She hasn’t been doing well for some time now. She’s had that lung crud some rats get because of the mycoplasma they carry, and though we’ve been able to hold it in check a bit with antibiotics, her weight and her appetite [...]]]> It happened so suddenly and in such an awful way it doesn’t seem real…

She hasn’t been doing well for some time now. She’s had that lung crud some rats get because of the mycoplasma they carry, and though we’ve been able to hold it in check a bit with antibiotics, her weight and her appetite have steadily declined. We talked this past week about her quality of life, and decided it was time to let her go. In truth, we’d probably put it off a little too long. She’d gotten thin and didn’t care to eat much other than Nutrical.

The past few days she’d been doing about the same as she’d had for a while, but was actually eating pretty well. I discovered last week that the rats love tofu, and had held some back from our last stir fry to dole out as snacks. I also gave them some almonds and cashews on Friday which Willow surprisingly gobbled up. Saturday she looked a little rougher than usual and as we’d already discussed, we decided to take her in to the vet and get it over with. We called the vet and then made preparations to load her into a carrier to take her.

When we went back to get her out of the cage she and Lauren shared, she was in obvious distress and running around the cage frantically. We’d never seen her do this before and I have no idea what brought about this sudden change. We hastily hurried to get her to the vet. On the way there, she suddenly started acting like she could not breathe at all, and while Joy drove, I helplessly watched her thrash around and suffocate, finally collapsing. I stroked her fur as she faded away. It was one of the most terrible things I have ever witnessed. I have no idea what happened so suddenly, and it pains us both to think that maybe she came to such an awful end because we were so reluctant to put her to sleep.

Luna, unfortunately, is not far behind. She still is eating and the tumors are not obstructing any body functions, but they have grown so huge she has trouble getting around now and one of them is beginning to get a raw spot where it drags. We don’t want to make the same mistake with her and we’re going to make arrangements next week to see to it that she goes on to the peaceful end she deserves.

I know I have said this dozens of time over the past two decades or so, but this time I really mean it: NO MORE RATS. With my allergies, I have no business having them since I can have only minimal contact with them, but that’s not the main reason; it is their fleetingly short little lives that I can’t cope with. It’s not fair that creatures so gentle and playful and intelligent live just long enough to work their way into your heart before they break it. Soon there will be just Lauren, who is fat and sassy and only about a year old. We’ll spoil her rotten and enjoy her, then once she is gone that will be it, she will truly be the last one.

Poor Willow. At least she is at peace now.

Willow
??/02 – 04/24/04

Lauren the brat visiting Luna. The large lump that can be seen behind Luna’s arm is one of her two tumors.

One reason for the lack of updates is that I have decided to buckle down and study, and try to be ready for my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) exam before the end of the [...]]]> The posts have been a little sparse lately, because there has been a lot going on. Nothing earthshatteringly catastrophic, at least…

One reason for the lack of updates is that I have decided to buckle down and study, and try to be ready for my CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) exam before the end of the year. I don’t know if I will be able to pull it off that quick because subnetting still makes me go all glaze-eyed and blank (it’s math, after all) but I’m giving it my best shot.

Another reason is that we are having some issues with Tori. Well, it’s not that this is anything new but we’d hoped we’d be able to get a handle on it by now. The ‘Retriever mix’ puppy we adopted is apparently actually a closer to full grown Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix — essentially a busy herding dog with a high prey drive. We have tried everything we can think of to get her to stop chasing and nipping at the cats. We are also not able to meet her activity needs very well, but the big issue is the cat chasing/biting. Our youngest cat Simon has had a femoral head ostectomy on both hips, which means, essentially, that he has no hip joints. He cannot run or defend himself. We watch Tori as vigilantly as we can but if our attention wanders even for a second she is after the cats, and Friday night she hurt Simon, either by nipping or stomping on him. He is OK, thankfully, but it drove home what we’d already realized and just didn’t want to admit: ‘this isn’t going to work.’

The other problem with the Tori situation, ironically, is Mojo. I say ironically because one of the reasons we got her was so that he would have a pal to roughhouse with, but he is actually settling down considerably and likes to spend more quiet time now. Poor Tori has grown accustomed to nonstop wrestling and pesters him until he gets defensive because she can’t understand when he just wants to sit and chew a bone. It’s not a good situation for him because she gets him agitated and that starts him spinning.

It’s not her fault she has more energy than we can cope with, if anything it is our fault for not recognizing what she was when we got her. It’s really hard to gauge a dog’s breed and true temperament when adopting from a shelter, and of course her background was entirely unknown. In retrospect we should have gone with a dog that had been fostered for some time at a rescue group but hindsight is always 20/20, right? And in our defense, we couldn’t have forseen just how much of Mojo’s ‘busy-ness’ was apparently actually a side effect of his compulsive behavior that would stop as he got better.

So we are looking for a more suitable home for Tori now. I feel horrible that we are even considering this but at least she is out of the shelter, dewormed, crate trained, and has learned some basic obedience commands so she is better off than when we first got her, in that respect. And we know her well enough now to have a good idea of what sort of environment she needs to be happy. Hopefully we can find that perfect home for her.

Wednesday was very ill with diarrhea from an unknown cause recently and ended up at the vet’s. She’s feeling much better now and regaining some of the weight she lost. We think it was the food she was eating. We got her a new collar (tan with blue-green rhinestones) at the Cat Connection yesterday — she looks very sharp in it and I’m hoping to get a picture of her with it on.

Mojo, as I already mentioned, is doing well. We had a rough spot a week or so back when we had to decrease his medication because he was really zoned out, but he’s doing really good now on the lower dose. We still see tailwatching on a daily basis and maybe once or twice a day he will actually chase it, but he is easily distracted. We were told that he will need to be on the clomipramine at least 14-16 weeks and then we can taper it back off if things are under control. I will be very glad to get him back off it, but I do have to admit that it has really helped.

Luna-rat’s tumor continues to grow but she is in good spirits. It might be starting to affect her ability to use her right front leg. We’re watching her close on that, and spoiling her rotten. Joy found these yogurt covered banana chips that she and the other two rats go crazy over. Lilly has been having tummy troubles again and doesn’t seem to be feeling too well. She doesn’t do so good in cold weather and we are thinking of finding her some sort of heated dog bed to help her get through this winter.

That’s about it from here. It’s finally getting cold outside — it was near 80 yesterday and then a front came through early this morning and dropped it closer to 40. We’re trying to think of what to do for Thanksgiving this year; we’d had sort of a tradition going when we were in Tucson of spending it with our friends Chris and Paul, who were also vegetarians, and we haven’t really made many friends since we moved here. We thought maybe we might see if any of the (very few) vegetarian restaurants here are having a Thanksgiving buffet, and do that rather than putting all that work into cooking a giant meal here for just the two of us.

Any bully folks reading this will know what Silverwood is. For everyone else, it is the annual gathering of Bull Terrier (and Miniature Bull Terrier) folks from all over the country for a [...]]]> I didn’t have time to get this posted right away because Friday we came home exhausted and I spent most of yesterday cleaning…

Any bully folks reading this will know what Silverwood is. For everyone else, it is the annual gathering of Bull Terrier (and Miniature Bull Terrier) folks from all over the country for a cluster of conformations shows, obedience and agility trials, awards ceremonies, and national club meetings. Sort of like a bully convention. Since this is the first time it has been held anywhere near where I live, this is the first time I have had a chance to go. We went early Friday morning to catch the agility trial; we’d planned on staying for obedience as well but some other stuff came up so we had to leave and then come back later in the day for the beginners agility workshop that we’d signed Mojo up for.

There’s something surreal about seeing hundreds of Bull Terriers all in one place. Especially at a fancy Hotel. The show was held at the Westin hotel near Coit and LBJ, and as we walked in there were bullies walking in the grassy area, bullies in the lobby, bullies in the elevators… I can’t imagine what the other guests that happened to be staying there this weekend must have thought. It was really a sight to see. We even caught a glimpse of another liver bull terrier — a tricolor bitch — but I didn’t get a chance to ask her owner about the dog. I wondered if it was a cousin of Mojo’s.

The agility trial was a lot of fun to watch and I am glad I came if only for that. Watching the ones on Animal Planet with all those flawlessly trained border collies and aussies (no offense to those folks) just isn’t the same. Seeing it up close I realized just how hard it is, and it was just that much more exciting to watch dogs that weren’t robotically perfect. Everyone cheered the dogs on when they did well and laughed good naturedly when they goofed up — there was an atmosphere of ‘fun’ which is how dog activities should be, I think. After all, isn’t the whole idea of dog sports supposed to be to do something together with your dog as a team and enjoy each other’s company?

I don’t know enough about agility to know who qualified and who didn’t, but some of the things that stand out in my memory are the bully bitch who took time out from her run to snatch one of the plastic cones and dance around with it, the little West Highland White Terrier who struggled to make it over the A-Frame, and the mini who disappeared into the chute, and then didn’t appear on the other side. As everyone watched, a small bump appeared under the cloth and ever so s l o w l y travelled through the cloth chute, finally emerging on the other side. Everyone was in stitches over this. It was so impressive to watch all of the dogs work — even the ones that didn’t quite get everything right.

Though tempted by a ton of bully-themed merchandise, especially a shirt I really wanted, I didn’t buy anything, and figured maybe I would snag the shirt when we came back later. That turned out to be a bad decision as the booth was closed down for the day when we came back. Oh well, there were still two more days of the show to come back for it.

Our second trip back, when we brought Mojo that afternoon for the workshop, wasn’t quite so much fun. First off, Mojo was really thrown by the big hotel with the crowds of people. We’ve been diligently socializing him every chance we get but I guess this was just so much more than he was used to. He usually warms right up if he meets one or two friendly people in a crowd, and one would think at a Bull Terrier show there would have been a few people with a kind word for him, but instead it felt like every eye in the place was staring. Its been many years since I’ve been around dog shows and I ‘d forgotten some of the things that I never liked about them to begin with… I’m sure I’m being a bit overly sensitive, and also that at least some folks were just staring out of curiosity at his unusual appearance, but I did see the “what is THAT doing here” look on at least a couple of faces… as if my gawky, liver brindle pup with his floppy ear, healing demodex patch, and pink nose had no business being there (or maybe even existing) at all. I don’t think I imagined it – Joy commented on the stares as well, later after we left. There was one lady who stopped and petted him as we went by and this helped bring Mojo out of his shell a bit, I was feeling like a bug under a microscope myself by that point…

Waiting for the workshop to begin, in the ballroom where it was held, things were better. There were some friendly people and all sorts of nice dogs; Mojo was just taking it all in, and behaving very well. After a demonstration agility course run-through by Deb Rodden’s deaf Bullies, Angelica and Lefty, everyone was invited to introduce their dogs to the obstacles. It was all a bit too much for Mojo — in retrospect I should have seen his arousal state going way up during the demo runs, and maybe walked him a bit out in the hall and got him re-focused before we went out on the floor. I screwed up — I just expected him to be the same dog he’s been in obedience class instead of paying closer attention to the warning signals he was giving off. He was totally wound up, on a hair trigger, and he just came unglued out on the floor watching all the other dogs running by. He was lunging and squealing on the end of the leash, and we could not get his attention. He wasn’t being aggressive, I think he was just frustrated because he wanted to run and play with them, but I’d never seen him so wired up and was a bit at a loss as to what to do. I couldn’t get his attention long enough to work with the clicker and hauling back on the leash was clearly making it worse… We finally took him off to the side, and got him quieted a bit. I’d been hoping to catch the attention of one of the trainers to get some advice and eventually Jane came over, we explained what was happening, though of course now he was already a little calmer. She gave us some pointers and introduced Mojo to the wonders of cheese balls. We were able to go through and try most of the obstacles once he settled down.

He went through the tire (which had been lowered so the dogs could step through) and climbed on the table and through the long tunnel happily. He really wanted to try the A-Frame, and went charging up it, but got scared when it wiggled and wouldn’t go all the way up. We didn’t push him on that, and I’m sure it was something he would conquer over time. He had a good time in the tunnel especially, being sent back and forth between Joy and I with treats at either end. Cheese balls were his new favorite thing and we used them instead of the treats we’d brought… though I wondered if this day was going to end with bright orange cheesy vomit in the car on the way home. After this there was a ‘relay race’ game with the hurdles at the end of the workshop, with two teams of dogs going over the (near ground-level) hurdles; I didn’t think we were going to be able to get through that without another fit on Mojo’s part but gave it a try anyway. He did OK going out but then caught sight of the other dog running the other course and I lost his attention again and there was more wild lunging. I think we should probably have just sat that out.

At the end of the workshop, Mojo got to meet Deb’s dog Lefty and had a good time exchanging sniffs with him. He was gradually coming back down to earth and by the time we left and went down the elevators he was pretty calm and having a decent time. I think I was more of a wreck than he was by then. There was a raffle for the agility workshop and to my surprise ( I never win anything) I won and got a really nice grey sweatshirt with “Agility” on the back of it and a pawprint on the front! Hopefully someday I’ll have a good reason to wear it. Mojo and I both (maybe me even more than him) have a lot of learning to do together but I think he could do well in agility someday. He’s only seven months old, we have a good ten years or so, I hope, to do anything and everything we want. I was very proud of him for how well he did under the circumstances… if anything I was disappointed in myself for not being a better handler.