Dogged Blog

Caregiver stress affects pet owners, too

I’ve been lost in a haze of caring for a sick dog since Sunday — hence the silence. Sleep deprivation, worry, and anger don’t lend themselves to a lot of time and energy to blog, although I did manage to get off a rant or two about the craptastic experience we had at our local vet ER/specialty practice on Facebook. I’m talking with them about it, and hope to come to a good resolution, but either way, I’ll be blogging about it later.

The sickala (this is a term of endearment my mom and I used to use for our sick pets, and silly as it is, it’s stuck with me) is, for the second time since I adopted her last fall, Val, my 9-year-old Greyhound. Last time she had lepto, with severe liver symptoms. This time it seems to be her urinary tract, either an infection or stones or kidney disease of some kind.

As Gina’s written, there are so many times when being “hooked up” with the veterinary world is worth more than the salaries we get for the work we do. I’ve had the advantage of some of the best, most caring advice from some of the top vets in the country. That, coupled with the care of my regular vet, who I like more every time I talk to him, and my own absolute determination to protect and care for Val in every way possible, more than outweigh the bad start we got at the ER.

All that said, right now I’m sitting in my local Starbucks, taking a little break from Val’s intense neediness. When you live alone, and especially when you’re in a new place where you have few friends, none really close by, and no family, caregiving can become overwhelming.

And now the part I’m leading up to: Caring for Val is triggering my memories of caring for my mother when she was dying. (Those who think comparing my mother to a dog is insulting can leave now; I assure you, my mother would have welcomed it.)

Like my mom, Val has to get up to pee every couple of hours, all night long. I’ve actually got my bed covered with my mom’s quilted, washable incontinence blankets. And while the sleep deprivation is only a few days old, the memories of the months of it I went through while my mom was dying are crowding into my mind all the time.

I needed a break. I’m not good at taking breaks, not from work or caregiving. But if my experience of losing my mother, and the hell of workaholism I got trapped in afterward, have taught me anything, it’s that if I don’t put myself first, I won’t be any good to anyone else.

Hence, Starbucks, where someone else made my coffee, and everything is clean and cool and impersonal, which will hopefully give me the serenity I need to go back home and take care of my girl.

We’re heading for Michigan State University for a comprehensive work-up to get to the bottom of her condition on July 10. I think we can manage until then, as long as she keeps improving or at least, doesn’t get worse, and I remember to care for myself half as well as I care for my dogs.

Wish us luck!

Note: This was originally posted at HonestDog.com. Please click below to read the original comments to the post.

On Father's Day 2012

My father and I have had our ups and downs over the decades, and I may never forgive him for the whole ear thing, but I will always be grateful for the way he nurtured my love of science as a child, and not only encouraged me to be whatever I wanted to be when I grew up,  but never even acknowledged the existence of any alternative. Considering I was born in 1959 and all the other little girls grew up thinking marriage was a career, that's kind of awesome.

Thanks, Dad, and Happy Father's Day!

Why I outsourced my pooper-scooping

I don’t pick up my dogs’ poop.

No, we don’t live hip-deep in dog doo. Nor have my dogs learned to use the toilet.

As a new resident of Michigan, I had my first experience with scooping in freezing temperatures this winter, and it will come as no shock to my fellow Midwesterners that I didn’t like it much.

I had assumed that frozen poops would be easier, not harder, to scoop. I was wrong. You see, for those, like me, from warmer climes, fresh poop is warm. That means it melts the ice or snow on which it falls, and then that slowly re-freezes into something of which I believe the technical name is “permafrost.” Or “permapoop.” Either way, after actually snapping my scooper in half while trying to hack at a hunk of poopsicle, I gave up.

I went to Google, typed in “pooper scooper service in Michigan,” and discovered The Pet Butler. I phoned them and learned that yes, they do service my town (not a done deal, since I’ve had trouble finding just about every service you can think of, despite what seems to me to be a pretty convenient location less an hour or less from three major cities — Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Flint. But I digress). I signed up.

Joel, who owns the local Pet Butler franchise, turned out to be a dedicated small business guy and true dog lover. Rawley in particular worships him, and while I do lock the dogs in the house when Joel gets here, once or twice I’ve gone out with the dogs to talk to him and I have to say, his skillz at going through a gate without letting even one needle-nosed sighthound go with him are really quite mad.

And how many businesses can you say the following about: Never late. Never done a bad job. Never not come, despite rain, sleet, hail, snow, and mosquitoes, which in Michigan is the same as saying “gigantic bloodsucking forces of pure evil.”

I really only meant to use The Pet Butler until it warmed up, but unless my personal economy collapses, I’m a customer for life.

And no, they don’t come every day. I’m on the twice-weekly plan, and yes, I lied in the beginning of this post. I still scoop. But it’s awesome knowing if I get sick, or it’s 4 degrees out, I don’t have to scoop.

Because of all the things I love about dogs,  scooping? Not one of them.

Note: Originally posted at HonestDog.com. Click below to read the comments on the original post.

San Francisco Bay Area: Adopt a pet this weekend -- free!

Hey, San Francisco Bay Area! It's time for Maddie's Matchmaker Adoptathon, being held at 80 different locations in San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties. And that means loving people can adopt dogs and cats for free all weekend long!

More than 60 shelters and rescue groups will be participating, and Maddie's Fund will pick up the adoption fees. In addition, they'll donate between $500 and $2,000 for every pet adopted during the event on June 9 and 10, with the higher amounts going for the adoptions of senior pets and/or those with certain specific health issues.

This is the third year I'll have worked on this event, helping with blog outreach and social media. I'll be covering it live all weekend, both on the Maddie's Matchmaker Adoptathon Facebook page and on #maddiesmatch on Twitter.

So if you or someone you know in the Bay Area is looking for a new dog or cat, by adopting through this event you'll not only save a life but save yourself some bucks and earn a donation to the groups that work so hard to find homes for pets all year round.

And that's my feel-good story of the month!

Photo: Heidi, a deaf and blind 17-year-old who was adopted at the 2011 Adoptathon.

Wisconsin, are you people out of your freaking minds?

Really, Wisconsin? Every idiot who voted for Walker and who isn't a bazillionaire needs to read this book. Ignore the publication date (2004) and the name of the state in the title; nothing has changed, and middle America is middle America, it seems.

From the LA Times review:

Why do so many of us vote against our economic interests? Where’s the outrage at corporate manipulators? And whatever happened to middle-American progressivism? The questions are urgent as well as provocative.

[...]

A brilliant analysis—and funny to boot—What’s the Matter with Kansas? presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People.

D

Honest Dog: What do ‘greedy vet’ reviews on Yelp tell you?

Decision made: I'm going to keep this as my main blog, add a category specficially for writing about social media and communications for shelters, rescue groups, and animal welfare organizations, and blog about pet issues on HonestDog while still blogging here about my own experiences with dogs, and linking to stuff I write elsewhere like I used to do before life distracted me.

And with that, my most recent post on Honest Dog:

‘Greedy vet’ reviews on Yelp: What do they mean?

Thanks to everyone for your input!