Roxie

Well I got Roxie well, no thanks to the world renowned Texas A&M Vet School.  I gave her left over Flagyl from Duncan when he last has a stomach problem.  Cleared her right up.  She is a cutie.  She is sassy.  Neither Honey nor Loki mess with her.  She is afraid of nothing.  And as soon as my son shows me how to get into my pictures on Linux, I will post pictures of Roxie and Loki.  But being the computer illiterate that I am, I don't know how to do this. 

Continunig with Roxie

So I start her with the panicure.  Absolutely no improvement.  I dig around in the animal's medicine chest and there is a bottle of antibiotics that the vet had given me for Duncan when he has his last bout with stomach bacteria.  I started Roxie on that and I had immediate improvement.  I finished with three days of that and she is her old self.  I will never, ever return to the Vet Clinic at Texas A&M.  It was an absolute rip off.  And I find that disgusting.  Fecal culture takes 15 minutes.  They left Roxie to suffer.  They wanted to keep her so they could give her iv fluids.  They were using my poor baby as a guinea pig.  They would have hooked her up to iv's and studied her.  This is beyond unethical.  Way beyond.  From now own I will drive the 30 miles to another vet that puts the animal first.  The state of Texas is out to cheat your eyeballs out and if they have to kill your pet to do so, they will. 

Roxie is so much better, but she is still going to go to her vet for a checkup.

Rough Christmas

Well, I had my usual Christmas.  I have gotten to where I really dread the Christmas season.  My family always has bad things happen then.  And this year was no different.  I came down with the flu the week, exactly a week, before Christmas day.  The day I came down with the flu, Roxie came down with a stomach bacteria.  She had such severe diarrhea.  Her little butt was so sore she screamed when she went to the bathroom.  I endured this trying without success to stop it.  Pumpkin.  Nope.  So I made her food.  Chicken and boiled white rice.  Nope.  So on Friday night, I was scared she had something in her intestinal tract.  I took her to the A&M Small Animal Clinic.  I got there at 8:30 PM.  I left at 2:45AM.  In that time, they first did a parvo test.  She has had two parvo shots since she came to me two months ago.  Of course it was negative.  She was examined.  The doctor thinks she has parasites.  I am argueing that nope, take an x-ray and if there is no obstruction in her intestinal tract, then she has a stomach virus or bacteria.  I want a fecal culture.  X-ray finally gets done.  There is nothing there.  But there is a spot the doctor is not sure of.  She wants the radiologist to read it.  I'm looking right at the x-ray.  There is nothing.  So ok have the radiologist read it.  Do a fecal culture.  Well, at 2:30, they bring me Roxie with 6 cans of prescription dog food, 5 packets of panicure and a bunch of packets of probiotics.  Probiotics do nothing.  And I am sent home with a $629.75 bill and she is still very sick. 

Mty herd

My daughter's dog is staying with me until Christmas.  He is basset hound, pit bull, staffordshire terrier and God knows what else.  He has a very long body and legs at about 8 inches.  And he is a sweetie.  Much sweeter than Roxie.  She is a small dog, 7 pounds, but she is a bully. She gets under Loki and bites his feet and he can't reach her.  She holds her own with Loki, my daughter's dog, and Honey.  If I were them, I would beat her up.  For a little dog, she is a brat. 

Roxie

Well Roxie has made herself at home.  She fits right in.  She is Honey's baby.  They play all the time and Honey actually gets tired of her sometimes.  I will hear growling and snarling and it is Roxie playing with Honey.  She has already marked her place in my bed.  She and Jock sleep on the bed with me.  Honey will not because the bed is high and it scares her.  However, she has no problem sleeping on my antique setee.  Thank goodness the upholstery is cotton velvet.  The cats cannot get their claws hooked in it so they leave it alone. 

This morning was a lovely morning, not to cold, so I spent the morning out in the yard doing some clean up, building a brush pile for the birds for winter, raking leaves and putting them in the vegetable beds, trimming roses.  It was nice.  And jock and Roxie stayed out with me.  They had a really good time exploring the yard, looking for skinks to tease.  Honey, on the other hand, was ready for inside after about an hour.  So I let her in and kept working.  My kiddos have a beautiful yard just for them.  I have no flower beds in their huge yard.  I just have grass and shrubs that they can hide in and play in.  I designed it just for them. 

Roxie is really healthy.  She does have congenital dry eye and I have to use meds on that and will always have to, but that is all the problems she has.  I feel really lucky that all three of them found me.  As soon as I learn to use Linux, I will post pictures of Roxie. 

I have been remiss

I have been remiss on posting.  We have a new puppy at our house.  A neighbor showed up around a month ago on a Sunday morning.  She rang my doorbell, she had a small poodle puppy on a leash and the puppy was covered with fleas.  Puppy is white.  So I took her.  I dropped her in the tub and washed her with Dawn, then wiped her down with Adams flea spray.  She has been to the vet, gotten her shots, and been spayed.  And she is Honey's karma.  Everything that Honey does to Baby to hurt him, Roxie does to Honey.She is a sweetie.  She is around 7 pounds, and totally white.  She is a sweetie.  Didn't even have to offer her my bed.  She just made herself at home. 

Lovely pets

I don't know why we refer to our four-legged family as pets.  They are every bit as much of our family as the two legged kind.  It has been so  hot here in my part of Texas that even Satin has left for Hell.  My Honey goes out in the morning, runs around the yard like a banshee, barks her head off, then comes inside for the day, sleeps most of the day away only to repeat her morning routine after 5pm.  She prefers around 7pm because the sun is usually not on my back yard by then.  And forget going out in the middle of the day.  Yep.  My farm dog is one spoiled dog.  She will not go out in rain, nor if it is too cold, and for sure if it is hot. 

Jock, on the other hand, loves to be out because he stays in the shrubs under the Burr Oak tree.  I have tons of Turk's Cap shrubs under there and he loved to pick the fruit from them. I have to make him come in.  But he is good for sleeping most of the day.  I don't like to let them out at night because they could stumble onto a snake and copperheads are out in the night.  So we make a trip to just off the patio and then I make them come in. 

I have rabbits in my yard.  Honey will chase them if they run.  If they just stay still, she will trip over them and never see them.  I also have visiting raccoons and possums.  I know this because all my pomgranites disappear before I can get them.  And I find them all over the yard, at least what the animals did not eat.  I don't use any poisons so I have lizards, ground snakes, toads, lots of toads, hummingbirds, cardinals, blue jay's and I have a resident hawk so I have to watch Jock close.  He only weighs 10 pounds and while a hawk cannot carry him off, that hawk could cause a lot of damage.  Oh and I have woodpeckers.  Love my wildlife.  Would love to be in the country, I would have a few goats, a couple of cows, ponies, and a donkey.  No people, though. 

Tiger likes to intimidate.

This is Honey after a long day of playing with Baby.  She is so hyper she wears out my son's 85 pound pitt bull in about 2 hours of play and she is not ready to stop.  He wants to come in because he knows I will keep her from niggling him.  When they leave, she goes to sleep and she will not move all night. 

I have new kittens

About 4 weeks ago, my granddaughter text me and asked if "we"can get two kittens.  A friend of hers had a litter of kittens ready for adoption.  There were 2 females and 2 males.  So I said yes and we would take the two females.  They are adorable.  And they fit right in with my other kiddos.  She named them Rumble and Tumble.  Rumble is the fearless one.  Tumble is more timid except with food.  She will growl at Rumble over food.  Tiger, my other cat, does not like them but then she does not like other cats at all.  She does not like dogs either.  She is a muted tortiseshell and has the personality to prove it.  But I still love her.  And I am still missing Duncan.  Every time I fix their food morning and night and only Jock and Honey are there, I feel like I need to go get Duncan.  It is hard.  So hard. 

My babies.

Well, it is official.  I am now the chef for my dogs.  I have been cooking for them and both of them are doing much, much better.  I use 2 pounds of turkey, two large organically grown sweet potatoes, boiled.  1 1pound bag of organic carrots. a large bunch of organic spinach.  1 chopped apple, and I throw in blueberries, about 8 ounces.  I boil all the vegetable, mash them, add the cooked turkey, chopped apple and blueberries.  And I have a very nutritious food for my babies.  I cook about twice a week.  And it is so much cheaper than the high dollar food that they were not tolerating anyway.  Even Jock, at 12, is playing like a puppy. 

Another continue

I have also discovered I cannot drink milk.  It has the effect of feeling like I poured acid down my throat when I drink it.  Even organic. I have an allergy to sulfa.  This came about when the fools called doctors put me on hydrochlorthiazide and kept me on it for 11 years.  I developed a severe allergy to sulfa.  To the point I have to be extremely careful what antibiotics I take.  Doc mentioned he wondered if it was in the cattle feed.  I researched it.  Yep.  Sulfur is in the cattle feed, hence my inability to drink milk, eat cheese, yogurt.  Have not tried the Irish butter, but I will.  We are killing our own bodies with pollutants and chemicals.  And we are too stupid to even know it. 

continued about allergies

Finishing up on Daisy.  They could not do surgery again.  So I left the vet's office around 10pm without Daisy.  I let her go.  I could not let her live in pain. 

Back up a little on Daisy.  I had allergy testing done.  That poor dog was allergic to everything including me.  She was allergic to grass, trees, all but one fish, pork, chicken, turkey, beef.  Oddly enough, not duck.  So I was cooking every few days for her. 

Jock came to me around 2009.  About 3 years ago, he developed a cough.  Off to the vet we went.  I was told it was allergies.  I declined the tests this time and just experimented with food.  I do know he does not tolerate chicken well.  But I could not stop the cough.  The vet guessed it was environmental.  So he is on antihystimines. 

Now to Honey.  Honey is a black mouth cure, a farm dog.  I found her out in the country in the middle of nowhere.  She had just been dumped and she was a really skinny 6 week old pup.  This was mid 2015.  Last year, she developed a rash on her stomach and got yeast infections in her ears.  She was scratching her skin off.  So off to the vet.  He told me to change food.  I did.  The one I was using was a chicken protein.  I changed to turkey, but it still contained chicken.  Still scratching.  So I went high dollar limited ingredient duck and lentil.  It cleared up but she was still scratching.  So I tried the fish and sweet potato. Same thing.  So now I cook.  Again.  And she is on antihystimines.  So we have also messed up our pets systems. 

Not the right place to post

This is not the right place to post this, but I am anyway. Actually, maybe it is the right place.  I have environmental allergies.  My sinus fill, my ears block, my lymph nodes swell, my head hurts, my back hurts and I have vertigo.  My point here is that I can pinpoint to the year that these problems started.  They started in 1967 when I was 17 years old.  I remember it.  We were driving home form a high school basketball game.  Daddy was driving and we had a bunch of kids in the car.  I kept feeling something dripping down the back of my throat.  I years later that it was sinus drainage.  I had never had it before, but have had it almost continually since.  I had 4 good years when we lived on the coast. I had no sinus infections, no allergies, nothing,  not even a cold.  We moved to Central Texas and the trouble began. 

Every fall in September, I would start to feel really bad.  I would feel like I was burning up with fever, but would actually be below normal.  I would go to the doctor, nothing.  They could find nothing.  I went to an allergist.  Paid for the testing and the only thing I was allergic to was the histamine they used as a control.  I did find a doctor that believed me and put me on a new drug called Seldine.  I felt great for the first time since moving to Central Texas.  But it did not stop the sinus infections.  I went to an ENT.  He went into my sinuses with a scope.  Nothing.  Nothing was out of the ordinary.  But I was and am still plagued with sinus infections almost constantly.  The doctor who had put me on the allergy med told me that his guess was that I had environmental allergies.  That the allergic reactions I was having were enhanced by all the pollutants in the air.  Well, they have only gotten worse and I have paid for allergy testing 4 times and every time the same-no allergies.  So I deal with it until it percolates into a bacterial infection.  They I take antibiotics to bring it back in control.  The point of all this is that, in my experience and opinion, all this is caused by all the pollutants that were, are and still being pumped into the atmosphere.  We are destroying our own species and are too stupid to realize it.  Which brings me to why I feel free to post this on my blog about my pet.  Daisy.  Daisy was my Doberman foundling.  She showed up in my son's driveway at about 5 months old.  He fed her, she was starving.  After about a month, he decided that she was his.  So he brought her to me to take her to get  spayed.  He has already gotten her shots.  I took her for spaying and they told me she had severe hip dysplasia in both hips.  So after she recovered from the spay, we did surgery on the worst hip. It was so severe they had to put a bar inside and a stabilizer bar on the outside. Fast forward about 5 years. She was not eating and when she did she would throw up.  She was in pain.  I took her in at 6:30 one night.  My vet told me that the suspected arthritis in her spine.  He did x-rays.  He was right.

My babies

 This is Jock and Picasso shortly before I lost him.  They were good buds. But then, Picasso got along with every dog or cat that came into the house.  At his prime, he weighed 19 pounds.  When he started failing, he weighed 9 pounds.  He was 20 when he died. 

Notice how difficult it is to see Jock on his bed.  Actually this is Honey's bed,  but she only uses it at night and when my grandson is not here.  She sleeps with my grandson when he is here.  

When Honey sleeps on the futon, she has to have a pillow.  If she does not have one, she will pull one off the bed and bring it to the futon.  I have pillows on the couch and she loves them. 

1 month

It has been a month since I lost Duncan.  It hurts no less.  I still look for him when I come home.  I still have the urge to go check his bed and see if he is there.  I still find myself getting his bowl when it is time to feed them.  I still roll over and pat Jock and look for Duncan at night.  Honey won't sleep on my bed.  She hates heights and I have an old fashioned bed.  Jock always waits for me to put him on the bed and when he wakes up, he starts nudging me with his head to get up and put him down.  It takes me a long, long time to recover when I lose a fur baby.  I still miss Abby and she has been gone 5 years.  I miss Max and he has been gone 10 years.  Without them, life would not be very much fun.  Without them, I don't think I could have survived all that has happened in my life.  Rest in Peace, Duncan.  I am a believer.  They will all be waiting for me.

My babies.

 These are some of the last pictures of my Duncan.  I lost him last month.  He loved to sleep on this bed.  Notice how I fixed the barriers to keep him from wandering off the bed.  He was blind and deaf.  Most times he would bark for me to come and get him off the bed.  He fell off the bed once and that was because I did not have the body pillow along the side at night.  After the fall, I always had that pillow there.  I miss him so much.  He had a miserable first half of his life, but I made sure that the last half was wonderful. Rest in peace Duncan. 

rough week

Last week was a really rough week.  I lost Duncan on the 18th.  Then I lost Picasso on the 21st.  I don't know how old Duncan was, but he had been with me for 8 1/2 years.  He was not comfortable and he had arthritis. He had had a stroke.  When it became quanity over quality, I let him go and it hurt like hell.  I am still crying. 

Picasso was 20.  He was born at my house on my bed.  He quit eating and drinking, so I let him go.  I did not sleep for about a week and I am still catching up.  For the first time in my adult life, I only have 2 dogs and 1 cat.  It sure is lonesome at my house now.  It is never easy to let them go.  I will look for and listen for them for a long time. 

Dog food and the pet deaths

I have a cousin that lost her little dog because of Hill's Science Diet.  She took the vet's word that it was good food and did not do any research on it.  Hill's along with Blue Buffalo and a host of others is made by a third party.  Hill's and Blue Buffalo are marketing companies.  They do not manufacture their food so there is no quality control.  the way it was explained to me by someone from A&M Vet school, is that the marketing company goes to the manufacturer and tells them what ingredients they want in the food and what to put on the label.  It is up to the manufacturer to either follow those instructions or not and they can add anything they want and not have to add it to the label.  So the marketing company has no idea what is really in that pet food.  Remember the problem with the melimine in the food?  That company, Menu foods, made dog food for around 9 companies.  So all those companies were involved in that mess.  And there is a catch 22 when they get caught.  Well, we didn't make the food, so this is not on us.  It is on the manufacturer.  The manufacturer says it  is on the suppliers because we bought in good faith.  People, research your pet food.  It does not take a rocket scientist to do that.  Save your pet's life by just using google.  And never, ever ask a vet to recommend a pet food.  They will recommend the ones that they are paid to recommend.  That's why all the vets push Hill's science diet.  Look at the back of the sack.  If it does not say "manufactured by company name" then it is made by a third and 4 party.  Companies that manufacture their own food state that on the sack.  Manufactured by will definitely be on there.  And you can always make your own. 

Life at my house

Duncan is probably going to have to go before summer.  Sometimes he is in a lot of pain.  And he now has seizures.  I will so hate to lose him.  He is such a sweetie.  Even though he is blind and deaf, he makes his way through the house to the back door and barks to be taken out.  It really hurts to lose one.  Every one takes a piece of my heart with him or her. 

My sweeties

Duncan is still doing ok.  He is blind and deaf.  He barks for me when he wants me.  I leave him with the run of the house.  He will get in a corner and just wait for me to come find him.  He gets scared.  I would too if I could not see nor hear.  He loves to be touched so I hold him a lot.  He sleeps on my bed near my head.  He goes out and wanders around the yard.  There is nothing in their yard that he can get hurt on.  So he likes to just wander around and sniff things.  I have to always be with them because we have hawks in the neighborhood.  They could hurt Jock bad, but they could actually snatch Duncan.  So I keep a good lookout. 

Picasso is still with me and driving me nuts.  He will be 19 the first of May if he makes it that long.  And he will eat a canned food once and refuse it the next time.  So I waste a lot on cat food and trying to find him what he will eat.  Love my babies.