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Evacuating again
We’re home alone today… this time, Mom is freaked out enough that she’s not even taking us to the cabin. We wouldn’t normally go on a Tuesday anyway, but we’re being evacuated again. The dreaded change in weather happened, and the fire jumped the containment line and is headed for us again. Mom realized her little car isn’t enough but the truck is at a fire station an hour away, and maybe that she’d like to have some moral support too, so this time, she sucked it up and called a friend for help, so they’re both taking the afternoon off work and taking her friend’s truck to the cabin to get our stuff. I sure hope they get my toy tire and soccer ball.
Ember visits the Food House!!
Oh boy oh boy, did I have a fun holiday! It was my first holiday on this Earth. First off, Mom wanted me to tell you all THANKS for all the Happy 4th wishes, and for all the prayers and well wishes for our cabin and our Daddy! We haven’t been on the puter since last week so’s we haven’t sponded to anydogs. But thanks! Our cabin is gonna be OK unless there’s some real bad wind or something crazy happens. The fire that’s close by is 50% contained now. Now as for Daddy, well, we STILL haven’t seen him! I can’t remember if I’ve met him twice or 3 times since I’ve been in this family, but I sure don’t know him very good. Olie just talks buckets about how great he is though. Mom says he’s doing OK- very very tired and he doesn’t sleep much and he only has time to call for a minute or so each day just to tell us where he is. Not much chance of seeing him anytime soon yet… at worst, it’ll be late August! But we’re hoping things will settle down before that, but they told him to be prepared for another 44 days.
Now back to my SUPER fun weekend! I got to go to this magical place called the Food House, and I met my cousins Abigail, and Margie and Gracie! Abigail was real cool- she kinda barked at me some but I could tell she wanted to be friends- she just didn’t understand my level of energy! Margie and Gracie weren’t much fun… they are elderly chiwow-wows- they are smaller than the Cat Heads and about as much fun as a pile of poo. OK, that’s harsh- they’re really great dogs, but they didn’t wanna play!! But guess what I got to do! I got to eat HUMAN food for the first time! Yeah yeah! I had some wet dog food AND some ham on top of my bowl of food at dinner time. And I got to try some pork and some chips and all kinds of great stuff! And Olie REALLY messed up his diet. But Mom said OK, it makes her in-laws happy (the Food House is Daddy’s parents) and it’s just one day… we played in the yard and went for a walk and everything! And THEN, this was so weird, this guy walked in, and I thought, DADDY!!! But it wasn’t Daddy. It was Abigail’s Daddy. But he sure did look like my Daddy. Mom says they’re twins. Finally, a human that makes sense… shouldn’t ALL humans have twins? I had TWELVE twins when I was born!
And THEN, we got to go to a pawty on Friday and my friends Tidus and Sheeba were there! I played and played ALL DAY LONG, but Olie just clung to Mom cuz he was a-feared of the all the poppers that kept banging all around us.
Then on Saturday and Sunday we went to the cabin! The air was more clear, not so smokey this time. Me and Olie spent the WHOLE time rollin in the swimming pool then rollin in the dirt! Oh goodness… we were SO dirty and I just LOVED it!!
So we had a really great weekend. Just too bad Daddy wasn’t there. Mom says he’s gonna be shocked at how big I am. She say’ed I growed by a whole mile! We sure do hope all our pals had a great weekend too!!
Wet sloppy head butts,
Ember
FIRES
Hi all my wonderful pals! Well, yes, we have been out of touch again, but this time we have a really good excuse! Mom has been just obsessed with searching the internet for information on all the fires around here, so she doesn’t let us on MDS too much.
Not only is our Daddy off fighting the fires, but one of the fires is within a mile of our cabin. We knew it was close, but we didn’t realize just how close until we went to a public meeting on Friday evening. Mom made us wait in the car and Ember ate Mom’s leftover pizza. Mom said that the point of the meeting was to inform us of the fire fighting strategy as well as reassure us that, barring a change in the weather, we were not likely to be evacuated. She said that the fire is burning down the hill and heading towards us, but the firefighters are cutting lines closer to us and setting back burns, so they’re intentionally starting fires even closer to us, hoping they’ll burn up the hill and the fires will meet and burn themselves out. Well that SOUNDS like a great strategy, but we’ve seen those control burns get out of control before, so we were still real nervous. Plus, a change in the weather was predicted… dry lightning storms with wind were predicted for the weekend, and we asked Daddy, and he said a burning ember can easily fly a mile, so the predicted wind also made us real nervous. So Mom had some decisions to make…
We’ve changed our moving plans, and have decided that we’re not going to live full time at the cabin afterall (not because of fires- this was a pre-made decision), instead, we’re gonna be moving closer to my cousin Abigail! We’re real excited about this. So with that in mind, Mom is working on getting both of our houses (the cabin and the Cat House) all packed up and our cabin is on the market to sell. We don’t think anyone will buy it anytime soon, since you can’t see from one end of the property to the other through the smoke! But since we’re moving anyway, Mom decided to be strategic about what she packed up, and we ended up loading the car full of stuff including pictures and things we don’t want to lose. She reassured us that we’re not evacuating, we’re just moving (but we’re not actually moving until the cabin sells)... if we weren’t moving anyway, would we have taken all that stuff home, we asked? She didn’t really know what she would have done, but she was glad that she had the moving excuse so she didn’t seem paranoid. Daddy said she wasn’t being paranoid- since we’re lucky and we have options, there was no reason not to go ahead and get stuff out of there and move it to the Cat House on the coast. So that’s what we did, and we left on Saturday afternoon before the storms were predicted to hit.
So the good news is that the storms never really hit! There was no wind and only one more lightning fire was started, and it wasn’t close. So as of now, our cabin is still fine and we are still not under evacuation orders, but the fire is still headed our way and firing operations are still underway. Mom says we’re not out of the woods yet, but she’s a lot more comfortable with the situation today than she was on Friday.
In the meantime, Daddy has been sent out of county on a strike team. So naturally, when we need him the most, he’s busy saving other people’s homes! That’s OK though, we’re proud of him for that and Mom has it under control anyway. If we should end up getting evacuated, we think there’ll be enough time to go out and make one more trip with more stuff… it’s all packed up but there was no more room in the car. Mom says we needed to get stuff out of there anyway, to make it look nice for prospective buyers… but we know it was also because she was scared! She said herself nobody’s gonna buy it anytime soon, so what’s the rush to get stuff out, huh Mom? Yeah, she seems to have it all together, but on the inside, Ember and I sense some nervousness.
So that is why we’ve been out of touch. Hopefully things will get back to normal sometime soon. Mom says we can’t spend much time at the cabin cuz the air is too thick with smoke. Well that made me and Ember sad, so we decided to make the most of the time we had there, so we rolled in the swimming pool, then rolled in some dirt! Mom says neither fire nor rain nor sleet nor snow will stop us from having a good time! She thinks we should grow up to be postal carriers.
Now Mom has some work to catch up on but we hope to be back in touch with all of you this week!
Hugs and wags,
Olie
Here’s Ember after our roll in the dirt!
The Cats Strike Again!
I think our mystery is solved! Yes, Ember puts everything in her mouth. How did I not figure this out before? Someone had to say hey, could they be eating CAT LITTER? I’ve been worried about the Cat Heads since we got Ember because they don’t like Ember so they don’t come downstairs as much, don’t get their chances to eat and use the litter boxes as much as they used to… so I’ve noticed there hasn’t been as much dirty litter… thought they just weren’t coming down as much… DUH! They’re not pottying less… it’s just disappearing from the box! I have no proof of this- though I may have caught Ember exiting from a snack break one time, but I wasn’t sure. But this seems like a pretty solid theory. The good news is that Ember’s stool sample results were parasite free… so I may have just gotten my cats and my puppy tested all in one shot! Right after I read that response on a previous blog, I called their Dad, who was at the cabin with them and said she had puked again, told him the new theory, so he took a look at what she’d spit up, and sure enough… I’ll spare you the details, but she’s been eating cat litter! This is a problem I can fix.
Now what can I do about the fact that everytime I water the flowers, she thinks that’s her cue to get in there dig them up?
I’m pretty sure this is limited to Ember- Olie went through his phase of litter eating and paid the consequences and learned his lesson. His issues were still probably related to something stuck in his throat.
Once again, the cats invaded and created havoc!
(2 hours later) Suspicions further confirmed! Her Dad just got home with her and has pulled her out of the litter box 3 times, everytime he turns around she’s back in there! So we’ve DEFINITELY figured it out, now we just have to fix it.
Olie and Ember's health
So today was supposed to be Olie’s vet appointment… I didn’t cancel, but I did postpone it because of Ember (plus I was having a hard time getting off work to take him). I mentioned that she threw up 3 times Sunday morning, then she threw up twice yesterday. These 5 times are the ones I saw, so I don’t really know how many there actually were. She doesn’t just eat grass- she tears it out of the ground one big mouthful at a time and destroys it by jerking her head side to side- she doesn’t really swallow much- mostly just throws it around all over the place (she’s pretty funny when she’s not pottying on the floor)- this is a game- not an effort to vomit. Anyway, her vomit has been mostly mucus, and yesterday’s had some weird stringy stuff in it, may have been grass. She’s also had a bit of a (forgive my grossness) loose stool. So I still was supposed to take a sample to the vet (I forgot it at her last appt), so I got yesterday morning’s. When I came home from work yesterday, I discovered she’d had a runny accident on a puppy training pad- a nice white surface- I never would have noticed if not for that pad- but there was a red spot in there that I was afraid was a spot of blood. So I took the sample from the morning of the same day to the vet and told them what was going on, they’re going to do some tests and call me today. Depending on what they say, I’ll make appointments for one or both of them. I don’t think they’re passing anything back and forth: Olie’s symptoms were dry cough, unsuccessful attempts to vomit. Embers are successful vomiting and loose stool. Olie, at this point, seems to be completely back to normal and I’m not worried about him at all- he does still have an occassional cough which he’s always had, so I may go ahead and take him in and ask about acid reflux and/or allergies, but I think his “attack” was likely from a stick or something in his throat. I’m not too worried about Ember either- she puts EVERYTHING in her mouth, so as long as she didn’t get something poisonous, she probably just has an upset stomach. It hasn’t affected her energy level AT ALL (I wish it would!). But I am glad I took a sample to the vet. So that’s the latest on my Goldens… I think part of it is just that I’m not used to taking care of 2 dogs, one of which is a full time job, a little experience (and about 10 puppy sitters) could go a long way here! So for now, I’m just waiting for a call from the vet to determine if they need to go in. Thanks everyone, for your support and advice and such!!
Julie
Update on Olie
Hi pals! Well, I don’t know what WAS going on, but he seems mostly fine now. I did call Friday afternoon and made him appointment for Tuesday morning- they thought his symptoms didn’t warrant an emergency- but over the weekend, he seemed to be feeling better. The worst night was Thursday night, when he had what almost seemed like an attack of some sort (as described in previous blog). Friday I heard a few occassional coughs and some of the tongue licking thing. Over the weekend, I heard maybe one or two coughs. But then I also heard Ember coughing just a couple times over the weekend. She also threw up at least 3 times Sunday morning, but hers was productive and she threw up mucus. As far as I know, Olie never actually got anything out when he was trying to vomit- unless he did it when I wasn’t looking at the cabin over the weekend.
So I have a few possible theories at this point. One, I have often thought he exhibits signs of heartburn… he makes a lot of the same noises that I do when I get it. So the acid reflux theory may be a good possibility. Maybe not for the specific “attack” that he had, but I really do think he gets this sometimes.
Two, kennel cough? Olie played with Ember and 3 of her litter mates just a couple weeks ago. A week ago, Olie and Ember were both at the vet (and exposed to who knows what) and were vaccinated for it, but I read somewhere that the vaccine doesn’t necessarily prevent them from getting it because there are several strains, plus if the pups had it, the exposure would have been prior to the vaccination. Olie had the vaccine a long time ago but it was out of date. Ember has never exhibited any symptoms except the very minor coughing I heard on Saturday. I don’t think her puking was related- she probably just ate something- at one point I caught her with a mole claw in her mouth- I don’t know if she killed it or if she found it, but she puts EVERYTHING in her mouth, so it’s hard to tell what made her puke. Anyway, kennel cough seems like a good possibility for Olie, but Ember does not exhibit symptoms. Because of her puking I was going to take her to the appt. instead of Olie, she seemed a little bit lethargic for a while… but that didn’t last- it would take a nuclear blast to slow her down.
Three, he very well could have had a stick stuck in his throat. He eats sticks ALL the time. When we’re at the cabin he’s allowed to run free to eat, drink and puke whatever and whenever… unless he gets caught. But I generally allow to him to chew on sticks because breaking him of that habit would be like breaking me of my MDS habit… you just can’t do it. I’ve worked really hard to get him to stop eating rocks, I do occassionally catch him with them in his mouth- he had to have surgery to remove rocks before I knew him. But I think a sliver of wood would have been a good possibility. Why do these monkeys put EVERYthing in their mouths? If it was a stick, he either got it out or digested it or something…
In any case, I don’t know exactly what was going on, but they both seem fine now. If everything seems normal when I get home from work today, I’ll probably cancel the vet appointment and continue to monitor.
Does anyone know what side effects there are from the bordatella vaccine? Could it actually CAUSE kennel cough, like sometimes a person gets a flu vaccine then catches the flu from it?
Do dogs get the flu, or common colds? I can get a cold from a co-worker but exhibit completely different symptoms… I wondered if maybe they’re just passing something back and forth?
I also want to consider an upset in Olie’s routine since we have Ember now… we’re working real hard on house breaking so I limit her water, which in turn limits Olie’s water. Ember acts desperate like she’ll just die if she doesn’t get a drink (that’s just her crazy puppy persona). But Olie’s used to having it there all the time, so he doesn’t get it that now he needs to drink it while it’s there. Could he be dehydrated? He has constant access to water at the cabin, which might explain why he was fine once we were there for the weekend. How much water does a dog actually need?
One last thing- Ember seems to get the hiccups quite frequently. Is this normal for puppies?
Just trying to put 2 and 2 together and decide if I should keep the vet appointment tomorrow.
Thanks!
Julie
Kinda worried about Olie
Hi pals! I’m kinda worried about Olie… hoping you might be able to lend some insight… do I need to get him to the vet??
I noticed for the first time Wednesday afternoon- he started doing this weird sort of cough… like he was trying to hack something up, but it was consistent, as if he was having a hard time breathing- almost gagging. I almost thought he was choking, and it occassionally seemed like an effort to vomit, but mostly it was hacking. His Daddy was there at the time, and he said that was the second time it happened- it also had apparently happened Wednesday morning. In between coughing, he makes noises, like if you put your tongue flat against the top of your mouth then pull it away- the kind of sounds you often hear from a sleeping person.
It got worse last night (thursday night). We laid down around 9:00 and by 9:30 he was hacking, and seemingly panicked. He was trying really hard to get me up, panting, putting his head on the side of the bed trying to get my attention, running to other side of the bed looking for Daddy, who wasn’t home. So I got up and he went straight to the door, desperate to get outside. So I took him out, and all he did was frantically eat grass. He did eventually pee, but his hind end was apparently not an issue. So I let him eat some grass, then we went back in and he had a drink of water and I gave him a piece of bread, just to make sure he could swallow- I continued to be concerned that he may have something stuck in his throat or something like that. The rest of the night, he coughed a little bit off and on, but didn’t have any more of these scary episodes. I did continually hear a lot of the noises I tried to describe- the tongue on the top of your mouth thing. At 3 AM, I got up for my own reasons, and he seemed glad I was up so he took advantage and went for the door again, so I took him out, and he just ate some more grass. And Ember peed on the floor.
During the 9 PM panic attack I considered getting him to an emergency vet, but after eating some grass and having a drink, he seemed to settle down and I wasn’t as worried. This morning he seemed sad, but that could very well have been because he knew I was leaving for work and he’d be home alone, plus Ember was driving me nuts and I was cranky… so his sadness may have been justified, or he could have been feeling bad. I don’t know. He wouldn’t drink any water this morning, but he did eat some grass.
Can I continue to monitor this, or are these familiar symptoms to anyone, that might warrant an immediate vet visit? His Daddy said he has heard him cough like that just once before, it was before I met them, they were at a friends house and he apparently drank some sort of acid- later started coughing like that and he couldn’t figure out what was wrong so took him to the vet where some discoloration was found in his mouth and they figured out what happened. He was fine, that was over 2 years ago. I can’t think of a single thing he may have been exposed to that could cause a similar problem, so I don’t think it’s the same type of thing… but could he have something stuck in his throat maybe? I constantly worry about bloat… how do these symptoms compare to that? Seems like that happens fast (but I don’t know), this has gone on for a couple days. Any ideas???
Olie and Ember's first fight!
And Ember’s introduction to Blarney Rubber Chicken!
The picture says it all!! (FYI- it wasn’t a real fight)
A Golden trip to the vet
Ember went for her first vet appointment yesterday! Olie went too. Olie went for a check up and for a heartworm test. The skeeters are pretty bad this year, so I wanted to get him started Heartguard. So that went well, but I was told that he’s overweight! So yes, poor Olie is NOT happy about this, but he’s on a diet! I’m trying to make it easy on him by doing it WITH him- or is he doing it with ME? Either way, me and Olie are on a diet! We’ll be walking/jogging partners. My problem is that his diet is a lot easier for me to control than my own! But this is partially why we got Ember- to get him more active, so I think that will help also. He weighed in at 125 and the doctor wants him to lose 15-20 pounds- that seems like a lot for a dog! So we’re working pretty hard on that- it was not a suprising diagnosis- he’s been getting lazy lately and put on more weight, I’ve noticed that I’ve been loosening his harness periodically…. Other than that, he is in perfect health and was a very good boy, sat on command, and sat still!
Now EMBER, that is another story. She’s a little maniac! She was a major attention getter- I felt I was surrounded by papparazi, everyone loved her so much. She was perfectly healthy except just a couple things. No fleas, no worms, good teeth… and she’s also on Heartguard now. I went in with 2 potential concerns, and it turned out my concerns were very valid. She has some spots on her belly that the doctor said is a mild staph infection, which she’s on antibiotics for. So that’s not a huge deal, but I wasn’t thrilled about it. What I was REALLY not thrilled about was her leg… I kinda thought her back left leg looked a little funny, like it was sort of bowed out at the knee, when she runs her legs seem to be off to one side. I didn’t know if she was just an awkward puppy or if something was up- like maybe hip issues or something, so I asked the vet, and he said, well yeah, it does look a little odd, this would be worth getting an x-ray. So they did an x-ray of her bottom half, belly up, so both of her legs showed for comparison (she was a real hit in the x-ray room too- a real life celebrity!). It turns out she’s had a broken leg! It doesn’t bother her in the least and she’s only 8 weeks old, so it must have happened in the first couple weeks of her life to be healed already. My first thought was, bad breeder! But I got to thinking about it… I couldn’t even tell if it was a problem, or just awkward, and she was so little and in a big litter of pups… I have to assume the breeder never noticed, but I can guarantee she’ll be hearing from me. The doctor figured that her mom may have stepped on her, or any number of things could have happened. So the question: her leg is crooked, is she going to be OK? What can we do? The break was right through her growth plate in the knee area, so it’s the bottom part of her leg that is at a slightly odd angle. Part of the growth plate appears to have fused together, but part seems to still have the little gap that is also apparent in the x-ray of the good leg. So for now, there is absolutely nothing we can do except hope that as she grows, the leg grows normally. The doctor said he won’t operate on it at such a young age, especially since we don’t know if it will ever actually cause her any trouble. He said it would probably make her more likely to get arthritis in her knee when she’s older, or potentially have issues from compensating as she walks. Worst case scenario: her leg doesn’t grow normally and she’d probably have to have an operation of some sort.
I’ve had really mixed feelings about the way we got Ember… as many of you know I had my heart set on a rescue dog, I wanted to feel like I was really helping someone. Overall I do have good feelings about this breeder- afterall- its the same place our Golden boy Olie came from. But the staph infection and the leg have me going back to the question, why didn’t I get a rescue? I would NEVER say I regret getting Ember, she IS a maniac but she’s a total sweetheart, and as the doctor pointed out, I AM helping someone. Ember could very well end up being a special needs dog and it’s lucky that she didn’t get sold to some random person that happened to have some money in their pocket and decided to get a puppy- when me and Olie walked in there, she picked us for a reason. She is in a good home where she will be cared for, no matter what. If her leg ends up causing her trouble, we will do whatever it takes to give her the best quality of life possible. In the meantime, she has absolutely NO trouble getting around on it, there is ZERO pain, so let’s just keep our fingers and paws crossed that it doesn’t end up causing her any trouble! She is an absolutely precious addition to our family, her relationship with Olie continues to develop, she already knows her name and answers when you call, she’s quickly learning the meaning of “No Ember!” and she’s grown a noticable amount in the short 6 days that we’ve had her. We’re still working on potty training… she always goes when we go outside, but she hasn’t yet learned to let me know she needs to go… she still thinks inside is OK too. We’ve definitely made progress though- she’s figuring it out! So anyway, that’s the latest on Ember… she is settling in and doing great!
Meet my new sister, Ember!!
I’m so excited to introduce you to my new sister, Ember! I’m short on time today because I’m running around taking care of this little puppy… I swear it’s a full time job, Mom said I was going to get a sibling, but she didn’t tell me that I’d have to baby sit constantly! Her name is Ember- Daddy wanted a fire name, so Mommy thought of that. This little thing is CONSTANTLY right on my heels, I’ve even peed on her head twice because she was too close! I get annoyed when I’m trying to sleep and she wants to cuddle, and I didn’t like sharing the back seat of the car so I let her have it and I rode on the floor, but other than that, I am trying to be the best big brother EVER!!! The first thing I did was teach her how to play stick.
I play real gentle so that she can keep up.
And sometimes I even let her get the stick! I would never let another dog have my stick… but she wanted to see what it was like!
And we take naps together too. But she has a hard time staying still, so I sometimes get up and let her nap on her own!
She’s real cute to look at….
This was our first car ride together!! I eventually let her have the seat to herself.
And I’ve been trying to teach her where to go potty too, but I won’t show you any pictures of that! Suffice to say she’s learning quickly. She already knows to go potty outside, but if she does have an accident, she knows to do it on a puppy training pad! The only sad part is that Daddy hasn’t met her yet. Mom says he’ll come today, I sure hope so. Mom says I have been an amazing big brother and she doesn’t know what she would do without me. I even took a couple hours and just walked around the property, with her right on my heels, and showed her around. And we spent lots of time rolling in the grass- I can fit her entire head in my mouth! But I don’t bite- it’s just a game. Anyhow, me and Ember are destined for a wonderful life together. I really love my new little sister… I’m getting more exercise, and um… Daddy who?? I’m just kidding, I certainly haven’t forgotten my Daddy, but I sure haven’t had much time to miss him!!
And that’s who the mysterious puppy is in my profile picture. My new sister Ember!!!
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