You stink.

A letter to my boss at 4:00 this morning:

Hi.

I'm afraid I have to take an impromptu vacation day on Friday. As much as I'd love to give you a fun reason for it, I don't have one. You may find it funny though.

At 2:30 this morning, Mark got up to let the dog out. I woke up to him yelling "Leave it, Meika! Leave it!" We live dangerously close to Jefferson Barracks park, so it could be anything.

Well ... it was a skunk, and it was angry. Meika got sprayed in the face.

After 20 minutes of rinsing her eyes in the bathtub, I started on her first magic bath (peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap ... if you ever run into this problem) while Mark drove around trying to find anywhere open 24 hours near us to buy more peroxide. (In case you've ever tried to bathe skunk out of a 120 pound dog, it takes a lot of peroxide.)

I think the dog is clear now, but the house smells like the skunk died in here somewhere. (Mark is currently checking the backyard to make sure it's clear so Meika can go outside again almost 2 hours later to finish her business.)

I'm breaking out from the peroxide/baking soda/dog hair/skunk mixture, so it's my turn for the shower.

To wrap up, I'm not getting up in 2 hours.

-------------------------------------------

Teach your dogs now ... SKUNKS STINK.

Blueberry Dog

I watched my friend's dogs the other day so she could take a trip with her new hubby. Mark and I went to her house, and we brought Meika for a fun one-night pupp-eriffic slumber party. This party consisted of two humans, four dogs, and two cats.

Did I mention we're both allergic to cats?

Anyway ... thanks to some Claritin, we all had a great time, and Meika had so much fun she slept fo two days.

So my friend baked me a loaf of her homemade blueberry bread as a thank-you for watching the critters while she was gone, and of that, I had eaten maybe 1/4 as of today. It's some good bread.

We just returned from a few hours at a subdivision meeting, and Meika ATE MY BLUEBERRY BREAD. We're not just talking "tried" it either ... all that was left was some aluminum foil and the pretty little bow.

It's going to be a rough night ...

Prettiest, most-expensive, smartest, dumbest dog in the world

Well, it's been a while since I've updated the blog.

In September I was going to write that she was doing well and such a good dog, then October came and she ate part of our sofa, so I was going to write about how she was a bad dog.

So we started putting her in the kitchen, closing the door down to the basement, and putting a wood/wire pet gate in the doorway to block off the rest of the house. And a chair in front of that so she wouldn't think about jumping. ... and then I came home one day (after 3 days of this restriction) to find that she had chewed part of the chair, most of the wood, and broken several of the metal wires in the gate ... until she was freed.

Free, but missing. I searched the house high and low ... every room with an open door was searched. No dog. I finally found her in the bathroom, in the dark, with the door closed. I guess she went in and backed up, closing the door on her own. That made her a dumb dog.

Once I saw that she was ok, I stormed down to the basement and found the pieces of her old crate, setting it up again. She looked at me while I threw the pieces together with an expression of, "Oh, I've really done it this time."

Yes, she had.

So we crated her for about two weeks ... until the day I came home and found her greeting me at the front door. I blamed Mark for not locking the crate. It was the logical thing to do.

The next day he reassured me over and over again that he locked the crate before he left for work, and once again I was greeted at the door by a tail-wagging puppy after work. The crate wasn't working.

I have trouble opening that thing from the outside, WITH thumbs! How in the world ... ?

That made her the smartest dog in the world.

So we began letting her free in the basement, blocking the back of the bar and closing the door to the upstairs, so she could have some freedom, but not everything. I was not going to come home to a chewed-up sofa again.

I came home to find that she had tried going outside on her own. There are TEETH MARKS on the doorknob to the backyard. Luckily, that door requires a key in the deadbolt to open it, otherwise, I think she'd have played out back for a bit. I swear ... if she figures out the whole "get the key off the hook, put it in the keyhole, turn, and open" ritual while I'm gone, I'm outta here. I can't deal with a dog that talented.

And now we just crate her in the morning, gently somewhat locking the locks (so she doesn't get hurt unlocking them), and leave her be in the house, hoping she doesn't destroy anything. And for the past few days, she's been pretty good.

Until today.

Have you ever come home from work to a situation in your home when you just wish you could turn around, get back in your car, and drive around for another 90 minutes in the ice storm you somehow just survived, hoping/praying it would all go away?

She got into a bag I left by the door ... a plastic zipped lunch bag that I sometimes carry to work, sometimes leave by the door. She never bothers it.

Today I found (spread throughout the living/dining rooms):
1 sharpie, cap off and 2 feet away
1 blue ink pen, chewed, all pieces accounted for
1 wrapper for chocolate chip cookies, 2 large cookies missing
1 empty box of junior caramels (chocolate covered)
1 chewed, almost-empty tube of Cortaid creme
1 bag of microwave buttered popcorn, 1/2 missing, 1/2 spread throughout the house
1 plastic lunchbag, destroyed
1 weekly pamphlet from weight watchers on the importance of exercise (I won't miss this much)

I called the vet with one of those, "Let's pretend you have a 100lb. dog and you came home to find that she had eaten ... " scenarios. They said that if she were a smaller dog, he'd worry, but at her size ... she should be fine.

I quit.

Drugs Work: For the bargain price of ...

We were so thrilled to have our happy healthy puppy back. We still are ... don't get me wrong!

We just weren't prepared to get a PUPPY back. Not knowing she was sick, originally, we thought she was just slowing down as she grew up. Little did we know that she still had some energy locked up that she needed to get out. A LOT of energy.

Meika is two weeks into her second round of DOCP shots. She's discovered her toys again, and she's even become obsessed with a new one ... Wubba. This thing is amazing. Well ... amazing and annoying all at the same time. When she's content, Wubba is by her side. She won't let go for anything. We can hold onto one end of it and take her out front without a leash, knowing that she won't give up the other end for anything.

On the other side, when I'm sleeping at 3am and she's not, she believes it's playtime. There is nothing good about being smacked in the head by a Wubba when you're sound asleep. I have bruises.

Our couch is her couch.
Our bed is her bed. (Which puts one of us on her couch at some point during the night.)
And when it's time to work, she needs to be right by you, with her head under your elbow or her ear on the keyboard ... she's right there.

We had some friends over last weekend and one of them needed to look something up. Meika sat next to Derek on the couch and stared him down ... as if she wanted to know what he was doing on her couch and with her computer.

We are SO excited to have our puppy back to 100%, but we joke that we might ask the vet about maybe only bringing her to 60% next time :)

Knucklebones, puke, and other "stuff"

Our Saturday started with our first garage sale here at the house. We had Meika out front with us on her lead, and she was the hit of the sale. Everyone wanted to know, "How much for the puppy?". After an hour or so, we put a pricetag on her collar that simply said, "Priceless".

As you'll know from our other posts, Meika isn't exactly "priceless". Her love and health come with a cost. We almost added to her value once again last night.

To keep her happy between the belly rubs from strangers at the sale, we had purchased a Choobles' Meaty Bone, a knucklebone ... which is recommended for large dogs and heavy chewers. I believe we qualify.

After a few minutes of chewing, I noticed that 1/4 of the bone was already gone! I took the rest away from my sad puppy, and I took it inside. We don't need her to finish a bone in an hour.

We finished the garage sale and left to go to one of Mark's softball games and a picnic. When we returned home around 8, Mark walked in the door and said, "Oh 5H1T". I was confused, and he followed with "No, literally ... 5H1T". I entered the house to find an overwhelming stench coming at me. I won't give too many details, but to understand the condition of her crate, just consider these words: PROJECTILE, COVERED (DOG COVERED, BED COVERED, COVER COVERED, WIRE CRATE COVERED, BASEBOARDS BEHIND THE COVER AND WIRE CRATE ... COVERED), VILE, CHUNKY, STINKY ... all of this with chunks of BONE ranging from 1/4" in diameter to 1" in diameter.

We came up with a plan to get her out of the crate and straight out the back door. What this plan didn't consider were the poopy puppy paws. We got our dog outside, carefully dismantled the crate, and carried those pieces to the backyard as well. Mark took the outdoor assignments (wash the dog, wash the crate) while I took on the indoor assignments (scrub puppy poop off the baseboards, out of the carpet - around the crate, through the living room and down each of the steps to the back door, and cleaned the tile kitchen floor. When the kitchen was finished, I had to vacuum the living room floor and scrub those spots again).

... and then the vomiting began. More chunks. In the living room, in the basement ... and we ended up back outside.

When the chunks of bone and food were gone, we started with the dry-heaving. Thanks to a week of misdiagnosis with Addison's, we still had some nausea medication in the house. I gave her one of those to help with the puking. We had to watch her carefully to make sure she didn't have any obstructions from the bone ... which would require another emergency trip to the vet and possible surgery.

She was finally well enough to come inside around midnight, and I stayed on the sofa with her to make sure she was ok through the night. This morning she seems ok. Not really hungry, but wanting grass. We'll just have to keep an eye on her through the day and see how she does.

Meika had her first and last knucklebone.

Health News on Meika

As many of you have already heard, we had some health issues with our pup a few weeks ago. We've always noted some strange qualities about her, but we never thought much of them. For example, ever since she was a tiny pup she would tremble occasionally when she was sitting still. We figured these were growing puppy muscles and it was all normal.

We'd occasionally take her to the vet for vomiting ... but we assumed it was her grass-eating habit that was causing this. And she wasn't gaining weight. Other mastiff pups her age were weighing in around 140, and Meika could barely hit 100. We always had a sneaking suspicion that we bought the runt of the litter, so small was ok.

... and then it all happened at once. Our perfectly housebroken and trained puppy started wetting her crate! ... during the night, while we were at work, anytime she was in there for a few hours. We thought it sounded like a puppy bladder infection and took her to the doctor (Saturday, July 8) to check things out. They, too, thought it sounded like a bladder infection and gave her some antibiotics to treat it.

She didn't feel like eating much, and when she did, she would throw up. By Tuesday morning (July 11), she was throwing up everything she took in ... including water. We took her back to the vet, and it sounded like she was having some nausea issues with the antibiotics for the bladder infection. They swapped out her antibiotics with a nausea medication, and we went back home.

On Wednesday (July 12), she was still sick. We took her back to the vet first thing in the morning. At this point, everyone suspected an obstruction and we left her at the office for a day of x-rays. We picked her up after work with good news that the x-rays didn't show anything! We took home some GI-friendly canned food to try her on and returned home with our sick pup.

By Thursday morning (July 13), Meika could hardly walk. She was so weak - she hadn't had any food go down and stay down since the previous Saturday. She'd take two steps and collapse to the ground. I thought for sure my puppy was dying. :( We took her to the vet one more time, asking them to give her an IV of fluids for a day and wanting to know what's next. We agreed that bloodwork was the next step (if only we had done this earlier!), and we left her for another day at the hospital.

Our vet rushed the bloodwork and called that afternoon with some good news / bad news answers for us. Her electrolytes were all messed up. Her potassium was high, sodium low. Her kidneys were having some issues. He said it could be (bad news) kidney disease/failure, leaving our good news to be Addison's Disease, or failure of the Adrenal glands to do what they're supposed to do, as the other possibility. While Addison's Disease isn't curable, (here's where the good news / bad news comes in) it is TREATABLE with monthly shots and steroids. These monthly shots wouldn't be cheap, you pay by the pound for the meds ... and we own a mastiff.

They kept her overnight to give her more fluids, raise her sodium levels, and run another test specific to diagnose Addison's. They rushed this bloodwork as well, and the lab at Columbia, MO, ran the tests in the middle of the night to get the results back to the vet ASAP!

On Friday morning we got the "good news" call. Our dog had an incurable, yet treatable disease! We were so scared that it could be kidney failure, that the Addison's diagnosis became the best news in the world!

We agreed to any treatment necessary, and she got her first DOCP shot the morning of Friday, July 14. We took her home again that night, and while groggy and lazy, she was already showing signs of improvement. By Saturday she was starting to eat again, and within a few days she was back to her 6-cups a day of food! She not only has her energy back, but she's back to being a PUPPY ... something I thought we had just grown out of!

Today we can see her starting to slow down as last month's shot begins to wear off and we get ready for the next one. We pump her up with more steroids to help out, and we wait until the next shot comes around.

For more information on Addison's Disease in dogs, visit http://www.addisondogs.com/.

Meika has a blog!

I decided it would be much easier to put latest news into a blog ... I might be more likely to post updates as they come up. So, I'm sorry we've been so out of touch, but hopefully this will help!