So today I met up with KathyT, her sister, and her youngest daughter for Huey Burgers (except Melissa had the Huey’s Club, the rest of us had the original Huey Burgers) and just had a fabulous time visiting with them. It’s always great to see Kathy, and her sister Karen is just delightful and funny as well. Melissa’s a really cool kid and is going home with a huge trophy - and is also getting her braces off soon, I hear. (Man, I remember that was one of the best days of my life, getting those things off for good after three long years.)

They had thought about going to Graceland but had decided not to, but they wanted to go to Mississippi since Karen and Melissa had never been, so that was a sort of easily solved two birds killed with one stone. I hopped into the van with them after lunch and we took off down Bellevue, which becomes Elvis Presley Blvd. and then becomes just plain old Highway 51 at the Tennessee-Mississippi state line. (Well, I guess it’s always Highway 51 anyway, but you know what I mean.)

So yeah, we went to Southaven and then even on down into Horn Lake, where Kathy bought a new headlight and the cute guy at Advance Auto Parts installed it for her even though he really didn’t want to.

Then we came back to Memphis, having driven past Graceland on the way down, but since it’s on that side of the road coming back - yeah, we pulled into the pull-off and got out and walked around the wall and gates a bit. Karen took a picture of me and Kathy and Melissa under the National Register of Historic Places sign that I hope will be so bad (because it no doubt will be of me, they always are) that Kathy won’t put it up on her blog. (Haha, just kidding… I think.) And Kathy took a bunch of pics of some of the graffiti on the wall.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun hanging out with them and thanks once again to Kathy for lunch & the company, I had a great time. And my dogs thank her profusely since virtually none of us finished our entire burger/sandwich or fries (I almost ate my whole Huey Burger but not quite), so Kathy sent me home with a literal doggie bag LOADED with french fries and what probably amounted to almost one entire Huey Burger or almost. It was a feeding frenzy the likes of which you usually only see in the wild on the Discovery Channel, Dobie almost took one or two of my fingers off.

What was really funny, though, was Daisy was the only one smart enough to figure out what I’d brought home in the box I was holding when I walked in the door. The boys were completely clueless (*rolls eyes*).

It was a gorgeous day in Memphis today, and since I was in the neighborhood I drove by my buddy Joey’s house thinking if they were outside I’d stop and say hey. But they weren’t, so I just headed on home after a stop off for needed Krogering.

By the way, I actually have a piece of Graceland in my possession - a piece of rock/stone that I think came from a walkway, I don’t think it came from the wall. My mom wound up with it when she was down here in college, I think a friend of hers actually did the actual deed, but yeah, it’s a piece of Graceland circa around 1961-63. Heh.

So I’m trying to get caught up this week on some things that have been waiting to be done for months, so that I can move on to other stuff I need to get to work on and not still have all those pushed-aside projects hanging over my head on the back burner.

In the process, I discovered an old post about one of my cats that shocked me because I had NO idea this cat had been here this long (since 2000) or is as old as he is.  I know how old he is (now) because I know where he came from.  And that means one of my other cats, whose history prior to winding up with me I don’t know, is about the same age.

Which means they are both about 16, and thus the same age as Little, who is 16 or 17 and who recently had a bout of old age-related illness, as did my elderly dog, Dobie.

Anyway, wow.  I need to try to get a pic of the three of them together ’cause lately they are all hanging out in the same spot (but aren’t right this moment)… I feel like I need to put little kitty rocking chairs there.  Signing off from the Old Folks Home…

I’ve been reading for years about Dawn dishwashing liquid (the original, not the “new” kind) and its ability to get rid of fleas and just kind of went “ehhh” about it.  Not that I didn’t believe it worked at all, I just figured it probably didn’t work as well as people claimed it did.

I was so wrong.

We have had an awful time with fleas this year - which makes me want to cry because for years we were flea-less until the neighbor dogs moved in a couple of years ago, but anyway - this year has been the worst ever, and I don’t think Frontline is working as well as it used to, though it does seem to finally be working, or at least I think I’m finally seeing a dent in the cycle because most of the fleas I’m seeing now are juvenile and baby ones (heh, that sounds funny).

I’ve been reading a lot lately where people are saying Frontline Plus is no longer working, or works for a week and quits, or suggesting going back to Advantage a while and then reattempting Frontline, or postulating that the fleas are gaining immunity towards all of that type stuff.  One of the statements I see frequently I tend to agree with most - Frontline Plus just does not seem to work as well as Frontline Top Spot.  I do think the cycle is breaking, but it’s certainly not with the speed and severity that Frontline Top Spot always had.

In any case - before I get off topic any further - we’ve just had a time this year and among some other things I’ve been trying, and trying to avoid spending any more than the megabucks I finally had to cough up for Frontline and other measures, I finally decided to see if the Dawn legend really worked.  It does!

My flea traps are drowning a number of those suckers nightly, all for the cost of a bottle of original Dawn dish liquid (a whole 96 cents at Wal-Mart right now).  I have played around and tried a few different things now with it all (including another dishwashing liquid) and this method seems to work the best and attract the most fleas to drown.  You need:

1. Said bottle of original Dawn dishwashing liquid detergent.  Not the now-regular Ultra or anything else.  Just plain old original blue Dawn.
2. A shallow bowl of water, preferably white.  You can use clear ones, but the white bowls seem to attract them more.  If I use a clear one, I put a piece of white paper under it and that seems to help too.  But my small French White bowls (I call it the creme brulee size) and a Corningware mini-casserole dish I have seem to work best.
3. Best spot to place the bowl is on the floor.  I’ve tried other and higher spots and they’ll work, but it seems to attract more if on the floor.  You can put it in a corner or out of the way otherwise, they’ll find it, believe me.
4. A book light or night light.  Many places you read will say a night light and those may work, but my problem is I live in an old house with few electrical outlets and even fewer where there’s any floor space underneath.  I had a couple of mini-book lights, the kind that clip on the book and have the little bendable arm - you can get them at Walgreen’s lately, two for $3 - I just clip them on the side of the bowl and bend the light where it’s over the center of the bowl, and voila.  I have tried some other little book lights since, such as some that Dollar Tree has right now, but they just don’t seem to attract as well as these little lights Walgreen’s is selling right now do.

I have one bedroom that has been hit particularly worse than the rest (Tojo the Psycho Cat’s bedroom) and my flea trap in there is catching 15-20 or more a night and starting to slow down a little, finally.  The rest in the rest of the house are only catching one or two a night now, but it’s definitely all working.

I don’t usually use flea collars because they really don’t do much other than keep the pests away from their heads, but I did buy one for Tojo - unfortunately it was a cheap one and seemed to be making the fleas WORSE than they were, so last week I got the pricier Adams one.  And last week washed all the bedding in the house, too.

Bombing the house, which would probably have been the quickest and surest way to eradicate all fleas, just wasn’t an option - there’s nowhere for all of us to go for a day - and after having spent a small fortune on Frontline, and other stuff leading up to the Frontline which was wasted money because nothing was working - the fact that the Dawn really DOES work, for 96 cents a bottle, is just WONDERFUL.

It’s all working.  We are not 100% flea-free yet, but it’s better and we’re close, and I will swear by this Dawn method from now on.  The dogs (and quite possibly one very mad cat) are going to have a bath with flea shampoo next week and then it will be time to Frontline everyone again, and after that (fingers crossed) with any luck we can go back to only treating the dogs with that stuff.

But I will be keeping at least one or two homemade Dawn flea traps on the floor at night at all times, maybe all year long but definitely during the warm months, probably one in Tojo’s room and another in some other corner of the house somewhere.  I now highly recommend it for any dog or cat owner.  Even if you don’t really have a flea problem or aren’t seeing any, just one bowl set up like that with the Dawn and the book light or night light ever night will almost certainly assure you don’t see any.  It works!

Why fleas like the Dawn so much more than other liquid dish detergents - and why they prefer it as opposed to the newer, “ultra” Dawn - now that’s something to ponder, but I can tell you for a fact that they don’t like lemon Ajax as much.

How ironic - a few minutes after I posted this about Little and Dobie and the vestibular disease, I saw where Ivy had posted a video of Charley the cat at Animal Shak.  Charley has cerebellar hypoplasia, another neurological condition, different from vestibular disease but exhibits very similar symptoms.  The way Charley walks and falls is very similar to how Little was moving yesterday.

Unfortunately vestibular disease is usually relatively temporary and what Charley has is not, but what a great cat!  He seems to take it all in stride.

You’ll never believe this, but remember a couple of weeks ago when my Beagle, Lula, had just died, and while she was sick, Dobie had this sort of stroke-like episode?  Which wasn’t a stroke, but was canine old age vestibular disease, which has sort of stroke-like symptoms, and in any case, was pretty frightening.

Early Monday morning while it was still dark, my eldest cat, Little, developed the same thing.  But the feline version, of course.  She’s 16 or 17 (I can’t ever remember which of those two years she arrived as a baby).

Much like with the dog version, they say it usually improves in 2-3 days to a couple of weeks, and she’s already improved a bunch from how she was yesterday.  Dobie’s a big dog who’s all legs, and Little’s a pretty small cat, but really her situation was much more frightening and her symptoms much more dramatic.

With Dobie, he had been fine all day and evening and then when we all got ready to go outside again that night, he stood up and promptly fell down.  With Little, the first thing I noticed was that she was laying oddly on the floor, and at first I thought she’d died.  Then when she finally tried to get up and walk - and every time she walked after that - she would hurl herself forward and tumble in a pseudo-forward roll and scare me to death.  She even did that jumping in the bathtub, and while trying to jump out of her (relatively shallow) litter box.

She didn’t have the nystagmus (rapid back and forth eye movement) Dobie had for days afterwards, but Dobie didn’t have the dramatic head tilt she did all day yesterday.  She still has a little residual tilt - and may continue to - but god, yesterday it was just pitiful.

Dobie’s still having a little trouble maneuvering eating dry dog food - I practically had to hand feed him for over a week to make sure he was getting enough to eat - but Little doesn’t seem to have much motor skill problem in that regard.  She’s getting around fine today, just a day later, I haven’t seen her tilt or fall at all today.  Dobie is getting around mostly well, except that when he gets in a hurry or has just woken up, he sometimes loses his balance and/or falls.

I’m kinda confused about the fact that in dogs, they say it usually eventually goes away and never comes back, while in cats, most of what I’ve read seems to say they retain some residual effects and that it can flare up again when stressed, so I’m not so sure that might not be true of dogs too.

In any case, I guess it’s a learning process for us all, and I’m glad they’re both probably going to recover just fine more than likely, but gosh, it’s been like a geriatric veterinary nursing home around here for weeks now and I am just plain worn OUT.  And can’t believe two of them were stricken with this at the SAME time, and there’s two more elderly cats here (and one other not much of a spring chicken herself), and I’m just, like, oh please, please - no more catastrophes (or dogastrophes) right now, please.

The title of the post is perhaps a little premature and expectant, but I really do think Dobie is getting better. He’s still not walking very well and not getting out much, and not eating and drinking as much as I’d like, but he DOES have an appetite and IS eating, just not as much as I’d like to see. He does walk so-so and without falling when he does, and his kidneys and other functions are albeit slow but working fine, so I guess I feel like he’s making progress. He is resting a lot, and doesn’t really seem to feel bad, just a little confused and maybe frustrated at his whacked out motor skills. The fact that I have suspected for some time now he is not seeing very well (his mama went blind about a year before she died) is probably not helping matters much.

It’s not really like he has Alzheimer’s or is senile - he’s mostly all there - he’s just a little “off”. Physically, for a dog that has always been all legs, it’s been a real challenge. He needs to take it slower and easier when he does venture out or getting about, but he doesn’t, and thus he falls sometimes, especially when we have to deal with the one and only step there is outside the back door (in or out).

Petey is being very “helpful” and sticking close by him all the time, but usually mainly when I’m trying to get Dobie to eat and I think Petey’s just trying to appear concerned so as to get any leftovers there may be.

In any case, we’re managing, but wow, this is a challenge… better than things were, but a challenge all the same. I’m just keeping fingers crossed that he keeps improving and doesn’t lose the ability to walk, because I don’t know what we’ll do in that case. I don’t think he or I either one would be too thrilled about doggie diapers and he’s never been much of one to enjoy a bath.

PS And a thank you to everyone who stopped by and left such kind words about Lulu.  It’s been appreciated more than any of you will ever know, thank you.

No, you CANNOT have my Chewman!

Originally uploaded by LynnsterZone.

Lulu had already been sick for several days, and then out of nowhere the other night, Dobie had a stroke-like episode, which was probably not a stroke as they are rare in dogs… although he is half Doberman and Dobermans are predisposed to them. But it’s more likely old age canine vestibular disease, which the symptoms are similar. He turned 13 in November.

He couldn’t walk at all the first night, and hasn’t walked much today or yesterday, though the days in between then he did walk some, though badly, so that was a little bit of improvement. With him being over 40 lbs. and me not being all that big, it’s been a little difficult, but we’re managing and just taking one day at a time. He’s not eating and drinking much, though he will, but I have to hold the bowls in front of him and keep reminding him to eat or drink some more.

This is an old picture, he was probably about two or three at the time.

I’ve got so much going on here right now trying to get so many things done and work related, and now to boot have two very sick elderly dogs - I had enough on my plate with one sick one (Lulu), and suddenly out of nowhere, Dobie took a turn for worse last night - anyway, I’m having trouble coming up for air right now.

Be back soon with more details, but for now, just keep us in thoughts and send good karma this way for my four-footed babies if you will.  They could use all the good karma they could get right now, and thanks.

Anyone who has had a dog probably knows that they are often easily amused and can find the dumbest stuff to play with.

Mine have been abusing what was an almost empty plastic jug of coffee creamer (the large size Kroger kind) that a cat who won’t stay off the kitchen counter (Missy) knocked off, and have just had a fine time with it for about three days now. Especially because it makes lots of noise too, if you’re Petey and having fun tossing it around like a basketball on the hardwood floor in the living room.

Yesterday was an extra special day as they finally got all the wrapping off of it, so there was that to play with and tear up and chew on and toss everywhere too. Yep, it’s super exciting at the Zone this week.

(1) Somebody (Jag? Aunt B.? I can’t find it now) wrote about these a while back and I was covetous and waiting for them to appear on Memphis grocery store shelves. Finally they have, and now I can NOT stop eating them because they are the best thing EVER:

(2) I just got back from a 24-hourish trip to Birmingham. I drove through a monsoon in Mississippi to get there. Got there and Alabama was, like, sunny and warm and had been all day. Today it was like 78 degrees and felt as humid as any June day in Tennessee. I get back to Memphis and not only am in rain again but immediately have to change into a sweatshirt because I’m freezing. Grrr.

(3) Trying to decide if I should be worried about Dobie having eaten a few Nair wax strips, but considering all the other dangerous, ridiculous, and just plain gross things he has ingested in his 13 years on the planet, I think probably not.

More and more dogs in my house keep turning up with sticky heads, and I just don’t think I want to investigate the cause of this new phenomenon.  I think I probably just don’t want to know.

Dobie & His Cat, Rocky… or Vice Versa

Originally uploaded by LynnsterZone.

Well, time for my once a month post again, I guess. Except I have kinda sorta made up my mind I’m going to start blogging daily or almost again, even if it’s not much of nothing but a couple of sentences or even if it’s just - whatever.

As for me & what all’s going on with me, things could not possibly be much worse than they are right now and have been for a few months now. I guess there’s a few things that could be worse but really, comparatively, at this point most of those wouldn’t make much of a difference. I’ll spare you and me both the gory details for now because it’s just too icky to all get into, and since I live with it day after crummy day after crummy day, I’d just as soon not infect my blog with it the way it has everything else in my life. So for now, let’s just say it’s pretty bad and just move on from there.

In other news, Rocky left our happy little zoo a few weeks ago. He was ten years old and this more often affects older cats, but he had been in old-age kidney failure for some time and when a respiratory bug hit most of the felines in the house in January, he was unable to withstand it. I have another older one also in declining health who is still struggling a bit with the bug (she’s 16), but she’s improved and back to her usual grumpy and neurotic self now.

Anyway, here is one my favorite pictures of Rocky with his dog, Dobie. I never really knew whether Dobie was Rocky’s cat or Rocky was Dobie’s dog. The night Rocky passed, two of the other cats (”little sister” Missy, and Schuyler) and Dobie stayed right by his side until he was gone.

The dogs really, really, REALLY need a bath at this point. I am having a very, very, VERY hard time getting motivated to do so.

(Pointedly ignoring my mom, who is now reading this and sitting at her computer muttering under her breath, “Yeah, you’ve been saying those dogs were going to get a bath for two weeks now.)

Last weekend on Saturday was the intended day, and then the boys got in the fight with the neighborhood dog where they attempted to break my finger breaking it up, so Saturday became out of the question. And then Sunday, it hurt too damn much. And today would have been a good day, but the finger’s much better but still pretty sore today, so the thought of having to pick up 50-lb. dogs (the two that will run from me BECAUSE BATHS ARE SO BAD, HORRORS!, and have to be picked up and carried anyway) wasn’t very appealing.

Plus when five out of your six dogs are not huge, but not small by any means, there is just SO much preparation, not to mention the hassle of actually doing it. I only have one bathroom, and there’s the matter of moving everything that you don’t want to get soaking dripping wet out of the room before starting bathtime - and right now, that’s a lot of stuff.

Then the chore of the baths themselves, which never take any less than two hours, and with the exception of Lulu and Petey and, lately, Dobie (who used to have to be chased down and carried to the bathtub for the first decade of his life, but in recent years has gotten to where he’ll walk in and step right in the tub and wait, which is still kinda freaking me out) - with the exception of those three, it’s just miserable. And even with those three, it’s a huge chore. Even a willing dog (except Dobie) still has to be picked up and put in the tub, and the ones that aren’t so willing -after chasing them down and carrying them - one winds up using every single muscle in the body to keep them IN the tub long enough to get bathed. Because OH NOES! BATHS R AWFULZ!

The last time we went through this, I chased Daisy down at least a dozen times and got her, only to lose her all but one of those times at the door to the bathroom and have to chase her down again.

Bruiser, who you would think would be all happy because when he was a baby he used to get dramatically upset whenever he wasn’t clean, is the worst of all and will hide under the corner table like he does about many things (flea stuff being brought out, the AC repairman coming in, much more). So once again I will probably have to move the VERY HEAVY COUCH in order to drag him out kicking and screaming to his execution… I mean, bath.

When you start thinking of all this stuff that will have to be done and all you’ll have to go through, it’s easy to find reasons to keep putting bath day off. But it’s time for them to get flea stuff again, and they need to get baths before that’s done and have a couple of days between, so we’re really going to HAVE to do it this weekend. To make things a little more simple, I think I’m going to go ahead and try to prep the bathroom as much as possible tonight.

I wish there was an easier way to manage all this, but there’s not. So I’m just gonna have to buck up and get it done. Sigh.

Pretty much everything I had planned for the weekend, especially dog baths, has been put on hold while I nurse a sore finger and hand (other hand). A neighborhood dog somehow wandered into my back yard yesterday and, naturally, there was a dog fight, and apparently I lost.

My left index finger is bruised and purple and swollen and hurting lots more today than it did yesterday, though I don’t think it’s broken, and my right hand is faring only a little better. There’s really only so much you can do in that situation and you can’t REALLY break up a multi-dog altercation like that when you’re just one person, and frankly I didn’t even realize I was hurt until after it was all over with. The wandering dog appeared to be okay and probably more frightened than hurt, and again, I was probably more injured than anyone else.

I know the wayward dog’s owners are having trouble keeping him from getting out of their own fence; like many Labs and Lab mixes, he’s apparently a master at sneaking out. And he’s loose all the time, a sweet dog but skittish, and tends to bark at people. I stepped out the front door once to find the postal carrier standing on my porch with mace in her hand and scared to death, so much so I had to walk her through her next two or three stops and past the neighbor dog to assure her it would be okay and he wouldn’t bother her. I think the postal service, if not someone else on the street, has called about him being loose before. He’s loose so much, and for such long periods of time, I worry about what might happen to him.

On the other side of the coin, mine never get out of their back yard, save for a couple of accidental escapes where they were reined in quickly. In fact, they don’t even go out unsupervised because I know there’s a few places they could scoot out, even though they are clueless about it.

One time when one of those accidental escapes occurred, the utility meter reader lady was standing at the side of the house, and at first I was worried sick what might happen, but then Tweedledee and Tweedledummy (Buster and Bruiser) were just walking around her and then walking around the front yard like la-la-la-la-la. I just rolled my eyes and herded them back through the gate and into the back yard.

People come in the house and they’re fine, if not a little hyperactive. When the AC repairman came the first time, I managed to get everyone put up in the bedroom except Bruiser, who refused to go. And who hid under a table the entire time the guy was here.

Bruiser and Buster have wiggled through the gate and run around the front yard with that very same dog out there outside the gate before, with no ill effects. My dogs live with numerous cats. I could bring that dog into the house (though it would never happen, he’s much too skittish) and aside from the hyperactivity that would result, things would be fine.

But let that dog or another cat that’s not theirs or a bird or a rodent or whatever that’s not supposed to be there show up in their back yard - their territory - and all hell breaks loose. Especially, I guess, another male dog being a supposed huge threat.

I know it’s only natural for dogs to defend their own territory from other dogs, and then there’s the protection factor - i.e., in their dog minds, they’re protecting me and Daisy and probably Lulu (even though she’s a grump) - but it makes me so mad and I was just furious with them and when they finally got some sense into their heads, they knew they were in trouble with the real pack leader (me), especially Dobie, who so knows better. I suspect Bruiser didn’t have much to do with any of it though I really can’t remember. Yet another episode that probably lasted less than a minute, though it seemed like an hour to me.

It’s just irritating. I know it’s natural, I know dogs are territorial animals, and as Say Uncle has recently reminded us all, dogs are natural fighters and natural killers.

And it’s not just dogs - many years ago, one of my cats shot out the front door to attack a feline interloper who had been bothering the next door neighbor’s kitten playing outside, and that was as vicious a fight as yesterday’s event. I have a scar on my shoulder from childhood, from picking up an indoor cat who was ready to kill another male cat standing outside growling on the other side of a sliding glass door. My cat’s claw went ALL the way into my shoulder and got stuck, and later I got my first tetanus shot.

In any case, historically, I seem to always be the biggest casualty in any cat or dog altercation. Maybe one of these days I’ll learn my lesson.

In the meantime, my finger aches like crazy. And it’s really hard when you’re right handed to put Band-Aids on correctly on your right hand with your left. Unless you’re ambidextrous, I guess.