Wow, it's been a long time

...but can't say that I having been busy. Mostly busy just being grateful that our boy's still with us, having fun and making us laugh. He seems to be back to better than ever, with more energy than I can remember him having for awhile. The vet seems to feel that he was tolerating his illness well, and that why we never noticed until it was ...well, you know, almost too late. (Hate to even think of it, even now.)

Our boy just charmed the socks off of the staff at the pet hospital and I can't get over how they fawn over him on his checkups. It seems that he gets more attention than the other animals. Hope the other pups aren't jealous!

Right now, his levels are back to an acceptable range and his care has been transferred back to his primary vet, so we are cautiously hopeful.

As for his personality, well, it's still intact. He seems to know that he won't get scolded for being a "bad doggy" so he's acting up a little, sneaking unattended food and not listening to us when he'd rather not. I'll take it, I'll take it all. You cannot believe how devastating it is for a vet to tell you that it's "time to make the decision," unless you have been there. I mean, I know we will outlive him (statisically, it's probable; I don't have any guarantee) but I was not ready. I have come to better grips with it now, but not that day, not that week.

Good Boy, Gonzo. Where's your elephant? Let's play.

Thank God, there's more to come, so come back if you're interested

Gonzo's Home!

Our boy is home, but far from out of the woods. He has IMHA, an auto-immune disease, and it was discovered that he has diabetes as well. The bill was beyond belief, but as I have said a number of times since we agreed to treatment (was there even an option?) that if someone said,"Would you pay (insert amount of vet bill here*) to spend two more weeks with Gonzo?" I would have said yes.

Good boy, Gonzo. You've charmed the nurses, vet techs, and internists as well as your doctor, now you just rest and get better.

*I can't bring myself to type the amount in; I think I'm still in shock!


More to come, and I am so glad.

Our boy needs your prayers

Gonzo has been diagnosed with IMHA and is very sick. It's a disease that causes antibodies to attack the red blood cells in our boy's blood.

Pray to your Higher Power (mine is God) that our boy continues to respond to and hold his own with treatment. I am hoping for a miracle, but realize that it's a long road, full of potiential problems.

The vet left a wonderful message about how Gonzo is doing, that he's holding his blood counts, and that the staff loves him, and how the nurses are playing with and petting him...it's things like that that make it okay that our boy isn't here with us. I haven't been able to see him since we admitted him on Tuesday morning and I miss him. The vet thinks if he remains stable, we could visit him on New Year's.

Good boy, Gonzo. You just play with the nice girls at the hospital and get better, okay?

I do so hope that there's more to come.

Do wet buffalo smell like wet dogs?

So, here's more about that buffalo farm that was on the route I used to drive while delivering bread.
Every day I would drive by this kind of dilapidated, rundown old farm. One day, seemingly out of the blue, there were buffalo standing in one of the fields. After recovering from my mind being blown by a herd of buffalo in Pennsylvania, I started the "Way to go, buffalo!" that I would repeat every thing I passed the field. It was actually a thing I would look sort of forward to, this oddity in the modern world; a herd of buffalo roaming in PA , like they used to roam everywhere in the wild west (or at least in the movies I've seen.)
One day, it was raining all day, and when I passed the field, the buffalo weren't out grazing as they usually would be. I thought, "Well, maybe, the farmer guy didn't let the buffalo out because if wet dogs smell bad, I can't imagine what a wet buffalo would smell like!" (Ah, naivete; I miss ya.) The next day, it was clearer, but still no buffalo in the field. The third day, when I saw that there were still no buffalo, I gasped, and said, "Ohhh! He's a bad, BAD, man!" as I realized the point of buffalo farms.
I won't eat buffalo burgers. No how, no way.

Good Boy, Gonzo. I bet you smell better than a wet buffalo.

More to come (just not so often as before), so come back if you're interested.

Driving games

I used to drive a lot. I've been a bread delivery person, a sales rep, and a merchandiser with a service area from South Central PA, Philly and Northern DE. So spending all that time on the road, alone, I started doing stuff to alleviate boredom. You know, the stuff people do to pass the time on the road? Like one of my coworkers said when he and his group see one of those vanity plates with the two sets of initials on them, they come up with the names that would match the initials, starting with Mr. and Mrs. The example he gave was ABC DEC would be "Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy Bartholomew and Dorothy Elizabeth Connor." Probably very fun with kids.

Well, my game isn't so much a game (unless you would consider yelling ,'MOOOOOOOOO!" at cows a game) as it is a time-passer. When I see livestock along the roadside (safely in their fenced fields, I hasten to add, not roadkill), I have a saying for most types I see.

1.) cows- I nod my head and say,"Ladies," in the fashion of a man tipping his hat greeting a group of women.

2.) bulls- I call out,"That's just bull!"

3.) goats- "Hi, kids!"

4.) buffalo*-"Way to go, Buffalo!

5.) sheep- "No flockin' way!"

6.) deer - "Oh, d-d-deer, oh, d-d-deer-deer-deer," in the manner of Winnie the Pooh.

I don't have a saying for horses, as I have a traumatized dislike of them, having been thrown and never getting back on. And they smell bad, like a moldy wet dog.

It's a weird little pasttime, but it helps with the boredom. I find I still do it now, on my hour commute to and from work.

*There was a buffalo farm on my bread route, more on that another time.

Good boy, Gonzo. They're all just funny looking dogs to you, huh?

More to come, so come back if you're interested.