McGoon

Goony is 13 years old now. I can't believe that many years have gone by. Over the past year he has been losing weight and now weighs only 11 pounds. He used to weigh about 20 pounds. Last week he got another infection in his head in the same spot where he had one last year after the cat fight, so we decided to take him to the vet -- or I should say I made Paul take him to the vet.


This is what Goony's head looked like last Friday morning. We couldn't really see where an injury was, but his head was all puffy and he suddenly had a bald spot on his head.


The vet drained out the pus and prescribed this combination of antibiotics.


We have to administer it using a plastic syringe. It smells like bubble gum, but Goony is not very fond of having it squirted into his mouth and a lot of it ends up all over my hand and his neck.

While we had him at the veterinary clinic, we decided to find out what was causing his weight loss. The vet said his heart rate was 246 and all signs pointed to an overactive thyroid. So after the blood test came back, that is indeed what he has. This is the medication that we are supposed to give him.


This end of the tube is to be turned 2 times (where the arrows match up). This squirts out a very small glob of medicine that is to be applied to the inside of Goony's ear. There's a foam applicator where the medicine squeezes out from under that yellow cap.


Another strange thing happened to Goony while he was at the vet's office. She said he was dehydrated, so she took him into the back room and administered some kind of subcutaneous fluid under his skin. He came back with his hair all wet, so I'm not sure how much actually made it into his body. He seemed to be okay until the next day when he suddenly was nearly unable to walk at all. It was as if his back legs had no strength or coordination at all. He could barely stand up, take a couple steps, and then squat back down. When he tried to pee in his litter box, he didn't have the strength to squat for long, so he ended up lying down in the litterbox. It was quite sad and distressing.

So I took it upon myself to diagnose the problem. I had watched a TV show that showed a person with severe potassium deficiency who had become paralyzed in a short period of time. Well, I figured that Goony might have a low potassium. We just happened to have potassium pills in the house, so I ground one up and put some of the powder into Goony's food. He got a couple small doses of this, and by the evening he seemed to be a little better and was back to normal by the next day. Of course, I have no idea if I was correct or not in my diagnosis or if the potassium had any effect at all, but Goony is back to his normal self so that's all that matters.

Bookmarks

I've been experimenting with different fabrics and threads for some Hardanger bookmarks that I'm making. I work at the dining room table and my workspace is pretty messy, but everything is right at my fingertips.



Here are a few examples. These haven't been washed and ironed yet.

Disciple Now Weekend

Last weekend we were one of the host families for the Disciple Now weekend for our church youth group. The weekend went well. We had 8 junior high boys and 2 college leaders staying at our house for the weekend. The boys were very interested in music. We had one boy that played the piano and several who played the guitar, so they were entertaining themselves and us for much of their free time. They also were quite amused by the chickens and also liked playing in the bamboo.


This particular boy especially loved the chickens. He just couldn't get enough of them.


Findlay was having a good time in the bamboo looking for chicken poop.


After a full day of being with the boys, Findlay was exhausted. He actually went to bed before everyone else did. We use that towel as a blanket to cover Findlay since our house is usually cold.


Of course, no visit to our home would be complete without Paul serving up wheatgrass juice! We only had one adverse reaction, and that was the college student on the right in the picture who drank orange juice with it and had no food. He said he felt better once he ate a bagel.

Climate Change

It's cold again today and we're expecting some rain and maybe snow later tonight, but the climate change I'm writing about today is the change in atmosphere of the household since Chani died. Since Chani died, all the animals have had personality changes. The cats and chickens are less afraid, but Findlay is more afraid.


I went out to the back area where the chickens live and left the gate open for just a moment. Almost instantly, all the Red Star chickens ran into the back yard to play in the grass. They seemed to know that Chani wasn't there to kill them. We have one chicken that comes into the backyard routinely now. I guess she couldn't get back over the fence, and I found her wandering around the yard late one night when I let Findlay out before going to bed. We both heard something moving around in the fallen leaves by the house. Instead of running to find out what it was and protect me, Findlay just stood there and let me go rescue him from the big bad chicken. For a couple days after that, he was afraid to go out at night unless I went with him.


This chicken wanted to come into the house and look around.


Even BD has changed. She used to only go outside in the middle of the night when she knew the dogs were asleep. Now she goes out during the day and plays in the backyard. Here are BD and Goony in the backyard.

Chani 12/1/2001 - 11/17/2009

Our poor little Chani died on Tuesday. I guess she had something quite a bit more serious than what we initially thought. She became very anemic and thin and we finally had to put her to sleep. We got that cute body suit for her because she was having trouble staying warm and her hair was always standing on end. She seemed to actually like the suit, and it did keep her warm.

We were thinking of some funny stories about Chani, and I remembered that she barely made it past her childhood. When we first got chickens, I forgot to shut the gate to the back area where the chickens live and did not secure the little wire mesh gated area to their coop. Chani (and Findlay) went out there and killed 8 or 9 chickens before I caught them, but it was mostly Chani who did the killing. I thought Paul was going to kill Chani on the spot. He said she had "blood lust" and would never be a good dog after that. It took weeks for him to forgive her.


Findlay and Chani always slept right next to each other. Chani had been sleeping alone for the past few days because she didn't feel well, but on the day that she died she once again curled up right next to Findlay. When I got up in the morning to shower and get ready for the day, Findlay stayed right next to her on the dog bed and didn't leap up to get his breakfast as usual. He must have known she needed him to be with her.

In the last couple days since she died, things have been considerably calmer around the house, though. I always thought Findlay was the one waking up several times per night to go out (on those nights we kept them in). Now that he is on his own, he stays asleep all night. I think he was responding to Chani waking up, and then he in turn would wake us up, making him look like the bad dog.

On a side note, I thought I should mention that the vet actually turned out to be quite good through this whole 2 months. After that initial visit and the remarks about Chani's lack of socialization and needing Xanax, Dr. Ferris was actually very patient with Chani and took good care of her. I could always talk to her on the phone about Chani, and she even called to check on Chani a time or two.

We buried Chani under our bamboo. I guess we'll have some lush new growth in that spot next year.