The Pet Thread

[Supe]

Junior has spent the last three days sobbing over the loss of her pet rat, which she brought home following a trip to her uncle's house despite my many, many, many objections. Unfortunately, she escaped from her crate, which in a house with three sighthounds...

Definitely a life lesson for Junior, who feels like its all her fault given that the rat was the first pet that was truly her responsibility to take care of. Thankfully her mother and I were able to convince her that her injuries were from the crate and not the dogs, as we do not want her harboring resentment against the hound that sleeps by her side every night.

The rat was given a Viking funeral in the fire pit out back, following its one month stay in our home on its journey to Valhalla.

 

[MeowMeow PE]

I used to have 2 pet rats. They were wonderful. I’m sorry for her loss!!!

 

[BlueBlueprintPE PMP]

When Piper hears the neighbor dogs ….. or sees a 🐿 or she gathers the motivation to jump the fence.

Reason No. 1 we are selling our house and moving to a place with lots of room for them to run.

 

[Supe]

Happy belated 12th Birthday (6/3) to Ursala, and her bridge sister Annie who I still miss dearly and tear up thinking about her every day. I don't know how many more of these we're going to be able to celebrate together, so I made sure to give her extra love and pets! She celebrated the evening with an ice cream pup cup and some sardines with dinner, and then got a brand new trio of toys, including a fresh new Lambchop (which has already sustained a neck injury), a new duck, and a realistic looking rabbit.

Unfortunately Deker ignored the growl and snarl from Ursala who REALLY loves Lambchop toys, and thought it would be a good idea to try to take it from her, as he too is a huge Lambchop fan. He quickly learned that while she may be old, she is still large and in charge - she gave him a big chompo right on the top lip with her remaining teeth until he yelped and ran away. Dert just sort of laid down in the background and was like, "uh, what'd you think was going to happen, *******", as he learned that lesson very early on! Thankfully, no injuries were sustained.

 

[MeowMeow PE]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY URSALA!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BlueBlueprintPE PMP]

Play date with their cattle dog friend Rainy.

 

[BlueBlueprintPE PMP]

Someone refused to allow the groomers to do their work today. She wouldn’t even go back with the rest of the pack, so she came back home with me. She’s in heat again and obviously very moody.

 

[MeowMeow PE]

This weekend was Ada’s birthday! She is 8! She got a McDonald’s hash brown for breakfast, and cake after dinner.

 

[Supe]

Happy birthday Ada! What a beautiful girl, reminds me so much of my bridge girl Annie.

 

[BlueBlueprintPE PMP]

We are officially moving! We will be out of our house this weekend and RV living until we can find property and get started on building our house (at least that's the plan). We have a friends house where we are parking the RV for a couple months. There, Timber and Piper will have a nice big yard to play in and have playdates all the time with their fellow cattle dog, Rainy.

We are looking for property (10+ acres) east of the mountains (Eburg/Cle Elum/Yakima area) to get away from the traffic (but still allow me to get to Seattle for work/jobsite visits when needed), people, and constant rain (especially this year!).

Wondering if I need to put them through rattlesnake training though... anyone on the eastside or rattlesnake country have thoughts on this? They've only ever seen gardner snakes in the yard..... which they've tried to chase/eat/bark at.

 

[pbrme]

Wondering if I need to put them through rattlesnake training though... anyone on the eastside or rattlesnake country have thoughts on this? They've only ever seen gardner snakes in the yard..... which they've tried to chase/eat/bark at.

Yes and yes. Taking our two to training this evening. We do it every couple years to keep it fresh and it's been field tested. Bullet walked right over a bull snake while out and a hike and didn't even notice it, so there's definitely a scent connection to rattlers.

 

[pbrme]

Volunteered at a bike race in NE Oregon last weekend. Stage 4 was a 100mi'er that ended here. Jua and Bullet loved all the new niffs.

 

[BlueBlueprintPE PMP]

Yes and yes. Taking our two to training this evening. We do it every couple years to keep it fresh and it's been field tested. Bullet walked right over a bull snake while out and a hike and didn't even notice it, so there's definitely a scent connection to rattlers.

Awesome! Thanks for the info! I will definitely look into it!

 

[txjennah PE]

This morning I left my dog by himself for a couple of minutes while grabbing coffee. 95% of the time, he doesn't mess with the trash can. But I was an idiot and left my small office trash can on the ground. When I returned, an aluminum wrapper from some chocolate was on the ground, with my dog still chewing on it.

He wouldn't let me dislodge it from his mouth, so I worriedly monitored him while he randomly chewed. An hour later, a horrible thought occurred to me - what if he was chewing on sugar-free gum I'd discarded in the trash? I checked the chewing gum containers - both brands contained xylitol, which is highly poisonous to dogs. Great.

Cue a $75 call to Poison Control while my dog keeps chewing on this mystery object. I texted my husband to come home. Between the two of us, we were finally able to dislodge the item from his mouth, which was...

...a piece of aluminum foil.

Now he's curled up, but my blood pressure is still very high.

Little dude is 10, and I know that he'll have more "episodes" as he ages, but I just love him so much, and the idea of something happening to him while under my care just scares the **** of me.

YAY VULNERABILITY

 

[pbrme]

^ I've had to administer the turkey baster full of hydrogen peroxide a few times. It sucks for both parties but sometimes the only thing you can do outside of an ER bill. Really tears up the GI though.

 

[txjennah PE]

^ I've had to administer the turkey baster full of hydrogen peroxide a few times. It sucks for both parties but sometimes the only thing you can do outside of an ER bill. Really tears up the GI though.

Thanks so much. Little bud is doing okay at the moment. I called Poison Control back, and since he already had a vet appt scheduled for tomorrow, the vet on call recommended monitoring for symptoms in the meantime, and to feed him a snack every two hours to keep his blood sugar up until we can bring him in. My chunky little guy is on board with the puppy snack every two hours

 

[BlueBlueprintPE PMP]

So glad he's okay at the moment. We have definitely had some scares with our pups too!

We had had Ollie for about 2 months. It was a couple weeks before xmas and we had come back from christmas shopping and left all the bags upstairs in our room. Then we were going out to dinner with a large family group. We had a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs that we used to keep Ollie downstairs. I forgot to put it up before we left. She (of course) went upstairs while we were gone and ate an entire 1 lb bag of dark chocolate (she's only 10 lbs). By the time we got home she was very sick. As soon as we figured out what happened, we took her to the ER vet. They had to give her charcoal and had her in the hospital for a few days. They (and we) didn't think she would make it through the night. 6 years later and she's still with us (and has definitely found her way into chocolate a few more times since then, though none as bad as that one).

I've also had to administer the turkey baster full of hydrogen peroxide (it's not fun) after a call to the poison control hot line when she ate the rest of our wine infused chocolate truffles that were on the dining room table and all the chairs were pushed in .... she's quite resourceful.

Timber licked all the liquid from my husband's weed pen (like a vape pen for weed I guess). He had broken the pen in his shorts pocket and the liquid was soaked into the fabric. I was in the garage with the furnace repair guy and Timber found the shorts and spent probably an hour licking every ounce of it out of his shorts. After the repairman left, I brought the dogs downstairs to eat and Timber was drooling everywhere and couldn't walk straight. I had no idea at the time that he had gotten into and was obviously quite scared. I briefly looked around the house and didn't see anything obvious. We took him to the ER vet, because of course it's right after the vets close for the day, and they had an 8-10 hour wait. After about 4 hours of waiting the nurse came out just to check vitals (triage basically), the symptoms were starting to fade at this point. She asked if he had gotten into any weed, which we denied. They gave us the option of taking Timber home and monitoring him while they held his spot, instead of sitting in the car (this was during covid when they wouldn't let anyone in the waiting rooms, I'm not sure if it's still the same). So we went home. The entire drive home I'm trying to figure out where Timber would've gotten weed and couldn't think of anything except maybe the repairman had dropped some? Once home, my husband went looking around the house only to find his shorts still wet with Timber slobber. BINGO. We called the vet and let them know. They still saved his spot if we needed it, but Timber was basically high on weed oils and the effects would continue to wear off. They called us at 4 am asking if we still needed to come in, and he was fine by then, so we didn't.... but the entire ordeal was terrifying and a bit embarrassing!

I'm still waiting for what Piper will get into!