Monthly Archives: December 2009

Vet called

Posted on by
1

The vet returned my call. I told him the story basically Bubba’s been not so puppish for a few days, his diarrhea started Tuesday nightish. I gave him his meds and shortly there after he vomited.

I explained his actions, he asked about his bowel movements but I’ve not seen him take one yet since last night. He told me to give him 1 teaspoon of Kaopectate 3 times today and see how he’s doing in the morning and to stop the panacur, that the Advantix multi would take care of the round worms. So we’ll see how he’s doing later.

I must say that the little boy can move when he wants to. He was outside for a potty break and he startled some birds on the ground. They flew away and he yelped and ran to me. That’s twice he’s freaked today.

But on the upside he did do some playing with the girls, not a lot but a little, enough to make me worry a little less. He’s still hiding and clearly not feeling well.

Vet said if he’s not any better by tomorrow – meaning appetite returns, eating and drinking okay that he’d probably want to see him again.

So we wait, but at least I have a clear direction to go and as much as we need the money I hope Shea will be home tomorrow, I really don’t like doing this alone. Been a very hard day for me and it’s only going to get worse lol. But so far no emergency yet. No blood in the stool, no blood in the vomit.

He’s not going to be happy with me when I get up from here, cause he’s gotta go to his pen, so I can go pick him up his medicine and some softer food for temporary solution to eating. He seemed to want to eat the dog biscuit, just didn’t want to do alot of chewing I think. We’ll see.

Feeling a bit better

Posted on by
1

It’s 7am and I’ve been up all night worrying about Bubba. I’ve spent the greater part of this morning investigating Parvo and Roundworms. Parvo is scary and from the things I’ve read I’m not sure it’s that. The biggest reason is his stool and vomit is not bloody. It was a few days ago but it’s not consistent. When I mentioned that to the vet she said it was probably from the roundworms.

Bubba is also not stationary. He is not content to stay in one place, even at night he was sleeping in various places. On his bed next to me, next to shea between the air conditioners. He is currently under Shea’s desk. We’ve gone outside several times and he even ran inside when he heard another dog bark. He is most definitely not himself, but I also don’t see it getting any worse than it has been over the past few days.

I also looked up the medicine he was taking, which was shortly before his first vomit attack. One of the side effects is vomiting.

While this new information is not going to hinder my call in the next 10 to 15 mins to the vet I feel slightly better about things, if only slightly. Hopefully my call to the vet will improve that dramatically. This is why we have professionals. I know a lot of people don’t trust professionals persay but they definitely no a lot more than I do on subjects I’ve not studied in school or at home.

I’m a mess

Posted on by
2

Tuesday Bubba had a doctor’s appointment. Roundworms was the only negative at the time. I had mentioned that he has loose stools and was a bit lazy.

When we got Bubba he chased the girls all over, enough that they were constantly complaining about him nipping at their feet and legs. Well since Tuesday he’s been out of it.

Last night he started with diarrhea in full force AND vomiting. The poo smells awful and not in the poo kinda way, that I’m okay with this is nasty foul smelling stuff. I don’t recall when that started.

So last night I was up all night. Worrying my poor little soul over what to do, what we would do if something bad comes of it. I searched the net sometime on his symptoms and of course found the worse of the worst that fit his symptoms – parvo. I went back to bed an even worse mess than I came out to my computer in.

About two hours later I got up and did another search, on roundworms this time. And this actually helped, granted not enough that I could get some sleep as Bubba decided then would be a good time for another round of puking on the floor.

His symptoms – diarrhea, vomiting, loss of appetite and lethargy. There is nothing we can do about parvo except see if it gets better, there can only treat the symptoms. So this basically means keeping him hydrated. Roundworms on the other hand we can treat and we are currently doing so.

So my second search helped calm my nerves a little but not enough that I’m not calling the vet as soon as they open.

My biggest worry is Kathleen. If Bubba was to pass away I’m not sure we’d have a good Christmas. She is absolutely in love with him. She is being very motherly towards him, taking him outside every few minutes or whatever. I didn’t have to clean up one poop or pee mess yesterday until bed time because of Kathleen’s efforts with Bubba, granted she went outside by herself on a number of occasions with out asking. It is going to be a very difficult few hours until the vet opens and a very difficult next few days if we are playing the wait and see if the roundworms is the problem game.

I’m not sure I can handle the loss of another pet. We’ve not had him long but he’s part of the family and just not sure my aching heart can handle it again. I’m praying for the best and hope things look up if only for my little girls.

Warm then cold

Posted on by
Reply

Weather is always interesting down here. It’s fall and it got way cold there for a while, and then it rained for a long while where we could have gotten snow. Now it’s like 70+ degrees.

Today was an absolute gorgeous day. It was hot enough that I would have turned the AC but we don’t have it so I did the best alternative which in reality is the better solution. I opened some windows to let some air in and cool the house down. It is nice.

However I will have to close the windows tonight as it’s going to get down to 30 degrees and be chilly tomorrow. I know that this doesn’t seem cold to most of my friends and family but here in the south that is like -7 below zero. The humidity gets in your bones and the only way to get it out is to take a hot shower. But then again it’s all relative. While I can tolerate much more cold like this than some people, my blood has “thinned” enough that it affects me alot more than it use it.

I feel for all you northern friends and family getting hit with all the bad weather. I wish ya’ll warmth and safety.

Visitors!

Posted on by
Reply

I didn’t manage to get a post out yesterday was a rather busy day. Shea got rained out so we spent most of the day together. And I got some of the things that needed doing done, but I didn’t manage a post.

But we had a late surprise. Last night around 6pm we had a knock on our door. It was Shea, Sydney and Gabriel. We didn’t get to see them long before we were off to go meet Shea’s parents – they were in Ocean Springs going to their youngest grandson’s first concert. Shea and his brood went with them so we didn’t get to spend much time with them. Which was a disappointment to us all. I feel the worst for Kathleen she was very heartbroken she didn’t get to see her brother and Sydney and Gabe anymore.

Hopefully we’ll be able to see them again. He’s going back to Iraq on the 19th. I will cross my fingers and hope they make it back down.

Christmas Decorations

Posted on by
2

Well, I had decorated my tree the day after Thanksgiving as is per my tradition. The girls and I made snowmen and a paper chain and some snow flakes.

I had hoped that this would be the easier of the solutions but it was not. The girls decide it was more fun to play with the paper they’d made then leave it on the tree. So last Saturday I bought ornaments and a tree skirt (which I needed anyways). And last night I decorated the tree.

The girls were naked while decorating the tree so we have no pictures while we decorated. Only this falsified one after I got them dressed lol.

Kids decorating the tree

I had to move decorations around, the girls didn’t understand the “do not put them on top of each other” or “too close together” so I just rearranged afterwards. Here is a before and after:
Before:
The kids decoration of the tree
After:
After I fixed the tree

And I tried to grab a picture of the kids and the dog but it didn’t work out so well, this is the best of them.

The kiddos and the puppy

A better night

Posted on by
Reply

Well everyone slept last night. Bubba slept in our room on the floor on my side of the bed so I could pet him/comfort him with ease and with out having to get out of bed to do so. We had three accidents and 1 kinda accident that I stopped to take him out in freezing cold weather lol.

It was a much better night, he didn’t even follow me out when I had to go put Kathleen down.

Monday I hope to have our pen back. I’m still hoping to be able to put it at least temporarily in our room and let him stay there, but we’ll see. But I think we may just put it in the living room as planned. We’ll see.

We’ve had a few accidents today. I need to get the timer out of the van and set it for half an hour for both the girls and the dog lol. Maybe Sammi will start now? we’ll see. It would be good to get all diapers out of this house and pull ups too!

New Family Member

Posted on by
2

Yesterday we went to the Animal Shelter. There was two sets of lab puppies – 2 black and 3 golden. All mixes. The 2 black were strays and the other 3 we didn’t actually read much about them on their card.

One of the black ones took instantly to us, came up to the fence, Kathleen petted him. We tried to coax the other one over as we thought it was the male, but it didn’t work. We went to visit with the friendly one in a closed room. The girls loved him. We thought he was a she so we had named him Isabella, but when we got to the counter to say we wanted this one, it was a boy so we had to find a new name on the way home. We agreed on Bubba. Even Sammi could say that one.

But we were not prepared. Their website (and the paper in the shelter) said that they are fixed before they leave. But at approximately 8 weeks that’s a no go. We’ll go back in January to get that taken care of.

The adoption fee was $50. We get a free vet examination with in three business days. They are fixed and their first set of shots are covered. This will include his rabies at 3 months.

So home we came with Bubba. We ate dinner and then me and the girls had to go to the store to get Bubba food, water bowl and toys. We have to go back today I definitely need more paper towels before next grocery trip and some carpet cleaner for those lovely accidents. I will probably just buy a gallon of vinegar and a spray bottle. I’ve been meaning to do that anyway.

The biggest adjustment I think is going to be with the girls. He gets over playful and starts nipping (cause he doesn’t know any better) and then they start to run and he chases and nips some more and then it’s scream at the top of our lungs. Sammi doesn’t listen when you tell her not to run, so it’s a big ordeal. They both need to settle down when he’s nipping and scratching. He doesn’t understand, they don’t understand and it’s all a big mess lol. But everyone will adjust.

Now if we can just find suitable sleeping arrangements. Bubba in the kitchen and us in the back of the house just did not work no one slept at all. Well until 4am when Shea decided he wasn’t going to work OT today, the girls and Bubba came to our bed. Only Bubba stayed, the others went back to their own bed willingly. Kathleen wanted to go she couldn’t get comfortable and Sammi went with her so it was just 3 in bed instead of 5. We all needed that two hours of sleep tho.

LJ take that :P

Posted on by
Reply

I love Google Reader. I mean LOVE it. It’s been so awesome to keep track of my feeds and to do things, however it has one very bad drawback. It does not pick up Livejournal’s friend locked posts, which is very bad when I have friends who only post within the locks. So I’ve been searching for a solution and I found one finally.

It’s open source code that is the base of feed proxy, but LJ blocked it so it’s no longer usable. But the same open source code can work from your own server.

Here’s is the most awesome post lol. Follow the directions in the notes and you shouldn’t have a problem.

Though please do note that it will take a while for the feed to propagate. I did one yesterday and I didn’t get the feed until this morning. So let it sit and be watchful for it to show up if it doesn’t then take a look at it. And the subdomain is required if you read the comments in the post so don’t skip that step.

SO all you LJ friends out there, if you use your friend lock alot please let me know. Email me or post a comment and I’ll grab your feed that way!