A Little of This, and a Little of That

My whole life, I have been a HUGE reader.  There is a scene in “Anne of Green Gables” (the movie) where Anne’s teacher, Miss Stacey catches her reading during geometry class, and her book gets confiscated. That was me, I had many books taken during class, though I always got them back at the end of the day.  (As a teacher how do you tell a kid she can’t read?)

I read anything and everything I could get my hands on, and my favorite book store was the “Book Nook” in Central Lake, Michigan.  We had a summer home there and when I was growing up I spent enormous amounts of time there talking to the guy who owned the store, and making piles of books I wanted to buy.  It was a used book store, and I loved the smells of the old books, and the towering shelves filled with stories waiting to be read.  Many mornings friends would call the cottage looking for me, and my mom would tell them I was in town at the book store.  When I got finished at the “Book Nook” I would spend the rest of the day at the end of the dock reading whatever treasures I’d purchased.

Well, the “Book Nook” has been gone for several years now.  I am living in Texas, and I only get back to the cottage once a year to read at the end of the dock.  Which meant that in the past several years my reading declined to the point where I was hardly reading at all.  About a year and a half ago, my friend ‘K’ pushed me back into the reading arena.  She is a huge reader, and was tired of the fact I wasn’t keeping up with her like I used to.

Well it worked, and for the past year and a half, I have been reading like a fiend, catching up for lost time, and I can’t believe I went that long not reading.  I am once again burying my nose in a book every night, who needs T.V. anyway, after dinner until bed time.  Since my books were starting to accumulate all over the house, my husband had this great idea to build me a “Book Nook” in the corner of the living room.  With a bunch of book shelves, and my favorite chair.  I’m in heaven.  It’s perfect, and was the greatest idea ever. However, my books are quickly out growing my shelves, so something will need to be done.  I haven’t decided quite what yet.  I’ll keep you posted. 

Many people are surprised to learn that my household is not just comprised of dogs.  That in fact, I have rabbits too, and yes, they live inside, and no, they don’t live in traditional rabbit cages.  They actually live the posh life in Leith Petwerks condos.  These well made cages are the elite of the rabbit world, and just about all rabbit people I know have at least one.  As you can see, I have two since I have two bunnies who despise each other.  They each have their own little hiding spot, and in the center is the hay, litter (they are litter trained) and rabbit food.

Once upon a time, I was working at an animal shelter, and this cute 6 month old baby bunny came in.  He was sweet and cute as only little bunnies can be, and when he was placed on the euthanasia list due to lack of space, I decided to adopt him.  However, I didn’t realize he was slated for euthanasia until he was tranquilized and awaiting the final lethal injection.  As there was no vet on staff that day to do a reversal, we wrapped him in a blanket, put some ointment in his eyes (so they wouldn’t get dry) and prayed.  He made it through and woke up, then the staff vet turned around the very next day and neutered him.  Yah!  Not good for bunnies.  Through all that he lived, and I adopted him and named him Norbert.  He was the education bunny at that shelter and live in my office until we moved to Texas.  Now 6 years old, he is starting to get gray on his dark nose, and it makes me sad he’s getting old. 

A few months after Norbert moved into my office, a 1 year old chinchilla colored Netherland Dwarf was surrendered to the the shelter.  With teeth growing out of her mouth like tusks, and her severely smooshed in face, it was obvious she was going to be a dental nightmare her whole life.  Since rabbits are considered exotics, bunny dentals are expensive, and not many vets can work on them.  She was immediately placed on the euthanasia list, and put in a holding cage inside the receiving department where I found her.  I thought she was adorable, and she had the sweetest little personality, so I decided Norbert needed a friend.  I adopted her and named her Lilly.  I found a rabbit vet who removed her front incisors, and started floating her molars every 6 months. Lilly will always have teeth issues, just six months ago she had a molar removed during a routine molar float.  However, she is still sweet, sassy, and funny, and I don’t regret adopting her.  Even with all of her problems.  She is 7 now, and I know she’s going to be hard to maintain as she gets older, but I can’t imagine life without her.

Back in June, my beloved little Curly-Bug was diagnosed with a grade 4 heart murmur.  I was completely floored, he showed no signs of respiratory issues at all.  A few days and an ultra sound later, the diagnoses was confirmed.  Curl had slightly elevated blood pressure, some enlargement of the left ventricle of his heart, and possible slight scarring of the heart muscle.  My regular vet prescribed Enecard, but once I got home and did some research, I wasn’t sure if using drugs was the way I wanted to go.  Especially for a dog who was asymptomatic like Curly.  There is no conclusive research out there that says putting an asymptomatic dog on Enecard will delay the onset of heart failure (there is some anecdotal evidence).  Plus, there are so many side effects to Enecard, one of which being kidney failure, I decided to treat him holistically using the same holistic vet treating Emma and Basil.

The holistic vet felt his prognosis was good, and discussed with me not putting him on drugs yet, telling me we had time and not to panic. (which is WAY easier said than done)  I did some research, put Curl on a vitamin regimen, and started homeopathy.  Which brings me to the dog chores part.

You see, Curly is notoriously a picky eater.  He hates pills, and is extremely stubborn.  I worked in shelters for 6 years, and have never seen a dog able to hack up a pill you were sure was in his stomach like Curly.  So simply sprinkling some vitamins on his food?  Nuh-uh, ain’t gonna happen (not that I didn’t try in the beginning).  Off to Whole foods I went.  I bought some size 2 and size 0 empty gel caps, and began making his pills.  Now, since Curly is only 6 pounds and some change, this means most of his supplements get put into the size 2 gel caps, and I CAN NOT for the life of me find an easy way to make size 2 pills except by hand.  Which means about every six weeks, you can find me in front of the TV drinking an adult beverage and stuffing pills.  It is tedious, and a pain in the ass but like my husband always says when I complain, “how much do you love Curl”?  Enough to sit in front of the TV and stuff pills, enough to cut up whole cow heart into managable Curly size peices, enough that I now keep beef tripe on hand just for him on those days he won’t take his pills no matter what I do.  You see, I know for a fact “heart dogs” come along once in a blue moon, and I plan on keeping mine as happy and healthy as I can, for as long as I can.

Every couple of months my counters fill up with meaty disgustingness which grosses out my husband and forces him into his office, while at the same time making all of my dogs come running to the kitchen to hover.  You see invariably, my deep freeze gets close to empty, which means it’s time to restock and this makes the dogs VERY excited.

Now, you may be thinking this is some great stock pile of meat for human consumption, and you couldn’t be more wrong. This haul comes especially for the dogs, and goes into “their” deep freeze from which I pull all their meals. You see, my dogs eat a raw diet, which means they eat a diet comprised of raw meat, veggies, organ meat, eggs, and several other yummies dogs love, which we humans think are disgusting.

Tonight was organ meat night. I had run out of organ meat blend, so that meant it was time to create more. Thankfully, a good friend and fellow raw feeder informed me quite early on that making your own organ meat blend was disgusting, time consuming, and messy. So I simply buy Bravo’s beef organ meat blend, thaw it out, and then refreeze in ice cube trays. (with 4 dogs 10 pounds and under, you have to improvise so it doesn’t go bad before you can feed it all) Then over time, I can simply pull individually frozen cubes of organ meat out of the deep freeze, thaw, and feed to the dogs. Portioning the stuff out into ice cube trays is still gross, and something I put off until the last possible moment.  After finally getting it over and done with after all of the procrastination, I can now sit back and not worry about organ meat for the next few months. YAY!

However, this weekend, I will have 20 pounds of chicken frames, 20 pounds of chicken necks, and 20 pounds of ground turkey coming in which will also need to be portioned into small dog sized servings.  So stay tuned for even more meaty disgustingness!