Dogged Blog

It's a Gas

I blog pretty regularly over at Nancy Campbell RVT's Vet Techs blog, mostly about veterinary drugs, although now and then some other topic in veterinary medicine that I feel strongly about triggers a post.

Nancy, who has special training and certification in veterinary dentistry, has just begun a series on pet dental health, which is a good companion piece to the entry that started this blog out, Of Carnivores, Omnivores, Teeth, and Science. As an adjunct to her series, I blogged a bit about a common and dangerous anesthesia practice, often thought to be a safer alternative: "Masking" or "gassing" the pet down instead of using injectable anesthetic agents before intubating and using gas to maintain anesthesia.

Most of our dogs and cats have dental disease by the age of three. This is primarily because we feed them inappropriate diets, but even if we choose to continue to do so, we can prevent much of this disease (which itself can lead to kidney and heart disease, and possibly even arthritis, in our pets later on) by brushing their teeth daily if we can, and getting professional dental care for them. The necessity of anesthetizing our pets to adequately and correctly clean and polish their teeth makes most of us scared to death to do this often enough, and we frequently put it off, sometimes for years, while their gingivitis progresses to periodontal disease. This condition is not only dangerous, it's hellishly painful.

Making sure you work with trained, competent, and up-to-date veterinary professionals who understand anesthesia should remove nearly all the risk of getting regular dentistries. As Nancy explains so clearly, "cosmetic" cleanings such as those that can be done without anesthesia make the teeth look prettier and make us feel better, but do nothing to reduce the risk of oral disease and can actually make tartar come back more quickly than it would otherwise form.

If you have dogs or cats, no matter what you feed them, take good care of their mouths and find a veterinary practice that does state-of-the-art dentistry and anesthesia. It can add years to your pet's lifespan, and dramatically improve the quality of life of those years, too. If you've ever had a toothache, please think twice before deciding that anesthesia is more risky than just ignoring that stinking mess in your pet's mouth. In competent hands, the opposite is true.

And Sadder Still

Less than 36 hours after Samson died, my 15 year old cat Daphne joined him.

I don't know what the truth is of life after death, but I choose to picture them young and happy and well again, curled in the sun sleeping and sniffing heavenly fields of catnip, with angels to serve as their devoted servants until I can get there to resume my duties, and Daphne's first dad, my friend Mark, happily reunited with her at last. I promised him when he was dying that I would always take care of her, and I did.

However wonderful where they are might be, things here are sadder than I can bear. A house without cats, for the first time since I was born.

Sorry Again, Again

I'm not really a pit bull person, but I did foster a pit bull mix named Lita for a while, until finding her a truly wonderful home. (I've blogged about her before here.)

With my piss-poor graphics skills I wasn't sure if I could do it at all, and I didn't do it well, but Lita's photo with a quote about pit bulls by author Vicki Hearne is part of the "Sorry Again" website about breed specific legislation. We're on page 218, the last picture on the page.

Gina Spadafori has also blogged about the "Sorry Again" website and BSL over on Dogma and also on the blog she's editing for The Bark magazine. Both very much worth checking out.

[UPDATE:] My friend KT took pity on me and cleaned up the text section of the image I sent to Sorry Again. So what you see will look considerably better than the first version, although nowhere near as good as it would have had I asked KT to do it for me in the first place.

The Saddest Kind of Cat Blogging

Samson's first owners got rid of him when they got a new Golden Retriever puppy. The two pets didn't get along, and since the puppy was the exciting new addition to the family, Samson got the boot. He was headed for the shelter when a family friend took him in.

After several years, circumstances led the family friend to find a new home for the cat, and Samson came to me. He was 15 years old, with failing kidneys and a sweet, loving disposition. His long black hair was greasy and full of flakes, and caked with poop and matts all around his rear end. He was too sick to groom himself, and his eyes were dull and sad. His teeth were rotted and he had advanced periodontal disease. After oral surgery and the removal of most of his teeth (the dentist said he had ten years of neglected dental disease), the help of a professional groomer, a change to a homemade diet for cats with kidney problems, subcutaneous fluids twice a week, and some special supplements from his holistic vet to help his kidneys, Samson became fluffy, happy, and healthy.

He bonded deeply to my cat Daphne, and even on the warmest nights you would find them sleeping curled up into a little ball together. They groomed each other and he put up with her bossy ways. He loved to sit on my lap when I read or watched TV, and he particularly liked to spend time out in his cat enclosure overlooking the creek, watching birds and napping in the sun.

Samson found his forever home the third time around, with me. And today his tired old kidneys finally shut all the way down, and we sent him where good cats go.

Sorry For Being a Pit Bull

Breed specific legislation is bad law. But more than that, it's breaking my heart.  I have to bet it will break yours too... I lasted to about number 12. How far can you get?

You Know, Toto, Kansas is Looking Really Good Right Now

I wrote a while back about a case in Kansas where a teenaged boy was sentenced to 17 years in prison for having sex with another, younger teenaged boy, an offense that would have drawn only a few months had it been between a boy and a girl. That sounded terrible to me and I still believe it is, but today I read about something so much worse I don't even know what to say about it.

From Travis:

The short version is that two teenagers in Iran were hanged for having homosexual sex with each other, and possibly a 13 year old boy, which is somewhat ambiguous as to whether it was consensual with the 13 year old boy or rape. The two condemned teenagers were held in jail for 14 months, and lashed 228 times.

The full story is on Planet Out. Photos and a different account at Direland (upsetting images), via Ampersand at Alas, a Blog.

I believe, I believe, it's stupid but I believe

Gil is taking me to task over in my comments section about my disapproval of Roberts being elevated to the Supreme Court after being a judge for only two years. All things considered that's a pretty mild objection on my part, and I stand by it. (Of course, given that the president himself had absolutely no qualifications for the job before he stole it, it's not like I would expect that to matter to him.)

What Gil might really be reacting to, rather than my tepid criticism of Roberts, is that my underlying problem with this nomination is not that he lacks experience, nor his judicial record or beliefs, or even  his conservatism. No, it's  the profound mistrust I have of the guy who appointed him. And you know, I'm sick of feeling that way.

I hate having a president I so utterly despise and mistrust, so much so that if he handed me a gift-wrapped box I'd call the bomb squad instead of opening it. And that is, I'm afraid, how I'd feel about anyone he nominated to the Court, that anyone W would want to appoint is definitely someone who has gone over to the Dark Side, no matter how virtuous they appeared at first glance. So much so, that when I felt a stirring of hopefulness after reading some blogging on this over at Next Hurrah, my first reaction was to suppress it. So in the hope of relieving just a bit of my aching cynicism:

All accounts of Roberts are that personally he's a very decent man. Courteous, well-respected, a devout Catholic, hard-working, solicitous of others' opinions, and warm toward those with whom he disagrees.  In short, personally he's described as rather like Justice Anthony Kennedy.  It's probably hoping for too much for a George W. Bush appointee to the court to not be a rightwing lunatic.  And as I said, I'm not convinced that Roberts isn't a winger.  But the lack of anger is a sign that maybe, just maybe, he's a man capable of stepping out of his own angry perspective and exercising the empathy and moral imagination that one would hope from a member of the United States Supreme Court.

I really want to keep the good thought here, but I don't blame myself for my cynicism. Bush came into office with blood on his hands and has done nothing since but more of the same, on a bigger and uglier scale. He's earned my disrespect and mistrust a thousand times over.

But the truth is,  I do want to be an idealist and not a cynic. I swear I do. I don't think just because someone is a conservative they are evil or  wrong. I can live with genuine conservatism. What I can't live with is right wing extremism, reactionarism, and mean-spiritedness.

So I'll try, for Gil and the folks at Next Hurrah, to be objective on Roberts, to consider the possibility that he's a conservative and not a right wing ideologue. I am not saying I'll swallow the Kool-aid, but maybe tonight before I go to bed I'll recite a few minutes of  "I believe, I believe, it's stupid but I believe."

Unless I happen to watch the news in the meantime, and get angry all over again.

No Experience Required

There's a lot to say about John G. Roberts, the Bush nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, but since every other progressive blog on the planet is saying it right now, I am only going to ask one thing: TWO YEARS?

This guy has been a judge for only TWO YEARS and Bush wants him on the SUPREME COURT?

I wouldn't let a vet who'd been a vet for only two years treat my dog. I mean. TWO YEARS?

How low can the bar get in this administration?

Three Legged Dog Blogging

I've been taking Raven, my dog with osteosarcoma who had her left rear leg amputated a month ago, out with the senior dogs for her morning walks, as she's been nervous around the young dogs. Friday morning I stupidly forgot to shut the gate to the potty yard when I took her back in, and went to get the youngsters for THEIR longer and more vigorous walk.

Raven trotted out to join us and, for a couple of minutes, bounced around and played with Rebel and Kyrie. When they started to roughhouse, she came and stood by me, and I put a dog bed from the car down on the ground. She lay next to me but watched them the whole time as they ran, and I could tell she was thinking about it.

She's run a number of times, but alone. That was  the first time she's done anything but freeze when someone tried to play with her.

This morning, I took a chance and we all went out on one big walk together. She ran with Rebel, albeit only for a minute or so. She then came on the entire walk with us, and at the end of it - raced with Kyrie for the dog door.

Veterinary oncologist Dr. Greg Ogilvie asked me to videotape Raven running and playing so he can show it to his patients who think amputating a dog's leg is cruel or impossible for big dogs. As soon as the shaved area on her hip has grown back in a bit more, I'm going to do that, and will post it here as well. But for now, this is a photo my friend Gina Spadafori took of her this weekend in my front garden.

If you have come across this post because you're searching for information on osteosarcoma and amputation in dogs, I hope you won't let your own natural reluctance to have your dog's leg removed stop you from doing what is best for the dog. Before she even had her stitches out, Raven was running and using the stairs. I don't know how our battle with osteosarcoma will turn out, but the amputation part of it has been a huge success.

The Culture Wars

Now that the right has control of the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, and is about to close its grip on the judiciary, they only have one remaining target for takeover: our brains.

Er, I mean, you know... culture. The media. Movies. TV.

It isn't that I don't think culture matters or that cultural influences can't be important. It's that I think the whole thing is a big fat distraction. Yeah, let's worry about sex and violence on TV. Just don't look behind the curtain and see Karl Rove at the control module.

Seems my favorite media god, Jon Stewart, thinks so too ... he had Bernard Goldberg, the author of the vile 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, on his show the other day. My friend Gina and I got together this weekend and tripped all over each other recounting our favorite zingers from the episode where Jon takes him down. All the way down. Like this:

Bernard Goldberg: Once upon a time... a drunk in a bar wouldn't use the F-word. Now... Chevy Chase goes to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, at a gala where people are wearing gowns and tuxedoes, and calls the president of the United States a dumb-blank.

John Stewart: And once upon a time, Thomas Jefferson fucked slaves.

I guess what I'm saying is yes, Chevy Chase used a bad word on TV .... but segregation no longer exists, slavery is gone. That's REAL culture and REAL vulgarity. This is just words.

Calling the culture war a "fake," Stewart went on to say:

Most everybody that I see in your book is powerless. I think there's a larger issue of people in power creating problems, not Barbra Streisand on her blog.... So much focus is on culture and so little on government and the real seats of power.... So much concern is focused on this elitist culture of Hollywood.... but in Washington they are really controlling and changing people's lives and focus should be on them.... I wish smart guys like you spent less time worrying about Barbra Stresiand and more time worrying about Richard Perle and Karl Rove.

One of Stewarts finest moments. If you missed it, watch it now.