double dog update

I found out a couple days ago that my family's beloved Jindo dog has bone cancer. Vet confirmed it on Tuesday, I think. The cancer is too advanced for surgical cure, so our choices now are palliative amputation (it's mostly on her leg) vs euthanasia.

My family talked about it and we've decided to put our Schnub down softly next month or so. I'm full of sadness and guilt -- there's no great way I can get home to visit her before she dies. She was just the best dog we ever had and although we tried our best to do right by her, I think she was underappreciated. I love her so much and I can't believe she has to go already.

Meet you at the rainbow bridge, Hamster. Miss you.

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And now, on to news about my current bad dog, miss Lemon.

Miss Lemon is mistakenly under the impression that she is top dog and therefore must watch my and Dan's every move. She also thinks the furniture belongs to her, and I belong to her, and that I must be protected from Dan. This is annoying. It's getting hard to project calm-assertive leadership around a punk-ass dog who is fresh out the puppy mill and still full of attitude. Also, this new attitude does not at all diminish her fear/anxiety/shyness/trust issues. Now instead of only hiding from us, she hides from us when she doesn't want to do what we want and spends the rest of the time attempting to dominate us. There's no in-between! When do we get to enjoy playing with or spending time with this dog? So far it's all work.

Also, how do you train a dog that doesn't respond to treats? I'd reward her for sitting on command or laying down, but I can't. She doesn't care for treats. She leaves them laying around the carpet. She maybe eats one if she doesn't feel like finishing the dry food in her bowl.

Oh, the dry food. That's another issue. We have to trick her into eating it because she likes wet food best. But she's underweight and dry food is more calorically dense, so we've been mixing the two and hoping she'll crunch on the dry stuff along with the wet in her dish. This is a lot of work for feeding a tiny bony 20 lbs dog.

It's a lucky thing that she's cute, otherwise I'd boot her out of this apartment!

doctor update

Also, I am now ATLS certified for the next 4 years.

Frightening. It is amazing how difficult it can be to remember A-B-C-D-E-secondary survey. I get distracted by the multiple things that can be going on simultaneously in one trauma patient. Part of being ATLS certified involves an oral and skills exam -- where you're given a patient scenario and model/actor and expected to narrate your every move. Not hard to do on paper, but when a person is pretending to be hurt and is yelling and moving around while you're "resuscitating" -- I guess I'm not that poised yet.

I had 2 mock patients -- one was a young woman who suffered a crush injury when a building fell on her, and then had hypothermia because it's winter during this scenario and her extrication took 3 hours. My second patient was a young guy who got ejected from a motor vehicle collision. I passed, but it wasn't as polished as I would like.

Next up is ACLS and I'm awful with remembering my resuscitation meds and dosages. Plus I still can't read an EKG. DOoomed.

Dog update

She definitely farts and burps sometimes. And she snores at night. And right now she's shedding a ton. And she only poops like once every 3 days.

She wakes up at 4am and wants to play. She follows Dan around but is still wary of him and startles when either of us walks up behind her. She likes to climb things. She likes squirrels and rabbits and will put on a show like we're choking/killing her when we refuse to let her chase.

We love her!

Meet Lemon, aka Dummy

We got a dog!

Dan named her Lemon after Tina Fey. She's tiny tiny tiny. Even for a Shiba Inu she's small. Her foster mom says that she is a puppy mill rescue who was bred twice a year in horrible conditions since adolescence until her rescue last December. This has stunted her growth and now she weighs like 20 lbs, max. She's also missing a toe and her hind feet are scarred from getting caught in the wire cage she lived in all her life.

I am having a hard time reconciling my ego with my tiny shy, scared lapdog. When we try to take her out for a walk, she throws herself down on the ground and does a complete somersault trying to escape her collar and leash. This is embarassing. When we're at home, she hides in her crate. When we ignore her, she plays with her squeaky toys and explores the house very quietly. Her foster mom lived with her in a typical city apartment in Lakeview -- I'm hoping she likes suburban fancy-town better for walks and stuff. At least there is no Redline L making noise here the way it was in her previous home dogpark.

She looks like a tinier version of my Jindo back home in LA.

Doggy Exes

So yes, I'm excited to meet Aya this week.

But an evil part of me bubbles under the happiness and drives me to check and re-check petfinder and the websites of the dogs we were rejected by. And I click on the pictures and try to guess the odds of them ending up with a family better than ours ....

All I'm saying is that I hope they get fat and develop behavior problems.

That is all.

More boring don't-have-a-dog updates

We just got turned down by Foxy's parents and Chiyo's parents. Foxy's fosters wanted a yard and kids for the dog, and Chiyo's mom says we're too far and won't adopt to us without getting the dog spayed herself.

Now we are down to Aya, the puppy-mill survivor. Our adoption's been approved, we just have to meet her on Wednesday and decide if she's right for us. Her description makes her sound pretty awesome and I think Dan and I will be able to handle her psychological issues. I've been on the internet reading too many articles like this one: http://www.anewstartonlife.com/puppymill.htm

I think I just need to know what her most problematic behaviors are, and whether she is so traumatized that she doesn't play at all. I figure that mostly we just have to project a very mellow, calm energy around her and not startle or wrestle with her right off the bat. I think she will warm up more and more over time, just like she's doing with her current awesome foster mom. Another pitfall I want to avoid is fussing over the dog too much and be overprotective. If I were a dog, I'd prefer a family that didn't make a big deal out of my personality quirks.

Dan's heating up some Indian food. Time to poach.

I promise not to beat the dog

I'm still dog-less. It's been 3.5 weeks since we've applied for our first dog. This is frustrating. I've sat at the computer filling out applications, e-mailing foster "parents," calling people, and inviting strangers into my home to evaluate our condo.

Time is running out ... I have to start showing up to things downtown in a week ....

Our top 3 choices so far:

http://national.shibarescue.org/foxyIL/foxy.html

http://www.savingshibas.com/aya.html

http://national.shibarescue.org/chiyo/chiyo.html

Yeah I guess I've pretty much set my heart on a shiba. Dan doesn't seem to mind.

The Yuppiest condo in all of Yuppie-dom

Grosse Pointe is a pretty nice neighborhood. Dan and I have been mostly wandering around filling our condo with things from Target, Trader Joe's, Meijer, etc. Pretty fun, except for the not having any money thing. Can't wait for my first paycheck -- I owe money all around town. Including to my mom. And to Dan. Horrible.

Complicating matters is our hunt for the perfect puppy. We think we found her -- a 6 mo/o Shiba Inu. Her foster parents are not answering our email. I'm sad and nervous -- I think we will have to keep looking for someone else at this rate. The only thing we have in abundance right now is free time and I was hoping to use it bonding with the new dog -- if we don't get one soon, we'll be attempting to potty-train a dog while working 80 hours a week (exaggeration I hope).

No regular internet connection yet -- been spending time at the beautiful library across the street. Will upload pictures when I have the chance. Hopefully there will be dog pictures.