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 ... Read more »
Daily Life
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 ... Read 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 ... Read 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 ... Read more »
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 ... Read more »
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 ... Read 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 ... Read more »
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 ... Read 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 ... Read 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 ... Read more »
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 ... Read more »
Contagion
Not much of a post today, I'm afraid. I've spent the last week trundling my youngest back and forth to Urgent Cares, doctor's offices, and emergency rooms (twice in one day! hooray!) as we dealt with an ever-snowballing cascade of viruses, secondary infections, and tertiary allergic reactions to the medications sent to treat the secondary infections. It was a mess. My husband ended up with pneumonia, on the eve of another overseas business trip. And I fought it off as long as I could, ... Read more »
We Love Pet Products: Caroline and the Barnacle
You all know Caroline Golon, right? She runs the amazing rescue site Romeo the Cat and the wonderful cat resource site The Happy Litterbox and the pet PR site HighPaw and she was one of the co-founder of BlogPaws and she's a great mom to her adorable kiddos and a bunch of other things that, taken in total, make me realize how inadequate my contributions to society have been. Anyway, I make it a goal to surround myself with incredible people like her because I always learn a ton from them- ... Read more »
My dog, the practical jokester
I am sure Brody has a sense of humor. I can sense it in the twinkle in his eye, the way he waits until his chew toys are nice and soggy before dumping them in my lap. When I'm in a deep sleep, sometimes he rests his chin on the side of the mattress and stares at me silently, breathing doggy breath two inches from my face before I wake with a scream. He's full of 'em. Last night, with my husband far away, I flicked on the TiVO and watched the latest episode of the Walking Dead. Now, I keep ... Read more »
A restful weekend
Normally I take the weekends as a time to unwind, refresh my brain, and get ready for the next week. Usually this is a doable thing. But, sometimes things get kind of nutty, and in those times there's not much to be done except deal with it and let all the other things you're supposed to do- like blog- fall by the wayside. My husband left on Friday for a weeklong business trip overseas. It happens, that's part of his job description. But it certainly provides for certain, shall we say, ... Read more »
Sidetracked by grammar
I had this whole long serious post about the topic of owner relinquishments and why they were always a nightmare to deal with, but I got sidetracked from my mission when every single media outlet I could find that was talking about the case in question used, in some form or another, the word "euthanization." I've been seeing it in headlines in print and on the web with increasing frequency the last couple of years and it always makes my irises spasm with pain. Euthanasia, to euthanize: those ... Read more »
A whale of a tale
I haven't been whale watching since I was a kid. It seems counter-intuitive, seeing as how I live right along the path of the gray while migration, and I have a marine biology background, but I guess it's one of those things I keep meaning to do but never get around to. Just like people who live in Las Vegas never go to the strip, or those in LA stay away from Universal Studios, you tend to avoid the touristy stuff in the area in which you live. So when a friend of mine asked if anyone was ... Read more »
Dr V, purveyor of poisonous crafts and ideas
I like spending time with my family. We do crafty things, because they're fun and everyone enjoys them. One of our traditions, started back when my daughter was in kindergarten, is to make little Valentine's Day trinket boxes to send to school on Valentine's Day- a craft I found on the Martha Stewart website and immediately fell in love with. It's a cute craft- you take empty matchboxes, cover them with scrapbook paper and ribbons, and fill them with conversation hearts. It's simple, sweet, and ... Read more »
