Journey at VCA NW Veterinary Specialists
"Mom thought I had an emergency, but I was just bored".
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2016.
Six days after surgery. It seems longer. Some improvements have been pretty consistent in the last several days. Journey is gradually getting his appetite back, a little bit at a time. He is drinking a little more water every day. His appetite is better in the morning, whereas it was normally best at the evening meal. He does not have much interest in his kibble which was about 50 to 60% of his meals. I have changed his meals to contain more things that he is super fond of and even different things he has not had for a while. It is working and he is getting more interested in eating. Breakfast this morning almost tempted me. I fried chicken hearts in some coconut oil. Then I diced up a giant apple off of our top tree - so good and sweet. I placed the apple in the same pan with the coconut oil and sautéed them until tender. I placed a small amount of kibble in Journey's pan and poured the diced apples & chicken hearts over the kibble. I added some cottage cheese and some chicken broth and stirred it . He thought it was one of the best things I have made in a long time. So did the other dogs. They had the same thing, but with their normal amount of kibble.
On Tuesday, the 23rd, I realized I really needed to go into town for a few things. I probably could have lasted a few more days, but I heard there was another heat wave due on Wednesday, so it seemed I should get down there as soon as possible. I also had a prescription I needed to drop off at the pharmacy. I did not feel comfortable leaving Journey home, so he went with me. We are getting good at loading him. It was only in the low 70's and with the gate across the hatch opening, I am able to leave the hatch door up. As long as I park in the shade, it is not too hot at that temperature. I dropped off the prescription at the drive through.
Pirate and Andiamo had to stay home again and they are sure getting tired of it. Normally they all go, or if I don't have room for that I alternate who gets to go. Our next stop was Winco for groceries I needed. I found a completely shaded spot in the far back corner of the parking lot. I opened all the windows, left the hatch lid up and filled up the water bowls. It was a long walk to the store front, but worth it knowing Journey would be comfortable. I made the shopping trip as fast as I could and got back to the car. Next we went back to the pharmacy for the prescription.
We have had some interesting experiences getting prescriptions at Walmart. Although they advertise that they carry prescriptions for pets now, it seems someone forgot to explain that to the clerks at the pharmacy counter. Out first amusing experience was with one of Pirate's prescriptions.
Clerk: "What is the patient's name?"
Me: "Pirate"
Clerk: "Date of birth?"
Me: "June 8, 2007, I believe that year is correct?"
Clerk: "You don't know?"
Me: "Not positive, but I think that is it. I have three and I remember the month and day, but sometimes forget the year.".
Clerk: "Can you spell the name?"
Me: "P-i-r-a-t-e"
Clerk: "We don't have that birthdate".
Me: "What year do you have?"
Clerk: "I am not allowed to give out that information".
Me: "Well just change it to 2007 because I just figured it out for sure and that is it."
(She was not happy with that answer, but I think she did it.)
Then I asked her if she could be sure and put the pills in an easy open top bottle.
Clerk: "I would need the patient's signature for that."
Me: "I will sign for him. He doesn't sign things. Same reason he needs the easy open bottles. He doesn't have thumbs. If he opened the bottle with his own method, he might eat all the pills at once."
I thought that was funny and felt sure she would think so too if she thought about it a little. Either she didn't think about it or she just did not think it was funny. Her gaze at me never changed, she just gave me the same cold stare that she first gave me when I said I was not sure of his birth year. I was beginning to think she was horrified at what a horrible mother I am.
She went back to the baggies hanging on the rack and found ours. But instead of giving it to me she took it to the little 3 sided booth area and told me to step over there and wait for the pharmacist. I did that and began to think of how really funny I thought it was and amused myself with ideas of how to respond to any more questions.
The pharmacist had apparently been listening to some of the conversation because she, unlike the clerk, was completely amused. She even kind of kept it going by saying, "has the patient taken this medication before?"
Me: "Yes"
Pharmacist: "Then you are probably aware of the dosage and instructions"
Me: "Yes we are". (The 'we' got a smile.) I can bring him in if you want to ask him.
Pharmacist: "That won't be necessary". We were both aware of the clerk listening to our conversation.
What fun! I noticed that the package said K-9 on it, but I guess the clerk did not see it or know what it meant. Who knows. It was funny anyway.
I believe that this clerk was the same one who had helped me with Pirate's prescription. This time I was prepared with the year of birth. She asked me the name: "Journey" and she also verified that he was a dog! She looked through the little drive thru screen and spotted Journey in the back of my car. She asked, "Is that Journey". I was tempted to tell her it was Pirate just to make it more interesting, but I just said yes it was Journey. The clerk was a little friendlier this time. And I was delighted to see two pharmacists leaning from behind the little half wall, looking at Journey, and smiling a lot. I suspect that someone or two of them had given her some teasing about being aware of "K-9" on a prescription.
Next we went home and I walked Journey before putting him in his gazebo. He was tired and so was I.
We all took a nap. I fixed dinner after cooking a huge batch of 'Shepherd Pie'. By the time it cooked, cooled off and was all cut and placed in individual servings in sandwich baggies to be frozen, it was about 4:30 in the morning. I decided I did not want to take Journey outside for a walk in the large part of the yard. I could not manage the stairs from the deck, with him in the sling, so I decided to take him into the small dog yard via going through the pool house.
When I stood at the gate leading from the entry area to the pool, I saw an amazing thing. It was nearing sunrise and I saw some "birds" that I thought were outside the pool house windows. They flew like swallows only maybe even faster. They were black and seemed a little larger than swallows. I did not open the gate to the pool. We all just stood there a minute or so until my eyes grew used to the darkness. I then realized the 'birds' were actually in the pool house. I also realized, about the same time, that they were not birds. They were bats. We went back through the garage into the house and went out the front door to walk in the large part of the yard.
I know bats are not supposed to run into you, but these bats seemed to be kind of reckless flyers and I did not trust them. The pool house has an open beamed ceiling and it is funny that I have spent a lot of time in that pool house and I have actually looked in the rafters, wondering if there could be bats in there. I have lived here since 2006 and have never seen a bat in the pool house. I also realized to the best of my knowledge I had never gone in the pool house at 5:00 AM before. (Nor will I be going in the pool house at 5:00 AM again!)
My daughter, after hearing my story, sent me an article "Living with Wildlife". It is about 8 pages of information about, and pictures of bats. They are hard for me to like, but I did realize that something had happened with the mosquitos we were experiencing in the spring. I tried to concentrate on the following sentence: "Bats are highly beneficial to people, and the advantages of having them around far outweigh any problems you might have with them." Okay, I am going to try!
The article also said that a bat may consume its body weight in insects each night during the summer. (Yes!) Less than one bat in 20,000 has rabies, and no Washington bats feed on blood. I still would not prefer having bats in the pool house, but if I only see them once in 10 years, maybe I can live with that. There are three other ways to get to the dog yard. I will be using one of those ways if I ever need to go there at that time in the morning.
We all went back to bed after the walk and slept in a little. It was a wild 24 hours. I don't need to shop for a while and Journey is doing so well. He is eating well, taking care of all his outside functions, and getting better every day. He is placing his foot much better. We are spending more time outside now. Under the apple trees is our favorite spot. I even tied Journey to a tree while I picked up some apples. The deer are no longer coming in our yard to eat them as much, as I guess they are disturbed by the odd hours we are keeping, and the unexpected trips outside.
I need some more lighting put up on the edge of the RV garage and maybe on the southeast end of the house. It is very dark outside some of the time when Journey needs to go out. I think as his eating becomes more regular, so will his other functions and we can better plan our walks. However it will also soon begin to get dark earlier. Since we have been walking at odd times in the middle of the night, I am not letting Andi or Pirate go out with us. Pirate thinks it is exciting and he sets of barking full time as he races Andi around the yard. That sets off other dogs in the vicinity and I doubt if the neighbors enjoy that. So that leaves just Journey and me out in the dark alone. We have mountain lions here, and bear. I have only seen one bear on our property and I have never seen a mountain lion here ..... but I had never seen a bat in the pool house either. Since I don't want to sing, or rattle a can of rocks, I would like a little more lighting.
Well, that is about it for now. More in a day or so.
