I hope you had a good day yesterday and wore a little green, celebrated with some merry in your step and perhaps your mug too. May we all take a lesson from dogs and find more ways to enjoy life, less ways to fret over it.
Tag: Ben
Snow Day
Fiona says Good Morning! (actually, she’s clucking ” It’s cold – where’s my F-ing oatmeal” . Yep, she swears – I’m a bad influence, I know it. )
Troubled waters, restless sky
People let me tell ya ’bout my best friend
When opposites occupy one household
Snow and a tale of two sisters…
Ah, the lovely snow we’ve accumulated in a sudden storm that was going to be “just an inch or two”… they said. “not much at all”… they said.
My new neighbor, who lives in the cabin on the hill behind This Old House, is on her way home from Pennsylvania right now with not one, but TWO puppies she adopted from one of our rescues down there. It’s a beautiful thing… these two sisters will get to grow up together here in Connecticut, right up there on the hill. Their mom was a lab and their dad is unknown. Mom was pulled from a kill shelter, pregnant… and cared for by our friend, an ACO who helps with our adoption events. Mom wasn’t particularly fond of being a mom in the beginning, and these girls and their siblings had to be bottle fed for a while until she figured things out. Or accepted her new roll?… Anyway.. she will be spayed and these two girls are the last in the litter to be adopted. All is well that ends well.
I hope I get to hug them a little later today…………….
This I know for sure…
Lets ramble through…
Feel free to chime in on any of the below mentioned items…..
Heartworm Disease in Dogs.
When I adopted Frasier and had him thoroughly check out by my vet, it was discovered he had a good case of heartworm, which, if untreated, will eventually kill the dog. The worms suffocate the heart and lungs, etc. The treatment is expensive (about $700.) but necessary. And.. there is a three to five month – Keep the dog calm and quiet – period of time because the dying worms start traveling through their bloodstream and you don’t want them getting caught up in the heart, lungs, etc… causing paralysis or death. Ugh. THAT.. was no easy feat with Frasier.
So, Ben had a skin tag thing on his leg and I brought him to the vet to have it checked and removed earlier this week. While there he had his yearly heartworm and Lyme test. I got the call the next day – both came back positive. WHAT? I do give my dogs heartworm pills, but not during the winter months because mosquitos don’t live here in those seasons. Down south the problem is much more prevalent. This is where Frasier came from. SO… how did BEN get it?…. I freaked a little. Had all four dogs brought back and tested .. all are negative. After a second heartworm test in house on Ben, it was decided the first one was a false positive, especially since he has no evidence of heartworm disease. I’m glad he doesn’t have heartworm, kind of alarming that the first came back positive, falsely. He’s on Doxycycline for the Lyme disease, which is far too common in humans and animals in New England.
Lesson here – always ask for a second test with heartworm if you get a postive test result, because they can be inaccurate and the treatment is rough on the dog and costly. Also, don’t skimp on the monthly treatment… although here in the north where the winters are cold, it’s OK according to my vet to skip the very cold winter months. Not doing so puts you at risk for a costly and difficult treatment for your dog.
Getting it out of the house
As I sit here typing, the snow flurries float past my windows and shortly I shall be pulling up the bootstraps and putting on the layers to trudge up the hill to the barn. While I adore my horses and chickens, these are the days when I say… “why am I doing this, again?” *sigh*
I got the rest of WINTER out of my house. I don’t need to see it INSIDE as well as outside. This here is the stretch of New England Grey days that could drag a spirit down if you let it be so. I bring out the hearts right about now every year.