Pets of the expanse!

[pigfarmer]

I am going to get up in a couple minutes and slice up some car dick for The Lads. It's much easier for me to dole out appropriate portions and we have zero waste. They each get a bowl of wet and a bowl of dry and every last bit of it is gone before the next meal - and the right cat ate it. No idea how long this'll last but I'm going with it.

IDK what this costs honestly but since they're actually eating it that has to be more cost effective than tossing one can of food after another that they turn their noses up at.

Cats can be next level frustration but I wouldn't trade it for anything. Agent Orange in literally siting at my fingertips right now purring his fuzzy guts out

 

[pigfarmer]

Frank the Orange does all the second story work. He's the one that gets on top of everything - wall mounted TVs, rifle racks, you name it.

I have a metal box from a 1960s Dutch chemical warfare kit of some sort that I keep up on a bookcase. I toss my wallet, car keys, watch etc in it at the end of the day. My wedding band sits in it's own box that does not have a lid.

It's totally MIA. I know it was there last night.

Now then, I have had some weird things go missing and then just show up again. Not my imagination, these are truly weird small personal things and my wedding band would not surprise me.

Frank got my uncle's JI Case retirement pin too one day when I left it unattended for a quarter of a second. The good news is they're still in the house here and will eventually surface - unless they went out through their box of sandy secrets and I didn't notice.

But somehow I suspect this is the work of a sneaky house tiger who is up all night

 

[pigfarmer]

We came back this afternoon and my ring was on the kitchen floor, the obvious victim of cat hockey. Entirely normal, not paranormal.

He's 10. After a decade of paying it no attention today was the day apparently.

 

[pigfarmer]

When we saw the surgeon he switched the NSAID Pie was on to Rymadil. He felt it was more effective but the downside is that it's rough on the intestines. This weekend she developed quite a lot of nausea and vomiting and as of Sunday night I took her off it.

it takes 7 days to clean out before we can give anything else. Personally, the idea of me going without ibuprofen for that long is daunting and for her it will be no fun. I'm going to call the vet later and postpone the surgery. No way she's healthy enough for anything like that right now. She'll be fine she just needs a few days.

Thing is, the surgeon also said 'it may resolve itself.' In my limited understanding all they do is remove the torn part of the meniscus which is obstructing movement of the joint and possibly add a stitch or two for support. All the in/out traffic with the diarrhea may have helped with that.

We're going to try some longer therapy walks as she's starting to use the leg more. In the end if this means she doesn't need the surgery then for once a bout of runny **** was beneficial. Go figure.

 

[pigfarmer]

Pie's on the mend. She was a very sick little girl, her gallbladder was extremely aggravated from the NSAID the surgeon prescribed.

The surgeon recommended carprofen but our vet recommended a different NSAID which we had been using without issue. The reason he recommended the switch was that he felt it would be more beneficial to that soft tissue injury. It definitely wasn't so she's been off that garbage a while and we are remediating the damage it caused. She'l be back on her original NSAID in a few days.

Our vet gave us Flagyl which is as effective for diarrhea as a rubber stopper. Instantly stopped it. She also got some subcutaneous fluids, B12 and bloodwork. Been feeding her nothing but bland chicken and rice and she's doing very well.

Finally had that long overdue chat with our vet. I'm unimpressed with a small business owner that didn't seem to want to speak to us after her employees encountered a problem. A problem that resulted in my dog back on three legs again. Better late than never I suppose and she really is a very good vet, I do not want to have to searching right now.

Pie will get her arthroscopy well before my February 10 surgery and when I do have it we'll board her. The vet assured me she'll be in medical boarding meaning she'll be in a quieter spot with more people paying attention to her.

 

[pigfarmer]

Why must cats seek out fiendishly creative places to barf in? A dog is content to leave a big pile of puke right in the middle of the floor but cats, oh nooooooooo. It's always in something with nooks, crannies, parts, pieces, something you really don't need the Big Spit in.

OK, I will give a pass to anyone who has to lick their own a*****e clean but just now in that box where it all dripped and ran and got into everything..... why? Why was that necessary? As Nancy Kerrigan put it 'why ?????'

 

[Standingstones]

Our new kitten ended up pooping 3 times in our family room. My wife has now banished Molly from that room.

 

[pigfarmer]

I grabbed an ice cold bottle of beer yesterday and set it on the washing machine downstairs. I stepped just a couple of feet away to pick something up when The Orange Howler, The Frankster, Sir Frankalot swooped in for the kill.

Cats feel as if nothing's correct unless it's on the floor. In this case a tile floor and apart from wasting a perfectly good cold snack I hadn't even opened (there are parts of this country where that's probably a misdemeanor) I spent quite some time cleaning up wee little shards of glass and foamy beer out from under the washer, dryer.......

Cats.

 

[nivek]

We miss you Kobi, happy new year...



.

 

[Rick Hunter]

Like people, pets can be gone in an instant. Our 6 month old black Lab Willow was spayed on December 31. All was going splendidly, she acted completely normal and seemed to be healing up just fine. Suddenly, on January 6 her stitches burst and her innards came out. Somehow, she survived this and we rushed her to the vet. They did emergency surgery and got her put back together. Unfortunately, a few hours later Willow flatlined and the docs couldn't get her going again.

I couldn't bring myself to dig a third pet grave in six months so we had her cremated. I guess the lesson is, love 'em while you can!

 

[pigfarmer]

Everyone think good thoughts today, we drop Pie off shortly at 0830 for surgery. Again. She'll be fine but we are still nervous.

This should be much simpler than her CBLOs - those involved breaking and reshaping her knee joints with plates and screws. This is soft tissue diagnosis and repair, arthroscopy. He'll remove part of her torn meniscus and maybe support the rest with a stitch or two, then it's up to us and physical therapy. Same as my own knee 20+ years ago.

It's extremely frustrating to go through all this and still have her in pain not walking right. This should have a good result but we just won't know and won't until she's healed up a day or two. We'll go get her this afternoon.

 

[nivek]

How did the surgery go @pigfarmer ?...

...

 

[pigfarmer]

Inconclusive, he didn't find anything specific.

She's fine and resting comfortably, recovery from this will be much faster. It was only two 5mm incisions.

Her meniscus is fine and her knee joint has healed perfectly, the surgeon said the 'joint was quiet'. Normally the hardware from the knee operation is left in place. It's irrelevant once the bone has healed from the CBLO operation but in some cases can cause irritation. He removed one screw he said it was protruding 2mm in a certain spot and might cause irritation to a particular muscle. No idea if that'll help but generally speaking that means she's in good shape, free and clear to navigate.

He also mentioned a groin/abdominal muscle that may have been pulled that takes a long time to heal. We started to hear about specialized physical therapy and that's when the switch finally operated in my skull with a loud click. NFW I am bringing my dog to a doggie physical therapist, sorry kids. I will only tolerate the one I will require for myself as long as my insurance requires it. My low opinion of these things stems from hard won experience.

What she has is what she'll always have, there is no answer from this vet or any other. The answer is we take care of her the way we always have - hands on. Between her adrenal gland, this year's dental surgery and now three knee operations we are done torturing this poor sweet creature. She's been through too much since September and needs time for physical therapy (with us) and healing. So do we. She'll recover and if it's not 100% it's still much, much better than the alternative.

 

[nivek]

We were scheduled to pick up this puppy at 4:30 in the afternoon today, however they called us early this morning wanting to meet us sooner...So we left the house at 7:30 and brought him back home...

This is Aven, he's 8 weeks old, a Great Pyrenees puppy...He's so cute and adorable, he's loving our home and is currently on the couch taking a nap lol...







.

 

[Rick Hunter]

Beautiful dog!

 

[pigfarmer]

Awwwwwwwwwwww

 

[pigfarmer]

Puppies - I showed those pics to Mrs.Pf and we are envious and relieved not to have one all at the same time

Tentatively, knock on wood, Pie the Piedog seems to be ambulating around a bit better. She's using the leg more now and it doesn't seem to be so tender. Of course it's winter and they just shaved her leg and backside so we haven't had long sessions out back but she does seem improved. Thank god.

Maybe that screw he removed really was the problem. It occurred to me that he was being honest about it, it also occurred to me another surgeon would have called him out on that and we had to pay for the correction. We'll never know and it's unproductive to think about those things. My guts tell me he's being forthright which is all we ask for.

The orthopedic surgeon that reconstructed my broken hand back in the 80s subsequently lost his medical license and practice and was selling helicopters last time I checked. No, my hand isn't right, not at all and I have had it looked at since. There are some things that you just have to file away lest it get me foaming at the mouth

 

[pigfarmer]

The good news is that Pie is walking and behaving normally, the removal of that screw was the problem.

A little too much insider information though as I've seen these surgeries done and have been in the room for a number of them. The surgical kits come with a wide assortment of hardware and if he selected a screw that was too long, which he said he did, then it was an error in judgement that had consequences. His call, his work, nobody there would notice or ever question what he is doing.

So, he recommends a NSAID that made her violently ill and postposed the arthroscopy and then she finally has it and that's the result. That was almost four grand out the window to fix his mistake, plain and simple..... and there is not one goddamned thing we can do or say about it, that's just the way it is. If we didn't have it done she'd be in pain the rest of her life and it would have been a direct result of that error.

I'll certainly pass this tidbit of info along is anyone ever asks me about how it went. Doctors are as human as the next person although they often believe otherwise.

 

[pigfarmer]

 

[nivek]

He's growing fast...



.