Grizzley is going strong. He has the appetite of a tiger because of once a day prednisone. He doesn’t show any signs of the trouble a few months ago. This picture is a really bad one, he looks much better! Nowadays, he doesn’t have that kitty condo because I had to dismantle it to take it out of the livingroom after installing the doors, and wasn’t able to put them together again… hehe…
Georgia is doing well as far as I can see. We’ll get another X-ray taken in a couple of month to see if her elbow dysplasia is getting worse. I just found out she’s been sneaking in some pee on the rug I put down in the livingroom for her. So everybody except Brooklyn is having a blast marking or peeing inside after the new living arrangement!!! *shakes fist*
Brooklyn has been, well, Brooklyn, refusing to step down to the grass to pee or poop EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. This summer has been so humid and wet as to ruin a pair of my Timberlands because they get soaked from walking 10 ft on it to pick up poop. Naturally, Brooklyn refuses to have any of that, so I’ve had to drag her out and body block her from coming back to the deck, to force her to pee. I do that everyday, I tell ya.
Brandy’s poop is still too soft, and we can’t find any underlying cause of the bacterial overgrowth in her intestinal tract. I’ve been giving her plain fat free yogurt and that firms it up a little so that it’s not completely liquidy. But she’s not losing any weight, and actually gaining some and she hasn’t had any bad regurgitating bouts for some time. *knocks on wood* The problem is she acts like she doesn’t have bladder control after the new living arrangement and has been peeing inside.
RPIMFA, aka Foster, is of course doing good. The summer is almost over, and thankfully he didn’t hurt himself or give himself puncture wounds. I’ve caught him a few times following bugs towards his torso again and again, but so far, we haven’t made that second trip to the E-vet yet. Hopefully he gives me a break this year since he’s already caused enough grief by peeing and marking everywhere including my bed.
I’ve been busy setting up new living arrangement to accomodate Georgia’s arthritis. And it’s been hectic, frustrating and stressful for all of us. But I’m happy to report that I am able to fall asleep at night and get some sleep.
Last Saturday, starting around 10:30am, a friend of mine and I visited Home Depot and carpet stores multiple times and went to work until around 10pm. We installed the doors in the two openings in the livingroom and put cheap area rugs in two rooms. Since the openings in the livingroom were not made for doors, they look like some builder left without finishing his job, real eye sores, but they serve the purpose. So Brooklyn and Georgia have been staying in the livingroom since that night.
Blocking off one room downstairs doesn’t solve the problem entirely though. I still cannot feed Brandy upstairs because there is no comfortable chair upstairs that would fit both Brandy and me which is necessary for me to hold Brandy upright for about an hour after her meals. So Brooklyn still needs to eat upstairs and knowing Georgia is not upstairs with her, she’s not eating much and howls and eats the wall while I’m holding Brandy downstairs. The problem will be solved if I get an appropriate chair for upstairs.
I had to move Brandy and Foster to the master bedroom as well where Georgia and Brooklyn used to occupy because of a strange unforeseen problem. After blocking off the livingroom, the room doesn’t get any air from central air conditioner whenever the doors are closed even though there are two vents in the room. I don’t know why and don’t have the money to hire somebody to look into it, so I decided to leave the doors open during the day while I’m at work and confine Grizzley in his room, Brandy and Foster in their room. But to my dismay, I found out THOSE rooms are also not getting any air with the doors closed. Since I know the master bedroom and the master bathroom gets plenty of air with the door closed, I had to move all of Grizzley, Brandy and Foster to the master bedroom. So naturally the royal pain in my big fat ass Foster decided that he would have to mark this new territory and has been peeing on different spots at least once a day so far.
I was able to borrow $2,000 from a friend who I already owe $500 to, but he thankfully told me to take my time paying him back. After last weekend, I’m left with $1,000 and that will help me get the chair and more rugs and the vet cost. I also just received an upgraded credit card, which they sent me because my card expired a few months ago and I had not activated the new one they sent me. I decided to activate it, and happened to find out my rewards points made me eligible for a cash reward of $200, so that will help as well. I have been sleeping on the sofa with Georgia and Brooklyn since thy are more nervous about it than the others and since I can sleep on the sofa for now, I won’t have to buy a new mattress just yet to replace the one Foster marked all over.
All of us have been really uneasy about this new living arrangement because it hasn’t been quite perfected as a routine yet. I’m uneasy since I keep finding out some unforeseen problem after another. But I know everything will come together sooner or later and we will all settle into a new routine eventually.
Tomorrow I’ll be taking Georgia to Dr. L, our wonderful vet. Please keep your fingers crossed for Georgia. And then I’ll be doing more moving things around, carpet shopping, carpet laying, etc. I just remembered I was supposed to make a to-do list for this weekend. 
Why? Because I did it AGAIN! For the third AND the fourth time!!!!! After forgetting Brandy’s and Foster’s gotcha days, you’d think I’d pay more attention, right? But noooooo. I forgot about the fourteenth birthday of Grizzley AND Georgia’s gotcha day. Yup, I suck.
This one is for Grizzley.
My friend Lefty used to live in a basement apartment 14 years ago and he “had” a cat. She wasn’t really his cat, who strayed into his basement window one day and made herself comfortable. She came and went as she pleased and one day gave birth to a litter of four in Lefty’s apartment. I know, it was a time when I was ignorant of pet overpopulation problem.
I went over to pick a kitty to bring home, and there were one huge off-white colored kitty, big gray kitty, smaller black kitty and a teeny orange kitty. I was struck by the orange one because he was sitting all by himself and looked so sad. I picked the orange one, and Lefty and Nick told me I’d better not because he’s the runt and mostly likely not survive. So I went ahead and picked the gray one as well, and that’s my Grizzley. The orange kitty was my Thanta, who passed 3 years ago. I will blog about him later sometime.
So I took them home one day. Grizzley, as I mentioned before, is a big framed cat and was extremely athletic and exceptionally smart. The only place I forbade them to go was the kitchen counter, so he used to jump up on top of the refrigerator to see what I was doing whenever I was doing something in the kitchen. He was so nosy he usually had to see everything I did. Whenever I cleaned the kitty litter, he would jump up on top of my back, since I would bend my back to scoop it, to keep on eye on what I was doing with his bathroom. Then one day, something happened while I was at work. I don’t know what happened exactly, but it resulted in two femur head surgeries, one on each side, to relieve the pain. Ever since then he stopped being athletic.
Grizzley’s absolute favorite pastime is to make himself comfortable around my neck and shoulder area and knead on my hair – he could do this for hours if left alone. He likes opening doors; cabinet, closet, any door, just to open it. His favorite snack is the soft part of a bagel. He is the only one who bothers me when I eat, trying to pull my hand holding the forkful of food away from my mouth to his every single time. It would be kind of funny actually, arm wrestling with Grizzley for every single bite, if I’m not in a hurry, which is really a rare occurrence. He doesn’t like dogs getting unruly and he always shows them he’s the boss whenever Brandy, Foster or Georgia looks like to him as out of order. Brooklyn, of course, he’s very afraid of, since she almost killed him once, and he vanishes to somewhere whenever I take Brooklyn out of the room.
Despite Grizzley’s latest struggle, no matter it’s cancer or just IBS, he still rules his domain and doesn’t seem to be wiling to lower the level of his grumpiness or pushy behavior. He turned fourteen last Saturday, and I’m cautiously optimistic that he still have a few more years left in him. Please say a little prayer for him on account of his belated birthday.
Happy Birthday, Griz! Love ya!
Grizzley has been doing well on 5mg prednisone once a day. As Dr. L instructed, I tried once every other day before I ran out of pills, but he promptly started throwing up a little everyday. So I tried once every day and a half, but let’s face it. I’m getting old and the gray matter inside my skull doesn’t process this “once every day and a half” concept very well; one dose in the morning, then the next day in the evening, and then skip a day, and the one in the morning, etc. You get my drift. So back to once a day, and he seems to be doing fine again. And I will refrain from talking about how Sheila, my vet’s receptionist, screwed us up this time getting the scribe renewed.
Georgia has been doing well, and I dare say she’s the happiest one among my bunch. She doesn’t care if it’s hot, humid, muggy, wet, rainy, or pouring. She keeps on hopping around pees and poops with joy, chasing bugs, making splashes in the mud puddles. She’s been getting a little used to noises from outside our property, too – I hate to admit, but it might have to do with the fact that the neighbor is so loud so often.
Brooklyn, of course, is miserable. She’s miserable in the hot and humid summer of NY. She pees only once a day, or twice if motivated because she hates to get her precious paws wet. She poops once maybe 3 or 4 days. Being a winter dog, she doesn’t know what to do outside when it’s scorching. The weather has been simply weird for this time of the year and wasn’t THAT bad, but as I pointed out in earlier entries, Brooklyn is a diva. Everything has to be JUST so for her to lead a normal dog’s life. So yeah, it sucks for her this time of the year and all this rain we are getting isn’t helping either.]
Brandy is doing OK; not great, not bad, but just OK. We finished amoxicillin, and she’s not that much better. But her diarrhea is being controlled to just soft stool most of the time. She is gaining her weight back it seems – I’m not sure, but I can’t feel her bones as easily as before when I was worried sick. I’m still trying to find a time to talk to the vet – I called the vet’s office a few times and either Lorraine or Sheila has been answering, so I just hung up because I know the chances are very slim to get to talk to Dr. L.
Foster is, well, he’s Foster. It took me a little over 40 minutes to clip his nails just last night including 5-10 minute break I took since I was sweating profusely trying to clip his nails sitting inside his crate with him. Afterwards he lied down on his side the rest of the night pretending he died from nail clipping.
The other day, I was giving Grizzley his pill wrapped up in this wonderful thing called pill pocket. Grizzley is in love with pill pockets, and he can’t wait to get his pill, sometimes trying to climb up my legs while I’m molding it around his pill. I gave it to him who devoured it as usual, and then I turned around to take Brandy’s pills out of the pill bottles, and suddenly it hit me. I looked at Brandy, who, upon seeing me tinkering with the pill bottles, already came as usual without me having to call her, and sat right next to me with her tail wagging with a big smile on her face as usual. I almost cried.
Why? Because I had never thought of using pill pockets for Brandy until then. It was always the crude open mouth insert pills method. But every time Brandy sees me taking pills out, she’s always there, sitting down with her tail wagging, waiting for me to shove those pills down her throat. That’s how fiercely loyal Brandy is. She doesn’t like pills being shoved down her throat of course. I know she doesn’t because it’s a little hard for her to willingly open her mouth for me. Just a little.
So the ungrateful me, goes out and buys pill pockets for Grizzley who absolutely refuses to take pills without hurting me, taking a finger or two perhaps, and keeps shoving the pills down the Brandy’s throat, who has to take 5 pills a day. How so fucked up is that scenario? Talk about taking somebody for granted…
Brandy loves this new arrangement, the pills in the pill pockets. She loves it a little too much, jumping up and down and everything. And of course when I give something to Brandy, I HAVE to give something to Foster as well, so I take some off and give it to him as well. So now when I tinker with pill bottles, Grizzle, Brandy and Foster gather around me hindering the process of pilling them, prolonging the time it takes to pill Grizzley and Brandy. I have to say I can’t be happier about it.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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