Introducing Hamlet the Wonder Pig

See that little pig laying in front of the fire? That's Hamlet the micro mini pig.  Isn't he just a little bundle of porcine cuteness?  I had done my research before purchasing him, so I knew what I was getting into.  He came from his wonderful breeder already litter trained, laid on my lap while I read, slept under the covers at my feet and snarffled up salad and piggy pellet with gusto.  I took him with me to work every day so that all and sundry could meet him, hold him, ooh and ahh over him, basically socializing him to death. He quickly became the clinic mascot and was quite full of himself, as a pig with a multitude of adoring fans is wont to do.

And then he did this.  What a talented pig!  Daddy left the door to the office open for a little bit and what wonders a young pig could find there: pens and paper, memory sticks and parrot treats, wastebaskets full of surprises. What fun!  If you look closely you can see his little tail wagging in delight.  It was a harbinger of things to come.  I might have grumbled a bit and put a moratorium on open doors, but I loved him so much that I picked him up and gave him a kiss on the snout before cleaning up.  This time....

See that folks?  That was my drive in this morning.  In my neck of the woods we get WINTER not winter.  Today we held up the white flag to mother nature and said, "You win!". We were warned to stay off of the roads for fear of sliding into ditches, snowbanks, transport trucks.  You know, the usual.  Did I listen? Hell no.  My car had a mani/pedi booked with the body shop (ok, so my driveway was so icy a couple of weeks ago that I slid into our stand of Sumacs, leaving my side mirror buried in a snow drift) and I needed it back ASAP to get to a conference this weekend.

I made it to the body shop, checked in and picked up my rental; my really small, camouflage white, no snow tires, low to the ground rental. I asked the clerk why no snow tires. "Oh, they're all season." Pfftt. All season.  Maybe if you live in California.  I normally drive a RAV4.  I love my RAV.  It happily plows through drifts, mud, herds of sheep (just kidding on the last one, but it would, if I'd let it.).  In the rental I felt like I was sitting, literally, on the snow covered tarmac.  I slid into snowdrifts not once, not twice, but THREE times.  People in their vehicles equipped with SNOW TIRES plowed by me, oblivious to my obvious distress.

I wish I could get angry.  I can't.  It's a personality fault. I'm working on it.  Sitting in my godawful rental, in a snowdrift, it would have been lovely to have sworn a blue streak to release the massive tension I'd accumulated in the short time I'd driven the car from hell.  Instead, I bawled. I HATE that!  If I'm frustrated, I cry. When I should be pissed off,  I cry.  Iphone stolen? Cried. The Sumac Encounter? Cried.  I have an alter who would likely have happily taken a crowbar to the demon car and given it what for, but not me.  Like I said, working on it.

Yes, It's Been Awhile

My blogging came to an abrupt halt in 2011, not because I was tired of it, or because a patient mauled my fingers leaving me unable to type (though that's not beyond the realm of possibility), but because my life kinda went to hell in a handbasket (more on that later).

My brain went kablooey (more on that later). I bought a practice (more on that later) and I bought a pig (yup, you guessed it, more on that later).

If I tried to explain all of this in a single post, most of you would give up after paragraph 57 and never come back. Hell, most of you may never come back anyway.  That's ok, 'cause this isn't about becoming popular, making money, or going viral.  Truth is, I'm supposed to be keeping a journal because it's therapeutic (Shhhh.  If you read closely, that sentence was rife with sarcasm).  Face it folks, many of us have tried and failed at writing stuff down every day.  I know I have.  Repeatedly.  Will blogging be different? I dunno.  It will if the pig has anything to do with it.  He senses a rise in his already local popularity and will likely demand that his shenanigans be posted for all the world to read.  Pigs are funny that way (more on that later).

Merrry Christmas Everyone!

Happy Holidays everybody! It’s Toby again (for those of you that don’t know me, I’m the little Silky Terrier squished between the two big white guys in the piture). I thought it should be Timber’s turn to write the letter, but mom said it’s tradishin now so I has to keep doin’ it. Plus, mom says Timber’s not smart enough and Banjo can’t sit still long enough. (Stoopid Banjo)

I’m just kidding. Banjo’s our new brother that we gots this year. His fancy name’s “Vanderbilt’s the Banjoe Man”, but don’t tell him that ‘cause it might go to his head. He’s a Samoyed and Timber’s nephew. He was eight months old when he came to live with us and he didn’t have very good manners. He was really scareded of his crate, so he couldn’t stay in there. Whenever mom n’ dad left, he’d wreck sumfin. He chewed on the banister, eated a chair n’ destroyed 24 rolls of toilet paper (I kinda thought that looked awfully fun, but I didn’t wanna get in trouble, so I just watched). In the picture on the card he had just eated 6 books and looks very proud of it. As you can see, I’m tryin’ to tell him he shouldn’ta done it, but he didn’t listen to me!) He’s better behaved now, I think from watchin’ me, ‘cause I’m the bestest of us all.

I learned to swim really good this year! We’d all go down to the neighbour’s place n’ swim from the dock. I even gotted brave enuf to jump right off of the dock and into the water! Dad made it fun by throwin’ these yummy things called ‘Doritos’ into the water. We swam around and eated them. That was the bested part. Timber liked to dig in the sand and Banjo liked to catch all the frogs.

There were a lotta turkeys running around again this year. Dad says 20. I wasn’t ‘fraid of them and when mom or dad brought out old donuts, they’d all come running. Sometimes I could sneak in and steal a piece. They liked to cross the road n’ visit the neighbours, but they’d all stand in the middle of the road and make the cars stop. (Stoopid Turkeys) I can’t believe that one of ‘em didn’t get squished. Mom got really cheesed when they ate all the kale she was growin’ for the bunnies and guinea pigs and when they eated all the grapes she was growin’ to make juice n’ jam. Plus, they pooped everywhere and that was really gross. Dad sold ‘em to people down the road ‘cause mom didn’t feel like eatin’ ‘em this year. (Bummer. Turkey’s yummy)

People sometimes bring baby things into the hospital mom works at ‘cause they’re hurt n’ stuff. This year we had some baby pidgeons, a baby crow, some wild bunnies and a squirrel. I loves to chase the squirrels, but I’m not allowed to chase this one. I don’t know how mom ‘spects me to tell ‘em apart. (Stoopid Squirrel)

Dad played a lot with rocks this year. He kept going into the neighbour’s gravel pit ‘an bringin’ ‘em home in our car. He likes to do stuff called landscapin’ (I’m not really sure what that means). He built a staircase behind the garage n’ a place to walk to the swamp at the back. He also built a cool place you can sit and look at the stuff in the swamp like the birds and the beavers that are eatin’ all the trees. (Stoopid Beavers)

My paws are gettin’ kinda tired, so I’m gonna stop now. I hope everyone had as great of a year as we did!! Talk to you next year!

Fun with Pus

As a veterinarian, I daily come into contact with many different unsavory bodily fluids. Vomit, drool, diarrhea, pus...the list goes on. Drool's my least fave because it tends to cling to everything and anything. It's slimy and gross. The worst is when big, drooly dogs come into the exam room and shake their heads, coating everything within a 4 foot radius with the nasty stuff. It ain't easy to clean off of glasses!

Today I had a bouncy little dog in for the removal of the stitches I had placed during his castration surgery. The dog was accompanied by a young boy (equally as bouncy as his pet) and his father. On examination of the surgical site, I noticed a small pustule about 1/2 inch in diameter near one end of the healed incision. Turns out the dog had been licking the area extensively during the healing process, even though the owner had been warned about this when the dog went home. As the pustule seemed to be superficial, I decided to drain it and clean up the area. A good firm squeeze of the swelling sent a tiny spray of pus jetting across the exam room, missing the boy's face by mere inches. His eyes widened and he pronounced the whole episode to be, "Cool!".

See? Pus can be fun!

Read the Fine Print

Well...didn't I feel like a tool today! Our local humane society has just recently started early spay/neuter of kittens and puppies before adopting them into their forever homes. Yesterday I saw the first of these! It was a lovely, bouncy, black and white MALE 16 week old kitten. Mid-way through my 'kitten talk', I started my usual feel for the testicles to make sure they were where they should be. Nothing. Checked to make sure it was a boy. Yup. Sometimes, one of the testicles won't descend into the scrotum, and instead hangs out in the inguinal area (inner thigh) or abdomen (belly). This is called cryptorchidism and these boy bits need to be removed as they like to become cancerous. Even more rarely, neither testicle will descend. This is known as bilateral (both sides) cryptorchidism and I wondered if this kitten would be my first of these cases. As said kitten was being a major squirming unit, I took it into the treatment area to have my technician hold him for a better look. On closer inspection, under the fur, I could see the healing incisions of a castration surgery. Sure enough, a closer look at the file revealed that this kitten had been neutered at 8 weeks of age! Hello!

I walked back into the examination room, feeling sheepish, and admitted to the owner that I had been looking for something that wasn't there, and didn't I feel the fool! Luckily they laughed (while likely wondering how competent their veterinarian was!). Always read the fine print!

Timber the Chewie Whore

There's no polite way to put it. I have discovered that Timber the samoyed is a chewie whore.

I've been feeling quite under the weather lately and, as a result, have been spending as much time huddled under the covers as time will allow. Last night was no exception. I was feeling rather sorry for myself when Timber, uncharacteristically, jumped onto the bed and crawled his way across it until he was snuggled up next to me, his head under my arm. "Awww", I thought. Timber understands that I'm not feeling well and is trying in his doggy way to do what he can. I'm so naive. However, I'm not to be blamed, because Timber was demonstrating a level of subtly formally unknown to him.

As I gave him scritches, he turned himself over onto his back, stretching himself with little grunts and groans. Ok, this was pushing it, even for Timber. He has a massive coat and usually finds about 2 minutes on the bed more than he can handle before he gets too warm. Then a lightbulb, albeit a dim one, went on above my head. Toby was on the floor beside us, chewing on a piece of rawhide he'd managed to scrounge somewhere in the house. Timber didn't have one. Timber kept shooting glances at Toby whilst nudging me yet again. Darn it. In no way was my dog acting on his Lassie-like need to succor an ailing loved one. He just wanted a flippin' chewie! To test my theory I said, "Chewie?" Off the bed in a flash, I found him in the kitchen sitting eagerly next to the pantry door where said chewies are stored. Nice. My dog has learned to prostitute himself for treats.