Pets - It's a Vivas Thing!

Mar 17 2009

Laughable Moment #5

We have a thief, or thieves, in our home. It's true. We just can't deny it any longer. It's hard as a parent to recognize this and just accept it for what it is. Last night, the Talented One was doing his homework on his bedroom floor. He had his mp3 player sitting next to him. He went on with his evening, playing his piano, showering, etc. When he went to get his mp3, he found it was missing. He searched everywhere for it, but could not find it anywhere. He searched his bed, drawers, anywhere that he might have left it, all the time insisting that he'd left it right where he was doing his homework. Finally, he went to bed, frustrated.

This morning, he still could not find it. He has proficiencies today, and was not a happy camper about his mp3 player. I got up early to make sure he had a good breakfast and then went outside to feed the dogs. Guess what I found sitting right outside the dog door?

Yup, you guess it! The mp3 player had been found. Joey had been sitting with him the night before while he did his homework. We figure when he was left alone, he decided to grab the cord and run with it. We're having that problem with the pups right now. Usually it's socks or a soft toy. They are learning, but they are puppies after all and have to be taught! I told my son last night to check outside and see if the dogs had gotten it, but it did seem like they would have left it alone since it's a hard piece of plastic. Nope…they're thieves.

My son was relieved to find that no harm had fallen on his mp3
player (although I thought I heard some muttering about shooting the
dogs), and I got a great chuckle this morning.

The Smart One with Joey the Thief

Does he look like a thief to you?

Mar 14 2009

Drama Dog

Look at this face!

Does he look like a drama king to you? Does he just exude pitifulness? (I realize pitifulness is not a real word, but it fits here.)

This is Joey. He's one of the two pups that we got for Christmas. I should have figured out something about this puppy when we first got him. We were there for at least 30 minutes before the owner could even find Joey! He was in hiding because he was afraid of the vacuum cleaner. We were about to leave with his half-sister, Roxy, when he finally decided to make an appearance. He just cuddled right into the Smart One and there was no way we could say no. Roxy was a maniac ball of fluff and Joey was the hold me, love, never ever leave me dog.

In the almost three months that we've had Joey, he's had one ailment after another! First, he started losing his hair. Not just a little, but a lot! He was the most pitiful thing I've ever seen after a while. He looked like a dog with a reverse something! Super short hair on his head and shoulders, and long hair on his back and butt! We took him to the vet to have him checked out while getting their shots.

As soon as we got home, we had to rush Joey back to the vet. Turns out he had an allergic reaction to the vaccine. The poor dog just went nuts! He got to spend a couple hours at the vet that day. Next time we took him back I had to give him benadryl and then they split the shots to make sure he didn't react again.

A week or so later, the vet calls. Turns out the tests came back positive for ringworm. Ok, so we had to sanitize the dogs, the kennels, get the carpet cleaned, etc.

Did I mention he's a wimp, too? He whines; a lot. Roxy will find anyway to escape from confinement. I always know when she's escaped because Joey starts howling. He's too afraid to try. That's probably because the one time he attempted it, he did it wrong and got his head stuck. It's a good think my wonderful hubby recognized his howling that time as a cry for help instead of a "that's not fair she got out" again cry.

A few weeks ago we took the dogs to the groomer. I just couldn't take it anymore! Joey needed something to be done about his hair issue. You could tell he was scared when we picked him up, but he looked a lot better.

A week later, Joey was whiny. He's a whiny dog, but this time his whine was different. So, we rushed him off to the vet. Bad ear infection. Great. That meant two weeks of ear wash and ear drops for him, plus pain pills because he was obviously in great pain. Poor baby. Good thing for him we were out of town for the first couple of days, so he had wonderful attention from a good friend. I'm sure he misses her now.

He did manage to surprise us though! He was the first one to climb the stairs. Roxy, the brave heart, is just now climbing those stairs. Joey didn't want to get left behind, so went up them one morning. He stopped halfway though when he realized just what he'd done. I could not get him to come down. B-Boo started coming down to get him, but he started backing up. I could see what was about to happen, so yelled at her to stop and ran over, but it was too late. He backed himself right off of the staircase and took a fall to the tile below. We were amazed that he wasn't injured!

The Smart One carries Joey around like a baby. Seriously, he holds him over his shoulder and walks around with Joey resting his head on his shoulder. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen! The other day I was sitting at the table reading with Joey in my lap. He just kept whining. I kept telling him to hush up. He was upset because Roxy was in the other room with the Drama Queen. The next thing I know, he manages to push his way up on my shoulder and lean his head on me. And he stopped whining. He is so stinking spoiled!

Today took the cake! B-Boo was bathing the dogs since I'm bedridden with a nasty bout of bronchitis. She washed Roxy first and then handed her off for me to cuddle. A bit later, she comes out with Joey. When Joey gets out of the bath he loves to run around and rub his head and body over everything. It's a dog thing. She tells me that Joey is hurt; he can not walk. She doesn't know what he did, he just started crying. I told her to put him down, and sure enough, his front right paw is just hanging there. He won't put it down, and he's in so much pain that he just falls down and won't get up. B-Boo brought him to me so I could check him out. He's whining and whimpering and carrying on. We're sitting on the bed trying to figure out what to do.

This is the part where I stop and tell you how wonderful my husband is. He never complains about this dog, he just goes with the flow. He hasn't had a weekend; he spent Friday night taking me to urgent care and today running errands for me with the kids. I'm really thinking at this point.

We try to get Joey up one more time and, I kid you not, the dog just looks at us like we're crazy for trying to make him stand up and slumps his body back down on the bed, looking at us with his pitiful little face. I'm thinking, great, now I have to break the news to the Smart One and tell hubby he has to take the dog to the vet. So I tell B-Boo to please have her father come upstairs. He comes in and we shut the door to discuss the dog. Sure enough, Joey won't stand up. It was pathetic. We have no idea what happened, but his paw was just hanging there, so we're concerned. Hubby took the Smart One with him and off to the vet they go.

Twenty minutes later, hubby calls me from the vet. Joey is fine now. He's walking around, jumping, playing and having a grand time. You have got to be kidding me!

Turns out there's not a thing wrong with his leg. It is a good thing we took him in though, apparently his ear still needs the drops. Of course!

Mar 04 2009

Laughable moment #1

We have a bunny named Oreo. We like to let her loose in our backyard cause she so loves it.

We have a puppy named Roxy. We like to let her loose in our backyard cause she so loves it.

We do not let Oreo and Roxy loose together.

This is Oreo when she was just a baby. She's all grown up now.

This is Roxy. She's still a puppy. She's mostly B-Boo's dog.

Today, Oreo was loose in the backyard. B-Boo came home and went outside. She screamed. We came a runnin'!

Oreo was running. Roxy was chasing Oreo. B-Boo was chasing Roxy. Wish I had a camera for that one!

Incidentally, Oreo won!

Feb 27 2009

Following Him

It's been kind of a crazy week, but when you have a large family full of pets, why expect things to go smoothly, right? It started out as one of those days when you have to keep your priorities straight. We have an older friend who's been sick and is in a rehabilitation home. B-Boo and I had gone to see him the night before and he never knew we were there. The Drama Queen had wanted to go then, but I told her I'd see how he is and then possibly bring her the next morning before we got on with our day.

Well, yesterday was that morning. We're about to head out of town with our youth group and so I had a lot of stuff to do and a little time to do it in. I had to be finished by one because I needed to get the older kids home from school, one had a doctor appointment, then we had swim lessons, I still needed to get all of us packed and so on. I really did not have time to make another trip to the rehabilitation home. I thought to myself that he was probably still sleeping and would not even realize we were there again. I had pretty much made up my mind that when I went downstairs, I'd let the Drama Queen know we would go visit him when we got back in town.

About that time, she showed up upstairs instead. For once, she was ready to go. And while I'd been upstairs taking a shower and getting dressed, apparently she'd been downstairs making a get well card for our dear friend. It was beautiful, too. All decked out with hearts and glitter and a smiley face. She wanted to know if she could please sign my name to it, too.

And that's when I remembered my Bible Study that I'm teaching. It's all about teaching our youth how to follow Christ. It's really easier than we make it out to be. That's what I told them. I also challenged them to do something this week to follow Him in motion. I told them it could be as simple as sending someone a card, but to make sure they did something. And here I was, thinking about MY busy life instead of doing exactly what I'd challenged our teens to do! But the Drama Queen got it all by herself.

So we headed out to the rehab home. And our friend was gone when we got there. We found him. He was awake and alert and in physical therapy! He was not able to talk to us, but the minute we walked in a huge smile lit up his face. His wife was there, also, so we got to visit with her a little bit. The kids were able to help our friend with his physical therapy. When he'd zone out, the Drama Queen would get his attention again and ask him to try and touch her hand. Such a simple thing really, and so hard for our friend to do, but he was willing to try when he saw that sweet little girl encouraging him. So we walked our friend out to say goodbye and then went back in to help some more with the physical therapy. Both the man and the Drama Queen took helping to task. We'd moved on to colors now, so they'd encourage him to move his hand towards whatever color he called out. We stayed for a while longer and then headed out to our day.

And a crazy day it did end up being. Things went wrong in our normal craziness, but we managed to get through it anyway. At the last minute, with packing still needing to be done and dogs needed to be bathed, we found one of our pups had an ear infections. This meant a late night trip to the vet and more craziness.

But I went to bed last night, not stressed with all I did not get accomplished. I was not so worried about what I still needed to do in the morning before we left. Instead, I went to bed thanking God last night for my special children. It was a little girl with a big heart who reminded me just how simple it really is to follow Him.

Jan 22 2009

I remember this day well!

November 8, 2006 was such an interesting day! I had gotten up early knowing I had to get the kids out of the house by 8 am in order to get our youngest son’s rat, Buster, to the vet. Poor Buster has been scratching himself raw.I guess in order to appreciate Buster; I’d have to share his story.

Our son had been having a bit of a hard time this past summer. He was lonely and just not making friends easily. So, we made a deal and decided to start praying for God to bring him a special friend. We prayed and prayed. One day, he and I ended up just the two of us going into the pet store. While we were there, he started asking for a pet mouse. I figured, what harm could a little $3 mouse be? At any rate, when we went to look at the fancy mice, mom (that’d be me) realized that the mice were very fast and if one were to get loose, we’d never find it. Plus, it just didn’t seem to be a good choice for a pet. So, I wisely suggested that we look at all of our options. From there we went to the Teddy Bear hamsters, but they were biting that day. We then moved on to the Dwarf hamster. They were better and we were definitely considering one of them! Now, I’d heard long ago that Blue rats make good pets, so when he wanted to go look at the fancy mice again, I suggested that he try taking a look at the blue rat in the cage next to the mice. He decided to at least try one out, so the salesman went back and pulled out the blue rat that he had picked and brought it out for him to have a look at. Well, that little blue rat seemed to take an instant liking to my boy. He immediately climbed up onto his shoulder and started sniffing him out as if to say, “It’s about time you showed up to get me!”

I need to get a few items, so the salesman told the boy that he could hold the rat while I grabbed my items. As I was
coming back with them, he earnestly says to me, “Mom, maybe this is the special friend that God has picked out for me!” I knew in that instant that there was no way I was walking out of that store without that rat! And that, is the story of how Buster came to
be a part of our family!

Anyway, back up to Tuesday, it’s early and we’re getting ready to go take poor Buster
to the vet. Now, most people probably wouldn’t take a rat to the vet, but the boy is so attached to him and I couldn’t bear the thought of something awful happening to Buster without my doing anything about it. So, we put Buster in the little critter cage and head out the door! He wasn’t happy about being in that little cage as he’s no longer a little baby rat, but a larger, fatter, rat. My son talked soothingly to Buster all the way to the vet. It worked, because pretty soon, Buster calmed down and actually seemed to enjoy the last five minutes of the ride!

I have to say, the veterinarian’s office was quite comical. You would have laughed at the “Oh, poor Buster” comments that were going on in that office! It was quite comical, but oh how he appreciated the concern shown for his beloved pet. Once we were taken back, the vet came in. Now, she is so young, she looks like a teenager, but we’d taken our bird to her once before and just loved her personality. She came in and started asking him questions about his pet; all the while trying to soothe poor Buster who only
wanted the boy and was not about to let her hold him! She explained the possible causes of Busters rash to us and that she was going to take him back and test him for mites. She said she didn’t think it was mites, but instead a viral infection that rats sometimes get which makes them itch like crazy. She told us she would clip Buster’s toenails and probably shave the area where the rash was at its worst so that we could put some medicine on it. Then she left the room with Buster.

At this point, the boy broke down into tears. He was so concerned that the shaving would hurt his dear pet. What type of clippers would they use? What if it cut him? What if it made him bleed? And….what if they shaved all of his hair off and Nathan started laughing at him? Ok, now being the wonderful mom that I am, I promptly stifled my laughter and calmed my poor son down Moments later, the vet returned with a squealing Buster. That rat sure was happy to see his boy! The good news was that the rat didn’t have mites, but the bad news was he did have the viral infection that makes him itch like crazy. The even better news was that he was not shaved completely bald as the boy had imagined, but instead just shaved around his stomach, neck and shoulders. The vet gave us the cream for the rash and told us that we were to rub it on the rash twice per day until the rash was gone and if it was still there in three weeks then to come back, but that it should work itself out within a few weeks.

Once we were home, we had the task of spreading the sticky goo onto the rash. The boy tried hard to hold his furry friend while I had the job of rubbing the ointment in. The first time Buster wasn’t going for it, but by the evening dose he’d apparently given in and decided he’d just hold still for the ordeal!

You’d think the above story was enough for one day, but no, life was not about to calm down for me yet! As it turned out, I’d
spend the next couple of hours trying to help my mother-in-law get my sick nephew who is visiting her from New Zealand, into a doctor. Shouldn’t seem so hard, but when the mom is in another country and can’t just hand over a notarized letter of permission to
treat, things get a little complicated! In the end, he finally did get to be seen by our family doctor and turns out he not only had a double ear infection, but bronchitis to go with it!

Ah, but still, the day wore on! I finally had a moment to settle down with a cup of hot tea and the computer. My youngest daughter came over and dramatically informed me that she needed a shower as she was hot. She made sure to keep her hand over her forehead for dramatic affect…she does tend to be a bit dramatic. I told her that was fine, she could take a shower if she needed to and proceeded to open up my email. Moments later, our oldest daughter came downstairs to inform me that drama queen was crying in the shower. Apparently she’d somehow managed to get a head full of silly putty and washing her hair wasn’t taking it out. Hmmmm….now I knew why she was covering her head so dramatically!

I headed upstairs to see what kind of damage she’d done to herself this time. I found her dripping wet in the shower with beige silly putty smeared into her hair at the front and forehead. Apparently she’d fallen asleep with silly putty in her hands and when she woke up she went to rub her face and promptly smeared the silly putty straight up her forehead and into her hair! What a sight! Of course, being the drama queen that she is, the world as she knew it was coming to an end! What would Daddy say when he came home and found out that mommy had to cut off all of her hair? Aunt Tracie would be so mad at her when she saw her at Thanksgiving with her hair all gone! On and on it went…oh the terrible things that would happen to my poor hairless child!

So, again…what’s a mom to do? I patiently pulled strand after strand as gently as I could with my fingernails, pulling the silly putty out piece by piece. Once I’d gotten out as much as I could, I called in her sissy to hold the shower hose while I washed the rest of it out. The shampoo didn’t do much good, so I got the bright idea to use conditioner instead. That seemed to loosen it up enough that I could pull the rest out and eventually get a comb through it. We were finally able to get it all out without cutting a single strand, although her head was quite red from the pulling. I will say that she didn’t cry one bit as I was pulling out the silly putty. As far as she knows, Daddy has no idea what happened (although he did get quite a laugh out of it!).

And so, by the time I was done with the silly putty, it was time to get dinner, take our middle son to his youth group and then get ourselves over to our small group. After small group was over, the hosts decided to give us a tour of their home. What a beautiful, yet very different home. It’s a 4000 sq. ft. house that sits on 1.5 acres of land, with twists and turns about it. We ended up staying a little longer because one of their Pomeranians got lost in the house somewhere and we had to spend some time searching for it! (Hey…if I can take a rat to the vet, I guess I can search for a missing dog, too!) We finally found the little fellow who’d gotten himself
locked into one of the rooms that we were in earlier and then we finished our tour. By the time we got home it was 9:30 pm.

Alas, but it still wasn’t over….middle son had apparently gotten home later than usual and so was still up doing homework and since mom was home she was now expected to help him through the rest of it…which she did, once again, as patiently as
she could.

And finally, at 10:30 pm, I was able to work my way upstairs to my bed to find not only the drama queen, but rat boy and dear hubs sound asleep, with no room for me to lie. At that point, I just gave up, pushed them all over as far as I could, crawled
into bed and fell promptly asleep. I guess it was a good thing I’d had several lessons of patience today!