A Day in the City

Yesterday I had a doctor appt in the city.  Judi & I with Katie & Kasey went down the mountain with our first stop being PetsMart Pet Hotel.  Katie does an hour or two of Doggie Day Camp and spends the rest of her time in Doggie Day Care.  I scheduled Kasey for a full day of Day Camp with him going into Katie's kennel when day camp was closed.

Kasey has a heavy touch of little dog syndrome so I was somewhat concerned.  He thinks he's meaner than a junkyard dog when it's one on one and he knows he's being contained or held back and/or that the other dog can't get to him, but this was a whole different rodeo.  They were taken into the playroom and Katie, as is her norm, went to her favorite corner to watch the action.  Kasey, however, found himself suddenly surrounded by many dogs of various sizes, all sniffing and checking him out.  His eyes were the size of dinner plates and his little butt hit the floor so fast you'd have thought his back legs had fallen off.  He found himself being sniffed all over, being pushed and tumbled (nosed) from one side of the room to the other, basically what he does to the cat all day every day.  He's a little dog, 10#, and looked even smaller in the midst of this pack.  Judi and I stayed and watched for at least 10 minutes and laughed so hard, we had tears in our eyes.  It was the highlight of our day and I'm sorry I didn't have a camera with me.  When we returned that evening to pick them up, I was told that it took him about a half hour and then he made special friends with a beagle and ran and played the rest of the day.

After dropping "the kids" off, we ran an errand and went to the doctor's.  Very productive appointment.  Nothing wrong with the hip replacement, the pain is from bursitis.  A cortisone injection followed with ice & heat treatments at home for a few weeks and it should settle down.  Now the pain is diminished and the worry is gone.  Back in a month for a recheck.

We went for an early dinner at the Elephant Bar.  Had a delicious meal but what was really special was our server.  Her name is Lori.  She is the personification of "Customer Service".  She made us feel that she was really glad we were there, treated us like we might have been family or better yet, a couple of favorite aunts maybe.  The Elephant Bar has always been one of our favorite restaurants and the wait staff are all skilled in customer service; they all seem to enjoy their jobs.  But we give Lori a real shout out, she is special!!

Topped the day off by hitting Costco where I found and purchased my new camera and Judi did grocery shopping, back to pick the kids up, and we headed home.  It was a really long but very good day!  The little guy must have had a great time, he was exhausted, curled up in Judi's lap and slept his way home.

Canine Check Up Time

It's that time of year again.  Katie went in for her annual physical to keep her certification as a therapy dog.  This year we did a 'twofer'.  Kasey had his initial physical as well.  They were both tested for heart worm, received their new supply of preventive meds, and their shots are all up to date.

Katie's showing signs of aging (she's 11 years old now) but is still perfectly healthy all things considered.  She's slowing down, so am I.  She's not as patient, me neither.  Her activity level is way down, mine too.  She does have a heart murmur that is stronger than it was and bears watching but no coughing at night, so not to worry - yet.  She's dropped a few pounds, wish I could say that, but when Kasey isn't stressing her out, he has her a little more active than she was.  And more activity, less weight, and a slimmer physique equal less strain on the heart ... all good things.

Kasey is everything a little guy his age (a year this month) should be.  His heart is good, everything is sound.  His metabolism is right up there and he gets to increase his intake of food by a 1/2 cup a day to bring his weight up a couple of pounds.  He got his rabies shot today and now he can get his license just like the big dogs.

While not inexpensive, peace of mind in never inexpensive, all in all it was a very good day ... for them, for me, and I dare say, for the vet!

Is There A Doctor In The House?

Are you old enough to remember when a doctor was a doctor?  I mean, I go all the way back to house calls, so that tells you how close to covered wagon days I am.  Growing up, we had a doctor that treated any and  all ailments.  He was it.  You didn't have one doctor for your foot and another for your throat and another for your stomach.

I remember when I first had kids, the family doctor delivered them.  By the late 60's, when my youngest was born, I had an ob/gyn.  Specialists had entered the field.  There were pediatricians, orthopedic specialists, cardiologists, ear/eye/nose & throat.  You knew that your doctor had extra "specialized" knowledge and you now were supposedly getting better care.

Today, specialization has reached a new high, or low, depending on how you look at it.  Specialties are now broken into finer specialties.  The orthopedic man isn't; now you have a hip specialist, a knee specialist, elbows, shoulders, neck, back.  There's a doctor for the colon, another for the stomach, another for livers, and on and on.

I've had my share (and yours too) of hip replacements.  One leg has been bothering me lately.  Since it's painful and winter is coming, I want to know if it's hip again or back or nerve damage or ???  I called my orthopedic surgeon's office and was told he doesn't "do" legs.  I finally convinced the voice on the other end of the phone that I needed to start by checking out the hip first and then, if it's not the problem, the doctor can   refer me to whichever specialist I do need to see.  Of course I won't see the doctor, I'll see a practitioner.  (It was bad enough when doctors 'practiced' medicine, now the person who sees and treats you is actually called a practitioner.)


Now I'm happy that the 'practice' of medicine has progressed as it has but at the same time I can't help but wax nostalgic and miss the Dr. Welby days.

Checking In

So, I'm told that it's officially been one month since my last post and something, anything, must have happened, if not to me, with Kasey, since then.  So here I am, checking in.

My friend is right.  There's been much going on.  Kasey and the Kitty are growing by leaps and bounds and they're doing a lot of leaping and bounding.  I'm truly grateful to have each one of them for the other, either one alone would have me in a rubber room.  Even Katie has joined in on the playtime on occasion.  Not for very long, but the puppy in her pops out every so often.

Being a glutton for punishment, or not very bright, or both ... I kept my friend Judi's dog for 2 weeks while she was on a cruise.  Actually, Foxy was extremely well behaved and she's cat friendly.  She's an easy dog to keep and she's very comfortable here.  Even so, a couple of times a week I'd take her home to spend part of the day in her own surroundings so she'd know she still had her own home.

We had our annual Animal Faire last weekend.  It benefits the local SPCA, for which Katie  I volunteer.  I took both dogs and their enclosure and we spent the day.  I worked the event taking photographs, Katie watched the action, and Kasey barked (yapped) at every large dog he saw - and there were plenty of them.  My apologies to those working around our area.  He doesn't carry on like that at home, but then he doesn't see that many other dogs, let alone the large ones.  We walked over to the TDI booth so I could get a group photo with Katie and the other therapy dogs and spent some time, which gave these two some much needed exercise and then it was back to their enclosure while I finished what I was doing.  When we got home, two dogs crashed and slept until well after their dinner time.  In fact, after their dinner and trip out to potty, they slept the night through.  Come to think of it, so did I.

This weekend is the chocolate & wine festival.  The "kids" get to stay home but I'll spend Saturday there and then we have some harvest and halloween events coming up.  The church boutique is the first weekend in November and then life returns to normal, whatever that is.  We'll be heading into the holidays and there'll still be things to do and places to go, but I won't have any responsibility for them, I can simply attend - or not.

I'll try to start posting regularly again and not wait for the nudge from my friend.  But then again, I kind of like the attention.