Pet First Aid

 

The rain and flooding throughout the region today did little to deter the crowd of clients who gathered at Country Animal Hospital in Bethel, Vt. for a first aid class tonight. The vets divided a group of approximately 50 of us up into four groups and rotated us through various stations covering what to include in a first aid kit; dealing with lacerations, the Heimlich maneuver, and CPR; household toxins and poisons and fleas, ticks and other pests. Fun and informative, we learned that prescription meds are the leading cause of household poisonings, how to remove a tick with a nifty little item called a Tick Twister and that a pug and other broad chested little dogs should be placed on their backs to deliver CPR. The office’s mascot kitty, Nitro, was on hand to offer a feline influence and Sunny, a yellow lab, patiently allowed Dr. Keady to bandage and re-bandage her. She was a sport and seemed resigned, but the look in her eyes suggested a sad sort of tolerance. It made those of us in the crowd smile and laugh. We were mostly women and you have to wonder what that says about gender and our relationship with animals. The large turnout in general was also a commentary of sorts – people seem eager for such offerings. It was one of the first of many classes that Dr. Jessica Jones has planned for the practice that she took over last year. I am actually writing a short article on her assuming ownership for an upcoming issue of Upper Valley Life, but tonight I was there as a pet owner, walking away feeling a bit more informed should there ever be an at-home emergency with my pugs.

Scene from Yesterday

I was going to post tonight about spending the day with my grandmother on her 92nd birthday, but tonight when I was uploading photos to the computer I came across this picture I took yesterday that I hardly remembered snapping. I was trying to capture the crow in the tree. I decided to play with it a little in Photoshop and this is the result.

Resurrection

Saying goodbye to a beloved pet is never easy, but in the case of my friend Joan’s pug, Egg, it may be next to impossible. Egg is 13 years old. He has lost the use of his legs and each day seems to grow weaker. We have been preparing for his death, beginning some of the rituals that make it easier for us to deal with his passing. This weekend we wrapped him in the afghan Joan’s dog sitter, Norma, made for him and took him out to sit among the daisies. We photographed him there. Before she returned home, Norma held and rocked him and as I left for the evening, she whispered to me, “This one’s going to be a hard one for Joan. Be there for her.”

She’s right. Joan has a house full of pugs and loves them all, but Egg has been her car dog, her traveling companion, her special pet, the one that made his way through the pack to stand at the head of the crowd. In his youth, he was an athlete, jumping fences, chasing the girl dogs until Joan was forced to neuter him, but over the last few years, age got the better of him and his legs began to give way. He weakened quickly, too quickly for Joan to buy a doggie cart, and she had little success trying my pug, Vader’s. As his legs ceased to hold him up and his head began to tilt at a peculiar angle, we saw the beginning of the end.

The phone call came tonight while I was out running errands. Joan’s message was Egg had died. Fortunately, for me, I missed the message and when I called Joan tonight and questioned as usual, “How are you,” she answered, “You heard didn’t you?”

“Heard what?” I asked.

“About Egg,” she said. I knew instantly that he had passed. I began to offer my condolences, “I’m sorry, Joan,” I mustered, but was quickly interrupted. “But, Kim, wait,” she said. “He isn’t dead. I thought he was. He’d shut his eyes, wasn’t moving, made three big gasps. I’d heard that sound before, but it wasn’t the death rattle,” she murmured. “I started making preparations, getting a plastic bag to put him in, I turned around and his eyes were upon me – wide open. He’s sitting in my arms eating chicken now.”

I thought about Joan’s necessary ritual of wrapping the corpses of her deceased pets and placing them in the freezer until they could be delivered to the vet and I was happy she hadn’t gotten this far. To me there has always been something spiritual about Joan’s home and the dogs that live there, but Egg’s resurrection has taken things to a brand new level. For now, at least he has risen and as every human knows, each moment we spend with our pets is a miracle.

Good Hands

One of my personal photography projects for the last couple of years has been taking photographs of people with their pets. Their is an intimacy to the relationship that the lens frequently captures. Although this puppy does not belong to my friend Norma, I love the photo. Until recent years when her health and other circumstances caused her to move from her house into an apartment that doesn't allow pets, Norma has always owned a house full of dogs and a cat or two. She has been Joan's longtime housesitter, a sort of Mary Poppins the pugs. She bathes them, heats tea bags to soothe their eyes, sews cloth donuts to soften their pressure sores and a myriad of other things. This little puppy, like so many others she has cradled, is certainly in good hands.

Trouble

There are few things cuter in the world while simultaneously more trouble than a seven-week-old pug puppy. I got to see three of them yesterday. This is little Rosey, who occupied her time while we were chatting with her humans chewing on my friends shoelace.

Pretty Girls

Their names are Ivy, Lily and Rosey, but it could easily have been Truffles, Griffles and Waffles, the puppies look so much like their Momma and aunts, right down to the silvery brown ruff on the runt of the litter, Rosey. Waffles, too, has the same silvery cast as does her father Puddleglum. The three have pretty faces like their Momma, too.

Whoops, someone's expecting!

A couple of nights ago during my daily phone call to my friend Joan, my pug Waffles' breeder, she announced to me that her pug Releve's rapid weight gain might be due to something other than food. "I think Releve is pregnant," she said.

Joan wasn't planning for puppies, especially not this week when she has two of her children visiting -- one of whom is already convinced she has too many dogs. But, this is of little importance to Releve, who has swelled to mammoth proportion and looks like she might burst. Tonight, she had already claimed a corner under one of Joan's cabinets to have her puppies and was shredding newspaper in there and warding off the other dogs. She will not have them there. Joan has a nice clean whelping box ready for her away from the commotion of the rest of the pugs, but so far Releve keeps escaping her fashionable new digs in favor of her do-it-yourself condo. It will be interesting to see who wins out.

Releve, who happens to be mom to my pug Waffles, has another daughter Griffles who gave birth last July. Tonight we visited our friends the Damitzes, who are up visiting from Massachusetts, to see the offspring of Griffles' son Goofy and the Damitzes' other pug Truffles. They are now seven weeks old and beautiful. They have homes ready for two of the three. Joan already has a friend in mind for one of Releve's new litter and we are placing bets on how many she will have. Looking at her tonight, it is easy to guess high, but Releve was becoming pleasantly plump even before this. I've guessed four, but said I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was five. Seeing puppies born and grew has been among my favorite things at Pugdom, Joan's home.

Fourth of July

I love this shot of my niece Ellie at our local parade. She sat in rapt attention next to me for the whole event.

What's Up?

What's up? A lot! But like many of you I've been busy celebrating our nation's independence, my birthday on the 3rd and my brother's on the 5th. There's hardly been a moment to sit still and when I have I seem to doze off in front of the computer. So, I'm headed to bed with promises to blog soon. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of Alfie checking out a plant while I transplant it. I love her expression here. Happy Belated Fourth everyone!

Writing Prompt: Do the Math

I turned 46 an hour ago. A friend asked me tonight how old I was going to be and I replied, “I’m not sure.” She laughed and I laughed, but it is the truth. Part of it, I explained is that my best friend Sheila’s birthday is in March and whenever she turns a new year, I somehow assume I have also. I even begin anticipating the event ahead of time – next March, Sheila will be 47, so that by the time March actually rolls around I think she’s been 47 and is now turning 48 and thus, I am 48, so by the time my birthday arrives, I must be 49. Did I mention, math has never been my strong suit?

Part of it is, in spite of all this anticipatory mathematics, I really tried to give up counting at 40, so I’ve expanded the equation, deciding I should subtract a year or two to make us younger; hence when I look ahead to next March – thinking by then Sheila will be 48 – I subsequently subtract two years, making her 46. And, by my birthday in July –  when I add my customary year on to Sheila’s age making myself 47, I must also subtract two years from that, allowing me to arrive at 45. This thus, means Sheila will be 46 the next year…you obviously see where this is going. And, while some of this is tongue-in-cheek, as I’ve aged and my memory has failed a bit, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember the actual truth.

All this is to say that aging is a strange thing. My friend Betty, who inquired how old I was turning, subsequently admitted that she doesn’t feel her age. Whoever does? I thought. Here, I am over halfway through my fourth decade and I’m only now beginning to do things some people set out to accomplish in their twenties. I have friends whose kids are graduating from college, who are celebrating their 20^th anniversaries, who are selling their homes and building new ones, while I still crave all of this.

I remember when I was a child thinking of writing a letter to my older self, but even then I decided against it fearing that once the future arrived and I opened the letter I would be disappointed that the things I dreamed of had not come true. A very positive view, huh? No wonder I’m still waiting for so much.

But actually my view is not as negative as it sounds. Sheila once called me “a closet optimist” and she is right. In my heart faith always wins. Like so many people before me, I realize the silver lining in the silver hairs – my sense of self, my knowledge of who I am, is so much stronger than when I was younger. I know that 46 is not old. I’ve learned that there is not only one path to take, but many and each person carves her own trail. I may subtract a year or two in my head, even crave to be younger in my heart, but if I were to write a letter now to my younger self, I would tell her not to fear so much, to expand her perspective to revel in possibility.

You will travel, I would tell her and you will find out you are not as fat as you think, and you will know love and loneliness and find each is very different than you envisioned it. You will survive both! And, I would tell her to write her letters without fear because the equation can always be adjusted and if you’re only as old as you feel, you never truly age. I would tell her that by the time this birthday rolled around, she might gain the perspective of experience, but she would feel like no time had passed at all. She would still be facing an uncertain horizon, staring off into the future and wondering what it was all about. So make the best of it, I would write. Time’s passing and next year Sheila turns 47 or is it 48 or 46…No matter.

Write a letter to your past or future self. What do you have to say?