Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: audrey comic strip dogs havanese strip wisdom of the dog-faced buddha

2020 killed my dog.

July beat cancer for the first time in 2016 after having her toe amputated. She beat it a second time when she had a portion of her ear removed in 2019. This past July, she had a mammary tumor removed. Three times seems to be the limit.

In late October, she got wobbly in the legs. We crossed our fingers that it was a spinal problem. She initially responded to treatment, but she took a turn for the worse about two weeks ago when she lost even the ability to stand with assistance. It was downhill from there.

So long as she was lucid and had an appetite, I felt it was my duty to support her however I could — I couldn't justify killing my dog simply because she had become inconvenient. But I realized late last night that we had probably reached the end of the line. (I'll save the gory details except to say that cancer can be a real bitch.) I had her euthanized this afternoon, and she died in my arms.

For the better part of the past decade, July had been my shadow. Her sister, Victoria, wanted to be near me; July *needed* to be near me. She followed me everywhere and complained to whoever would listen when she couldn't see me. I can't blame her. Who else was she going to get to take her for walkies or hand her a slice of pizza?

I already feel like I'm missing something when I walk into a room and don't hear the tappa-tappa of toenails trailing behind me. I keep looking for baby, and she's not there anymore and never will be again. That will take some getting used to.

Thanks to Kelley for bringing her into my life and thanks to Mom for being a substitute Walter when necessary over the years. Thanks to her vet, Jeff, for helping me keep her around as long as we did. (Fourteen years is a good, long life for a standard poodle!) And especially thanks to July for doing your best to make 2020 bearable for as long as you could.

I loved my girls.

Comments (3) | Leave a Comment | Tags: death dogs family july kelley mom poodles victoria

Good news! July's back and legs are responding to treatment, and she's walking much better.

Bad news! July is now having seizures (two in the past three days).

I'll keep you posted.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dogs illness july poodles

July's health problems continue. At least this time it's not cancer (we think).

She's been getting wobbly in the back legs for the past few months, a condition that we've been attributing to old age. (She's almost 15!) However, on Monday she abruptly lost the ability to coordinate her back feet, began dragging her back knuckles, and could no longer get up from a laying position. Or even a sitting position.

Her doctor agreed that this seemed abnormal and took x-rays. He ultimately diagnosed, and I quote, "likely intervertebral disc disease at L5-6, spondylosis at L7-S, mild hip dysplasia."

"Spondylosis"? Uh, yeah. I see that now.

She's now on a prescription of steroids, muscle relaxers, and spine massages every 8 hours, which she has responded to quite well. In fact, she's already learned her med schedule and asks for her pills on time. (She loves Pill Pocketsâ„¢!)

The biggest difficulty of her condition comes from her continued refusal to let me out of her sight. This has always been the case. Despite her wobbly legs, she recently fell down the stairs rather than let me be out of her sight for a whole minute. (Could that be how she damaged her back? Silly poodle.)

So, for the foreseeable future, I'll be carrying her upstairs for food and meds, outside to do her business, and everywhere else I need to go, including into my bedroom when I work and sleep and into my bathroom to lie on the bathmat when I take a shower. She's such a diva.

Not that I'm really complaining. It could be worse, which probably isn't something I should say in 2020.

Comments (1) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dogs illness july poodles

In the Before Times, tomorrow would have been the opening day of the Georgia football season (vs Virginia at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff game).

That's not happening now. If Georgia does manage to have a football season, it won't start until September 26.

In honor of the COVID-19 modified 2020 season, I present my latest lawn ornament: On Ice.

Uga is always cool.

Comments (2) | Leave a Comment | Tags: art bulldogs covid19 diy dogs football georgia uga yard signs

My latest lawn ornament:

I was planning something for "Back to School" season next, but since it doesn't look like there's going to be one of those, maybe football season instead. That'll be a sure thing, right?

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: art audrey covid19 diy dogs havanese havanese strip poodle strip yard signs

Since everybody is looking for some way to kill time while hunkered down in their safety caves, the UK tabloid The Sun came up with this rebus of dog breeds using emojis. Take particular notice of number 7.

💩 (🍜-N)

---

"poo"("noodle"-"n")

---

"poooodle"

I may have spent too much time alone. I'm beginning to think the entire Internet is sending coded messages just to me.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: covid19 dogs games internet piles of shit poodles trumps america

Finally! An appropriate thing to be made in the shape of a poo emoji!

Go ahead. Squeeze it.

"Best for photo ops" it says. I mean, yeah, I suppose if you are determined to take a photo of your dog eating poo, better this than the real thing.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dogs piles of shit toys trumps america

What? I skipped a post again? Dammit.

In my defense, I've been busy these past few days. As you know, I've been supervising Dad's medications and dog-sitting Rambo and Scarlett (and trying to make July not jealous). Also, there have been issues with our commercial rental property, including an AC failure and an (unrelated) fallen tree that damaged the roof and destroyed the gutter over the back door that has a bad tendency to flood. Add to those that I have an end-of-July deadline on a coding project. And I helped one friend build some shelves and another fix her cable system. And my own ISP was down for most of Friday and Saturday. And I've been trying to find time to write more. And and and and.

But that's all just excuses.

On the up side, I did just recently discover that my phone takes great panoramic photos, a feature which I have been using exclusively to take photos of clouds.

So that's good. And that's enough.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dad dear diary dogs family georgia july newnan rambo scarlett sunsets walter work wriphe.com

The National Safety Council says that the odds of an American dying from a fall are 1 in 114. That's about twice as likely as the chance of death from a gun assault (1 in 285) but five times more common than the chance of dying while going for a walk (1 in 556). The specific odds of dying from falling down the stairs is 1 in 1,662. Yesterday morning, I nearly became a statistic.

I woke up early to take July outside to go potty before the bad weather rolled in. I didn't bother to change shoes and wore my slippers in the dewy grass. Returning to the house, I wiped her wet feet but not mine. Then we both went back downstairs to return to bed. Thanks to my slippery slippers, one of us went faster than the other.

Spoiler alert: I didn't die. But I do have an uncomfortably twisted ankle and abrasions on my elbows. And I've certainly learned a valuable lesson. From now on, the dog can go potty in the rain.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: death dogs july morals statistics walter