Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Let it never snow, ever again, except possibly on Christmas Day, although I’d still be fine with a nice sunny Christmas…
Man, is it cold out. -20C, which is cold. It has been cold since last week. We did so well with November being pretty much the nicest it’s been in a while. And now that is all over but the crying, and we’d cry, but the tears would freeze to our faces and we’d all die.
This winter is going to be a long one. I know time has been flying, but when it’s this cold out, it seems like it’ll never be nice again. My favourite time of year is the two weeks in summer here when it gets up to +30C, and I can just bask. I bask all over the place. I bask in the back yard, I bask in the car. I bask even on my way to the office. I can’t really bask IN the office because they run the air conditioning to make it +15C, and I die because I’m only wearing summer clothing, and that repertoire does not include wool sweaters and heavy pants. It includes summer dresses and light linen pants, and cute tops. I have to keep a heavy sweater at my desk for those a/c days.
Rob, seeing my distress in the summertime, bought me a little space heater for under my desk. I run it constantly in the office. Even now, in winter, when the heat is actually ON for a change, I still run the heater. It keeps me toasty warm. I hate to get up from my desk now because the heater is there, keeping my feet nice and cozy, and when I leave the bubble of heat the heater creates, I am sad.
Rob is a genius when it comes to dealing with the environmental weather changes of Calgary. He bought us each seat-warmers, because we drive vehicles built before some other genius thought to include built-in heated seats. These ones are purchases from The Great Canadian Tire, and were only about $12, and they plug into the car lighter. I run the seat heater constantly in the car, too, and my ass is the only part of me that is nice and warm running around from place to place, shop to shop, foster home to foster home. I love my seat heater.
Rob may be a genius with the weather challenges, but he’s had some bad luck lately in the garage. I had told you about his toe, which was a bad accident. Well, I guess that wasn’t enough to make up for his ten years accident-free garage working, and last week, he managed to cut the living hell out of his arm. I had three evening meetings last week, never a good thing, and we had our first major snowstorm last Monday, making traffic really horrible. On Tuesday, I had to get across the city, and although I gave myself an hour to do so, it took the entire hour just to get to the parking lot where I was going. And as I pulled in, cursing the traffic and swearing at various idiot drivers, Rob called. He sounded very upset, and I asked if he wanted me to come home, and he said yes, so I knew it must be extremely serious, because Rob is not a complainer. Luckily, my boss was doing the presentation meeting with me, so I gave him the presentation materials and headed home. The same distance that had taken me an hour to traverse only took me 20 minutes going in the opposite direction, and it was good that it only took 20 minutes, because man, the house and the gore.
I got in the back door, and there was blood everywhere. There was even more blood all over the kitchen. And the bathroom. Rob had cut his arm with a utility knife, and had, in the process, nicked a little artery. Nice long sprays of blood decorated the kitchen counter, along with the dishes in the dish drainer, the cupboards and floor… it looked like a slasher flick.
Not wasting any time (and trying not to step in the little pools of blood), we rushed in to the hospital. He was covered in blood from his face to his waist, and I’m not kidding. His arms were all bloody – the one from the two inch-long cut, obviously, and the other from holding pressure and a tie around the cut – and the arterial spray had caught him in the face, and he had a big bloody patch on his chest from holding his arm there. He looked terrible! The ER people got him a wheelchair right away, presumably because they didn’t want him fainting on them and being immovable, and he got in to the stitching area very quickly. Even more quickly than the previous week with his toe!
The ER doc put in three temporary stitches after looking at it. She figured he’d need plastic surgery because of the depth of the cut. He had managed to cut through the skin and subcutaneous fat and into the muscle bed. She made him an appointment with the plastic surgeon for the following afternoon.
The next afternoon, we went back and waited for two hours to see the surgeon. I was getting impatient and was just about to call “time” and make an appointment with another plastic surgeon through our regular doctor when he finally showed up. He was worth the wait, after all, and was very nice and professional and thorough. He let me watch the entire time, and explained everything he was doing. He extended the cut by about an inch to an inch and a half, stitched up the fascia over the muscle, then stitched beneath the skin to close the cut, and then stitched the entire thing closed properly. All in all, Rob got nearly 30 stitches for that cut.
His arm is out of commission except for light regular use (i.e. knife & fork, TV remote control) for three weeks so as not to herniate the muscle through the stitches. This means he gets out of shoveling the walk and lifting anything around the house.
You would think that would be enough excitement for a week, but it wasn’t. No further injuries, but there was a lot of work getting the rescue dogs out of their kennel space. Pet Planet, after having promised kennel space until all the dogs were adopted out, took back their space under the auspices of it being a busy Christmas season. There was a mad panic last week trying to line up foster homes for all of the remaining dogs to be transferred on the weekend. We did alright, all things considered, but Saturday was really too long of a day.
Saturday started with me getting up to pick up Alissa (the Calgary Director of 1atatime) for us to go to Red Deer and get the two dogs left up there from the vet hospital who had donated neuters for them. One of the three dogs left had an adopter, which worked out great. I think Zeus (his new name yet to be determined) will do very well with his new dad, who seemed like a really great guy. We had a possible adopter for one of the other dogs, as well, but she reneged at the last minute. Alissa had also thought it would be a good idea to take her own dog, Adora, in to the vet there for a quick allergy check since she had eaten something and her skin was turning red/pink. After finishing with Zeus’s adoption, we were waiting for the other two dogs to be brought out, and to finish the paperwork, when Alissa noticed blood in Adora’s urine, so there was another round of checking her over.
Although we had gotten to Red Deer early (around 9:30a), we didn’t get out of there until 11:45a. And I pushed it past the limit of speed to get home as fast as possible, knowing I had to get two dogs into foster homes by the end of the day, as well as having to get to Pet Planet to get another dog over to my place for the weekend, and to take another load of donations and 1atatime stuff to the storage place we had to rent.
The two foster homes worked out well in spite of a couple of hiccups, and we got Bullet, a little hound mix, over to my place, and then dropped off the load to storage. I didn’t get home until after 5p, and was very tired. We had no chance to eat throughout the day – just no time.
Bullet was overwhelmed at my place what with the Cooter and the NoodleDog and Beau swarming him as soon as he got to the yard. We had to split everyone up and just introduce him to Cooter, who is a good ambassador dog for that sort of thing. Cooter is playful enough and secure enough that he really doesn’t mind if another dog is uncertain at first. He won Bullet over by running around him in circles until Bullet had to forget why he was so upset and just chase him. It didn’t hurt that Cooter was twice Bullet’s size, too. And once Beau and the NoodleDog saw that Cooter was friends with the new dog, they accepted him quite well, and everyone played played played until bedtime.
Bullet had a foster home who could take him on Monday, so yesterday, I brought him in to the office and he got taken to his new temporary home. He’s such a happy little guy, he was thrilled to meet new people and get a real home to settle into for a while. He has a big bark – you can really hear the hound in him when he barks his sort of baying/howling bark, and man, is he loud!!
I took a break from rescue work on Sunday, and tried to relax. We ran a couple of errands and then did nothing for the rest of the day. It was nice. We were supposed to go for dinner to my parents’ place, something we haven’t done for going on four months now, but we cancelled due to the extra dog situation.
Things are settling down to sort of normal at home, now with only the three dogs. I took the feral cat, who turned out to be a boy (or formerly a boy as of his appointment), to the vet yesterday to be fixed and given a health check. He’s reasonably healthy, and instead of putting him back into the garage, I put him into the spare room. I’m going to try acclimatizing him to people, slowly, over the next month. I think it can be done. He seems like a fairly smart cat, and I think his big worry is that we’re going to eat him or hurt him. Once he learns that we’re alright, he should be OK. He probably won’t ever be a lap cat, but he might be able to live in a house and deal with people. I won’t be able to introduce him to my cats at all, but I think I can get him used to me, at least, and that’s a big step.
I am completely heartbroken at the thought that someone wants to come and see Beau for possible adoption. I was told last week that someone was interested in him, and have been doing my best not to think about it since then. But of course, I can’t stop. I love my little Beau – he’s a great little guy. I knew when I fostered him that eventually, someone would want to adopt him. I can’t quite understand why they’re not all adopted since they’re such great dogs, but I guess that’s just me. I’m just way too attached to Beau for my own good. He’s snuggly and he loves me. I know that if Rob and I were to each call the NoodleDog and Cooter, they’d go to him first (traitorous dogs!). But if Rob and I were to call Beau, Beau would come to me. I’m sure of that. I think Beau knows and is glad I took him out of the kennel. And I think that makes a difference, somehow.
Rob’s point is that three dogs is too many. Two are manageable because there are two of us. And two fit into the car and the Jeep, and sort of the truck if one sits on me. Three would just be cramped if we were to travel with them. Three are harder to control on the leash. If I try to walk all three, I can almost manage, but it’s definitely easier if there are just two (because I still have two usable arms, unlike Rob!). Four is too many – I agree completely with that after having Bullet stay over for the weekend. There’s no way you can control two untrained dogs and two trained dogs, there are too many factors for chaos. The NoodleDog and Cooter know all the words, but even still, if they don’t listen and you have to put them on leash and try to control everyone, it all ends up with me being dragged along by four dogs.
I just think that three dogs could be manageable if we trained Beau properly. Once Beau knows the words and gets better with recall, it’ll be like he’s not even there! He’ll be even better than not being there, he’d be there, but he’d be no trouble, really!!
I know I have to give him up to his own home, but I just can’t stand the thought. Let’s hope we have a little more time with him.
And if you know of anyone thinking about getting a dog, tell them to check out our website at http://www.1atatimerescue.com/ – although the dogs are in foster homes, we can still arrange for meetings and are hoping to find homes for all the dogs by Christmas.
This winter is going to be a long one. I know time has been flying, but when it’s this cold out, it seems like it’ll never be nice again. My favourite time of year is the two weeks in summer here when it gets up to +30C, and I can just bask. I bask all over the place. I bask in the back yard, I bask in the car. I bask even on my way to the office. I can’t really bask IN the office because they run the air conditioning to make it +15C, and I die because I’m only wearing summer clothing, and that repertoire does not include wool sweaters and heavy pants. It includes summer dresses and light linen pants, and cute tops. I have to keep a heavy sweater at my desk for those a/c days.
Rob, seeing my distress in the summertime, bought me a little space heater for under my desk. I run it constantly in the office. Even now, in winter, when the heat is actually ON for a change, I still run the heater. It keeps me toasty warm. I hate to get up from my desk now because the heater is there, keeping my feet nice and cozy, and when I leave the bubble of heat the heater creates, I am sad.
Rob is a genius when it comes to dealing with the environmental weather changes of Calgary. He bought us each seat-warmers, because we drive vehicles built before some other genius thought to include built-in heated seats. These ones are purchases from The Great Canadian Tire, and were only about $12, and they plug into the car lighter. I run the seat heater constantly in the car, too, and my ass is the only part of me that is nice and warm running around from place to place, shop to shop, foster home to foster home. I love my seat heater.
Rob may be a genius with the weather challenges, but he’s had some bad luck lately in the garage. I had told you about his toe, which was a bad accident. Well, I guess that wasn’t enough to make up for his ten years accident-free garage working, and last week, he managed to cut the living hell out of his arm. I had three evening meetings last week, never a good thing, and we had our first major snowstorm last Monday, making traffic really horrible. On Tuesday, I had to get across the city, and although I gave myself an hour to do so, it took the entire hour just to get to the parking lot where I was going. And as I pulled in, cursing the traffic and swearing at various idiot drivers, Rob called. He sounded very upset, and I asked if he wanted me to come home, and he said yes, so I knew it must be extremely serious, because Rob is not a complainer. Luckily, my boss was doing the presentation meeting with me, so I gave him the presentation materials and headed home. The same distance that had taken me an hour to traverse only took me 20 minutes going in the opposite direction, and it was good that it only took 20 minutes, because man, the house and the gore.
I got in the back door, and there was blood everywhere. There was even more blood all over the kitchen. And the bathroom. Rob had cut his arm with a utility knife, and had, in the process, nicked a little artery. Nice long sprays of blood decorated the kitchen counter, along with the dishes in the dish drainer, the cupboards and floor… it looked like a slasher flick.
Not wasting any time (and trying not to step in the little pools of blood), we rushed in to the hospital. He was covered in blood from his face to his waist, and I’m not kidding. His arms were all bloody – the one from the two inch-long cut, obviously, and the other from holding pressure and a tie around the cut – and the arterial spray had caught him in the face, and he had a big bloody patch on his chest from holding his arm there. He looked terrible! The ER people got him a wheelchair right away, presumably because they didn’t want him fainting on them and being immovable, and he got in to the stitching area very quickly. Even more quickly than the previous week with his toe!
The ER doc put in three temporary stitches after looking at it. She figured he’d need plastic surgery because of the depth of the cut. He had managed to cut through the skin and subcutaneous fat and into the muscle bed. She made him an appointment with the plastic surgeon for the following afternoon.
The next afternoon, we went back and waited for two hours to see the surgeon. I was getting impatient and was just about to call “time” and make an appointment with another plastic surgeon through our regular doctor when he finally showed up. He was worth the wait, after all, and was very nice and professional and thorough. He let me watch the entire time, and explained everything he was doing. He extended the cut by about an inch to an inch and a half, stitched up the fascia over the muscle, then stitched beneath the skin to close the cut, and then stitched the entire thing closed properly. All in all, Rob got nearly 30 stitches for that cut.
His arm is out of commission except for light regular use (i.e. knife & fork, TV remote control) for three weeks so as not to herniate the muscle through the stitches. This means he gets out of shoveling the walk and lifting anything around the house.
You would think that would be enough excitement for a week, but it wasn’t. No further injuries, but there was a lot of work getting the rescue dogs out of their kennel space. Pet Planet, after having promised kennel space until all the dogs were adopted out, took back their space under the auspices of it being a busy Christmas season. There was a mad panic last week trying to line up foster homes for all of the remaining dogs to be transferred on the weekend. We did alright, all things considered, but Saturday was really too long of a day.
Saturday started with me getting up to pick up Alissa (the Calgary Director of 1atatime) for us to go to Red Deer and get the two dogs left up there from the vet hospital who had donated neuters for them. One of the three dogs left had an adopter, which worked out great. I think Zeus (his new name yet to be determined) will do very well with his new dad, who seemed like a really great guy. We had a possible adopter for one of the other dogs, as well, but she reneged at the last minute. Alissa had also thought it would be a good idea to take her own dog, Adora, in to the vet there for a quick allergy check since she had eaten something and her skin was turning red/pink. After finishing with Zeus’s adoption, we were waiting for the other two dogs to be brought out, and to finish the paperwork, when Alissa noticed blood in Adora’s urine, so there was another round of checking her over.
Although we had gotten to Red Deer early (around 9:30a), we didn’t get out of there until 11:45a. And I pushed it past the limit of speed to get home as fast as possible, knowing I had to get two dogs into foster homes by the end of the day, as well as having to get to Pet Planet to get another dog over to my place for the weekend, and to take another load of donations and 1atatime stuff to the storage place we had to rent.
The two foster homes worked out well in spite of a couple of hiccups, and we got Bullet, a little hound mix, over to my place, and then dropped off the load to storage. I didn’t get home until after 5p, and was very tired. We had no chance to eat throughout the day – just no time.
Bullet was overwhelmed at my place what with the Cooter and the NoodleDog and Beau swarming him as soon as he got to the yard. We had to split everyone up and just introduce him to Cooter, who is a good ambassador dog for that sort of thing. Cooter is playful enough and secure enough that he really doesn’t mind if another dog is uncertain at first. He won Bullet over by running around him in circles until Bullet had to forget why he was so upset and just chase him. It didn’t hurt that Cooter was twice Bullet’s size, too. And once Beau and the NoodleDog saw that Cooter was friends with the new dog, they accepted him quite well, and everyone played played played until bedtime.
Bullet had a foster home who could take him on Monday, so yesterday, I brought him in to the office and he got taken to his new temporary home. He’s such a happy little guy, he was thrilled to meet new people and get a real home to settle into for a while. He has a big bark – you can really hear the hound in him when he barks his sort of baying/howling bark, and man, is he loud!!
I took a break from rescue work on Sunday, and tried to relax. We ran a couple of errands and then did nothing for the rest of the day. It was nice. We were supposed to go for dinner to my parents’ place, something we haven’t done for going on four months now, but we cancelled due to the extra dog situation.
Things are settling down to sort of normal at home, now with only the three dogs. I took the feral cat, who turned out to be a boy (or formerly a boy as of his appointment), to the vet yesterday to be fixed and given a health check. He’s reasonably healthy, and instead of putting him back into the garage, I put him into the spare room. I’m going to try acclimatizing him to people, slowly, over the next month. I think it can be done. He seems like a fairly smart cat, and I think his big worry is that we’re going to eat him or hurt him. Once he learns that we’re alright, he should be OK. He probably won’t ever be a lap cat, but he might be able to live in a house and deal with people. I won’t be able to introduce him to my cats at all, but I think I can get him used to me, at least, and that’s a big step.
I am completely heartbroken at the thought that someone wants to come and see Beau for possible adoption. I was told last week that someone was interested in him, and have been doing my best not to think about it since then. But of course, I can’t stop. I love my little Beau – he’s a great little guy. I knew when I fostered him that eventually, someone would want to adopt him. I can’t quite understand why they’re not all adopted since they’re such great dogs, but I guess that’s just me. I’m just way too attached to Beau for my own good. He’s snuggly and he loves me. I know that if Rob and I were to each call the NoodleDog and Cooter, they’d go to him first (traitorous dogs!). But if Rob and I were to call Beau, Beau would come to me. I’m sure of that. I think Beau knows and is glad I took him out of the kennel. And I think that makes a difference, somehow.
Rob’s point is that three dogs is too many. Two are manageable because there are two of us. And two fit into the car and the Jeep, and sort of the truck if one sits on me. Three would just be cramped if we were to travel with them. Three are harder to control on the leash. If I try to walk all three, I can almost manage, but it’s definitely easier if there are just two (because I still have two usable arms, unlike Rob!). Four is too many – I agree completely with that after having Bullet stay over for the weekend. There’s no way you can control two untrained dogs and two trained dogs, there are too many factors for chaos. The NoodleDog and Cooter know all the words, but even still, if they don’t listen and you have to put them on leash and try to control everyone, it all ends up with me being dragged along by four dogs.
I just think that three dogs could be manageable if we trained Beau properly. Once Beau knows the words and gets better with recall, it’ll be like he’s not even there! He’ll be even better than not being there, he’d be there, but he’d be no trouble, really!!
I know I have to give him up to his own home, but I just can’t stand the thought. Let’s hope we have a little more time with him.
And if you know of anyone thinking about getting a dog, tell them to check out our website at http://www.1atatimerescue.com/ – although the dogs are in foster homes, we can still arrange for meetings and are hoping to find homes for all the dogs by Christmas.
