Monday, July 30, 2007

A few quick items

I've got some things that need to be said but nothing big enough for it's own post, so here it comes in sections:

A technical note

Due to an issue with extended entries not showing up on permalink pages, I've set up the "Read more..." links to direct you to the permalink pages instead of showing you the rest of the post. It's the only way I could find to resolve the issue and meant that I didn't have to change the coding in any posts, just my template.

Bruiser's ear infection

I just thought I'd pass on a quick update on Bruiser's ear infection.

One of the giveaway signs (and one that makes sense now that I think about it) is shaking their heads a lot.

Bruiser has gotten to the point where he's not doing that at all. The only time he's been doing it lately is when we either give him the drips or do a cleaning, which is to be expected.

He's gotten really good about doing the drops but still fights it when we clean his ears. I'm hoping that he stops with that soon because he's in for that about once a week for the rest of his life.

Taffy settling in nicely

Taffy and the boys have been getting along pretty well. I think Petey's a little intimidated by her size, but they'll get used to each other eventually.

She seems to have gotten to the point where she knows that this is her house and is starting to act like it. She's started barking at things the same way Petey always has. Petey's got a really loud, high-pitched bark that's more goofy sounding than intimidating, but Taffy's bark is deep, loud, and would be kind of scary if you weren't expecting it.

I hope to get more pictures of her up for Friday dogblogging this week.

Well, that's all I can think of, so see y'all later I guess.

Crossposted to Through our eyes in a slightly different form

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Hey, look at me!

As promised, a better look at Taffy, our newest resident:


I'm such a good girl, I don't even have to be told to sit!

NOTE: The shaved part of her tail is from an abscess that was treated recently by her vet in Fort Worth. It's healed up now and she should be fine.


I'm way bigger than Bruiser is.


I'm also silly.

She seems to be setting into our house really well and is getting along with the boys pretty well.

In other news, Bruiser has an ear infection. It's a common ailment for any dog with ears like that, as their ears tend to be warm, moist, and not have much air going in or out. He's on ear drops twice a day and will be getting them cleaned once a day for about two weeks, and then we'll be cleaning them about once a week after that, just to keep all that nasty gunk out of there.

He'll be fine.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Friday, July 27, 2007

Updated: Introducing Taffy

Say hello to Taffy. We're on our way home now. I'll post more pictures later.

UPDATE: We're home and I'll shoot some pictures after I take Bruiser to the vet later

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The best laid plans always manage to get blown to shit one way or another - part 2

An update to the previous saga.

We left for Conroe about 9 this morning. About 10:30, just west of Cleveland. I finally thought to call the people we were meeting and tell them that my cell was out of commission and to reach us on a different number.

Naturally, they'd tried to get ahold of me to tell me that they had problems. Their transmission started slipping and they had to head back to Fort Worth.

We're hoping to get another shot at this on Saturday, we'll know more tonight.

OK, so I guess I should tell you what we were gonna be picking up.

Her name's Taffy. She's a four year old German Shepherd that used to be my grandmother's brother's dog. When he died a few months ago, some of our other family up that way took her in, but they're moving and can't bring her so she's coming to live with us. We met her when we were staying up there for Rita. She's a real sweetie and she should fit in nicely.

Monday, July 23, 2007

The best laid plans always manage to get blown to shit one way or another

I planned on sending a picture of the newest addition to the blog from my cell phone to be posted here.

That's not gonna happen.

My cell phone seems to have decided that it needs initial programming all of a sudden and to not receive a signal so I can fix that.

My guess is that the piece of shit's broke.

Guess that I'll be taking a trip to Verizon after I get back from Conroe to get it dealt with, which is just about the last place I want to be on a day like tomorrow.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

How useful is a poll here?

Blogger just gave us the functionality to set up polls in the sidebar, so I decided to get an idea from y'all about the usefulness of one.

The polls close in about a week, and if there's good results maybe I'll do a goofy poll every week.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Updated: COMING SOON

On Tuesday there'll be a new addition to this blog, something that you've never seen on here before. Ever.

But what is it?

I'm not telling, so feel free to speculate on what it is in the comments.

UPDATE: I'm going to give a hint every day through Twitter and this post.

7/21 - It involves Huntsville Conroe (that aspect of the plans was changed on us this morning)

7/22 - It comes in a package deal with some other stuff you may or may not see.

7/23 - It involves a girl named Wendy.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Twitter: We are no longer friends

Twitter, the service that I can't think of a way to describe, has decided that it's users are no longer friends.

After careful consideration and user testing, we are no longer going to define people as your "friends." The functionality of adding people remains, but the interaction is focused on the term "follow" instead. We've also added a "notifications" toggle which allows you to turn on updates via SMS or IM on a person-by-person basis.

So all the people that I was "friends" with are now people that I "follow." And people that were "friends" with me are now my "followers."

I'm kind of liking this whole having "followers" thing. It's like being the center of my own personal religion. The "Cult of Justin," if you will. Because, yea, I'm so worth worshiping.

Not that I'd let something like that go to my head or anything.

Now, when will you join the Cult of Justin?

OK, in all seriousness, if a cult forms to worship me then they all should be thrown in the nuthouse.

I mean, pick someone cool to worship.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

You'd think that they convicted him already!

Vick

While everybody freaks out over how Michael Vick should be suspended now that he's indicted, I'm not.

I mean, seriously, did we not learn anything from burying the Duke Lacrosse kids before we found out that Mike Nifong was so crooked?

I guess not.

Look, if he did it then fine. Bury him, shoot him, whatever. Someone who abuses animals deserves it. But wait until the legal process plays out. That's what it's for, after all.

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Monday, July 16, 2007

Blogging vacations

Some people feel like they need to tell people when they're taking a vacation from blogging.

Not me.

I mean, yea, I could. But considering how I tend to be on the light side when it comes to blogging I just figure that people won't notice.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Someone check that dog...

Thursday was a really short day for me, and it was all my fault.

I didn't get up to the office until about 10:30 because the doc had a few calls to make before he got in the office. The moment I got to the office, I realized that I forgot my wallet, which I never forget, so I told him I didn't plan on staying past lunch since I wouldn't have money for it.

We saw a couple of dogs for routine stuff then spayed a cat. We had to get the gloves out to get this cat out of it's kennel because it didn't want anything to do with us. We gave her the shot and let her loose in the exam room, where she ran and hid until she went to sleep. I was then told that the fight that one put up was nothing, they've had a few hanging from the ceiling.

Friday was more interesting...

I got in on time, but the doc was running late. By the time he got there, we had about 5 dogs in the waiting room. From what I can remember, they were all pretty routine. After that, it went to two surgeries.


" Someone check that dog to see if it has testicles "

The first one was on a golden retriever mix. His owner said that he was coming in for a spay but I was pretty sure it was a boy dog from when he came in earlier this week, which is when the doc said "Someone check that dog to see if it has testicles." Long story short, it definitely was a boy. Surgery went off without a hitch.

Next was a cat who was in for being neutered and declawed. This cat was doing a lot of meowing in his kennel so we all thought he'd be a fighter like the one yesterday. He was a pretty timid fellow, not putting up a fight at all. Another surgery that went pretty smoothly. Then we headed to lunch

After lunch (or at least I think it was after) we had a cat come in whose owner thought it's hair was falling out. It's skin was healthy and the hair was growing back, so it didn't look like it was falling out. Turns out something in it's life had changed and it had basically been driven crazy to the point it was pulling out it's hair. We put it on some all-natural stuff that tends to have better results than that kitty prozac stuff they sell and it should be fine.

The last one we had come in was a baby goat (A little smaller than my dogs) that wasn't able to stand up and was grinding it's teeth. It showed all the signs of a thiamine (Vitamin B1) deficiency, which affects motor skills. He'd probably picked this up from eating some sort of fungus or toxic plant, and is more common with the weather we've been having lately (lots of rain, followed by some hot, sunny days). He's getting thiamine shots and will need a lot of TLC to kick this thing. His survival basically depends on how bad it's messed with the white matter in his brain, so there's no guarantees for the cutie.

I won't be going back in until Wednesday because the doc's got a doctors appointment on Monday that's cutting his day to a short morning and I've got an eye doctor's appointment in Houston on Tuesday.

Sometime before then, I'll put a post together about how much I'm enjoying this experience so far.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Tired as a dog

Wprking with a vet lately has left me worn out at the end of a lot of days, and apparently I'm not alone:


Don't drag me into this, I slept a lot before you started working out there.

Or not...

Crossposted to Through our eyes

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

And this little piggy got a nut removed from his belly

TinyPic keyword search: pig
A pig, but definitely not one that I saw during these recent experiences since I found the image on TinyPic.

Since I didn't do any blogging before now, I'll be doing some catching up.

Monday was a fairly uneventful day. A dog came in with mange that I made an effort to keep my distance from in an effort to not bring it home to my boys, then a discussion on the doc's theory that people's immune systems are weaker than they used to be because of, among other things, people washing their hands so much. I don't have a medical degree, so don't ask me what to think about it.

Another dog came in that the emergency vet clinic though had Parvo "a little." You either got it or you don't, there's no having it "a little." It's then that I learned that you see a lot of cases four or five days after Memorial Day, the 4th, or Labor day, of dogs that ate barbecue. Their systems can't handle spicy foods. He was given some meds to flush his system and should be ok in a few days.

Then it was off to the farm. We hopped in the truck and went to take blood from a few cows. No big deal besides muddying up my shoes. Then we went to another farm where we were castrating a few pigs before they would be taken to show. We were able to do two on site but the third needed to be brought in and operated on because he had an undescended testicle.

After that, I headed home, then took Tuesday off since I'm not being paid for this.

The big thing today was that pig mentioned earlier coming in for surgery to remove the testicle which was still in his abdominal cavity. The surgery went smoothly and that pig is now not the man he used to be just like his buddies.

We had a few dogs come in for shots and one come in with heart problems. She wasn't on the right medication regiment (through the fault of a "heart specialist" in the Carolinas), so we fixed that. Other than those, everybody was in for shots.

No idea what I'll be looking at tomorrow.

Friday, July 06, 2007

Something I may never see again.

It's been raining all week.

Every day when I've drove in it's been raining.

The first thing we saw today was a dog with tetanus. Incredibly rare. Only the fourth dog that he's seen with it in his career of well over 20 years. The other three that had it survived so I think chances for him are pretty good. He'll be on tranquilizers and fluids until the bug gets out of his system.

We had a few other emergencies come in. Had a black lab that was hit by a 4-wheeler and some little bitty blind 15 year old dog that got his butt kicked in a fight with another dog. They both were given some shots and some pills to help with their problems.

A few dogs came in for shots, nothing too interesting there.

We had a couple spays. A fairly big dog and a cat with a uterus infection. I watched both and managed to not get sick. Both went pretty smoothly.

And then there was the necropsy (the word autopsy only applies when it's done to another human, some sort of latin thing) of a pig that died suddenly just before I left. Nothing fancy, just cutting him open in the bed of a truck and taking a look at his organs. Looked like a lung infection, probably not contagious to the other pigs.

I'm worn out, I need some sleep.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

You did WHAT to that cow?

No, I didn't do anything.

Today I got my first exposure to the not-so-pretty elements of being a vet. More on that later.

First patient of the day was a rottweiler with an arthritic leg that was coming in for a second opinion. The vet he'd been going to uses homeopathic treatments, which, as Dr. Hall put it, are only effective to a certain extent. He put the rottweiler on some regular medicine for it and said that he should be better in a few days.

After that, we looked at a cow that was struggling with going to the bathroom. She was outside in a trailer, her owners had brought her to the clinic.

In the course of the examination, the doc put on a humongous plastic glove and stuck his arm up one of the cow's holes (I wasn't about to get close enough to see which one, I'm too green for that yet I think). I'm standing back, watching this unfold in the parking lot, amazingly unfazed by it all. I just wonder what all the people driving by on FM 365 were thinking.

After that, I got in my chick moment for the day when a lady brought in her eight week old beagle for his first round of shots. He was so adorable, as beagle puppies tend to be.

Last set we saw were two of my mom's dogs that needed shots. One of them gets REALLY carsick, so my mom brought her in one of those cages with the removable pans. I hosed down the pan while Dr. Hall gave them their shots. He gave the carsick one some stuff that helps with carsickness and gave my mom the rest of the syringe (it comes in them) for future car trips. It's just something you squirt on their ear and rub in... the skin absorbs it.

After that, he said I could go because he was taking a long lunch and there wasn't anything much scheduled for the afternoon.

Tomorrow comes a real test for what I can handle, as he's doing a couple of spays.

I think I'll be ok though, Lately I've been watching a lot of my House DVD's and only turned my head once, and that wasn't even for one of those nasty medical mockups, but when Chase kisses the cancer kid in the second season episode Autopsy.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

The first day

Remember this a few weeks back?

Today I finally made it into his office for the first time. Don't ask why it took this long.

It was an interesting day. Very interesting.

I headed out to his clinic, which is about half an hour away, and got there at about 1:45. He was out of the office but was due in any minute. He was in about a minute later and things went to shit fast.

A dog that was brought in (for what I don't recall) got nervous in the exam room, leaving the room in a diarrhea-type mess. The doc had her taken outside while his assistant cleaned up in there.

Someone brought in a goat to be gelded. Seeing that made *me* hurt down there. Poor guy.

Then I got my first trip out in the field to take a look at a horse the owner thought had a bad eye. The eyes looked fine, but the doc noticed that he was walking a little funny. It wasn't a big deal, basically the equivalent of having a rock in your shoe.

It was a fairly uneventful afternoon.

I'll be going back Thursday and am planning on spending the whole day there.

EDIT: After some thinking, I realized it might be better to keep things as anonymous as possible... not exactly sure how privacy rules come into play about this kind of stuff.

Monday, July 02, 2007

The No Fun League hates people who use the internets

(Hat-tip: Deadspin)

The NFL, in their infinite marketing wisdom, has stumbled upon a grand idea: Limiting online video.

In a move designed to protect the Internet operations of its 32 teams, the pro football league has told news organizations that it will no longer permit them to carry unlimited online video clips of players, coaches or other officials, including video that the news organizations gather themselves on a team's premises. News organizations can post no more than 45 seconds per day of video shot at a team's facilities, including news conferences, interviews and practice-field reports.

Is this bullshit or is this bullshit?

Honestly... this is ridiculous. All the NFL wants is for us to get all the video from the team's sites. And that fucking blows. I'm not going to the Texans web site to get my news on the team. Hell, when I had season tickets the only time I ever went to their site was to check the roof forecast (their guess on if the roof would be open or not). Simply put, I don't trust the team to tell it like it is on their site. I want to hear from independent people who don't have to kiss the team's ass for fear of losing their jobs.

I didn't renew my season tickets and I doubt I get them again anytime in the forseeable future. Hell, if this is the case, I might just stay away from football this year, although it's not like watching the Astros has been pleasant this year.

At least Houston Chronicle NFL writer (and Hall of Fame member) John McClain had a humorous take on it:

Technorati Tags: , ,

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Sleepwalking into a Turkish prison takes a journey

I'd written what I thought was a pretty good 100 word story for this week's weekly challenge.

I recorded it, edited in a couple of sound effects (from here), and sent the email to Laurence. I had the text of my story, the ides for the next topic, the link to my blog. I had everything in there...

...but the recording.

Yea, I'm just smart like that.

I sent the recording to Laurence on Saturday after I got an email, a direct message on Twitter, and goodness knows what else from him about it.

Instead of editing it into the challenge, he posted it on it's own today. (Recording here).

Here's the text:

My wife always said that I sleepwalk, but I didn't believe her... until now.

While on vacation in Turkey recently, I pushed a woman over a bridge while sleepwalking.

My lawyer tried to get me out of it, unsuccessfully.

I was sentenced to thirty-five years in a prison on the outskirts of Istanbul for my crime.

I don't sleepwalk anymore. Hell, I barely sleep. I live my days in constant fear that my cellmate, Big Willy, will make me bend over for another "special moment." I wish I were dead.

Why couldn't I have just sleepwalked off of that bridge?

Crossposted to Through our eyes