infection (?What’s that?). Well, I could have told them…