Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Grammy's

My astrological sign is Cancer. One major characteristic of Cancers is that we are homebodies. It’s not easy to pry us out of our homes for any significant length of time. For me, the best part of traveling is coming back home.  Recently, I had to go on a trip for work. I went to California for a trade show. Given the things that have been happening with the Girly Girl lately, I was torn about leaving them and flying across the country. Luckily, we have Grammy to take care of my babies while I am away. Blue and Girly Girl absolutely adore Grammy. Grammy feels mutually about Girly Girl and with Blue, well, I think he may be growing on her. Let’s just say the jury is still out. It all stems from the very first time that Blue had a sleep-over at Grammy’s house. He apparently growled at Grammy when she went near him. This is very out of character for Blue. He hasn’t ever done this to me, or in my presence. He’s known in the greyhound circles as a love bug. He’s never done it to Grammy again either. But he’s a big boy and it unnerved Grammy a bit. So she’s stand-offish when it comes Blue.

Nonetheless Grammy has put aside her initial impressions of the big white stink bug and my babies get to stay with her instead of in a crate in a kennel. They have people caring for them who love them and with whom they are comfortable. They have a lovely fenced in back yard and their two greyhound cousins to hang out and run with. Knowing that they would have that, I could go away feeling as good as it was possible to feel about going away from my four-legged children. It wasn’t long after I left that the first email from Grammy arrived…

“Well, they settled in with not a whine it seems (other than the standard) and I have to tell you that GG is eating like a sailor. This morning we had a run-in the boys and I. Blue went for Fox’s food and took it away and wouldn’t listen to me so I had to physically lift him up and out of the room away from Fox’s food. Then when I fed Crandall he wolfed it down so when I put GG’s and Blue’s down Crandall went in for GG’s and for the first time I swatted him..he jumped a foot. No one was listening to me so I began bellowing and oh my they listened then. Guess GG thought better eat, the woman’s crazy because she began to wolf down everything, applesauce, yogurt, dog food as if she hadn’t been fed in years. Every other dog went running so I had to call Blue back to eat his. Had to give Fox more because Blue got half of it down before I could get him out.”

I let Grammy know that while Girly Girl was immune to yelling (she had figured out I was all bluster years ago and just stands there looking at me as if to say, “are you all done now?”), Blue takes any yelling personally and runs for his crate. I could be yelling at the TV and if I have raised my voice to much, Blue heads for the crate. If I stub my toe or bang a body part and I’m just yelling Ow! Ow! Ow! There goes Blue. So Blue should be easily reprimanded. I was surprised to receive the next email:

“Blue is not responding to me the same way he does to you. He stands there and looks at me as if saying…’that’s all you got?’ [At] 1 a.m. Charlie comes to bed but first lets them out one more time. Suddenly I am rudely awakened by this 500 lb animal (felt like it at least) jumping on the bed…I look up and he is standing over me…opens his mouth and gives me a few dragon breath licks. Lays down right between Charlie and I with his head on the pillows. No moving him…it’s not mama’s bed, he’s allowed…so we let him. Not bad sleeping with him except eventually he ran a few races on my back.”

I suggested that Grammy try pushing Blue off the bed or using a squirt bottle of water on him. He can be stubborn about the bed because I have spoiled him by getting him his own bed whenever we stay in a hotel. But he isn’t allowed on the bed at home. So he maximizes his bed usage whenever we are in a hotel (or apparently, what he deems ‘away from home’). That resulted in the next e-missive:

“OK, yelling doesn’t work, pushing doesn’t work, pulling doesn’t work…any other ideas? He lays on my pillows and won’t get down, even with Charlie and I both pulling and yelling and pushing (not all at the same time), he just looks at us and digs in his feet. If we do accomplish any movement he readjusts himself and lays back down. We finally lifted him off the bed and I gave Charlie a water bottle to use on him. I wouldn’t mind the bed but he likes to put his ass on my pillows and considering his inability to miss his own body when he urinates I am not big on having it on my pillow… I doubt the water thing will work though, he stood at the counter with his nose in my business while I was trying to fix lunch for work and I took some water and flicked it at him…he just blinked and looked at me. Where did you leave the sensitive Blue?”

What can I say; he does pee all over his legs. It’s true. I carry baby wipes in the car, in my purse and they are by the door at home to clean his feet and legs after each potty session. So as a last resort I suggested that Grammy give him a light swat since it would be a novel occurrence, it wouldn’t hurt him but would surprise him and might even get his attention. Now before I get angry letters from animal lovers everywhere, I’m not advocating violence against my four legged child. I’m talking just a little tap to get his attention. The next day the following email arrived:

“OK the excitement and confusion of the first night has ended and things are working themselves out. Crandall has established with Blue that he will not take any sh** from him and Blue has established with Crandall that he could care less. Last night Blue behaved himself until at 2 a.m. he was at the bed crying so I let him up but that was a major step since he never asked before, just jumped, so he has recognized that this isn’t a hotel bed but belongs to the two alphas in the house. GG went to sleep with me on the bed and Blue woke up with me.”

Everything would have ended in Grammy’s house bliss had I been able to get home when I was supposed to but as it turned out I was a victim of March storms that tied up the nation’s air traffic for days. I was delayed returning home for more than 24 hours. During that time, I get the next email:

“…You have got to do some training with Blue darlin’, he is impossible to move. Voice commands, growls, clawed hand, pulls, pushes, yelling and even one little smack to the butt would not move him and even when he did move he jumped right back up on the bed. All night long we had a battle royale. I would push him off with my feet and he would come back around and jump back up, and as if to punish me would stand over me breathing in my face. GG always asks permission, he seems to feel it is his right.”

After a night in JFK, delays, missed connections, and the last available seat on an airplane bound for Portland Maine for the next two days, I was finally on the runway waiting in a long line to take off. I sent Grammy one last email to let her know I was, barring divine intervention, going to make it home at last. Grammy’s final email arrived before we made it to taxi for take-off:

“Ohhh your kids are going to be so excited!! Listen there is NO WAY that Blue is not an alpha dog. The only difference is that either he is brilliant or totally retarded. He goes for their food, Crandall snarls and snaps and he ignores them and eats it anyway. He wants our bed and no matter what we do he gets on and stays. He wants to lay down, he lays on top of whomever is there. Fox was all over him with snarling and yet he just laid down on top of Fox and wouldn’t move so Fox gave up and let him have it and guess where he was this morning? Inside Crandall’s crate…the inner sanctum that even Fox dares not enter. Crandall was laying outside on the floor giving me the skunk eye. Submissive? Rigghttt.”

Needless to say, Grammy was happy to see the backside of the four-legged grandkids when I came to pick them up. They were very excited to see mumma and that made me feel about as good as it is possible to feel and still be legal. As a Cancer, I’ve always loved coming home after a trip but now that Girly Girl and Blue are waiting for me when I get there, I wonder why I left at all. As for Blue, I think maybe Grammy was stretching it a bit. Blue behaves just fine for me. If I ask him to get off the bed, he does. If I ask him to step away from his food bowl, he does. I’m sure she’ll say it is all true but then, she’s a writer and leave it to a writer to make a big deal out of such a small event.

Writer’s Block for a Bigger Purpose

It’s very funny how the creative muses mess with you. I’ve been trying for two weeks now to write something for the blog. I’ve had two or three good ideas and though I’ve tried and tried and tried writing them up, I cannot get the creative juices to flow. My muses simply refused to cooperate. So I have three pieces of lackluster, half-baked writing. When that happens, there is nothing for it but to let them sit until those accursed hags (oops, I mean my lovely muses) decide to grace me with their presence again and then I can rewrite, turning them into sparkling, witty, inspirational works of art. Sure.

In the absence of any creative inspiration, an option did present itself and slapped me in the face today. I almost didn’t pay any attention to it though it literally had me in tears. I had defined my blog fairly narrowly in my own mind. Specifically funny stories about what happened with my hounds. Well, I guess it’s already sort of morphed a bit away from that so what I’m about to do won’t be a huge departure. Maybe just in my own mind.

I was catching up on the tweets from the peeps I follow. In and amongst the many was a tweet about a greyhound quilt that had been mentioned on the Etsy blog. Being a fan of all things greyhound I had to check that out. It was a stunning quilt. So, I clicked through to the artists’ Etsy site. The quilt seemed to be a new departure for her as all her other offerings were jewelry. And I guess there really are no coincidences in life and all things happen for a reason.

The first piece of jewelry I saw, a necklace, said, “My Tripod Rocks.” It had a stylized greyhound on it and the number three. The next necklace said “Osteo sucks,” and had the stylized greyhound along with a second ring that said “Compassion, Hope, Bravery.” There was more greyhound jewelry both for hounds fighting cancer and those who had crossed the bridge. There was also jewelry for hounds that were lucky enough not to have to face an illness. All of it was beautifully made.

Just seeing that first piece made me catch my breath. One cancer dog family immediately recognizes another. I knew her story before I looked at any other part of her website. I only needed to see the photo of the tripod necklace. And indeed when I read her story, she had lost a beloved hound to osteosarcoma in January of 2010. The amazing heroes at OSU had fought with her to save her boy. A large percentage of the sales from the jewelry are going to the OSU Greyhound Health program in memory of her special boy and in recognition of the incredibly special work they do there.

While all of our money currently goes towards chemo treatments, medications and veterinary visits I realized there was a way I could help even if I wasn’t in a position to go on a shopping spree. I could spread the word about this artist’s special jewelry with a purpose. In the interest of full disclosure, I get nothing from this but the hope that some more money ends up at the OSU Greyhound Health program. In fact, the artist does not know about this blog entry and doesn’t even know who I am. But I think she is doing a wonderful thing and being the mum of a sweet girl with osteosarcoma, I can vouch for the fact that it does indeed suck. I am thankful there are people out there like this woman who channeled her sadness into action to help me and my girl and all of us. I hope you’ll take a look at her site.

Beth Wade's Etsy Site
 
Beth Wade's Website

The Forest for the Trees

You should keep a “cancer log” for your dog. This was one of the many pieces of excellent advice that I read in the book “Help Your Dog Fight Cancer” by Laurie Kaplan. Since I tend to have difficulty remembering what happened yesterday, this seemed like a very good idea. I started to keep a log for Girly Girl on the day I read about it in the book.

Girly Girl ate her breakfast, or she didn’t eat her breakfast. Or she finally ate it at noon. She refused to eat yogurt anymore when she always used to love it. She stopped eating her pills and supplements mixed in with her food. She would only eat them with cheese. She won’t eat her pills and supplements with cheese anymore, she’ll only eat them with cream cheese. She won’t eat dinner. She ate dinner but not until after 10 pm. She will only eat dinner if it has baby food mixed in. She will only eat food if I feed it to her.

Girly Girl’s doctor visits are noted. She had chemo. She went to see Dr. Edelbaum our family vet because she just wasn’t feeling very well between chemo treatments. She went for blood tests because there was concern the chemo drugs were lowering her white blood cell count. She was seen by the emergency vets. She had an echocardiogram because the chemo drugs cause heart damage.

The myriad of supplements and medications that we stuff twice a day into my little 54 pound peg-legger are all listed in our log. There are the medications that Dr. Romansik prescribed for her for nausea and diarrhea after the first chemo. These unfortunately did not work. He gave us Sulfasalazin for the diarrhea and Cerenia for the nausea after the second chemo and these worked much better. In addition she also gets marshmallow root, slippery elm, aloe vera juice, L-arginine, Denosyl, Joint 3 (glucosamine, chondroitin and hyaluronic acid), Bone Stasis and a probiotics-enzyme powder blend.

All food choices must be logged. As a cancer dog Girly Girl eats a high protein, low carb diet. Cool proteins only (duck, turkey, and rabbit). When she does eat carbs I try to ensure that they are complex carbs. Finding crunchy treats that are lower in carbs can be a real challenge and we’ve logged a whole bunch of attempts. The furry kids have always had extras mixed in to their dry food. We log all of these and we’ve had to make some changes there as well. With chemo, Girly Girl’s tastes have changed. What she will and won’t eat gets noted for future reference.

We also write down all the real fun stuff like the times she vomited on my arm while I was comforting her and later on my leg. We also note every days poop status. Poop has become very important in our life. Within 24 hours of a chemo treatment Girly Girl begins full on diarrhea. She never recovers normal poop status before the next treatment even with medication. The trick is to make sure that she stays hydrated. The trick is also how many different ways you can describe the consistency of poop. Salad shooter, mashed potato, soft serve… I don’t mean to offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities but this is life with cancer.

Every day I write all these things down. After awhile you get very caught up in these details. Was her poop this morning soft serve or was it more firm than that? Did I remember to give her the Denosyl? I have to remember to log in that we changed food yesterday from Nature’s Variety to Blue Buffalo. But I also note the occasional victory (she played with a toy for the first time since surgery today, she tried the basement stairs today, she ran today, she’s jumping up on the couch with me again, she did a helicopter today!).

While I was busy thinking about poop and food and vomit and supplements and when the next chemo treatment was, I failed to see the proverbial forest for the trees. There, in my log, day by day. All those small victories. They added up. When I finally stopped writing and took a good look at Girly Girl, really watched her. When I stopped thinking about cancer and just thought about my sweet, heart dog. I realized she was back. She was on three legs, but she was truly back. My joyous, squeaky mad, midair toy catching, helicopter doing, roaching (almost), cleaning her bowl, running, jumping, sniffing, demanding to share the couch, loving, girl had snuck back in. Welcome home baby girl! Settle in and stay a good long while.