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August 18, 2010

Vet talk

Filed under: Our family, doodles — Wendy Wahman @ 4:33 pm

I doodle like some people journal. Except most of my doodles accompany phone calls not self analysis or Dear Diary logs. This page is from a phone conversation with my vet, Dr. Nobrega at Mercy Vet * concerning GoGo. GoGo is 14, has chronic active hepatitis and has developed (or under developed) anemia that is not responding to treatment. Treatment consists of consuming large amounts of liver – GoGo’s version of chocolate ice cream – and iron supplements. “Which probiotic do you recommend?” Write, write write, ‘Forta Flora.’ I went over the list of supplements to see if I was giving her something that could be aggravating anemia and abdominal swelling.

GoGo’s Pill Pack, along with meats and veggies, eggs, yogurt, garden burgers, half of Joe’s dinner and breakfast, and the occasional bagel or take out pizza:

Breakfast: Tramadol, pinch of prednisone, forta flora, GasX, Iron, Vitamin C, dash of psyllium

Dinner: Tramadol, forta flora, glucosamine, Iron, salmon oil or some kind of oil, splash of psyllium, vitamin and mineral supplement, the odd dose of kelp

Before bed: 425mg Milk Thistle/SAMe/B complex plus her pee pee pill.

The one thing might be psyllium, which I give for constipation from pain meds and old lady gut, (too much information?) further exacerbated by the ferrous sulphate. Suggestion: Pumpkin. But Peanut Pumpkin Pie** already eats pumpkin, so that’s out. Forta Flora.

But wait. I understand the somber expressions, and the face ringed with worry lines, but the dancers? Perhaps I was anticipating my and Joe’s guilty pleasure, So You Think You Can Dance? Or late for yoga.

*Also Good Dog, Carl’s veterinary hospital

**Another name for GoGo

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August 8, 2010

Wild child, Billy Budd and Scarlet O’Hara

Filed under: Our family, dogs — Wendy Wahman @ 9:08 am

That’s who we figured out our poodles would be in real life. LaRoo would be our wild child. Was she really raised by wolves or is that just pretend? She snuggles in close to her pack, then lets loose with wild abandon. She might be small and white and look like a petite Cirque de Caniche, but to know her is to know… a Wild Thing.

GoGo Fonteyn

Wild Child LaRoo. Aka, Smidge, Minky, Shortstack

Goody four paws, Andy, Graphic Androcles

Andy is like Billy Budd, scout’s honor, he is. Nicknamed Saint Andy, he is all good. Except when he’s jumping on his favorite aunties to lick their faces, or warning over eager adolescent dogs not to come any closer. He is not a puppy lover. But hey, even saints have their achilles heels.

GoGo our GoGo, La Conchita. Determined. Divine. At 14, her voice quavers, her eyes are clouded and her hearing dim, she still retains her indomitable spirit. Once soaring through the air for frisbees like the Michael Jordan of dogs, she now prefers quieter games, like burying her tiny stuffed toys in blankets, rugs, shoes & clothes on the floor – or your purse – then digging like crazy to find then hide, then find again.

GoGo Flies

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July 8, 2010

Plaintiful

Filed under: Our family — Tags: dinner, eat, GoGo, Joe, poodle — Wendy Wahman @ 7:07 am

That’s my new word for GoGo’s hollering at Joe in the morning. GoGo is 14 and gets everything she wants. She doesn’t have a lot of time left, she knows what she wants, when she wants it and that is Now. She speaks in a warbling rahr rahr rahr, with sharp yips interspersed when she’s getting fed up. Or I guess I should say, not fed up. When she gets desperate for Joe to put down his stupid book and give her his breakfast, it can get pretty intense.

We don’t feed Andy and Laroo from the table and they don’t question or beg while they watch the Joe & GoGo Show. They know this is GoGo’s treat. At dinner, Joe likes to hand feed her noodles, one at a time. He’ll also suck hot sauce off pieces of chicken or beans to give to GoGo. See why I love this guy?

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May 26, 2010

Georgian woman declares, “Your book saved my life!”

Filed under: Our family — Tags: attack, dog, dog behavior — Wendy Wahman @ 3:47 pm

The Big Thug

My sister in-law, Cherie, just called to tell me Don’t Lick the Dog saved her life. Was the book pressed to her chest as a stray comet hurtled into her? Did it act as a wedge to stop the wheels of her car from slipping down an isolated muddy ravine? Did she bop an attacker’s head (or elsewhere) with the book?

Too literal, it was literally literary.

Cherie’s quick thinking saves her bacon.

Cherie is a beloved teacher at an elementary school by day, census taker by weekend. Last Sunday she was census taking in a not-so-very-nice neighborhood. She approached one house, the door wide open, screen door ajar. Suddenly an enormous dog lunges through the door and jumps on her, growling and snarling. Cherie screams and tries to run and shrug off the angry buster. She realizes there is no way she can get him off or get away and panics – What to do!

Cherie has read Don’t Lick the Dog so many times to her kids she remembers the advice to stand still. She thinks, ‘this better work or I’m in big trouble.’ Somehow she makes herself stop and freeze in place. I know how hard that is to do, ’cause I’ve been there too. The dog drops from her neck and shoulders (!) and stands next to her, growling. Cherie does not move. The dog stands. She stands.

Tick tock. ‘Now what?’ she thinks, ‘Can I call out?’ She does so, very softly. Dog does not react. She calls out again, a little louder. Still nothing. Finally she is shouting for help. No one comes. No one comes. Where is everyone?

Now what. Can she inch away? Yes. She remembers to keep her side to the dog and moves the tiniest bit to her right. Nothing. Again, another step, and another and another. Finally she gets outside the gate and walks toward her car. She looks behind her and what do you think that big lunk is doing? He’s taking a nap.

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April 8, 2010

Tomorrow

Filed under: Our family — Wendy Wahman @ 7:42 am

Almost like any other day, by now. But the calendar singles it out. In a life, we learn the dates. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. But the day we die is left only on our loved ones calendars, never ours. We mark it down, for it’s one last precious date in our beloved’s life. I’ll try to think of it as the day she left pain behind. I’ll try to imagine her lifting up, flying like in a dream toward a bright pure light, feeling the bliss and certainty that I’ve heard about dying. I like to think how surprised and pleased she’d be at how good she felt. I have the other 364 to remember her life.

Until I leave that final date on my loved one’s calendars, I am grateful for every day I had Andrea in my life.

My heart is with Andrea’s family, her friends, our friends and now, the angels

“Let the Mystery Be”

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March 23, 2010

GoGo Socks

Filed under: Our family — Tags: cracked paws, GoGo, socks — Wendy Wahman @ 9:36 am

No go-go boots for GoGo. She wears socks to bed sometimes. She has cracked old paws that I heavily coat with Lanolin or Bag Balm. Then slip on her festive little socks. By morning it’s an easter egg hunt to find them. Strewn here and there, inside and out, each discovery makes me smile.

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March 20, 2010

Hair today, combed tomorrow II

Filed under: Our family — Tags: grooming, poodles — Wendy Wahman @ 10:21 am

Does this look like a torture chamber to you? I hope not. But when I look at the pictures, it seems so bleak. Actually, there are windows in that room, and the dogs get to lie down on the padded yoga mat mostly, a pillow under their heads. It is hard being a poodle. No matter what, eventually you have to get shaved and scissored. Maybe even get your ears plucked. Ouch. Even your little poopy and peepy shaved. The indignity.

This is hair from Andy and LaRoo. GoGo I did the day before and didn’t think to photograph. There was something cloud like in the white hair that made me take a picture. The bag full of hair is very puffy. You can sink your hand into it or push it down and it poofs back up.

LaRoo and Andy have really ‘good’ hair. For poodles that means tight and thick. And hard to comb out. I prefer GoGo’s bad hair for upkeep. You can brush it out easily. It is soft as a bunny. The Good Hair holds its shape though. There they are, lined up in their new outfits, Andy, LaRoo and GoGo waiting for din-din.

Funny how so many ‘faults’ are what we find endearing. GoGo’s ears, for instance are light and paper thin. They float in the breeze. Joe and I smile whenever we think of that. LaRoo’s heart shaped pinkish nose.

This post has been edited to remove a close up of Laroo’s tush. Some readers found it offensive. If you want to see it, let me know. I thought it was funny – specially how Joe had her face perfectly framed for a portrait and she whirled around and gave him the one-eyed, “Oh!” I guess you hadda’ been there.

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March 9, 2010

The dirtiest white girl on the Eastside. Or, why I should obey leash laws

Filed under: Our family — Tags: LaRoo, poodle, slough — Wendy Wahman @ 9:05 am

DUCK! LaRoo slithers under the fence, leaps the black inky squishy slough and is off like a rocket through the blueberry farm. The ducks take wing, LaRoo, still in white, trots back to us, smiling, shaking off her defeat. Now spent, she hasn’t the verve to hurdle the slough, so we watch, (no, no!) as she carefully slithers into the deep tarry ravine. I stand open mouthed, my OCD boiling like bile to my brain as dear calm Joe climbs the 5 foot fence to pull her out. Here she is, looking like a black & white cookie.

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January 27, 2010

Memory like a dream

Filed under: Our family — Wendy Wahman @ 6:24 pm

Like the soft steady wake up purr from vibrating whiskers on cheek, the cat is close. Or is that a motorboat on a lake.

The staccato accelerating roar of the crowd at the football stadium I never go, even in my nightmares. Turn it off. But in memory it gets turned up loud but I still can’t understand what they’re yelling about. Something about a wizard.

Memory amplified and out rolls the whole story. Following a day in the life, one full day like any other to take for granted. Alive with Andrea. Our best days were the uninterrupted, turn down the stadium noise, what-do-you-want-to-do, days. Get up, it’s warm and bright here. Kumkuats on the tree. Take your pick. Andrea driving her brown sports car, the brand most people would go, oooh, cool, but I can’t remember then and sure don’t now. Tamales from that place that catered her first wedding to her stolid mexican Joe, before we met right after we both had gay boyfriends. What’s That about? Real there in my dream, no stadium roar. I think of a huge dish, and find one tamale in a napkin on my lap.

It’s just how memories are.

Gnarls Barkley, \”Who\’s Gonna Save My Soul Now\”

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January 20, 2010

Until we meet again, my little Minus Monk

Filed under: Our family — Tags: cats — Wendy Wahman @ 6:07 pm

I met Minus in a cold hosed down stink of an animal shelter in Los Angeles. We had gone there with friends to look at a dog they wanted to adopt (and did!). In passing, I saw Minus on the top shelf of a long row of cats. I did a double take and our eyes locked. My heart swooned. I like to think his did too.

I named him Minus because he was, at 3 or 4 months, already neutered, and a very small cat. Small or not, he was a Cat’s cat. No foolin’ around. No time for mush or fluff. Let’s just be cats, see. So we were, cat to cat, human to human. He roamed, he moused, he even brought me a squirrel baby to – raise. That was Pippi, the squirrel, another story, but one that Minus launched.

May your nails grow long and sleek and tough again, Minus, your eye bright as gold, your belly smooth and full like a buddha fisherman. You will always be in my soul, if not in my arms, my sweet little Minus Monk.

During our 10 month trip around the US. Minus loved the trailer. We will keep his ashes in there.

Under cover drape

Over the shoulder drape. Click here for Joe's eulogy

Old little tv drape. Nice and toasty

The kitty door Joe made for Minus at the foot of our bed in the Airstream. Minus would travel during the day in the back of the suburban (that towed our trailer). When we got to camp we'd take him from the truck and put him in the trailer. Then he knew his tracks from trailer and back. He'd go out and do his kitty thing. He always came back. In many ways he was easier to travel with then our poodle, Morgan. Minus loved the airstream. Joe built him a little dining room under the kitchen table so he could dine in peace without Morgan hovering. We all slept together at night.