I never knew how old Lulu was. She was already middle aged or more when I found her seven or eight years ago, or however long ago it was. So she was probably at least 14 or 15 now, maybe more.

She had been resting and calm again when I went to sleep. When I woke back up, I thought she was gone, but she turned her head to me when I called her name. I went over and moved her out of the puddle of drool she was laying in - she probably thought I was mad, I hope not.

The young ones hadn’t been out since early this morning and were going berserk to go out, so I let them out and tried to hurry them up. Daisy and Bruiser got too involved in some greenery at the back of the yard and were taking their time and driving me crazy over it, and FINALLY I herded the four young ones back inside.

But she was already gone.

I’m going to go clean her up now.

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.

Boy, was it obvious to me with my white dogs out in the snow just how badly they all need a bath. Obviously they are not getting one today.

I won’t let this become LOLz Central - well, I could, but I won’t - but some things are just better shared. :D

moar funny pictures“>

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.

Buster, May 2007. Sometimes when I think about the fact that his mama was a black Lab mix (with just a little white on her chest) and look at him and how he turned out, I just laugh.

So Friday morning, I about had a heart attack thanks to Lulu. For about a minute and a half I was sure we were on our way to the animal emergency room. Though I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to get there, seeing as how the utility company had jackhammers and other heavy equipment out and were in the process of tearing up my street. Which about gave me a stroke on top of the heart attack.

Things had been kinda noisy around here since with all the activity out on the street, the canine sector of the brood was naturally barking their fool heads off and just being pains in general. So I don’t know exactly how long the sound had been going on when I finally noticed it.

It was just this awful, pitiful, sort of soft but very, very frantic, sound. The sound of an animal in some kind of pain, but I wasn’t sure for a second whether it was dog or cat. Nor could I discern from whom or from where it was coming from.

I saw Lulu in the hallway and it took a few seconds for it to dawn on me it was coming from her. As I approached, it became all too horrifically clear what was going on.

Y’all. She had one of her own claws stuck in her EYE.

Apparently she had been scratching at an ear or the side of head or neck (the dogs tend to be itchy in the spring time when the grass starts growing), and boom. Claw in eye. I am like HOLYHELL and holylotsofotherthings immediately, freaking out.

I quickly leaned down and tried to right things, carefully and gently taking her leg, but it was soon obvious this wasn’t just going to be immediately fixed. She kept making these soft little mewling sounds and I am standing there in utter horror and heartbreak and pretty much about to go into a complete panic - WHATTHEHELLDOIDONOW & HOWTHEHELLDOIGETITOUT - I guess you could say she and I were both trying very hard not to totally panic and freak out.

I was also amazed - especially now, in retrospect - that by sheer virtue of her girth, this whole episode didn’t become the extreme horror it could have been. As I have pretty much outlined before, Miss Tallulah is pretty much a small WHALE on itty bitty squatty Dachshund legs, with a Beagle head. Not only is she SO tubby, but so old and arthritic, she can hardly keep her balance when walking or standing on four legs or sitting normally and upright - much less when standing on only three legs with a claw lodged in her eye.

How she kept her balance and didn’t go tumbling over like a Weeble wobbling, and likely making the claw incident about fifty times worse, I will never ever know. But by golly, she did it, bless her heart.

It seemed like this went on for an hour, though I’m sure it only lasted a minute or two, and I was just about beside myself in panic. I tried again to dislodge the offending claw and it just obviously wasn’t going anywhere however I was trying to move it, and my efforts resulted in a couple of pitiful “ouch!” yaps as it was. I was just terrified that I was going to wind up doing more damage if I kept on.

I took a step back and took a deep breath (’cos I’m pretty much about to hyperventilate at this point, panicking) and am just, like, WTF do I do now; how the crap do I pick her up and get her in the car to go to the animal ER; can I even get out of my driveway with the entire city full of utility workers out there tearing up my street? And, of course, shooing the young pups away because they are milling about in the hall trying to figure out what’s up, and that’s not helping one bit.

And suddenly - Lula gets it out of her eye her own self. WHEW.

I checked her over with a finetooth comb, of course (and am still keeping an eye on it), but major catastrophe averted, it would appear. As hard a time as I was having trying to help her, I really thought the claw was stuck IN her eyeball - ook, ugh, horrors. I was expecting to immediately see torrents of blood all over the hallway once that thing got loose.

As it turned out, she just had it hung on and inside her lower eyelid, and there was NO puncture wound at all. It was somewhat red and inflamed, yes, but not nearly as bad as I would have expected and was pretty much okay within a few hours. Though I’m still watching it. That scared the living crap out of me. And I KNOW it must have hurt like the dickens.

Lulu is very old and getting more crotchety and grumpy (especially with the pups) as time goes on, but she’s had issues about claw clipping even since she was younger. And the thing that got me was it wasn’t even one of the kind of bad ones that desperately need clipping that got her in this predicament. But we are definitely getting some major clipping of claws done even if I have to drug her up with Benadryl to do it.

So that was our big excitement here late last week. Excitement I can do without, and I’m sure Lulu would agree.

As you can see, old girl just about has no brown left on her head anymore, which was completely dark brown when she first appeared on the scene. The years have really flown by… but time sure wasn’t flying by when she had that thing stuck in her eye! Ugh. Never again, I hope.

I get so few good pictures of Buster because of his black head, it’s always a joy to get one where you can actually more or less see his face.

Lulu, not too thrilled with me, it appears.

It’s so difficult to get a good picture of Buster with his black face, so I’ll take what I can get. Even when Petey’s in the way.

This was as good a shot as I could get after about 400 attempts, as apparently we can’t be still long enough to get our picture made today because the death rays from the camera might jump out and kill us or something. And indoors, we must run and hide from the evil murderous camera.

The reason I was trying to take this photo was to get a shot of the new spot in the white fur above his eye at about the 10-11 o’clock position. At first on Monday morning, I thought it was dirt. Turns out it’s his latest battle scar from an altercation with one of his brothers (I don’t know which one) in the middle of the night Sunday night. I heard it in my sleep but it lasted all of about 10 seconds and was over with, though obviously long enough to leave one unhappy camper wounded.

Contrary to his name - he was very rough & tumble as a baby but kinda grew out of it - Bruiser is actually the pacifist of the brood. Petey and Buster have an ongoing minor war with one another, but somehow Bruiser always ends up getting caught in the middle of it and usually ends up being the only one with any scrapes, minor though they always are.

And yeah, that’s my icky dirty recycling bin outside the back door, um. Whoops.

Petey was clean (relatively speaking) when we started the day today. Sigh.