Pawcurious Vet Blog: With Pet Blogger and Veterinarian Dr. V

House Hunting: Go on, look. I dare you.

Well, we’ve done it. Our house is on the market. I hope it sells quickly, because we’ve whipped the place into show-perfect condition and trust me, I can only sustain this for a very short amount of time. The pressure of the constant running around after two messy little primates dripping crumbs and two fuzzy big canines shedding fur and one giant ape dripping socks is just a whole lot for one person who isn’t that fond of housekeeping to begin with.

Every time someone wants to come through to see the place, I have to figure out two things, after doing a runaround to clean up at the last minute and sticking my daughter’s Dug doll (I’ll explain) on the bedside table:

1. Where do I put the kids

2. Where do I put the dogs

Because I’m sure the last thing a potential buyer would like while they are going through my drawers is a kid asking, “Do you want to buy my house? Want some fruit snacks?” while a dog runs interference leaning into their hip every two seconds for pets.

I’ve read that one should remove all hints of yourself from the house so that potential buyers just see themselves in it. We tried, but we have too many family pictures on the walls; if we took them all down they would be bare. I tried to hide signs of pet ownership in case someone is a freaky I hate pets person, but all they need to do is go in the garage to see the evidence: the dishes, the litterbox, the pile of leashes, and (usually) Apollo, hiding from the strangers.

We are animal lovers here. There are clear hints. The more subtle hints are hidden away in drawers: the rawhides, the Kongs, the Advantage tubes. Most people don’t see those things, because most people don’t go through your drawers, but some people do. I know this. I have planned for it.

I expect people to look in the cabinets, in the closets. Anything that is part of the house is fair game, and I get that. Opening a drawer or two to assess the cabinet structure, OK. But the one thing I know people do, because people have admitted to it, is rummaging through the free standing dresser drawers and things they have no business going through, either because they’re looking for stuff to lift, or because they’re just nosey.

We locked away anything of value, put prescription meds in the safe (though if anyone wants leftover malarone, be my guest.) Then I made a little sign for the bedside table, because anyone who opens that is just looking for trouble, that said: “Smile! You’re on the nanny cam!”

And because most people hide nanny cams in stuffed animals, they will immediately lift their eyes and see, staring right back at them, the steely Disney eyes of justice in the form of the Dug doll sitting on top of my bedside table.

Yeah, Brody’s not home, but I still have a guard dog.

And OK, technically I don’t even really have it rigged as a camera, but it would be classic if I did. Makes me almost wish I had a nanny cam just so I could record people’s reactions for YouTube. The beauty of the whole idea, of course, is that if you aren’t nosing around where you shouldn’t be, you’d have no idea I was trolling you. If you open the drawer, you deserve what you get.

Anyone have any experiences with nosey house hunters? Or any ideas for other surprises I should leave? I do have a copy of the infamous Purina fecal scoring chart in the garage.

This stinks

As some of you know, because I haven’t shut up about it for the last few weeks, we have our house on the market. It’s rough, not only because the market is rough, but because trying to pretend a house full of kids and animals is a pristine model home is an exercise in futility.

The furniture has some vestigial bite marks left over from Brody’s youth; the grass has some brown spots despite my best efforts; the walls have some stickers I haven’t managed to completely remove yet. However, those are things we can work with. These are workable.

The skunk, however, is not.

We’ve had a resident skunk for as long as I can remember living here. I believe it resides under the deck. Most of the time it’s not a big deal; he can’t be that bad if he’s never pegged Brody, because you know Brody would be all up in his business if he could be. I just get an occasional whiff in the evenings when I let the dogs out. No biggie.

However, the last few months he went nuts and sprayed all over the side of the house. It was bad. I wasn’t sure what to do. Over time, it’s lessened, and I thought we were in the clear. We had a realtor come by last week and he didn’t say anything, so I thought, well, maybe it’s not as bad as I thought.

“We have a skunk,” I told him. “Is that going to be a problem?”

“Don’t worry,” he responded.

Then the realtor came back over the weekend. I guess the skunk had made an epic return, because the realtor did an about-face and said, you need to do something about the skunk. He said, I can’t open the windows. And really, no matter how nice and clean your house is, a big noseful of skunk is enough to deep six any sale, unfortunately.

We made some calls. We were bounced around from animal control to exterminators before finally finding a licensed wildlife trapping service that is licensed through the state to carry out wildlife relocation services.

“We have two options,” the guy said. “We are only allowed by law to relocate within 50 yards of the place he was trapped,” which ruined my initial plan to relocate him to the yard of the person who complained about my Valentine’s Day matchboxes. “And if you put them down within 50 yards, they always come back.”

“What’s the other option?” I asked.

“Humane euthanasia.”

And you know, I just couldn’t. I mean, it is what it is, and we have this yard, and he lives in it, and barring the occasional whiff he hasn’t been a terrible roommate. And I just can’t bring myself to kill him in order to help us move.

So I told the realtor, who by now is probably beginning to regret his decision to work with a nutter like me, that he just has to keep the windows closed and hope the skunk is sleeping on the days we need to show. And that’s all I can think of to do.

Speaking of mountain lions…

You all know I am irrationally petrified of getting eaten by a mountain lion. Every time I start to get close to being OK with the risk, someone comes around and says, “Oh yes, some woman DOWN IN SAN DIEGO had her scalp eaten by a mountain lion, I remember reading that in the papers, and she only lived because some guy rode by on a mountain bike and threw the bike at the mountain lion” and then I get all freaked out again. (Thanks, Susi.)

Yesterday Brody and I checked out a new-to-us area called Mission Trails. We went before the abovementioned lion-scalping conversation, when I was still feeling confident. Yes, they are out in the area, but sightings are rare, and to my knowledge no one has ever been attacked in this particular park. (They very habituated aggressive cougars featured in Cat Attacks live in Cuyamaca, a bit further east, and no I won’t go hiking there.)

Not to say the park officials don’t give you sufficient warning all the same.  (more…)

3 Dumb Things that Dog Owners Do (That Make Us All Look Bad)

I am a dog person. I think most of you probably know that. I like dogs, a whole lot. I am into them. I can hang with them. That being said, I understand that not everyone else on the planet feels the same way. Dog owners who refuse to act with some basic courtesies grate on me as badly as parents who let their kids kick the back of my airplane seat. With the advent of spring, lots of people are venturing outside again with their pets- and this is a great thing, usually, but it also marks the high season of Bad Dog Owner Behavior.

There is some basic level of consideration that one should accord their fellow man for several reasons: one, it’s the right thing to do, and two, we have a responsibility to be good owners so people who are maybe not dog people will at least tolerate their presence a little better. We want more businesses and public areas to be dog-friendly, right? And as long as dog owners keep doing some of these things I’m about to list, it’s probably not going to happen.

1. Letting your dog go off-leash in a leash-required area.  (more…)

Horrible pet parents unite

I love this recent post from Mel Freer where she longs for the good old days before we were overinundated with information about pet food recalls, puppy mill abuses, and terrible people who do awful things to animals. I agree. On the one hand, the internet has made the dissemination of information so much easier, and that is a very good thing in a lot of ways. On the other hand, it kind of makes information hard to escape. There is a constant barrage of it, and unless you just flat out disengage, it’s always there. Maybe that is why I keep making plans to go to Africa.

Don’t get me wrong- I’m glad we have access to information and news in a way we never have before. It’s amazing to me that breaking news takes place on Twitter, of all places, and Facebook. Do you remember having to look things up in your family’s Encyclopedia Britannica? Or go to the library and look up subjects on those little cards? It’s nuts. Now I can research stuff while standing in line at Starbucks, or look up a recipe while my kids are at tae kwon do. It’s fantastic.

But all of this comes with a price. With the world at our fingertips, the bar’s been raised for everyone. On every topic. There’s no excuse for not knowing everything, at every time, and acting accordingly, because Google is here and we are expected to use it.

Ever had a conversation with a know it all? They’re just insufferable.

“So I was having breakfast the other day with Mom-”

“Well, you told me you met up at 10:30, technically that’s brunch.”

“OK, well, anyway, she said she wanted poached eggs-”

“You can’t eat eggs! Didn’t you hear about the massive Salmonella outbreak last week?” etc etc.

Sometimes I feel like the internet is like this grand sinkhole of knowitallness. There is just so much information out there, as in vast quantities of unlimited data, that it’s almost impossible to have a conversation without someone, somewhere interjecting some fact that may or may not be relevant, helpful, or even correct.

Adopting a cat? Well, you better not adopt from that place, because they had an FIP spike in 2006, so maybe adopt from this place. But don’t get one from THAT rescue, because they had a bad review on Yelp. Have a baby? Oh, don’t even bother then, you’ll get Toxo.

Running to the store for some dog food? Did you know that X brand is poison/ raw food is the only way to go/ raw food will kill your dog/ you must home cook/ you must never home cook?

Thinking of getting a new dog? Well, I hope you’re planning on adopting a senior dog or some sort of mutt from a reputable rescue, because anything else is totally irresponsible. Here’s a Sarah Mclachlan video to really drive it home.

Posting a picture of a dog with some stuff on his head? OFF WITH YOUR HEAD! Your dog must spend their waking hours at your feet, attending approved positive-reinforcement classes, eating internet approved high end food, or hiking (on lead, of course). Any superfluous activities meant solely for our own amusement, like dressing your dog up in humiliating costumes, is abusive.

There are so many things to remember, so much we expect of each other, that trying to just kind of muddle along and do the best you can isn’t good enough anymore. That is the downside of the internet. At some point, the information overload overwhelms your brain’s ability to assimilate it, and you just kind of shut down. For the record, I do about as well with the animals as I do with my kids, which is to say, there’s plenty to be desired, and I’m OK with that. Keep expectations low, I say.

And that is why I avoid internet message boards, which are like little crucibles of arguments just waiting to explode. People suffering from Internet Knowitallitis gravitate to those boards like a moth to flame. I’ve determined what’s important in my life and my family’s life, do my best to keep on top of important news that affects their health, and if every once in a while the dependents need to suffer through the indignity of a stupid costume in order to keep me happy, well, there’s worse things that can happen to a dog or a kid.

I don’t want to know the latest study about the long term effects of putting a wig on my dog. He’ll live. And so will all those dogs on YouTube whose owners are using their muzzles for Jenga practice.

And with that, I have to go look for more pictures of tortured dogs wearing Death Star e-collars.

Happy moments from the week: Porcupine edition

1. Brody helped me prepare for my upcoming Mt. Meru hike by dragging me up Cowles Mountain here in San Diego. It’s like preparing for a triathlon by dipping your toes in a wading pool, but it’s a start. The highest point in San Diego is still 12,000 feet lower than Mt. Meru.

2. Apollo, who has never hiked a day in his life, mocks Brody’s expression in the above picture.

3. I took my son to a birthday party I almost forgot to RSVP to and they had a wildlife show! I don’t know who was more excited, the kids or the adults. The educator brought along a wallaby, a chinchilla, an iguana, an alligator, a few other things I don’t remember and then- this porcupine.

I had no idea porcupines could be so cute. He sat there munching his corn like a rock star, holding onto that cob for dear life like Eddie Van Halen about to unleash a 20 minute guitar solo, completely unaffected all by the attention. Ohnomnomnom I have corn and nothing else matters nomnomnom.

Have a wonderful Passover, Easter, or simple spring weekend! Hope it’s a great one!

Happy birthday Koa- no joke

Two years ago this February, we took an hour and a half drive north to the Retrievers and Friends rescue to meet a 6 year old black lab named Lucy.  She was feisty, glossy, and fun, a slightly older version of Brody. We loved Lucy.

But then the rescue volunteer suggested we take a look at another dog, one who didn’t photograph quite so well but was kind and sweet and might be a good match for the family. There she stood, with her hangdog face and her defeated posture and her barrel chest and her gnarly teeth, just sitting back patiently. She came over with her tail gently wagging, licked my daughter and then my son, and sat down. “It’s OK,” her face said as we petted Lucy. “I just wanted to say hi.”

And that is how we ended up driving home that winter morning with Kekoa.

I didn’t realize until some time later, as I was going over her paperwork, that she was born on April 1st. It seems a bit of a cruel joke that so many pranks have been pulled on her in the past. (more…)

Never work with children or dogs. And especially both at once.

My daughter has joined the local youth theater’s production of Annie. As a seven year old, one of the youngest in the cast, her role is to stand in the back and look cute. This is good. A good intro to theater.

While I was gone, my husband got to attend the parent meeting. We learned that there is no sliding scale of parental volunteer requirements based on the number of lines in the play, so the parent of the silent kid picking his nose in the back has to do just as much as the parent of the lead. Which is fine, but hoo boy, I’m bad enough juggling commitments as it is. As the mother of a cast member, my job is to paint sets, sew costumes, take pictures, sell tickets, attend rehearsals, and man concessions, and probably a few more things I forgot.

So now I’m trying to be sneaky and figure out alternate ways to get in my mandatory 20 volunteer hours. I’ve already volunteered my husband to do candid photography from rehearsals. Why not. He just treated himself to a new camera. I’m thinking of offering to help out with their social media, because let’s face it, given the choice between that and sewing, I think we all would be happier for it.

My friend, who is quite involved in this theater, asked me if I knew any dogs that might be available to play Sandy. I was impressed with their dedication to bring a real dog into the mix, because shoot, those FurReal dogs would be a heck of a lot easier to deal with, would not pee on Ms. Hannigan, run into the audience, or pull Annie’s wig off her head mid-song like a bad reunion episode of Real Housewives of East County.

I noticed she did not ask if my dog would be available, but that is because she’s met my dog. I don’t know of any highly trained scruffy terrier mixes at the moment, but when they find one, I am pleased to offer my volunteer services as Official Show Vet. They need one of those, surely.

How I learned what kind of dog I am

Like many pet lovers, I waste a lot of time asking myself the question, if I were an animal, what would I be? It’s really not as easy a question to answer as one might think. The obvious first answer, of course, is to look to which kinds of animals you own. There’s certainly a correlation there, as anyone who has spent time looking at a veterinary exam room can attest to. The short, squat bulldog owners. The wiry, nervous bird owners. The little wrinkly elderly with the little wrinkly pugs.

And while these clues can give you some insight into the owner, just because you’re drawn to a certain animal doesn’t mean you necessarily relate to them. For example, despite the fact that I love Golden retrievers, I would never characterize myself as one. They are gregarious and I am shy. They love water and I love land. They bond to anyone, I pick one or two besties. I look back on the dogs I have had in the past- a Lhasa-ish mutt, a coonhound, Goldens- all very different but none that really, I think embody “me as a pet.” (more…)

Giveaway Tuesday: Royal Canin Doggy Day Spa Pack

I have a giveaway today, which is good because I’m as you can imagine a little off my writing game this week. I’ve been digesting a lot these past few days. Transitions always do that, don’t they?

So anyway, today we have a giveaway of *two* Doggy Day Spa packs, courtesy of Royal Canin. The dog pack giveaway is being done in celebration of the release of their new X-small dog food, designed for dogs under 8 pounds. I saw this diet for the first time when it was being premiered at Global Pet Expo.

"Taco" was adopted by a toy-development specialist from PetMate. Jackpot!

Like many companies at Global, Royal Canin brought in some adorable munchkins to get people over to the booth for some love and pets. But they did it in a particularly great way- they partnered with local rescue Florida Little Dogs Rescue, bringing in adoptable dogs who were on the new diet. It was such a success that Royal Canin donated 2500 bowls of food to the rescue- AND- seven dogs left the booth for a forever home.

From the press release:

All of the Royal Canin X-SMALL formulas contain premium nutrition to support heart health, highly digestible proteins and fibers to help regulate digestion and prevent constipation and are enriched with EPA and DHA to help maintain a beautiful skin and coat.  In addition, the formulas feature a kibble designed to promote dental health, by reducing tartar build-up as the dog chews.

To summarize: little dogs tend to be high energy, have skin and coat issues, and dental issues- so this is a diet that focuses on those things. Do small dogs HAVE to have a special small dog diet? No, of course not. One size never fits all. But if you have a little one and you’re interested in trying it out, here’s your chance. And if you don’t have a little dog, enter anyway- your local shelter would be happy to have it and you can use the rest of the stuff.

Each Doggy Day Spa pack contains the following:

• A 2.5 lb bag of Royal Canin X-SMALL dog food
• Earth Bath natural grooming wipes
• Zwipes Microfiber Small Pet Towels (pack of 5)
• Toothbrush and toothpaste combo pack
• Fresh ‘n Clean oatmeal and baking soda shampoo
• Li’l Pals grooming brush
• Li’l Pals nail trimmer
• Grooming lead

I’m pretty sure the beige chair is NOT, however, included.

To enter, simply leave a comment on this post about who would get to sample the Royal Canin x-small dog food and then enter on the Rafflecopter widget! Bon appetit!

(more…)

Some things never change, until they do

I’m in Boston for my grandfather’s service today. Per his request, it will be a low-key affair. Being the exceptionally organized person that he was, my grandfather had planned 95% of the service himself before he left, leaving envelopes to pay his taxes, money to take the family out to dinner after the burial, and strict instructions that we are to finish off the cognac before we leave.

It’s a bittersweet time. He was the last of my grandparents, and with him passes an era. Or, as my dad so eloquently put it, “Guess this means I’m next.” (Thanks Dad.) I stood in my grandfather’s front yard yesterday, shivering in the chill air as I looked around at the yard that had figured so prominently in my youth. I stared at the driveway, trying to reconcile the empty expanse of grass with the lush gardens I had run through on a daily basis as a kid. As my grandparents got older and it became harder to do yardwork, their gardens and shrubs and trees were slowly removed; but since I had by that point moved to the other side of the country, the changes hit me abruptly as I only saw them in two or three year increments.

What was once acres of grass occasionally dotted with housing had been replaced over the years with rows of houses, as the neighbors sold off the land to be parceled off to developers. This, too, was strange to my eyes. My aunt opened his front door and led us in to a house of shadows, my nose assaulted by that smell that was so singularly THEM, the smell that had always defined their home, a combination of apple cider, wood beams and pipe tobacco.

“Let me know which of their things you might like,” she said, as I walked into the kitchen, running my fingers over the vinyl chairs I spent untold hours in, most of it eating. Unlike the yard and the rest of the world, my grandparents’ house was exactly as it has always been since I was born, from the assorted crosses and various depictions of Jesus dotting the wall to the crocheted dolls from the old world on the stairs. All the exact same except, of course, for its defining characteristic, the warmth of its occupants. I took in every detail and every item and knick-knack, not as an inventory but in a last attempt to take it all in, to make a mental image of the home in its entirety, which is the only thing I wanted to take from the home. Memories, intact. It will be the last time I walk there.

From that perfectly preserved home I stepped back outside to the yard both familiar and foreign, straining to remember the time my grandfather brought a deer home from a hunting trip, dressed it in the garage, and watched in bewilderment as I ran screaming down the street. (My uncle had told me they had Bambi in the garage.) As much and as admirably as they had managed to keep their home so phenomenally consistent and reliable over the decades, time comes along and forces us to change, like it or not.

And that is one of the sad truths it’s easier not to spend too much time dwelling on, so of course the first thing I did after that was call back home and get an update on the goings-on of the kids and the dogs, which are, at least for now, consistent, predictable, and comforting. My son was eating. My daughter was eager to talk. And Brody….well, god bless him, Brody was Brody.

You’ve had a bad day

This post is rated PG-13 for talk about the randy elderly, human brains, and jellyfish. Read at your own risk.

I’ve had plenty of bad days at the vet clinic. Like, the kind where you go home, collapse on the couch and hold a pillow over your face while you wonder why you ever thought this line of work was worth the effort you sunk into it. It has highs and lows, more so than lots of other jobs, but that is what makes it interesting, I suppose. But don’t worry, I won’t be starting your day with another one of those posts you need a stiff drink to make it to the end of. I usually save those for the holidays.

I’ve also had lots of bad days in the sense of, well, that’s a good party story. Like the first time I drained a particularly nasty abscess and ended up shooting myself in the face with pus. That was fun. One of my internal medicine profs in school tried Baytril once when he was fighting off a sinus infection- it’s related to Cipro, after all, how dangerous can it be? Turns out, one of its metabolites can cause hallucinations in humans, which is why it’s not used in people, as he now knows all too well.

I love listening to colleagues talk shop, because as a whole we all have a pretty impressive litany of stories. Though I have to say, of all the jobs I’ve had in my life, the two that gave me the absolute best, strangest, or weirdest stories were not veterinary related at all.   (more…)