The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

Current posts can be found here.

Friday, January 21, 2011

March 24, 2006 by s.z.


Thanks, Everyone


I really appreciate all the tips, sympathy, and support, everyone.  It's been a hard week, and your help and forbearance was greatly appreciated.. 

The good news is that I'm getting better at figuring out when Yodie needs to do his business.  (The sign on the wall now reads "2 days since our last accident.") 

I still have to walk him 6 or 7 times a day to avoid any mishaps, and what with that and the need to watch him whenever he's out of his crate, I am really tired all the time (I have a chronic medical condition, and I get tired pretty easy -- plus, Yodie is a challenge to walk, what with all the pulling, weaving, and efforts to fight crime by barking his head off at two-year-olds on trikes).  But at least I think he's learning.   I hope we can go longer between walks once the concept of not going in the house is firmly established in his little dog brain (and once he's finished trying to claim territory and furniture as his personal property via bodily waste).

Another ray of hope is that I am now crating him 2 or 3 times a day for an hour or two at a time.  Since he was crated or locked in the bathroom about 22 hours a day in his last home, I don't want to crate him more than necessary, but he seems to be handling the program so far -- and I think it is helping him to learn to "hold it" until it's walk time.  (He is good about spending the night in his crate as long as I'm up at the crack of dawn for that important morning walk). 

And I've signed him up for a beginning obedience class at PetSmart, and I'm hoping that will help.  If nothing else, it may teach him not to bark at every person he sees, and how to make friends with other dogs.  We start Wednesday.

As for Sheena, the news wasn't so good.  The vet said that her bladder problem seemed to be related to her failing kidneys, which had gotten a lot worse.  In an addition, her thyroid function was all out of whack, and she had developed a heart murmur.  The vet said that her symptoms might possibly be managed for a few more weeks or months by fluid therapy, thyroid medication, and antibiotics, but he couldn't give me any guarantees.  And since she would hate all the procedures (I still have scars on my hands from when I tried to brush her teeth), I decided that instead I would just let her go.  (The vet didn't try to make me feel guilty for this decision, which I really appreciated.)  So, he have her the injection of painkiller while I held her, and in just a minute or two she had peacefully passed on. 

Sheena was a rather cantankerous cat (she had a hard life before I adopted her), but she was with me for almost half my life, and I will miss her. 

Anyway, thanks again.  I hope the wingnuts didn't do anything too stupid while I was gone. (Just like puppies, they seem to pee all over the carpet whenever you're not watching them).

10:41:44 PM   

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