Definitely Dogs, Plural
Molière — the Dog Formerly Known as Gizmo — is nice enough, but we’re all still adjusting to each other after a week. (One of my neighbors, who does small-dog rescues and has her own permanent dog, says it generally takes them about two weeks to settle in with a new rescue.) It doesn’t help that Molière, well, just isn’t that bright. For instance, he’s just now discovered the mirror, and the fact that there’s another dog in it; he’s spent the last five minutes growling and occasionally barking at the weird-looking intruder. (At his age, Nigel had completely sussed out what mirrors could do and used them to get a better view out the window from the comfiest spot in the room.) My attempts to reassure him that he’s only seeing himself have had less of an effect than I might’ve hoped.
We’re still trying to get across the following points to Molière:
On the up side, he’s a very nice, friendly little dog, albeit one who is as dumb as a box of rocks. He seems to like Nigel and plays pretty well with him, though occasionally he gets a little rough and Nigel has to do his cranky-old-man yell to tell him to back off. He’s also figured out — mostly — that he must sit before the leash goes on and we go outside; this rule was instituted many years ago, when I realized that, unless I asked him to sit, Nigel would caper around joyously at the very thought of going outside, and it would take five times as long to actually get ourselves outside because I couldn’t hook up the leash on a constantly moving target.
Molière also, shockingly, doesn’t like peanut butter, or bread, which meant that giving him his pills for his irritated skin (from the mats all over his body, and a flea infestation) was no fun for anyone. He also doesn’t seem to like the little squeaky carrot toy I bought him, and seems perplexed by the endless games of fetch that Nigel so dearly loves. (On the positive side, that means that he’s not trying to take over any of Nigel’s stuffed toys, most of which are almost as big as Molière is.)
On the subject of mats, the vet had managed to shave off all of them over the course of two days, except for three of his legs. I’ve got an appointment for him with a groomer for next Friday, but in the meantime I’m working on what’s left, snipping away. (I’m sure the resulting trim looks like crap, but the point is to demat the dog. Pretty can come later.) Last night, I finally managed to get the mat entirely off his hind leg. I tried to upload the photo and post it in the regular manner, but for some reason WordPress is ignoring my instructions to resize it and won’t let me post it as a thumbnail, so I’m just linking to it instead:
(Penny is provided for scale, and was not found embedded in the original mat.) If you click to embiggen the photo at the top, you can see one of the remaining mats on his forelegs; I hope to get those completely off this weekend.
In non-Molière news, we had a bit of a scare with Nigel’s kidneys (suspected glomerular disease, because his urine was foamy and had too much protein in it), but his bloodwork came back normal for kidney function, although his liver function was a little off again. Consequently, the vet doesn’t yet want to switch him from his sensitive stomach food to a kidney-protective food, but has given him meds to reduce his blood pressure and sort out his liver again. (We’re thinking that, although he seems quite happy to have Molière around, the stress of a change in his routine has thrown off his system again. His digestive system in general has always been a bit delicate and easily upset by changes.)
My own liver and other bits seem to be functioning normally, however, according to my bloodwork. Stomach biopsy from the endoscopy came back normal, all non-thyroid blood results normal; I’ve got an ultrasound scheduled for next Friday, to check out my gallbladder and various assorted organs in the region, but the GI guy seems to think my occasional stomach pain, vomiting, and general malaise is just one of those things. Well, technically, I think he said “stress-induced gastritis,” which is remarkably similar to Nigel’s stress-induced colitis. (Most dogs and their humans are said to start resembling each other physically; apparently Nigel and I resemble each other medically.) He hasn’t yet offered any suggestions for how to handle future attacks, but seemed fairly confident that at least it won’t kill me. (Though he didn’t say there wouldn’t be times I would wish it might do so.)
No big plans are made for the holiday weekend at Chez Moi. Basically, I hope to finish the cupcake hat for Christi and Jarrett’s upcoming sprog; maybe get a few more rows in on my Giselle sweater, which is now safely past the French cable waistband and moving on down the waist decreases; and maybe do a little baking and/or bookstore browsing. I’m hoping that Molière won’t be too freaked out by tonight’s fireworks; happily, Nigel’s hearing loss has meant that he hasn’t even noticed them the last few years, which has left him much happier and less stressed out.
