Ollie

Dr. Marty’s Potato Diet to Calm the Innards

On the night of July 4th, I heard someone throwing up. I came into the hallway, and there was Luigi standing over his mess looking dazed. His whole dinner was on the floor. I cleaned it up, and went back to sleep.

He wasn’t looking too well the night of July 5th, but he was eating fine, so we went to sleep. In the morning, he looked dazed still, so I did some acupressure (click here and scroll down to see how it’s done) on him to rev up his bowels. We’d had a peanut hunt on July 4th, which is nothing new, but I wondered if he’d had a blockage by possibly having ate a rock. I had hoped he was smarter than that, though, as he’d never swallowed a rock before even in his zealousness on the peanut hunt days. Did he find too many peanuts and was blocked by the shells? Nah. But I hadn’t noticed any doo-dee from him in a day, so all these thoughts were circulating in my head.

After the acupressure, I was relieved, though a little overtaken, by the voluminous amount of gas he was passing. Wooo doggie! When we went to the back door to go outside, I’d found he’d thrown up his dinner again. Wow. I cleaned it up and we went outside, and I kept an eye on him for signs of doo-dee making. It didn’t take long, as the acupressure kicked in, and there he was, with a puddle of doo-dee. Thank goodness he did it on the rocky soil, so I took the hose and took care of it.

So his back end was opened Yippie! But it was really loose. I searched my mind for some help with fixing his diarrhea and puking by holistic and natural ways. I had tried canned pumpkin before, but that wasn’t as good a fix as I’d thought it would be. Then a recording of Dr. Marty, who airs on channel 112 (Martha Stewart’s vet) Sirius radio, played in my head. He’d given a recipe out for fixing diarrhea many times on the radio, and for once, my memory grasped and retained new information. (It gets harder to do such things as one matures as the wine bottles on the shelf.)

Though I didn’t recollect his mentioning that the recipe would fix the puking aspect, I was going to try it. Luigi hadn’t kept down a dinner in two nights, and I couldn’t figure out why. Then it dawned on me. Though he is Mr. Cool, the Big Luigi, the steady state and pack leader on the Doberboy side of things, he had been upset by the fireworks this year. On July 4th night, when we stepped out for a potty break, the air was like foggy London town. And horrid to breathe. At one point, there was a set of squiggly air fireworks that were blasting and squiggling for so long, that I even wished they’d stop already because it was just overwhelming. At the end of that ostentatious display, I looked around me and found only three of the FDSP outside with me. The rest ran back into the house.

Ollie and Baby, cheers to us! Ollie, the 4th of July boy Ollie and Baby, patriotic buddies

Ollie was the Dober representing the boy side of the pack. He is pretty much as laid-back as they come unless it has to do with going to obedience class where he acts up like an uneducated dawg. Ollie is known as the DoberDivo because he is the second Dober who joined the FDSP, and was trained in Diva/Divo aspects by the Queen Mother Diva Superior herself, Baby. However, she has not gotten through to him that Divos are supposed to be coy and ‘fraid of big bangs. Well, so he’s only part Divo, then.

Leissl, the 4th of July tootsie!

Leissl was the Dober representing the lady side of the pack. She’s the movie star and a very steady personality with most things. She can focus unless there is something in the distance which requires her to be a vigilant Dobermann. She is also a patroler of sorts. Some Dobies patrol to extremes, but Leissl has an equality about her patrolling. Not too much, except on occasions, do I have to tell her to stop it already. Toenails on the tile, click click click, no matter how I trim them. It’s hard to sleep with that clicking going on.

Lilian, a 4th of July rock? Annie Bananio! I see the fireworks!  They’re on my head!

The third member of the FDSP in the midst of the fireworks extravaganza was not an Aussie. She is the one Dober I would never have thought in a million years is as steady under sound and stink distraction as she is because she is also a DoberDiva. The third member is Miss Lilian! She stayed out in the back yard as if it were a lovely spring evening and she was sniffing the magnolia blossoms instead of getting a snout full of noxious fireworks gasses while being bombarded with booms, bangs, and katoons!

Raven, sorta brave, sometimes.

Surprise surprise surprise, though she is a patriotic little rascal, when it came to extreme fireworks – no Raven.

Luigi on the 4th of July Peanut Hunt

Thinking back to that moment reminded me that Luigi was no where to be found. He can take a certain amount of the fireworks, but that extreme moment shook his spirit enough to cause a lot of stress. I had given the usual ones who have trouble with thunder and sounds a good dose of Rescue Remedy prior to the night’s festivities – Baby, Regis, Ginger, Bouchard and Taylor Bunny BunBun. And I did it again on July 5th due to overzealous firework displayers. Luigi was not one of them. He will be in the future, though.

After putting all these pieces together, I found that Luigi was suffering from a bout of nerves that were jangled, and decided to try Dr. Marty’s Potato diet for Luigi to see if it would stay down and get his body back to normal.

These are the ingredients:

Equal parts of sweet potato and regular potato
(Luigi gets red potatoes due to less oxalates than brown ones and he’s a calcium oxalate boy)
A slice of turnip and a slice of leak
Boil in water till done.
Cool and serve.

Luigi watched as I cut up the ingredients and put them into the crock pot. He was especially enamored with the turnip, and probably would have grabbed it and ran with it given the chance. Hours later when his diet was cooked and cooled, he ate it and it stayed down. He had another serving for breakfast, and has enough leftover from the crockpot of the Potato Diet for dinner and maybe even breakfast tomorrow.

It’s another good thing presented through the Martha Stewart radio channel. It works! Thank you, Dr. Marty.

Helen

Oliver and The Psychic

Last night I called Cat Chat on Sirus radio, and after waiting 32 minutes, got to talk to Ann Marie Sawicki.  She is very popular!

My question revolved around Oliver.

Oliver

About six or seven weeks ago, he came inside with a nickel-sized gash in his left side.  Eeek!  The next day or two, he had one on his outter right thigh!  I put a t-shirt on him, and went looking around the back yard for that chunk of fur that was missing.  Didn’t find it.  Meanwhile, Ollie worked hard to shake the shirt.

Ollie shakes it

When I got on the air, Ann Marie asked about fencing, and I told her we have wooden around the yard and metal around the plants.  Tracie thought that was a clue, but Ann Marie asked if there are cats and if Ollie would have jumped at a cat.  We have two cat neighbors, but only one has the nerve to walk along the fence and that’s only at night.  Also, Ollie’s not a jumper. 

Ollie’s background – he was boarded in a vet’s office from his 3rd month birthday to his 1st year birthday.  He had a buddy in there, a GSD, but not in the same containment, and when the vet office got a call from the owners who decided to stay in Canada, it wasn’t a good call.  “We don’t want our dogs.  Do whatever you need to.”  This was after these people paid a $6,000 bill along the way for boarding and care.  Lucky for Ollie, he landed in rescue and I was looking for a handsome Doberboy to be a playmate for the Queen Mother, an only child back then. 

While in boarding, Ollie had to entertain himself for hours, and when I got him, realized he must have spun in little circles when he got excited about something or out of boredom.  He knocked himself in the head a lot at first because he moved around in a sudden swoop and didn’t realize in the real world, such things as furniture exists.  He learned.  Now when he gets excited, as in there is a squirrel running by the FD campus, he runs in big circles on his paved track.  But Ollie doesn’t jump up on anything except the furniture.  He’s a spinner, not a jumper.

After I said no to the cat/jumping answer, Tracie asked me a few questions about Ollie while Ann Marie tried to connect to my $6,000 dog on the psychic level.  Tracie applauded that Oliver has natural ears, and I told her I was pro-tail, too.  I told her that I’d put a t-shirt on Oliver when he had his boo-boo’s because let’s face it, you cannot keep an Ace bandage around the middle of your dog.  I know.  I’ve tried. 

Then Ann Marie came back in and said she’d connected to Oliver and he didn’t want to talk about it.  Great.  I’d waited for 32 minutes, and the Divo didn’t want to talk about it?

Ann Marie said that Oliver said he did something stupid when he got gashed, and didn’t think I would see it.  Ann Marie told him, “Yes, but you did it twice.”  Ollie returned with, “Yes, I know.  I was strutting my stuff and did something stupid, and won’t do it again.”

Well, so far he hasn’t done it again, but dagnabbit, I wanted to find the place in the yard that bit him, so I could fix it.  I suppose it will remain a mystery at this point, and any fur that had been hanging from the spot is gone.  I’d wondered, though, with the way these kids play fetch games, if Ollie’s fur wasn’t in between someone’s teeth.

Raven

Na.

Gardening

Friday night, I read a newsletter on how you can spend several hours doing something that has nothing to do with a goal, but in the long run, will give you more time to do your goal if it simplifies your life. So yesterday, I went out in the back yard to do that and ended up out there until sunset.

With the water rationing and time it takes me to water a double-digit number of potted plants, which do protect the plant from being sprayed by dog pee or bulldozed by the Posse, I put a good dozen plants in the ground. Plants that were in pots of 20-gallon size or thereabouts. And others, I said Grace and parted with them. Other smaller ones went around the big ones in the ground. I’m still not done with it all, but this has left me with one-third less pots to water. Yeehaw!

Potted plants along two fences now in ground

There was a fine lizard hanging onto the blossom of my ginger plant once it was stable into Mother Earth.

0046-lizard-01-14-08.jpg

Across the yard, where I placed a bird cage for a loose cockatiel, another lizard sunned on the perch.

A lizard visitor who makes this bird cage his home

Baby (QM & Diva of Fort Doberdale), of course, was the most striking sunbather of the day, and everyday, as she lay atop a mound of leftover soil from my digging efforts.

Baby Sunbather

Raven was up to new tricks today.

Raven’s a big tease!

Try as Ollie might, he doesn’t have the vocal prowess that Raven has and she was unimpressed.

Na-na-na-na-na-na!

Then the ultimate insult…Ignorsville.

Raven Teasing Oliver

As hard as Ollie tried, he could not compete with Little Big Pants’ spry maneuvers.

Resolution…Ollie’s outdone by Little Big Pants

“I win! ”

Just Me and my Tongue

After we sorted through the day, we lingered under the gorgeous darkening sky where the sun was setting and the moon circled us.

Sunset

And Luigi played peek-a-boo.

Where’s my ball?

The Sixth Day of Christmas

Ollie is the Sixth Dobermann of Christmas. He’s very handsome and can be the most innocent looking of all. He has those big round brown eyes always full of expression.

Ollie

He’s a good soul, Ollie is.