Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Another Vet Visit

By

Sampson and his issues.

Well it seems like my poor little Punkin just can’t catch a break with his health issues.  First he had the soft tissue injury for which he went on anti-inflammatory medication (he took the last dose last night.)

Then we were at the vet two week’s ago for a bacterial skin infection.  The vet prescribed an antibiotic (Cephalexin) and a follow-up visit to discuss his Leptos vaccine.

Saturday night I noticed his right ear was extremely hot and red, Hubby and I suspected a yeast infection.

I spoke to the vet’s office and was told to use a warm wash cloth with a mild soap to clean his ear. They didn’t want it too clean, just in case she needed to do a scraping. 🙁  The warm cloth also seemed to help his ear feel better as he did not protest at all, and actually leaned his ear into the cloth.

It’s hard to get a great shot, but his ear red and hot.

 

Last night once again found us at the vet for our third time in less than a month.

Dr. Soutter said, it has the look of a yeast infection, and smells a bit like a yeast infection, but let’s swab it and take a look at it.

Whatcha brewin in there Sampson?

 

She swabbed it and set it to brew.

I  pointed out he has a few bumps on his head, like little welts or bites.

She looked at his tummy and said, his skin infection is better, but not gone.

Then she went out to check on his culture.

When she came back she said, It’s a bacterial infection.

To which I replied, Well that concerns me, he’s had a bacterial skin infection and now a bacterial ear infection, what’s causing this?

She suspects it’s allergy related. 🙁 Something airborne that he is breathing in. We came home with ear drops for the ear infection and an additional week’s dose of antibiotics.

She’s interested to see what happens when we have a good hard frost.

She also said she thought it was okay to give him his Leptos vaccine, I told her I preferred to wait.  She agreed.

Recheck in two weeks.

 

He was so happy to see everyone.

 

I did ask if there was anything we could do to prevent this from happening again.

Dr. Soutter said that some dogs react well to an antihistamine and others do not.  We can certainly try him on one and see if it helps. If that does not work than we can do some testing and see if we can determine what exactly he is allergic to.

When we exited our exam room and went to check out there was a woman there checking out and waiting for her cat.  I decided it was best to put Sampson in the car.

I brought him out and moved the car so I could see him from the window.

 

Are you done yet?

 

It was about 5:40 pm by this time, and a very cool day, still I’m never, ever comfortable leaving them in the car, so I moved it close to the door in order to keep an eye on him and I quickly paid my tab.

There was a squirrel running up and down the tree behind the car, but Sampson kept looking toward where I was.  Must have been Mr. Squirrel’s lucky day.

Has your dog ever missed an opportunity to torture bark at a small animal because they were too focused on something else to notice?

WTF/Whoo Hoo Wednesday

By

Please note this post is not meant to make light of the deeds described here, only to make fun of, ridicule, bully and just plain beat the shit out of the idiots who commit these stupid acts.

Kelly Ripa – Open Mouth, Insert Foot, NYC, NY

I didn’t hear it nor did I see it, I just heard about it.  Apparently Kelly made a comment about Pit Bulls being the dogs of gangsters, which put Pit Bull owners and dog lovers in general up in arms.

Will Wheaton, Pit Bull owner and advocate had this to say.

Twitter (damn, I still haven’t mastered that social tool) was atwitter with people skewering Kelly for her ignorance.

Personally I like Kelly Ripa, I met her and her smoking hot husband many years ago when they were both still on All My Children, when in fact All My Children was still on the air.

I was tickled when she got the co-hosting gig with Regis and even more thrilled that she remained in that seat when he retired.

First I’m going to say, “Shame on you Kelly for buying into the media bias, public witch hunt about Pit Bulls.” Especially because it seems like one of your personal friends, Kaley Cuoco appears to know truth vs fiction.”

Right now though, I have to be the devil’s advocate, because Kelly is actually getting her information from the mainstream media.  Honestly, I can’t tell you how many stories about pit bulls, hurting, biting, mauling and killing that come across my desk.

The mainstream media focuses on the negative, and they have for as long as I can remember.

The troubling thing is, that unlike you or I who do our research to get to the truth, many people take these stories as gospel.  Which apparently Kelly did.

And really people, think about this.  Thugs have tough dogs.  That’s not something that’s made up, it’s the truth.  When some thug in Hartford goes to shake somebody down he doesn’t bring his Shorkie with him, he brings a Pit Bull.

Until a certain demographic of the population stops fighting these dogs and using them to make themselves feel tough, people like Kelly Ripa will continue to have this ill-conceived idea of what Pit Bulls really are.

The loving and loyal dogs that you and I know.

That being said, here’s where I get pissed off.  Since this happened approximately a week ago, there has been nothing from Kelly’s camp regarding her faux pas. (I followed her on Twitter yesterday, went back through for a week and read her posts, then I unfollowed her. [What? You’d have done the same thing.])

No retraction, no clarification, no public apology.  Nothing.

I think a Pit Bull rescue group would be wise to reach out to Kelly and use this opportunity to educate.

Word to the wise Kelly, don’t piss off the dog folks.

Whoo Hoo

Marines carry boy across finish line after his prosthetic leg breaks during triathlon, Pensacola Beach, FL.

Well you know I love me some military, maybe I’m just an emotional mess, but this story made me cry.

An 11-year-old boy who had his leg partially amputated from bone cancer at age 6 was participating in a triathlon.  He completed the swim and the bike ride, half-way through the one mile run a screw came out of his prosthetic leg and it broke.

As his mother waited, wondering at the finish line an announcement was made requesting for people to observe what was happening on the course.

One of the Marines who was monitoring the course, had picked young Ben Baltz up, put him on his back and ran him across the finish line.

Photo courtesy of CNN.

 

Semper Fi PFC Matthew Morgan, Semper Fi.

That’s if for me, what left you shaking your head this week?

What?  Oh you think I forgot about Michael Vick?  No, no my dears that’s a full post on its own.  Although, you might just be surprised by what I have to say.

Tasty Tuesday (10-16-12)

By

I’m all about the easy when it comes to making treats for my dogs.

When Delilah first joined our pack their nightly snack was a processed rolled treat. Either raw hide or pork hide.

Don’t judge.

Delilah’s a food inhaler. We have to invert her food bowl in order for her meal to last longer than 20 seconds.

You think I’m joking.

I’m not.

When I feed her treats, she rarely if ever chews them, the exception being carrots. For some reason she chews carrots.

She is also a treat hog. The first time I gave her a treat, she swallowed hers and went over and took Sampson’s right out of his mouth.

At the time I wasn’t quite as dog savvy as I am now, so I went right over and took it away and handed it back to Sampson.

Not to be deterred, she walked right back over and took it away again.

I was furious. I marched right over and wrestled it from her and gave it back to Sampson, and then I took her by the collar and marched her chocolate ass to the crate, where she remained while Sampson enjoyed his treat.

We quickly learned that separating them worked best for all parties involved.

This didn’t mean she ate her treat any slower.

More than once, I thought she was going to choke to death trying to swallow a large piece of raw hide.

The final straw was the evening she got a piece stuck in her throat. I sat there horrified, screaming for Hubby and she coughed and gagged.

Delilah lowered her head to the floor and used her front paw to dislodge the raw hide.

That was the last time either one of them got that kind of treat again.

From that point forward I began stuffing Kongs. When that got a bit pricey, I switched to stuffing the white bones and freezing them.

The trick to filling any kind of frozen treat such as a Kong or white bone is to have something thick to seal the end.

Peanut butter is great, but it’s also very high in calorie, if you have two little pork chops like I do, you want to try to keep treats as low-calorie as you can.

Yesterday I was fixing to give Sampson his morning antibiotic. His night-time one is easy, it fits right into his ground meat, but he gets necks in the morning so that won’t work.

I’d been using sunflower butter, but I started thinking, I wonder what would happen if I mixed the sunflower butter with pumpkin?

So I did.

A star is born.

Here’s what you need (note I usually just eye-ball it, so the measurements are approximations.)

¼ cup pumpkin

1 tablespoon nut butter of your choice.

Mix the two together and Viola!

 

Quick and easy, great for filling Kongs or bones and it doubles as something to sneak a little medication in.

Note you can also freeze these in molds or ice-cube trays for refreshing treats in the warmer months.

What would you call this treat? Butterkin? Sunkin? Pumpkin butter?

BTW, I’ve been meaning to ask, do any of you have a contact at Kong? I’ve got an idea I’d like to run by them.



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...