Bad Lady

I have been feeling like a bad Lady lately. Because I didn't think that my life was crazy enough with work and other stuff, I thought it would be the perfect time for a huge lifestyle change. I am working with a natural path to help rebalance my apparently unbalanced body (to find out more about those adventures, feel free to check out my other blog at: http://theshakytree.blogspot.ca/).

We are now at week two of this body makeover and I must say that this makeover has been all consuming, coupled with some major changes at work (coworkers having babies) and I feel like I have been a neglectful lady. Hailey has been getting her daily walks (in fact I have been trying to make them longer when possible). She has been going to agility. We try to hit a pit once a weekend. She is getting lots of cuddles, but I haven't been as "playful" with her. We are not working on a new trick. I worry she is not getting the attention she deserves. I am not sure she notices (see the picture of below of how she was when I was writing this, I think the storm stressed her out and tired her out), but I still feel bad. I hope after another week of this adjustment period I will be able to work some free time with Lee back into the schedule.

The Bug

It is hard to imagine that this adorable face had a serious and stinky problem this week. 

Starting Wednesday night until sometime Thursday night/Friday morning, Lee had an upset stomach. The smell that came out of her . . . it made us all gag. She gagged herself. It was the most fowl smelling thing on the planet. It didn't seem possible. I have been exposed to my fair share of bad gas (I may have a parent who likes to experiment with eating things to see what happens/what can gross us out) and other bad smells (one summer a certain parent who was spending his days doing physical labour wanted to know how many days he could go without showering or changing before his daughter complained . . . FYI I lasted 5 days, he actually grossed himself out before I complained), so when I say this was one of the worst smells I have ever experienced, you can only imagine how horrible it was. If the gas mask expert I know had not been away on training, I probably would have called him and gotten a gas mask.

It lasted a little over 24 hours (with a minor repeat before bed last night). It was only happening at night. Have no idea what she got into. She seemed fine otherwise. This morning her tummy is very loud (but maybe that is to guilt me to getting up and feeding her and not writing this). Let's hope we don't have a repeat of this anytime soon!

Living with a terminally ill pet

While the focus of this blog is really on Hailey and her adventures, from time to time I like to share the adventures we had in the 9 years of dog ownership pre-Hailey.  Today is a story that I wish I didn't have to share, but is one that may help others through a difficult time.

For those who read my blog regularly, you have heard me mention Loki. Loki was our first dog. He was diagnosed with an immune disorder when he was 5 and a half and again when he was 7 and a half. The second time we were given a one year prognosis. So for 11 months our focus was on keeping Loki as healthy and happy as possible. FYI: Our vet at Ottawa Vet Hospital says his disease was the weirdest he has ever treated (lucky us!)

Looking back at our year of living with a terminally ill pet, here are some things I learned:

1) Trust your instincts. If you believe something is wrong with your pet, follow through and get tests. The first vet I saw the second time he got sick (my vet was away for a couple weeks), didn't believe me that something was wrong. I waited and went back to my vet who saw something was wrong and started testing.

2) Know your limits. If these are financial or just acceptable quality of life for your pet, have that in your head. This will help you make decisions during those emotional moments (for example, I thought blood doping was beyond what I was comfortable with and after a first biopsy confirmed he was dying, I refused to put him through the pain of a second to figure out how quickly).

3) Find a vet your trust and don't be afraid to ask for a second opinion! If they are insulted by this, you don't want to do business with them.

4) Be prepared for changes in other pets behaviour. Try and give the others the love and attention they need during this time. Gemini developed obsessive drinking (8 cups of water a day for her little 16 lbs self) which lead to tones of accidents and her hair fell out. We had her tested for lots of things, but it turned out she just was stressed.

5) I wish I had looked at cremation options before the day we said goodbye. I recommend asking your vet for the brochures before and "pre-planning." (This was much easier with Gemini because I knew what I wanted and didn't have to make that decision in the moments before the final goodbye).

6) Take lots of pictures. The picture I have attached above shows my very sick puppy  and does make me sad, but it also is a reminder of the life he and we lived for parts of those 11 months.

7) Take care of yourself. Because I got so wrapped up in the caring for the dying, I probably didn't always manage my own stress levels appropriately. In fact I didn't realize the stress I was under until a few days after he died and I felt that sense of relief. Care for the caregivers is important.

8) Spoil the heck out of them! We had to balance keeping Loki healthy with giving him a great quality of life. Since he had an immune disorder we were concerned about exposing him to other dogs/situations. There came a point however when I remember thinking, he is dying anyway, I would rather give him fewer great days than more ok days. The last couple months we also let him eat whatever he wanted!

9) Know when it is time to say goodbye. I always said I would know, and the truth was, it was Loki who told me. He had slowly been getting sicker and then he had the best day he had in weeks followed by the worst night ever. Sometime around dawn, he looked and me and we both knew, today was the day.

10) Take time to say goodbye. I knew about 5 am that it was time to say goodbye. We said goodbye about 5:30 pm that day. While I didn't want to prolong his suffering I wanted to make sure that we had those last few precious hours to say goodbye.

Caring for a dying pet and saying goodbye is not easy. It is one of those things people don't like to talk about. Unfortunately sometimes it is part of the journey. Wishing all your pets great health!

Thank You

Hailey would like to say thank you to everyone who was involved with and has since spread the word about the closure of Canada's largest puppy mill, Paws R Us.

She would especially like to thank Mel from Furry Four Legged Foster Friends (http://furryfourleggedfosterfriends.blogspot.com/) for making her search to learn more easy. Mel kept tweeting links, such as http://www.cfra.com/?cat=1&nid=81632. Hailey says some of the images in other stories were too graphic for her, but she is glad they were shared for other people who would need to see that to know treating animals poorly is NOT ok.

Hailey hopes that all the puppies who can be saved find homes as loving as hers, even if her people are sometimes mean and make her do things she doesn't like, like get her nails cut.

Talking about puppy mills,  led to a discussion between the Lady and Lee about the treatment of animals in general. The Lady told Lee that it took a very special woman, Dr. Temple Grandin, a woman with autism (followers will know a cause near and dear to the Lady's heart as she works with this amazing population) to revolutionize the slaughter industry to make it more humane. Off the top of the Lady's head she can't remember what percentage of American slaughter facilities use Dr. Grandin's design, but it is high and growing every day.

Hailey said that maybe Dr. Grandin's work, and closures of puppy mills are steps toward a world where people aren't "complete asses" (her direct quote) and treat all living creatures with dignity and respect. (Except for squirrels, she says people can treat squirrels poorly as they are evil). 

For now she says the other animals on the planet are waiting . . . . . 

A Thursday Rant

Since I have the general belief that no good ever comes from a Thursday and usual spend my Thursday grumpy, I thought it was the perfect moment to rant!

I was having a leisurely Saturday morning, reading the Ottawa Citizen and I came across this article about an ad placed by someone advertising dogs for sale. The ad apparently said if the dogs did not have a home by September 1, they would have them euthanized.  They did not want to keep the dog or give it to a rescue type agency. They only wanted to sell it. The ad has been removed, but apparently this type of advertising happens several times a year in Ottawa.

My first thoughts were: You sick bastards, why would you even say that?
It left me sort of speechless really.

I have had 2 dogs  euthanized, 2 dogs who were dying and there was nothing else we could do to save them. Keeping them alive was just "prolonging dying and not extending life" as my wise Grandmother would say. And while, the process was peaceful, it was a horrible thing to do. Those who read this blog regularly will know, that while I have moments I would like to "strangle" Miss Bug, I would never really do so, or threaten to do so.

I think this ad just brought up in me negative feelings toward some dog owners. The things people think are ok to do to dogs. All the people who get dogs and then don't want them. I am not judging people who have true changes in circumstances such as illness that were unforeseen that make dog ownership impossible at this time. I am talking about the people who I am going to call lazy. (Dogs are a lot of work, let me tell you). The least this type of dog owner could do is find the dog a suitable home and not threaten to kill it. Sigh!

Ok, that is my rant. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised about how people are toward their animals, look at how we are toward each other.

On a total aside: While I was reading about this and being all angry, Lee's lifesaver toy went under the coffee table. She was scratching the table to get it out. I don't like when she does this so I got up to move the table to get it out from her. In the process I managed to spill my full cup of tea. Lee was a big help. She licked the tea off the side of the table!