Life without Lizzie

When I was growing up and devouring dog books, my favorites were those written by Albert Peyson Terhune.  Terhune was a real-life owner of prize-winning collies and he wrote lots of books about them, some based on true events, some fictional stories.  He wrote them for adults, but surprisingly found a large audience of children too.  I longed to have my own collie and the closest I ever had was after Walt and I were married and had two kids when my cousin Peach, who at that time raised shelties, gave me Jeff, a wonderful dog who was afraid of his shadow for most of his life, but who looked like a collie and I loved him.

I loved reading about Terhune's Lad a Dog.  I don't know if Lad was his first collie, but he was the first that he wrote about.  I loved hearing about how Lad spent all of his time lying at "the master's" feet under his desk, or how he spent so much time grooming his paws.

Lizzie wasn't a collie, but she was my self-appointed guardian.  Most of the time she was as unobtrusive as a Secret Service agent, but wherever I was, she was eventually there, not making a big deal of it, just being here with me.  This included spending many hours in the bed I fixed for her in my newly decorated office, which was as close as she could get to being at my feet.

If I got up from the desk and moved to the family room, within five minutes, Lizzie would casually saunter into the family room and climb up on the couch.

Lizzie's "working hours" seemed to be about 5 a.m. to 11 p.m.  At night she slept on a chair in the living room across from the couch where I sleep.  If I got up at 3 and moved to the recliner in the family room, she didn't move, but around 5, I'd hear her sauntering into the family room and climbing onto the couch.  If it was 11 p.m. and I still wasn't getting up to go into the living room, she'd sigh, get off the couch, and retire to the living room.

After moving back to the family room at 3, I usually fall asleep in the recliner, and often wake up around 6, but I stay cuddled under my quilt for an hour or so, pretending to be asleep.  Lizzie's eyes never left me.  She either raised her head, or kept them on her paws, but her eyes were always opened and when she either figured out that I was awake or decided she wanted me to get up, she would get off the couch and come over to wake me up.

I missed her last night.  I missed seeing the white blob that was her body on the chair across from me in the living room, and I missed looking over at the couch when I woke up and not seeing her staring at me. 

When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is feed the dogs.  I pick up Lizzie's bowl and then Polly's, I fill them both and add cottage cheese, then I put Lizzie's down and then Polly's.  This morning I started to go toward Lizzie's, but stopped myself and went to get Polly's.  I filled Polly's bowl and started to put it where Lizzie's food, stopping myself after a few steps. Old habits need to be broken.

Lizzie was like Lad in that she spent most of her waking time cleaning her paws.  Unlike Lad, you'd never know it to look at her feet, which always seemed to be dirty, but she left puddles of drool wherever she was because of the licking.  I won't miss those puddles.

Two nights before she died, she curled up on family room couch and put her head on the pillow there, like it was a real bed.  She was so cute I wanted to take her picture but I knew that if I got up to get my cell phone, she would move, so I didn't.  I figured I'd take the picture the next time she did it.  I didn't realize that would be the last time.

When we got home from the vet's yesterday, I realized that I had forgotten to take Lizzie's collar off.  I called the office, but the people who cremate the animals had already picked her up.  The vet gave me their phone number and I called.  The nice lady told me that when they go through all the stuff they collect after the cremations, they would try to find Lizzie's collar.  Today she called and said they found it and will deliver it to the vet's office tomorrow, so we will at least have that bit of Lizzie back, since we chose not to have her ashes returned to us.

---

Ned has started a new project around here.

We've been talking about putting in a ceiling light.  Right now the only light in the kitchen is over the sink and the light on the stove.  Walt has had some misgivings about the project which Ned waved away.  He's finally tired of hearing about us "going" to put in a new light so he decided he would take matters into his own hand.

Today he spent the whole day draping the room and washing the ceiling.  Tomorrow he will paint and the next day he will get the light in.  I can't tell you how thrilled I am to think of not having to cook in the dark any more!

Lizzie

We bid a sad farewell to Lizzie today.  ("What shall we do for Christmas?"  "I dunno...how about let's kill the dog....")

Fortunately she went quickly and if we had waited 30 more minutes before going to the vet, she would have died at home.  Last night she vomited several times, then her legs wouldn't hold her and she kept collapsing when she tried to walk.  It was 10 pm so I waited until morning before calling the vet.  They gave me an 11:15 appoinment and by the time it came time to take her, she couldn't walk at all.

They took us right into an exam room and we waited for the doctor to come.  I took what I feared would be Lizzie's last photo.

 

And it was.  The vet said it felt like she had a mass in her stomach.  `The vet took her back to check a few things and said that yes, it was a mass and talked about the extensive things that could be done.  But she was a ~13 year old dog and already very, very sick and I had known from when we took her to the car that it would probably be a one-way trip for her.

Yesterday she acted normal, but when we got home from the show last night, though she met us at the door, as she always did, she hung back and didn't go into the kitchen for a treat.  I thought she was feeling embarrassed because she had pooped on the floor (the back door was closed and it was her only option) but then I saw the big puddle of vomit, which we cleaned up (this morning I found two more).

She had lost a lot of weight, but seemed otherwise happy until last night, so at least she didn't suffer long.  We agreed it was time to euthanize her, but she took care of that for us.  Before the doctor could get the meds together, Lizzie was gone.

We said our goodbyes and there were tears.  But she has been a wonderful dog.  She came here about 10-11 years ago as a foster named Happy, but I knew immediately that I wanted to adopt her, so we kept her.  In her early days, it was like she was built on springs because she jumped at everything, so I renamed her Leaping Lizzie.  She used to sit at the back of the couch looking out the front window and leap at anything that dared threaten us by walking past the house.

Many people walked past just to watch Lizzie's display.

 

The older she got, the less she leaped, but she still always jumped and jumped and jumped on me when I was fixing her a meal.  I won't miss that.  Walt loved watching her "pre-wash" the dishes when he loaded them in the dishwasher.

She accepted Polly as a resident of the house but other than running outside to bark together, they never really played, though Polly seems confused  that we left with Lizzie and came back without her.

She was a sweet, loving dog and I will miss her.  But probably not think about replacing her!  For now we are a one-dog family.

Dog Day Afternoon

Walt and I decided to go to Atria in the afternoon.  I thought I would bring Lizzie with us so she could distract my mother while Walt was in her bedroom measuring furniture.  As it turned out, no sneaking was necessary since she was sitting in the lobby across from the dining room, so I just took Lizzie down to visit her while Walt went off with his tape measure to the apartment.

My mother has always loved dogs and she was happy to see Lizzie, who was just so good, so gentle and so happy to have someone make a fuss over her.

I lost track of how many times my mother asked if Lizzie was our dog or not and how long we'd had her, but it was nice to have her distracted and to have something to talk about.

There are a lot of dogs who live at Atria and I've gotten to know many of them.  There is, for example, a Boston Bull terrier named,  think, Molly, who lives across the hall.  There is a sign on the door of that apartment letting people know that there is a dog inside and what the dog's name is.

Dogs always attract attention and having Lizzie in the lobby was a great magnet for lots of people who wanted to pet her.  One woman told us about her dog, who had lived at Atria for a few years and now lives with her daughter, but the woman keeps a fenced in yard for when the dog comes to visit.

What was strange about the day was that I swear almost every dog who lives in Atria came by while we were sitting there.

Elizabeth is my favorite.  She's a lovely Dalmatian and everybody loves her, including, apparently, Lizzie.

There was little Chita, a long-haired Chihuahua looking dog who was as energetic was Polly but didn't bark.

There was also the dog I have called a mini-Lizzie because she looks exactly like Lizzie if Lizzie had been bleached and shrunk.  The two dogs' tails wags furiously and they really wanted to play with each other.

My favorite King Charles spanial walked by and both dgs wagged at each other from across the hall, but the person on the other end of her leash didn't let her come over to sniff butts.

Walt finally joined us, having finished measuring everything.  My mother didn't recognize him and I'm not 100% sure she ever knew who he was.  She also looked confused when I talked about Ned and didn't have a clue who that was, and when I explained he was her grandson, she waved her hand and let me know she didn't know what I was talking about (Ned is meeting us at a rose garden in Sacramento tomorrow so we can take her to lunch there and let her enjoy being surrounded by roses).

She did, however, enjoy looking at the picture of Brianna carrying the foodball that i posted yesterday.  Usually when I show her pictures like that she says 'who is that?' but today she just talked about the photo as if she knew who I was talking about.  You just never know from minute to minute who she is going to remember and who she is not.

But the best part of the day was just watching my mother interact with Lizzie and Lizzie seeming to enjoy it.

 
I don't know if dogs can visit in memory care, but if they can, I think I need to bring Lizzie more regularly.  It's not only good for my mother, but for the people around her as well...and Lizzie's a great dog to do it because she's so calm and loving

Beds

A month or so ago, I ordered something called a "sherpa bed" for the dogs.  The price was right and it was supposedly bigger than the beds we have now (Lizzie's favorite position is in a small bed, with her head hanging out onto the cold floor)

 

It hasn't come and hasn't come and I was beginning to think that I had been ripped off.  But yesterday a basketball-shaped package, poorly wrapped, showed up at the front door and lo and behold, there was the new bed.

I unwrapped the bed and put it on the floor, ready to line it up with the other beds, but Lizzie took possession immediately.

 

She obviously loved the new bed and has settled in all day, ignoring the beds she has been sleeping in for the past several years.

I know the feeling.  Though I don't sleep in a bed, my couch and my recliner are so comfortable that I love to snuggle in the way Lizzie has done with the new bed.  Give me the recliner and a quilt that I sleep under and I can hibernate like a bear in the woods (without the fear that someone is going to shoot me, because that is now legal).

The bed has become, I think, my mother's refuge.  It used to be that when I went to see her, she was asleep on the couch.  Now more often than not she is sleeping n her bed, with lots of pillows and a comfortable duvet.  Sometimes she's dressed for the day, sometimes not and it's difficult to tell if she slept in her clothes (as I often do), or if she was helped to dress and then went back to her bed.

Yesterday I was going to have lunch with her, but no parking place, so I went shopping first and it was after 12 before I got to her apartment.  She was in her bed, dressed.  I could not tell if she'd been up or not, but since her shoes were next to the bed, I assume she had been up and had assistance getting dressed before going back to bed.

I just ache for her.  It must be terrible to wake up in a strange place, with strange people, and no clue where you are.  I woke her up and she squinted at me, and said, weakly, "I think I recognize you."

I sat on the bed, hoping she'd come to life, but she turned on her side, pulled the duvet up over her and said several things, all mumbled softly and I have no idea what she was saying.  After about 30 minutes, I told her I thought I should leave and let her get some more sleep.  That got her moving.  A little.

She eventually sat up, but just sat there, not really acknowledging that I was there, though ultimately she decided she would get up.  I told her I'd wait in the living room.  She finally came out and said "what am I supposed to do?"  I told her there was nothing she had to do but that I was just going to sit and wait for her so we could visit.

She disappeared again for a long time and when I went to check on her, she was sitting on the bed again.

She finally came in and sat in her chair, but didn't know where she was.  She seemed surprised to hear she'd been there nearly 4 years.  She asked how often I sat in the chair she was sitting in.  She commented on the blooming plants outside, and asked what the blanket on her couch was.  She had no concept that I had not been around, and had no interest in hearing about the trip to Santa Barbara (though she asked what I'd been doing ... she just didn't want to know about it).  She said she just sat there and waited for people to come and see her.

I finally decided that we had nothing to say to each other and I left (ironically, exactly an hour, which is how long most of my visits last).  I brought her laundry home to wash, which surprised her that I would do that.

I left with tears on the surface, then came home to an email from the woman who runs Atria saying they were having problems getting her  to shower and to wear Depends and that she has been having accidents. She was thinking I could come by while they bathe her and maybe that would calm her down.  She also suggested I remove all of her underwear and replace them with Depends.

This is killing me.  I hate the thought of causing her discomfort by making her accept strangers bathing her. On one of her more lucid days, we talked about it and she was adamant that nobody was gong to bathe HER.

I agree with the need to get her to accept Depends because incontinence is becoming a problem.

I suggested to Brianna that we just ignore the bathing assistance right now until it becomes a noticeable problem and decided I won't take her clean underwear back to her when I've finished washing it and put Depends on her underwear drawer and see what happens.

As I said, this is killing me.  I watched her sister go through this and that killed me, watching that intelligent, funny woman shrink into someone who had to be bathed and screamed bloody murder the whole time because she hated it so much.

It's so hard to know what to do and I wish I could talk to my mother about it because she'd know the right thing to do!

It makes me want to crawl into my comfortable recliner, pull the quilt up over me and veg-out with a movie or two.

(Worst of all, ofcourse, is knowing that unless high cholesterol does me in first, this will be me, eventually, and my kids will have to be making these same decisions.)

The Problem with My Mother

Nancy Reagan rejoined her Ronnie this week.  

We haven't seen much of Mrs. Reagan in recent years, but photos of her like the one at the right are how I will think of her at the end of her life.  She seemed very frail, there are bruises on her legs, when she walked she was bent over, walked slowly and leaned heavily on the arm of the person walking with her.

But then that was not expected.  All things considered, she was doing well for a woman of 92.

Recently I found a video on Facebook that I can't find again, but it was an old woman, bedridden, but smiling at the camera and, in a quavery voice, singing one of her favorite old songs.  The person who posted the video wanted to show everyone how much fun her 90 year old mother was having singing one of her favorite old songs. Not only was she frail, bedridden and with a quavery voice, but her face looked something like this.

She was toothless and she had way more wrinkles than this woman does.  She was 90 and doing well.  And the video made me smile because she was so happy to be singing her song.

I told my mother that her problem is that she looks and acts so well, nobody believes she is 97 years old!  97! Five years older than Nancy Reagan, 7 years older than the singing old woman.  But she stands straight, has all of her teeth, walks without assistance.  Yes, she has lines on her face, but not all that many.

And that's her problem.  I expect her to act the way she looks even though I know she is almost 100 and I probably should make more allowances for her than I do.

My visit with her on Tuesday was brief, 30 min vs. the hour I usually spend, because I as on my way to the hospital to work.  But it was one of her "distracted" days.  She really didn't seem interested in anything and even the things she says all the time were kind of like playing a record, not with any feeling behind them.  Again she asks who those cute little girls are in the picture on her cabinet.  She never, ever remembers who they are. I tried to let her know "what I've been doing that's exciting," which she wants to know every time but she never listened, just looked out the window or at her fingernails and asked me what I've been doing that's exciting.  She's always had perfectly manicured nails and Tuesday she had taken off some of the polish on some of her nails and just kept looking at them and picking at them and complaining that she had no nail polish (which she does...she often puts polish on her nails while we talk).  Even news of Jeri's impending visit didn't seem to excite her much.  She just sighed and said "well, it will be nice to see the kids..."  Usually Jeri's impending visits are the one things that makes her sparkle.

But she's 97 and she's in surprisingly good condition for someone who's 97.  I need to keep remembering that.

---

I fell asleep early last night and later staggered off to the living room, as I always do.  I woke up a little before 3 a.m., as I do every night and came out to the family room to climb into the recliner again, as I do every night, but Lizzie was in it.

Knowing how miserable she is and how much difficulty she must have had getting into the chair, I didn't have the heart to move her.  So I'm finishing this entry and then am going back to the couch to see if I can go back to sleep without Frasier reruns to put me to sleep.

Lizzie Comes Home

We went and picked Lizzie up at the vet's yesterday morning. They say the surgery went well and we have an appointment to have the Fentynl patch removed on Monday and in two weeks to get her stitches removed.  She was happy to see us but confused.   A bag of pills and a mere $1,500 later, we were on our way home. I sat in the back of the car with her to make sure she didn't bite at her leg.  There was a lot of "nice to see you, but why did you do this to me?" about her on the ride home.

Of course as soon as we arrived home, she started to bite at her leg, so the dreaded Cone of Shame had to be added.

She lay in the floor for a while, but seemed very uncomfortable, not quite sure wat to do with her head.

She did finally settle into the dog bed where she spent most of the afternoon, but the night was a nighmare.  She has to move to whatever room I am in and then she can't find a way to get comfortable.  I swear she paced all night long, though now that I have moved into my office she seems to be somewhere sleeping.  I hope.  Wish I could do so as well !

I was afraid we were going to have problems because she has 3 pills to take, two twice a day and one three times a day.  I give the pills to her in Vienna sausages, which she loves, but last night she wouldn't even look at the sausage.  Nor was she the least interested in her dinner.  She drove me crazy because if I was in the kitchen, she would be in the kitchen, her food bowl left in the family room, where she eats.  If I went into the family room to keep Polly from eating Lizzie's dinner, she came into the family room, but wouldn't touch her food.  

I took her collar off and scratched her all over (she had been trying to scratch her ears all afternoon) and then she did finally eat and when I gave her the pills, she took them without a problem.  Thank goodness she is so food oriented!  But of course as soon as she finished eating, she wanted to bite at her surgery site again, so the cone had to be put back on.  I apologized to her all the time I was doing.  I am very lucky that she is so docile and lets me torture her like that, though I wonder if this acquiescence is going to last for as long as she has to wear the cone.

The doctor called in the afternoon and said surgery went well and tells me he had to perform the same surgery on both of his dogs and within weeks they were out running with him again, so I am optimistic that we have fixed the problem.

Cone of Shame

Poor Lizzie is wearing the Cone of Shame today.

Today she will have her ACL surgery so last night we went to the vet and they put a Fentanyl patch on her leg to help with pain management and added the dreaded cone of shame to keep her from licking it.  (I don't remember where I first heard this shield called "cone of shame" but I have always used that term, 'cause it's just so descriptive).

Poor Lizzie is very confused, and very sad.

They told me that she would be able to eat with the collar on, and she could, but I had to find a more shallow bowl for her, because she couldn't get her face into the deeper bowl that she usually eats from.

She was not happy about it, though.

All evening we heard her banging into walls and trying to find a comfortable place to sleep.  Mostly she just lay out on the floor, though she did finally manage to, with difficulty, get into her bed and lie there, but not happily.

At night, when I lay down on the couch, she came up right next to me, as she often does before settling in for the night, but she just stayed there, as if hoping I'd take off this instrument of torture I was forcing her to wear.  In the morning she was lying flat out on the wooden floor, not curled up in the chair where she usually sleeps at night.

Lord knows what she is going to think of me tonight when she's had her surgery and is spending the night in a cage at the vet's office (I won't have a car this afternoon so I won't be able to get down to pick her up, even if she's ready to go home after her surgery).

They say that the cone can come off when the stitches come out in two weeks so we have a long row to hoe with this blasted cane.  I just hope that when it's all over, she will be able to put weight on her back leg again.

I visited my mother yesterday to bring her clean laundry to her.  She couldn't understand that wasn't going to stay for lunch, but I wore my "uniform" to reinforce the fact that I was on my way to work at the hospital.  

I'm going to try to have lunch with her today after I make a trip to Sacramento to see if Kaiser does, indeed, have the doctor's form about my eye ready for me (not really believing that they do!).  She told me yesterday how cute the photos of the two girls were (Brianna and Lacie) and asked who they were, then she asked if there were 2 photos of the same girl or if they were two different girls.

It was a quiet day at Sutter, though I am starting to wonder if anybody ever listens to me.  What was that old commercial about the bank or investment company..."when XXX talks, everybody listens"?  I'm starting to think when I talk nobody listens.  I've been thinking like this for a while, ever since I got into a group where we make plans by e-mail.  I will say "I'd like to do such-and-such but can't do such-and-such" and next will comed a message that says "Does anybody want to do such and such?" (asking about the thing I just said I was interested in doing).  This happens over and over again and I'm convinced nobody in the group ever reads what I write.

Yesterday an old man came looking for where the Neurology office was.  I wasn't sure and rummaged through a drawer looking for a list of the medical offices.  He wandered off looking for a nurse.  Then he came back and I told him where he could find the office, but he went and got a security guard and asked her. She repeated what I had just said.

Later in the afternoon a similar thing happened with another bewildered person.  I gave her the answer and she went to someone else to ask the same question.

However, the woman looking for her friend, who was in the ICU yesterday DID listen when I asked her if she was sure he had been at this hospital because nobody had any record of it.  She then realized he had been at the Woodland hospital.

The Golden Dog

I didn't think it was a big problem at first.  Lizzie started limping on Monday.  It was more than limping; she wasn't using her right hind leg at all.

She had a session of limping a few months back.  I let it go a couple of days and she stopped, so I didn't worry about it this time for 2 days, but she was still not using the leg and had become lethargic (except when the dog over the back fence was out, then she ran out barking like she always does, which is why I wasn't worried about her).

I finally called to make an appointment with the vet and we hobbled in to see her yesterday morning.

She could find no problem with Lizzie's foot, which she had been licking, so took her in the back for x-rays and came back with the bad news.  She had torn her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament).  She laid out two options for us  The first involved having an orthopedist come in, break her leg and reset it.  That would "only" cost $4,000, but would be the surest way to fix it for good.

The other is a simpler procedure that the vet can do in house and will "only" cost ~$1,500.  

Whenever something like this happens--and it seems that most of our dogs have had at least one "big" thing in their lives--it makes me wish for Peti-Care, but all things considered, Lizzie is about 9 years old and this is the first major problem she has had and if we had contributed monthly to a pet insurance we probably would have paid more.  I don't think Sheila ever had a big expensive thing happen to her in her 12 years.

Given her level of activity (not very active), I decided to go with the less expensive procedure. So she's scheduled for surgery.  She'll wear the "cone of shame" for awhile and won't be able to race out to chase after the dog in back.  It won't be a fun time for any of us, but hopefully the outcome will be good.

Our lives ("our" being a generic term meaning anybody who has and loves a dog) revolve around our companions.  I know that Lizzie and especially Polly are in charge of what goes on here during the day.

I wake up in the recliner and the trick is to sneak my iPad, which is on a shelf right at my elbow, into my lap so I can check e-mail before I have to "wake up" officially.  Polly never reacts when I take the iPad out and open it up, but no matter how silently I put it back, those bat-ears pick up the sound and she's wide awake.  When Polly is wide awake, there is no rest for the wicked until she has been fed.  She barks and barks and barks that shrill bark of hers that pierces you to the core and there is nothing to be done but to get up and fix breakfast for the dogs.

Lizzie is the one who legs me know if they need something.  If she needs for me to open the back door, or if she is out of water, I will be sitting here at my desk and will feel her nose poking my butt.  She's so polite about it (unlike Polly) that I get up right away to find out what it is that she needs.

On Sunday morning, Walt fixes his breakfast and it's the day of the week when he cooks sausage.  He always gives one sausage to me and gives me one sausage that I split between Polly and Lizzie.  Whenever Walt goes into the kitchen on Sunday morning, suddenly there is Lizzie under my feet and Polly standing behind me, both waiting patiently because they know they are going to get a bit of sausage.

They are insistent about dinner too.  It takes several weeks/months after Ashley has been here for them to get back to my schedule to feed them.  She feeds them earlier than I do.  They can be sound asleep and suddenly the dinner bell goes off in their heads and the are going to die of starvation of I don't feed them immediately.  Both pace and Polly barks.  When they are back on my schedule, they get fed after Jeopardy is over (7:30) and as soon as the theme music starts, Polly leaps off of the chair and starts barking to be fed.

But they are also nice to have around.  I never have to wonder if our bi-weekly water bottles have been delivered or if the Blue Apron guy has showed up with our box for the week because they bark the "you are an enemy; go away or I will kill you" bark.  By the same token, I always know when Walt has ridden up on his bike because of Polly's happy welcoming bark.

They don't like it when I sleep in the recliner and are often so restless if I stand up that I finally give up and go sleep on the couch for a few hours.  I have often put off writing this entry because the dogs want me to go to sleep.  Fortunately they don't seem to mind when I get up at 3 a.m. and move to the recliner, or decide to write a journal entry in the middle of the night.

---

Just a heads up -- I am going to Char's tonight to go to a lecture by an author whose book we read a couple of months ago.  I am spending the night there and won't be writing an entry until I get home Friday morning.
 

Pee Me a River

As we were about to leave the house to go to Sacramento to review Chicago, I heard a cry of anguish from the living room.  Walt had discovered a lake of dog urine under the dining room table.

Poor Lizzie (we assume it was Lizzie...Sheila will hold it untilshe explodes, though exploding in this instance could also have become a possibility).   She really is very good about peeing where she is supposed to--outside--but she also is so damnably insistant about barking at the back fence that she spends more of her life inside than she does outside.  Because of our long feud with Mr. McCoy (our Hatfield-McCoy relationship), we are very aware of the dogs barking, even though he has not lived in that house for about two years and we have had no complaints whatsoever from the current tennants, who have a big dog, who barks at our dogs.

I keep letting the dogs out when they get restless, Walt keeps bringing them in when they bark.  I tend to let them bark longer than he does because most of the time they will stop after 5 minutes or so, and I figure they have to get along with that big dog sooner or later.  There are times when they are sleeping in the house and the big dog comes out and barks.  I really think the three of them (Lizzie, Polly and Big Dog) like each other and as soon as they are let out, they come to the back fence to bark and see if their friend(s) on the other side can come out and play.   When Big Dog barks, Lizzie and Polly are like cartoon characters, their feet slipping on the Pergo as they try to race outside instantly. 

Sheila is calmer.  She barks occasionlly, but does not respond to Big Dog the way the other two do.

Also, I have been unable to housebreak Polly.  I tried the first year she was here, but she was so scared of anything and everything, that whenever I took her outside she would stand there trembling and cowering, as if I was about to beat her.   I would eventually give up, come back into the house and within seconds, she would pee on the floor.  

Life changed when I found puppy puddle pads, designed to help housebreak puppies.  Polly took to those like a duck to water and always peed on the pad, so we just use a couple of pads in the house and she's semi-housebroken, like a cat with a litter box.

When nature calls Lizzie, and I'm not able to read her need to pee, she will also head for the puddle pad.  But Polly is a tiny thing and Lizzie is a 33 lb terrier and her bladder holds considerably more than Polly's does.  I can only assume from how much she peed last night that she had been holding it in for hours.

The puddle ran from next to the puddle pad (her aim isn't very good) under the dining room table and halfway across the living room.  It was a 4-towel job and Walt's pants got wet in the process, so he had to change them before we could leave for the theater.

While the natural reaction would be to get angry with Lizzie, I realize that the fault, dear Brutus, was not in Lizzie, but in my own failure to let her out when she had the need.  I was more intent on keeping the dogs locked up while we were gone, so they wouldn't bark and couldn't be called back into the house, than realizing how long Lizzie had been locked up.

Of course when I let the dogs out for one last relief before we left, the first thing they did was to race to the back fence to bark.  Sigh.  Remind me again why I have dogs?

Maybe it's because their joy is so infectuous.  I took Lizzie to the vet yesterday to get updated shots and a clean bill of health.  She loved the car ride.   I don't roll the window all the way down because I'm sure she'd leap out if she saw something she wanted to investigate, but rolling it down just enough that she can stick her face out delights her and she had a great time sniffing all those strange smells coming to her.

---

Jeri came with me to the sing-along at Atria yesterday afternoon.  She and her grandmother had a good time singing to all of those songs from popular musicals.

Feet

Sounds kind of crazy, but I'm thinking about feet today.  I thought about feet last night when I was sleeping on the couch with Lizzie, I thought about feet when I was reading my new elephant book when I couldn't get to sleep, and I thought about my own feet when I headed off to Podiatry this morning.

This was the last of the tests my primary care physician ordered in August, all of which have been within normal limits.  The podiatry appointment was canceled by Kaiser twice, so I expected them to be canceling again when they called yesterday, but it was just a reminder.  I got up early this morning to do a foot soak, just in case the feet weren't as clean as they looked!

I don't know why there was no podiatry clinic closer than Vallejo, which is an hour's drive from here. I gave "Nigel" (our GPS--he's British) the information and off I went.  The Kaiser garage was so full I thought surely I would be late for my appointment, but no, I arrived only one minute after the scheduled time.

The provider was an RN named Terry, who didn't know, either, why I was there, but she checked my feet, clipped my toenails and told me I was welcome to come back for nail care if I wanted, but it would cost $35 per visit, so I thanked her and made my way back out to the car again!

The one thing she did do was to explain that the "ingrown toenail" I thought I had was not, and was a mild nail fungus, about which I can do nothing really, except get a soft brush and brush the area when I take a shower.  She cleaned out the area, and it doesn't hurt any more.  Yippee!

As for dog feet, Lizzie comes to mind instantly.  Lizzie spends a lot of time licking her front paws.  Wherever she is she is licking those feet.  It always looks like one of the dogs has peed on the couch or on a blanket because she slops over onto whatever surface she is lying and leaves a small puddle of dog drool.  There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her feet, she just likes to lick them.

But what I'm finding today the most interesting feet are elephant feet. The book I am reading currently is called "The Elephant's Secret Sense," by Caitlin O'Connell.  O'Connell has spent many years studying elephants, particularly focusing on their method of communication.  She speaks about how important an elephant's feet are in communicating not only with its own herd, but herds in the vast area where it lives.

The pad on the bottom of an elephant's foot is able to register vibrations for many miles, which can tell it where other herds are located and when there is danger nearby.  It also allows these huge animals to move almost soundlessly through the forest, when necessary.

But over and above the spongy pad of the foot, she observed that when startled, or wary, elephants walk on tiptoe.  (They also stand on tiptoe to reach vegetation which is too high to reach from the ground.)  She speculates that "perhaps elephants were getting up onto the their toes to direct the vibrations through special vibration-sensitive cells at the tips of the toes or through their toenails.  Alternatively, the vibrations could pass through their foot pads and and toe bones, feet, and then up the leg, and into the ear."

As I have mentioned here many times, I find elephants endlessly fascinating and look forward to finishing this book and knowing even more.

 

But the best thing about "feet" tonight is looking through them,
watching the TV, which is fixed and BACK!

Lizzie Goes to a Party

Marta's family has two parties a year to celebrate family birthdays. One is for all the birthdays that happen in the first part of the year, the other is for all the birthdays that happen in the last part of the year. The party this weekend was brunch at Ned & Marta's house and they invited us to come. Ned also suggested I bring Lizzie with us. I figured Lizzie could use some time with just us, away from all the rest of the hoard. She so rarely gets that.

She had a great time riding in the car.

When we got to Ned and Marta's there was somebody else to occupy everybody's attention, baby Charlie.

It's just too bad he was such a skinny, ugly, unhappy baby. :)

We enjoyed chatting with all the Wilsons, including Charlie's grandparents who happened to mention that they are leaving on a trip to Russia next week. I asked their plans. A cruise, they said. From St. Petersburg to Moscow, they said. With Viking cruises, they said. Boinnnggg. Turns out we are going on the same cruise at the same time, with the same company, but we are on the Viking Kirov and they are on the Viking Surkov. I suspect that our chance of meeting accidentally either in St. Petersburg or in Moscow are slight, but what a coincidence. When next we meet we'll have to compare notes.

We were seated at one long table for lunch, with a smaller table off to the side for the overflow.

I had brought potatoes to share and had planned to make this neat recipe that called for bacon, onions and red peppers. Then the bacon turned out to be moldy, so I substituted a Cajun potato dish, which worked out fine because so many people, it turns out, don't like onions (I knew Walt and Marta didn't; I didn't realize others in her family don't either).

It was very hot when we left and we cranked the air conditioner in the car up to high. Unlike the trip over, Lizzie didn't stick her nose out the window to sniff the air. She discovered that if she stood between the two of us, with her feet resting on the console in the middle of the front seats, she was right in front of the a/c and she stood there the whole way home (40 minutes), drooling copiously onto my arm. I found a towel stored in the console and stuck that on my arm for her to drool into.

When I checked messages after we got home there were a slew of them on the discussion board for our upcoming trip, from people who were very unhappy with things. I'm going to keep a positive attitude and assume that our trip will be just fine. We endured Ludwig, Nevada. These people don't know the meaning of primative. These people are complaining about sanitary conditions because they never saw hand rails on the stairs being sanitized. We ate dinner in a sandstorm in Death Valley. More than once. I think we can handle unsanitized stair railings.

The Dog's Day (guest entry by Lizzie)

* 6 a.m. Is that a sliver of light in the sky? Do you suppose she sees it? I'll go check. I'll walk quietly into the family room and stare at her intently. Is her eye open a little bit? Let me just climb on the chair and check. Very softly now. Place paw gently on her stomach and quietly get into the chair. Stand on chair. Stare at her face. Watch chest moving rhythmically. Sigh. She's asleep. I'll check back later.

Human comment: Must. keep. eyes. closed. Do not acknowledge the weight standing on my stomach. Breathe normally. Want more sleep.

* 7 a.m. What's that? I hear the chair moving. She must be awake! I race down the hall, followed by Sheila. Leaping and licking and more leaping. Morning love-in with all the dogs and Human. Breakfast! I know you've only been awake 30 seconds, but it's time for BREAKFAST!

* 7:10 a.m. What? No breakfast? She wants to go into that little room where the big water bowl is? And then she wants to make coffee? And then she wants to sit in that chair and tap tap tap on that little machine? Doesn't she know I'm going to die if I don't eat breakfast right NOW.

* 7:20 a.m. Still no sign of breakfast. Send the little guys in to beg for food. If that doesn't work, I will stand behind her and poke her in the butt until she gets up. Sheila has gone back to sleep. Lazy bitch.

* 7:30 a.m. Food! It's time for FOOD, glorious FOOD! Follow Human to the kitchen, leaping at her back and punching her in the butt with every step. Wag tail and look cute. Follow her as she feed the other three dogs, finally go eat something.

* 7:40 a.m. - 10 a.m. Retire to the living room. Take my position on the couch, keep watch out the window to protect the house from dogs walking by, garbage men, mailmen, anybody casually walking by and cars.

If someone stops and looks at the window, give them a good show, leaping at the window.

Guarding the house is an exhausting job.

* 10 a.m.: Go to back yard. Hear something strange. Bark. Barkbarkbarkbarkbark. Human comes out on patio and turns that strange handle. Suddenly it's very wet, but only where I'm standing. Better go back in house. Little guys follow me. They aren't really so bad. I think we'll play. Lots of growling and rolling around the floor. We look scary, but we're having fun.

* 12 noon: Human sits down to eat something. Gather the troops together. Here's what we'll do. Spencer will sit in front of her, licking her hands if she puts them in her lap. Polly will put her paws in the lap, wag tail furiously and look cute. Sheila and I will sit nearby staring intently and thinking "You WILL give us food. You WILL give us food." A crust of bread! Yes! We get a crust of bread! Victory!

* 12:30: Change of venue. Settle into Human's chair and pretend that I have a right to be here.

Get up when Human tries to sit down. Give kisses when petted, even though I have to get out of the chair.

* Afternoon - if guests stop by greet them with lots and lots and lots of jumping, unless it's that Marta person, who won't let me jump. Get bored with jumping and gather all the rest of the dogs around the feet of the guests and the Human and start to play-fight. Growling, jumping on each other. in and out of all those human legs. We know they like us and want us to be part of the conversation too. Be happy when Human says "shut up!" which probably means "yes, you can join us in the conversation too."

As Human walks around the house, get the little guys and everybody follow her. Jump at her legs, jump at her butt. She loves having muddy paw prints on her pants. When she goes into that little room with the big water bowl in it, jump at the door until she comes out. (If you can get the little guy to whine, it's even better.) Sheila doesn't want to do this. She has to keep watch at the window.

* Continue to help Sheila guard the house when not busy jumping or barking in the back yard.

* 4 p.m. Time to start thinking of dinner. Human says over and over again "it's not time yet," which probably means "show me how hungry you really are and I will feed you." Keep pawing at human, leaping up in excitement whenever she stands up, getting the other dogs to join me.

* 5 p.m. - Dinner time. Same as breakfast. After humans finish their own dinner, help out by licking the plates and silverware in the dishwasher. They really like all my help.

* race around the house for an hour with the other guys, then settle down for 12 hour sleep in the male human's chair while Human sleeps in her chair.

This is a nice place to live. They feed me, they pet me, they love me, and they let me help with household chores. Maybe tomorrow they'll give me another crust of bread.

Just Lookin' at Stuff

We went to see Theresa Rebeck's play, "The Scene" on Friday night. It's a fast-paced, hard-biting comedy that will sometimes leave you breathless with the pace of it. Tony Shaloub was in the original production and after all these years of watching Monk, it's sure hard to picture Shaloub as this drunken, sex-crazed, disillusioned actor.

The show was held at the Capital Stage, which is a theatre on the riverboat, The Delta King, which floats on the river along Old Sacramento. A fun place to visit.

It had been raining and the streets were wet. Walt pulled into the parking lot and let me out to start walking to the theatre. I started down the gangplank to the boat and looked off to my left, where the J Street Bridge was all lit up.

I felt like I was seeing it...really seeing it...for the first time.

Today we went back to Sacramento for a matinee of a play called "Gem of the Ocean" by August Wilson (intense, but excellent play) and coming home there was the most beautiful sunset. I felt like I was seeing a sunset for the first time.

"Toto, I've a feeling we aren't in Kansas any more" !!

I'm sure I'm sounding like a broken record about all this eye stuff, but it's like seeing the world for the first time in a very long time. We sat down at the dinner table the other night and I commented to Walt that I had been about to point out that even the table area was much brighter, but that I'd laughed to myself as I realized that he'd replaced one of the bulbs in the chandalier that had burned out. He looked confused and then said "Yes, but I did that three weeks ago."

So it wasn't my imagination. The room is brighter. I'm enjoying this so much that I've already started to fear losing it. If I ever need a reminder of what things were like a week ago, all I need to do is to close my now-good eye and look out of the other one to see how dull the colors are, how it looks to have part of my vision blocked by a cataract.

I see the doctor tomorrow for my final post-op and one of the questions I will be asking him is what are the chances of a cataract developing again. I don't know how many years I'd been incubating this thing, but I know it was diagnosed at least 10 years ago. It was only within the past year that it started making it difficult for me to function normally.

But for how many years had it put me in this muted world where I could see, but not truly appreciate the colors around me? I look at the photos that I post now and realize that I never really saw them before. I may still not have much depth perception but I sure can tell the difference between disappointing photos and the same photo as I look at it now.

So I am going through my days now, just "lookin' at stuff" literally with new eyes...or eye...and appreciating the beauty that I always appreciated before but now have an entirely new perspective on.

Life is good.

---

Tonight's Vignette: I cooked a turkey breast last night, so we had leftovers for dinner tonight. My stomach was feeling a little unsettled, so I opted not to have dinner, but I dished Walt a big plate of turkey, stuffing and vegetables. He sat down and then remembered that we had some leftover cranberry sauce in the fridge, so he got up to look for it (actually, I had eaten it last night). When he got back to the table, all of his turkey was gone. Lizzie had stolen it. Damn dog.

Home Alone

By 3 p.m., I was home alone.

The dogs, bless 'em, had let me sleep in until 7:45--unheard of! I had been so sleepy the night before that I actually left Mary sitting up finishing her work on her scrapbook and I just laid down and died almost instantly. I slept until 2, then moved to the recliner and was amazed to wake up with sun streaming in the family room window. Mary came downstairs about an hour later. She had been packing her suitcases and stripping her bed. We had to leave for San Francisco early so she could be at her friend Steve's house by 11:15.

We actually had a reservation for a tour of a chocolate factory in Berkeley at noon, but plans had changed during her four days here and that part of the trip had to be scrapped.

The night before, she had quickly ordered prints from our day in Old Sacramento to be printed at Longs and picked them up, then spent the evening finishing off her scrapbook of her time here.

The one thing she didn't have was a good picture of Lizzie leaping. I locked the dogs outside and promised her that Lizzie would oblige. Only she didn't! She wandered around the yard, nibbled some grass, played with Sheila, and peeked in to watch Mary eating her breakfast...

...but no leaping from my Leaping Lizzie. I decided that maybe I've been locking the dogs out too much lately (like when the computer guru is here) and Lizzie is getting more accustomed to it.

But when I started moving around the kitchen and making "leaving the house" movements, she finally got desperate and started jumping and I was able to get photographic evidence for Mary.

With Walt's help, we finished loading up the car and were on the road, more or less on schedule. The traffic was light and we had no problems getting to San Francisco. We were even a little early, so I decided to take the first off ramp and then drive up Market Street so Mary could see some of downtown (even though I knew she had been there before).

We arrived at her friend Steve's house, where he was waiting in front for us (since I knew that parking would be impossible in that neighborhood) and I got all the luggage unloaded and turned the care and feeding of Mary over to Steve.

I made a quick call to my mother to ask if she would like to have lunch with me (or, more accurately, if she would like to make lunch for me!) and so I made a short stop at her house and we had a lovely visit over some home made split pea soup and a toasted cheese sandwich.

Then I plopped the iPod into the player in the car to listen to Ed McMahon read his "Here's Johnny" while I drove home.

When I got home, I did a search on the internet for a photo Mary tried to take yesterday, but was unsuccessful. So, Mary...here it is:

(The photo is right at the entrance to Sacramento, which is where Highway 50 begins. There is a similar sign in Ocean City, Maryland, where Highway 50 ends, giving the distance to Sacramento.)

All that was left to do was plan what to pack for our quick trip to Santa Barbara in the morning...it's almost not worth taking a suitcase, we'll be gone such a short time. But I do have a few baby-related things to take, so a suitcase is necessary.

I also had four days of recorded TV stuff to catch up on, so the night was both busy and relaxing!

Lizzie's Spa Day

About a year ago, just about this time, as a matter of fact, I decided it would be fun to have Lizzie groomed. Petco was having a sale on grooming and several people I knew had their dogs groomed there, so off we went to the groomer's to get Lizzie all ready for the holidays. I think I posted a video about that at the time.

I dropped her off and went back at the appointed time. They brought her out, ungroomed, and said that they could not work on her because she bit them. So much for getting gussied up for the holidays.

I gave Lizzie a bath recently, but it didn't really do much because I couldn't get to her face.

At the puppy birthday party, Ashley introduced me to Katherine and Miguel Martinez. Kathy is a veterinarian from Venezuela. Miguel is from Puerto Rico. The two just moved to Davis three months ago and are looking for work. Kathy would eventually like to get her license here, but she needs to learn enough English to take the exam and to earn enough money to pay the $9,000 fee.

In the meantime, they are offering their service for dog care: Grooming, hair cutting, preventive medicine baths, nail cutting, ear cleaning, hair drying, anal gland draining as well as Pet Sitting, walking, cleaning,feeding and giving meds.

I talked with them about the problems that we had at Petco and they assured me that they could deal with Lizzie. I made an appointment.

Lizzie was thrilled to be going for an outing and immediately made friends with the Martinez' cat, Catfish, the cat who hates cats and likes dogs. We also met 3 foster puppies they have, who were found under an overpass and who are afraid to come out from behind a tree in a back corner of the yard (I'll bet they are out running around now). Lizzie had a great time playing with their dog, Buddy.

When it came time to get down to business, I was invited to stay and watch (and of course, I took video).

Miguel sat on the ground and held Lizzie while Kathy started clipping her. Lizzie squirmed and squirmed and tried to get away but she never opened her mouth to try to bite them. I was amazed at how gentle and patient they were with her. When it seemed she needed a break (or maybe Kathy needed a break!) they let her run around, and then started again.

I didn't have a clue how to have her clipped, so gave them carte blanche and promised I wouldn't be upset about anything they did. We went for the Schnauzer look.

By the time she was mostly clipped, she had stopped fighting and just stood (sometimes trembling) and let Kathy work.

Next was the bath. Based on the problems I had with her in the sink, I wondered how this would work, but she seemed to love it, even to having her teeth brushed.

Next Kathy took the blow dryer and dried off her fur and brushed her to fluff her up, ending with perfume, powder, and little bows in her ears (bows?).

I felt like calling Walt to tell him I'd traded her in on a new dog because she certainly didn't look like the dog I'd arrived at the Martinez home with! Even Lizzie seems to know that she looks better than before.

Sheila was very confused. She sniffed and sniffed and sniffed as if she couldn't quite figure out what that strange smell was. In fact, I was a little concerned that things were getting tense, so I took them both outside and they chased each other around and everything was fine.

All is back to normal now, except we have one beautifully groomed dog.

The Martinezes also board dogs and I can see instantly that this is a MUCH nicer place than the kennel where we usually put them. I'm not sure what their boarding price is, but I've made an appointment for them for the night that we are down at Michele's memorial service and we'll see how it is. They won't be caged up, but will be able to run around the yard with the other dogs--and the neighbors have barking dogs, so barking (if there is any) won't be a big problem.

I am just thrilled with finding the Martinez family and encourage anybody in the Davis area who is looking for someone to care for your dog to give them a call.