Legalectric

Well, technically, progress on the home back!

BEWARE, YOU ARE ENTERING A CONSTRUCTION ZONE!

I finally built the railing and posts for the frame for the awning I made, a little 9 x 18 number from a gazebo cover,and it’ll have a conduit frame.  FINALLY, it’s been waiting for months, and now that it’s 30 degrees out, time to get it done!

The awning frame will sit on top of the rail that will soon be connecting the posts, well anchored in, and connected to the house, and the area off to the right, with a rail already there will be the summer kitchen, covered with that corrugated plastic stuff, covering my “Direct Action” stove.  And of course that’s our dear Summer dog, she had a good day today, strolled around the house, spent hours outside, she is one happy pup.  This is what 13.5 looks like in a German Shepherd!

It’s hard to be a dog.  Summer’s having a rough time, not emissions compliant, and most days, she can’t walk after sunset, some days, it’s earlier.  Yesterday we took her to the chiropractor again, Moe Body Works on Lyndale, Dr. Moses Smith.  I HIGHLY recommend her.  The problem is that Summer is getting older and losing it, she’s 13.5 and that’s an OLD shep. Hundreds of years old.  She was adjusted head to tail, and I heard some loud cracks.  She did trot out, which is good, but she’s just not doing well, and her body is not working and there’s just not much to do for her — she’s on pee pills, getting adjusted, her tumor is gone thanks to Summer herself, but her belly is rounded with fluid, her legs are working less and less, she’s pretty much deaf, and her eyes are going.  She still gets really worked up about her food and water, and yes, she is smiling almost all the time — that is a major criteria of dog happiness.  Lately she’s spending most nights in her jail, which she doesn’t like, but she can’t do stairs late in the day.  We’d gotten out the sling and are using that now and then, she needed it yesterday to get out and pee.  This morning she was able to get herself up, with some trouble and some help, and she got out the door, but left a trail of poops.  Today the baby gate gets installed at the bottom of the stairs so she stays downstairs, which she isn’t going to like because she spends her day at my feet under the desk.  And it’s worse for me than it is for her, it’s hard to see her decline.

And then Kady, the cruise control middle dog, had a mishap and yanked her toenail out, most but not all the way, and it hurt like hell, she was hopping around in the grass, anywhere where the toenail would touch (hard floors, cement, that was OK, just limping), and bleeding all over, little toe prints:

So after the chiro in Minneapolis, then we headed down to Kenyon Vet Clinic, where she got the Michael Jackson propofol treatment and got her toenail yanked.  She was out for a while, and had that cross-eyed smiley utterly wasted look for a while.  Kady Kate’s not moonwalking today, back to normal.

Dogs took all day yesterday!

And our Little Sadie is just fine, whew!

WARNING – SORTA GRAPHIC CONTENT!!

Well, there’s good news and bad news… it’s probably cancer, likely mast cell cancer, and the good news is that last night I unwrapped it so that she wouldn’t eat the gauze and sock, and she cleaned it out really good, got rid of the white parts, the swelling is way down, and she can walk on her own!  Even get into the van by herself!  I’m SOOOO relieved.  We got some antibiotics, and pain pills, and stinky ointment to smear on it so she doesn’t keep worrying it.  But she can walk!  She’s our hospice doggy, so we’re not doing anything extreme, and presuming it’s cancer because doing a biopsy and knowing for sure wouldn’t really change our treatment of it — palliative care is where it’s at.

From this to the cleaned up version in the next photo:

She’s one happy dog today, her attitude reminds me a lot of Kenya, smiles in the face of perversity:

Update: Tuesday evening it was pretty gross, bleeding and weepy, but today it’s “in the pink” again:

The two “S & S Grrrrrrls” are even getting along better:

Summer’s been a bit unsteady on her feet lately, and today, she couldn’t get up.  We had to get Kenya’s sling and I had her by the harness and Alan brought up the rear.  We got her outside (FIRST thing we do every morning) and nada… so we took her in.  She laid down in jail for a while and then got up and wanted to go out and walked out, limping on her rear driver side, but peed and came back in. She ate, and then went out, mission, errr, emission accomplished.  Then I moved downstairs to work so she wouldn’t try to go up and down the steps.  She’s sort of doing OK getting out the back door, but it’s a struggle for her.  My thought was she’d wrenched it in jail during yesterday’s storm, that when we were out, she’d freaked and got her foot caught in the cage.  Looking at her foot, it’s nearly twice the size of the other.  But that doesn’t seem to be it, because this afternoon she started worrying it.  We gave her some aspirin and while I was off baking bread, she started licking it and where there were some scuffs earlier,  it opened up, licked the skin right off… I looked and eeeeeuw, oh my, it looks like the benign toe sized growth Kenya had, about the same place.  This isn’t sticking up as much as Kenya’s, that looked like someone glued on a mushroom cap, but it looks like a tumor or ??? and it’s so swollen.  It sure looks like it would hurt!  YEOW!  Now she’s snorin’ and fartin’ — the pain must have lessened.  Maybe she needs some beer?

So she’s had aspirin again, and I found the leftover “prednisone poof” stuff for Ken, it’s neomycin sulfate, isoflupredone, acetate and tetracaine HCl… the “caine” part she’ll probably appreciate, and I hope this helps.  Now, to send this link off to the vet, and see how his diet’s going — I’ve been doing pretty well, but I can’t figure out what the grand prize should be, not a clue!

Meanwhile, she’s getting some quality time:

Did I mention that it’s been a year since Summer’s “Gotcha Day?”  And what a year…

Our dear “hospice” NOT doggy, Summer, ate her leash in February, and back then, I predicted we’d see it in April.  It was a hemp leash, an inch wide but pretty soft, pliable, and I think that’s what’s saved her… so far.  Some of it has come through the dog, and I figured it would take a long time because the Wubba tails she ate before she ate the leash, before we knew it was SUMMER and not chewy Little Sadie, before we knew to keep things away from her, that Wubba took months to come out, and only two of three Wubba tails so far that I know of.

Here it is, April, and damned if I didn’t guess that one right!  Remember the fiercely rainy night a few days ago?  She wouldn’t go out, prissy thing that she is, so I went the other way, through the garage to get an umbrella, and by the time we got to the side door, rain had let up, and YES,  she went out.  Next day, Alan’s in the yard and notices the output — A FOOT OF LEASH — complete with two knots!  And some unidentifiable plastic to boot!

How much is still left in aforementioned dog?  Yesterday in the car at an ATC meeting, I found her happily laying on the floor chewing on a towel.  I do believe the towel was ripped in half before, hence designated a “dog towel,” but… SUMMER!!!