Pan Handling Will Be Us

First the fun stuff. My mom and I took Jake and PB to Magnuson Park today despite the blustery, fall conditions to take the dogs on a long walk by the lake and through the woods...and over the dell. It's a big park. But they had a great time. Baby was a little put out by the loads of wind surfers taking advantage of the weather but otherwise he did very well and has become quite fond of having Jakey with him. Jake, well he didn't know which way to go between the ducks, the birds, the rabbit smells, the lake etc. etc. His little head was about to spin right off. Here's the aftermath - two very tired dogs who slept all the way home:

Quit snapping photos and take us home for a nap.

Poor old Samson is just that - old. And his creaky bones don't do as well on long walks anymore. He is still recovering from his brief outing to Camano so he stayed home. He will come next time though and he and my hobbling dad who is due for a knee replacement can be invalids together.

Now, the reason for my soon to be second job as a pan handler. Samantha began coughing and breathing with a rattle today which seriously alarmed me. Enough so that I rushed her to the vet right before they closed. They reported that her previous in depth tests were still negative. She still has a fever and we thought she was quite bloated today on top of all her other complaints. The vet said she was afraid that it might indeed be feline infectious peritonitis which would require her to be put to sleep. Despite not having tested positive for FIP, she said she has known several cats who tested negative because the titer wasn't high enough at the time they were tested but the disease was there and eventually made itself known.

At the beginning of all this, I was quite stoic only because I know shelter kitties are not the healthiest of cats and because I had only had her a week. But now I have grown quite attached to her and Dexter and I can't imagine one without the other on top of the fact that whether it's a child or a baby animal, it just isn't right to see them die when they are this young. So I proceeded to lose all stoicism and cry all over poor Samantha in the exam room.

My vet along with all the other staff were quite upset as well as Dexter and Samantha are their newest favorites so we were a sad little pity party for a few moments. Despite all our reservations as to whether Samantha could be saved, I told them to do everything they had to do to help her and find out what she might have.

Dexter would be lost without his poor ever suffering victim. I mean sister.

So they took X rays and took a sample of abdominal fluid to try to see if she has FIP or pneumonia. To everyone's surprise, everything was completely normal. The reason she is so bloated is because she evidently had recently stuffed her little tiny face with food! There was no fluid in the abdomen indicating FIP. All good news except that it leaves us with no obvious answer other than she is clearly sick. So we started her on Panacur in case of worms or parasites even though her fecal was negative and she will have a 28 day course of an empirical antibiotic. If at that time, she is still not thriving, we will retest again for FIP to see if the titer has risen to an identifiable level. If not, there is little else to do. She has been tested with every available test they can do and the vet said she may simply be a rather delicate, sickly cat. I will just give her everything she needs and see what happens. So that is our latest kitten/how to become poor(er) in 3 short weeks saga.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch plants were being mutilated and chaos reigned. Apparently the polar bear is not a good kitty sitter.

Seafaring Dogs

Today we took the dogs to Camano Island State Park for a day at the beach. The weather turned out better than expected. Unfortunately the beach was a little harder on everyone's feet than it was at Boundary Bay due to the large rocks lining the shore. My mom brought her big camera and took great photos. She is far more skilled than I am.

Samson immediately heaved (hove?) himself into the water, Jake learned to body surf and Baby, well he wondered why the sudden fascination with water this week. It seemed like we would be sticking to a more standard dog event at first:

This is more up my alley.

This, not so much. Where's my field and sheep?

You didn't squeeze all the water out of my ear. I hope you have a Q tip in the car.

I wanted to bring home the starfish for the kittens to play with but my mom reminded me the "fragrance" would probably kill us all in short order.

Samson's flying ears and webbed feet are far more suited to the water.

Jakester needed some practice but finally got it down. Jakey is a little slow. But cute.

For example, he finally discovered the retriever part of him lurking in a kelp ball.

Jake only has room for one idea at a time in his pea brain. It quickly became kelp.

See?

But he was so proud of himself, we just let him keep on believin'.

Vet Bills 'R' Us

People, shelter/rescue animals are not cheap! But they are worth it. Our extensive visit to the vet on Monday revealed PB to be in excellent health other than his right rear leg which apparently suffers from patellar luxation which in English, means the kneecap dislocates on its own. This only occurs very intermittently and he has learned to slip it back into place on his own. Evidently this is common in small dogs but not as much in larger dogs. PB suffers from the same medical statistics as I do i.e. if it only happens to a tiny percent, it will happen to us.

It doesn't seem to cause him pain, just momentary discomfort until he slips it back. It can be caused by genetics but in his case, it was most likely an injury caused by the evil man who abused him and who makes us fervently hope karma exists. We took X rays to be sure and those revealed that there is also significant atrophy of the leg and some fluid and inflammation around his achilles tendon indicating tendonitis. I have suspected he is favoring it slightly and he tends to stand with the foot slightly askew. He will take a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory for a month and rest. Like he doesn't lounge on the sofa all day anyway! To wit:

Could you rearrange my down comforter? It slipped.

Hopefully that should take care of it. If it persists, I will be spending the remainder of my assets at the orthopaedic surgeon. Sigh. We substituted Camano Island for Whidbey as I have to return a kennel to the shelter from the kittens so the dogs, my parents and I will be making an outing of it tomorrow. The dogs must remain on leash but they have a lovely state park with beach, trail and everything in between for the dogs to roam in. Photos to come of course.

Now for the kittens - several hundreds of dollars later in blood tests, urinalysis etc. we discovered that *shock* Dexter is as healthy and robust as can be. However, Samantha is still ailing. She has had a prolonged high fever now for 10 days and while she eats, drinks and plays albeit briefly, she clearly is not thriving. She tires easily and has none of the energy you would expect of a kitten. This is the PB version of Samantha:

SHE tires easily???? They exhaust me!

I decided to have them tested for everything and to check Dexter as well for my own peace of mind. Her results are complicated. She is anemic, her bone marrow is not producing the red blood cells she needs and she has some blood in her urine. She tested negative for all the big, fatal diseases but some of these are also quite complex so there is still a possibility she has one of them. In short, additional, more complex blood work and urinalysis is needed to try to pin point why she is sick. If those tests are still negative or at least ambiguous, we will do full body X rays. If, at that point, nothing obvious is found, it may just be that she will never be in excellent health as a result of being a stray, her momma likely being malnourished etc. But it appears, at least, as though she has nothing fatal which was a distinct possibility until they called me back today with the lab results. In fact, Samantha has her own moments of devilishness when she can squeeze them in while Dexter is off duty. See?

It's all a big facade. I am going to take him down!

Have you taken out a second mortgage yet? hee hee! I'm worth it though, aren't I? Aren't I....hey, come back here!

Don't look at me. You brought them home.

For some reason, both kittens are obsessed with PB's feet. I don't even want to know why.

Dexter is just, well, obsessed period. He torments PB to no end. Like this.

Post PB tail attack. Dexter is looking to see if he got any response.

You can eat the poisonous plant or fall into my mouth. You choose.

I will be going back to work on light duty October 5th dear readers, which means I will actually have to organize my life and be slightly more productive than I am now! So that means less blogging, more slogging. But we will still post as time permits.

Boundaries

Today the Polar Bear and I headed up north to Tsawwassen in beautiful BC. There we explored Boundary Bay while visiting old friends. It was a gorgeous day....

Mt. Baker from the north west side.

The reunion. Also, Zyra spying my treat pouch.

Mom, it's getting deep. Did you bring my water wings?

We were a hard flock for PB to keep together and guard. Those seagulls are awfully threatening.

Daisy says, "Come ON already. Won't someone play with me?"

PB was reunited with his foster family who gave him so much over the 13 months they cared for him.

Scanning the far horizons like a good LGD.

Man to man. PB adores Dennis in his quiet PB way.

Letting his guard down to indulge in the zoomies.

It was well worth the drive for the scenery, the company and the new horizons for PB to explore. It's been a long time since he had other dogs to run with and chase and it made me smile all the way home.

And at home, peace reigned. Mostly because PB was too exhausted to care but whatever. We take what we can get!

We've been sleeping here all day momma. We have no idea what happened to the house...

Really. I swear I know nothing.

I'm pretty sure I can fit them both in at the same time...

Just kidding. Samantha makes me smile.

This orange one, though, is evil incarnate.


We must both plot against his evil ways...

To be continued....

Kittenzillas

Yesterday I dropped the polar bear off at the kennel for his overnight stay. It was worse than dropping your child off for their first day of kindergarten ( like I would know :) ). But as soon as we walked back into the kennel area, his tail came up, began wagging and he joyfully greeted Samson and Jakey as well as all the other dogs. We put him in a kennel next to Samson and he settled right in. He had a pair of boxers on his other side for company and I left him to his devices. I came home to a sadly empty house as I missed my boy immediately and I began counting down the hours til I picked him up this morning.

In the interlude, it took the kittenzillas no time at all to realize the big white paw was nowhere in sight and they could run rampant. See below! Due to my little point and shoot camera as well as my complete lack of skill with a camera, this is as good as I could do given that they rarely ever stopped moving. My arms look like they went through a wood chipper after multiple airborne attacks and the monsters kept if up for, no exaggeration, HOURS, while I tried in vain to finish my book. Samantha loves nothing more than to lie in my lap and purr. Her hellion brother however, likes nothing more than to disturb our peace by dive bombing, stalking and covert under blanket attacks. I am thinking of naming him Stalin!

Uh oh, he's preparing for another assault on us.

Seriously? Do you ever stop?

Samantha's new de rigueur position, just in case.

Moi? I am innocently reclining behind the curtains. Ignore my eyes.

Where is she mom? I know you're hiding her here somewhere...

You do not see me. You do not see me.

Samantha, about to get thumped.

I am *sick and tired* of your red headed temper!

I refuse to acknowledge your existence, even when you are sucking on my tail.

Mr. Prim and Proper, the picture of innocence.

Run Samantha, run!

Eventually he will sleep, and then he will be all mine. Heh heh heh.

Um, I think that's the polar bear's food. Put that back.

Alas, typical of Dexter, he somehow managed to cram the kibble from PB's busy buddy cube into his fat little mouth and chow down. As you may have noticed, he is a little porker and has quite the buddha belly on him. That does not however, seem to slow him down.

I picked up PB this morning and they said he did very well, ate his dinner which I had brought, slept quietly on his control unleashed mat which they said he loves and seems to offer him great comfort. He was taken out to say hi to Jake who was across the aisle and of course Samson was next door. Kathy was able to put a leash on him and bring him out to me. He began squeaking plaintively and licking my face as soon as he saw me and realized I had come back for him. I told him he is indeed, a baby and he was certainly no worse for the wear. He has been a little clingy since coming home, snuggling up to me on the sofa and following me around. We are still working on getting him to be a little more secure. He is especially jumpy today and I am hoping the DAP I ordered arrives as I think it will help take the edge off.

He has been wonderful with the kittens lately. I put them in the ex pen a couple days ago and kept him on a leash. We clicked and treated and he never got excited or amped up about them. Today I took their gate away and kept him on a leash while we went in to visit. He was very quiet and gentle, almost bored. I have left the gate off and PB on a drag line but the kittens are still hesitant to come out. A little more time and we'll be there I think.

Thanks to Zyra and her family for checking the field opening date. I only just noticed you posted it on a previous entry. We are looking forward to it!