Lilian

When I walked in this evening, Raven greeted me with the same frantic barking she often does once I open the front door. I try to ignore her. And on the occasion that she keeps yap shut and I get all the way in and shut the door, I will let her out of her crate first as reward.

Tonight, yap was not shut, so I by-passed Raven, and I let the lovely Lilian out, so she could be first to tend to business and find the Halloween Cuz ball to covet.

Lilian’s crate was free of pee this evening. Oh happy day!

I made a special crate-on-wheels for Lilian, and I keep it by the back door, which is Lilian’s special place, being the crate needs to be washed out from Miss Lilian’s leaky back faucet more often than not.

I went back to Raven, and bent down in front of her crate to watch her. She was in Raven’s world, and I dont think she saw me for quite a while. I talked to her and she continued on in a frantic monolog about what happened today, what she wanted to happen tonight, and what she wanted for dinner. At one point, hello, she sat on her food bowl which was upside down in the corner in the back of the crate. It’s stainless steel. One would think it would be a fairly cool jolt, but Raven kept sitting and barking.

I continued talking to her calmly, and then there was a point where she stopped barking. For more than just to take a breath, she stopped. So I counted to three, and told her how wonderfully good she was (lie lie lie), then stood up and opened her crate.

Zowie! She was off and running, but I grabbed her harness and brought her ’round to me. I held her and told her to calm her bad self down…softly, calmly…but she was going on about how she just couldn’t. However, after a lengthy discussion, she just did. She was calming herself down, and as soon as I told her how good she was and I let her go, she rammed into the back door. So I pulled her off, and asked her nicely to sit. She did. And I opened the door. She ran thru, so I shut the door. Then she body slammed herself back into the door. She’s so precious.

We all know that it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind, and I take advantage of that well-known fact often. Raven’s an adolescent Doberwomann, so I forgive her “change-my-mind” antics. Most of the time.

I changed into dog clothes, and realized afterwards that the rice cooker hadn’t started rolling yet. The timer was off by an hour. I guess I can’t count as well as I used to. But this happened to be a good thing because I had wanted to put a pound of bacon in the rice tonight, and so, I did. We are having bacon-rice, eggs, and either cheese or string beans. I haven’t decided yet.

While doing that, my wonderful Doberchildren and Raven went outside and found remnants of a visit from Clem on the ground. Clem is our mischievious squirrel and he’d been up in the pine tree tasting the delights from the spirit of Eule Gibbons. When he’s finished with a cone, he drops the core, much like a corn cob. Sometimes, he throws down perfectly good whole cones. Wherever he choses to eat, he seems to taunt the dogs.

I grabbed the pooper scooper to collect what I could and had a nice collection as I walked back to the pooper scooper barrel…er, bucket. Raven was walking ahead of me, as her PITA self often does. Right in the middle of from here to there, she stopped to pick up one of Clem’s discards. I rammed into her, and poop fell off the scooper and guess what I stepped in? OK…this made up for the happy dance I did about not having to wash out Lilian’s crate tonight. Raven is getting good at pulling the happiness carpet right out from under me.

I hobbled over to wash the sole of my shoe off, unloaded the remainder of doo-dee into bucket, then rinsed the pavers off. The middle pavers where the poop remnants were is the dip-area. So when rinsing it off, a lake forms. This happened to be a polluted lake. So I had to clean it twice as much with broom and disinfectant. This gave the Doberkids plenty of time to find a way to get their paws wet so they could walk in and out of the house with wet paws. I finally got the “wipe your feet” blanket down after the paver job was done. Then I had one question to answer.

Where’s Raven’s scrawny little neck? I want to hug it tightly tonight! Raaaaven!

Lilian, Raven

Oct

2007

Post-BSL Letter Writing

Helen

Tonight, I wrote a letter to provide people information about a bill in Florida – HB 101 – that wants to revoke Florida’s anti-BSL law on the books. OK, so I heard the very beloved Dobies (that were and are the reason behind my passion to get this bill kicked like a football somewhere like to the moon, but further) loudly playing elsewhere in our small house. But I couldn’t stop writing to find out WHAT they were doing. When I’m writing, it’s not lilke I can stop the flow and turn it on again like a faucet. Well, OK, I can, but it really bugs me to have to do that, and the new flow is never like the old flow.

Let me say there is a certain irony to having sweated out a few good words for my freedom and those of my Dobies, then to walk into the living room and find that one of the 3 pieces of furniture left in my house had started to be used as a chew toy.

May I present the Exhibit?

Note the soft and comfy doggy blankey is unscathed.

I called in the nose of the family. The one who speaks the truth and I know it. Annie. She told me what she smelled all over those foam rubber buttons.

Later on she whispered a name in my ear. I pretty much figured it was one or the other of my innocent puppies, but I was leaning more towards the one who had a look in her eyes earlier in the day that made me worry…that look in her eyes is like an earthquake predictor.

OK, but instead of an earthquake, it was a volcanic eruption of foam rubber. The couch suddenly opened up and the stuff just came popping out. That’s Raven’s story and she’s sticking to it.

And the judge and jury, that would be Helen and Annie, believe Raven’s story this time. We know who the chewer of “stuff” is. OK, one of them. Taadaa! Luna. Guilt is all over this Doberchickies’ face!

Or is it more on the face of Lilian? With a Doberbeak like that, pulling open a sofa is nothing. As a matter of fact, the reason we no longer have the matching loveseat is due to the beak on this Doberpecker’s face!

Gotta love them. They keep me on my toes.

Annie, Lilian, Luna, Raven

Oct

2007

Lilian’s Introduction – No Sulfa for Dobies

Helen

Lilian is a lovely Dobergirl who came out of a shelter a year ago June, and was just a pup of about 3 months then. The shelter vet gave me a sulfa antibiotic to give to Lilian for whatever bugs she was taken with her when leaving. Well, that was my introduction to allergic reactions some Dobies have to sulfa. Lilian had only two of those pills, but her reaction was severe. She had an acute arthritic reaction in her back knees. They swelled up to the point where she could only drag herself, unless I stood her up. Though I told the vet we were seeing that her knees seemed to be swelling, she didn’t see it. And she didn’t see it until the disorder progressed to the point where she couldn’t help but see it. Lilian also had pneumonia, and it was a difficult puppyhood for us all. It wasn’t till several months later, when I took Lilian to an expensive specialist for another problem did I find out that Lilian’s swollen knees were due to the sulfa.

Click here for a website written for veterinarian’s, about the reaction Lilian had. The disorder is Immune Mediated Polyarthritis, as it’s symmetrical the specialist pinpointed this – from sulfa drug.

The visit to the specialist was for ectopic ureter I thought Lilian had because she will start to urinate suddenly, and not seem to help it. This was a $700 + vet visit with the result that she said it was behaviorial. I asked her how she knew that, and besides blood and urine tests, she said she watched her. She watched her? It doesn’t flow out of her 24/7. This specialist told me to come back if the problem continues. She was probably banking on that. The problem continued, and I went elsewhere.

From a simple dye test, the vet Lilian saw this month concluded that she does have an ectopic ureter. Did I mention, too, that Lilian is an 8 on the Von Willebrands scale? That is very low. Just spaying her took a very skilled vet. The specialist wanted over $2,000 to spay her because of it. The vet that ended up doing it, did it for a routine price of well under $200. Watch your vets, and get referrals.

The surgery for an ectopic ureter is only about 50% successful. With Lilians VW factor of 8, it would be very risky, so now I enter another journey with a lovely Dobie who has a leaky faucet.

Meanwhile, Lilian loves to eat grass and quilt batting and little things she shouldn’t eat. So we don’t have stuffed toys unless they are played with under supervision. Yet, Lilian finds things to ingest that she shouldn’t. I know that because she will get impatient waiting for it to come out the other end, run past the opened back door and onto the sofa. She’s managed to do that more times than I care to recount, so I’ve tried hard to watch her in process, and slam the back door shut before she gets through.

Today, she got through. I had just gotten back from grocery shopping and was putting things away. I said to everyone, “Something stinks!” Then I saw Lilian jump off the sofa, something swung off her hind end, but as she ran out the back door, there was still something hanging out.

Eww kay. I cleaned the sofa, and as I did, I swear, that was the worst smell, though I didn’t actually find the thing that swung off her rear parts. That made me think I didn’t see what I thought I’d seen.

I went outside and helped dislodge the rest of Lilian’s troubles with a paper towel. Grass was the culprit this time. Eegads, she must have eaten it as if it were spaghetti.

When I went back inside, I found the smell was still there, and others of the family noticed it too. You know that look they get on their faces when SOMEBODY ELSE has done such a dispicable thing as to soil THEIR house? That’s the look I was getting. I probably had it on my face, too.

One of my babies pointed with nose under a crate on wheels. I saw something odd under there. It looked like half of a dead mouse with prickly grass blades sticking out of it. I carefully rolled the crate by the thing so the wheels wouldn’t run it over. Good God! It was Lilian’s missing terd!

I cleaned it up and the smell left too.

I did not take pictures of this event being I was in the middle of unloading groceries, and such things, but I do have a couple from a day we all were wooed. It was Lilian’s biggest ever dislodgement. Luigi explains…