Wednesday, August 31, 2005 , early morning

Donate and help the critters

Thanks to the person from Best Friends who posted a comment in my last entry, asking people to donate what they can to help rescue lost, injured, and orphaned pets in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  Through no fault of their own, many pets were left to fend for themselves in the evacuations, and you know they’re going to need a helping hand.  If you’ve got a spare $5 on hand, or $10, or more if you can afford it, I know it would be appreciated by Best Friends Hurricane Relief Fund or Noah’s Wish.  I trust both organizations to use all the money donated specifically to help the animals in need.  I know a lot of people have an immediate reaction of, “We need to help the people first”, or, “Helping people is more important than helping animals”.  Please keep in mind that the animals being helped belong to someone—these are the pets of the people displaced by the hurricane.  For many people, their pet is their best friend, so by helping to reunite pets and owners you really are helping the people, too.

I just came up with a bonus charity for you:  you could consider donating to The SPCA of Texas, where they’re helping to house animals from the Louisiana SPCA, and trying to find foster homes for pets whose families were displaced by the hurricane.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/31 at 07:26 AM
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Tuesday, August 30, 2005 , evening

Pet Vac

I’m putting this in the Stuff You Should Have category, but it really belongs in a “stuff you should see” category.  Check out the website for Pet Vac, just to enjoy all the exasperated pet owners who have dogs who want to be vacuumed—it’s a delightfully hokey video.  (The manufacturer may have modified their website since I first wrote this entry, so if need be, after you click the above link, just select “Pet Vac” from the drop-down menu to view the video).  When I turn the vacuum cleaner on my cats completely vanish, so I guess that also helps remedy pet hair problems.  Has anyone actually tried this product?  If so, would you post and let me know how it worked for you?

If you enjoyed the video, you might also enjoy the one for Pet Groom Pro.  It’s not nearly as wacky, though… it’s just a brush.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/30 at 09:22 PM
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Down Came the Rain

Down Came the Rain is the rather infamous book by Brooke Shields about post-partum depression—it’s the book that got Tom Cruise’s shorts in a knot, and revealed him to be an even bigger creep than I’d ever taken time to imagine.  Brooke can thank Tom for increasing her sales, because I know both Flippy and I ran to Amazon to order this book just to reinforce that we think Tom Cruise is a jerk.  I normally wouldn’t have purchased a book about post-partum depression, but it was my chance to thumb my nose at Tom so I couldn’t resist.  This is the first “protest” book purchase I’ve ever made.

The book was a real downer.  I didn’t expect a book about depression to be too “uplifting”, but I actually found this book a bit disturbing.  Brooke Shields is a smart woman and well-educated, but her book was completely devoid of humour (except for the comic-relief provided by her husband) and the personal comments seemed to mostly be therapy-speak.  I don’t even have kids, but reading this made me depressed, and I started to dread reading it (but I hate leaving a book unfinished).  Shields’ descriptions of her anxiety were almost “triggering” for me, that’s how awful it was.  Like those dreams where you’re trying to run but your feet are stuck in quicksand, this book just dragged me down and enveloped me in a big grey cloud of moodiness.  There’s also something very odd about the timing in the book.  I’d think that the events in a particular chapter had reflected, say, a two month period, but then I’d be told that only two weeks had passed.  It was disorienting, and it happened again and again, so I don’t think it was just my imagination. 

I didn’t “hate” this book, but I don’t want it around anymore, and we’re giving it away to a friend who wants to read it.  If you have post-partum depression, I’ve no doubt you’ll gain something from reading Down Came the Rain, (even if it’s just a more thorough knowledge of the condition, or the knowledge that you’re not alone), but if you just want to read this because you’re a Brooke Shields’ fan, I’d take a pass.  If you want to take a poke at Tom Cruise though, by all means, don’t let me stop you.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/30 at 08:04 AM
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We Thought You Would be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive

With an bonus performance of, “Autobiography of a Fat Bride”.

Normally I try to write separate entries for all the books I review, but I’m making an exception this time and I’m clumping together two books by Laurie Notaro, We Thought You Would Be Prettier:True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive and Autobiography of a Fat Bride.  I’ve written about Notaro’s other books before, and as always, these were excellent.  Funny, cynical, sarcastic, and self-deprecating, Notaro makes everyday life seem hysterical. I’ve been quite spoiled because there were already four titles by Laurie Notaro available by the time I found them, so I’ve been able to gobble them up, one after another, like a really great box of chocolates.  Or potato chips.  Or chocolate-covered potato chips.  I’m now going to have to learn some patience though, because Notaro’s fifth book, An Idiot Girl’s Christmas : True Tales from the Top of the Naughty List won’t be released until November.  I’ve already pre-ordered it, and I’m counting the days :)

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/30 at 07:49 AM
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Wednesday, August 24, 2005 , early morning

More than just employees

One of our favourite vet office employees has resigned from her job to move out of state, and I miss her.  It’s an odd thing that staff members of a business can engender such attachment from me, but there’s something very special about many of the employees who work in that office.  Not all of them, of course—there are the people who remain so stiff and formal that they never seem like anything but automatons, and there are the occasional grumps who never crack a smile or develop a personality.  Those people are few and far between, though, and they usually vanish before very long because they just don’t fit in.  For the most part, the people who work at the vet’s office are funny, engaging, sympathetic, patient, and compassionate—they’re not just great staff, but great people as well.  I can call the office and just give my first name and they know who I am, and they never seem to mind when I call and give them complicated and tedious lists of prescription refill requests.  They let me go behind the desk to play with the orphaned kittens, they let me bring up interesting websites on their computers, and they’re always willing to share a joke or a horror story or some juicy gossip.  I remember who was working the day Sweet Pea died, and it meant so much to me to be in a place where I felt comfortable.  I wasn’t among strangers, I really felt like I was with people who cared as much about me as they did about my pet.

When one of the staff members leaves, it’s a lot like seeing a friend move away.  We’d gotten her all trained just the way we liked her and bam! off she goes to live amongst the potatoes in Idaho.  I always enjoyed our chats about this, that, and the other thing, and it’s sad to see her go.  I love the vets we see at the office (there are three of them), and I love the techs (I try to know all their names), but we spend the majority of our time with the people who sit behind the main desk and who answer the phones, and they’re the ones who solidify the concept of owners and vets being in a partnership.  It’s like we’ve all got the same goal—keeping the pets healthy—and it honestly feels like being part of a team, even if my role is just “pet owner”.  I hope the vets who run the practice realize how important their front-office staff is, and that they appreciate them as much as I do.

I don’t want to be a downer, but I did want to give this story a bit of a push, and this entry is probably the best place for it.  The Miami-Dade Animal Services Unit (the people made famous in the TV show, “Animal Cops: Miami”), mistakenly euthanized a Golden Retriever who was microchipped, and who had an owner coming to pick him up!  The dog escaped from the yard during a thunderstorm, was picked up on a Wednesday and the owner contacted, and then the dog was euthanized on the following day before the owner could come and get him.  Obviously a bureaucratic error, but there are so many horrible things about this story—the dog was microchipped, the dog had a collar, the dog was picked up just a block from his house, and the dog was of a friendly, desireable breed.  It seems logical to me that the dog should have been scanned for a chip immediately when he was picked up by the ACU, and then should have just been returned to his home then and there, but even if he did end up at the shelter, how on earth was he euthanized after just 48 hours?  It’s a horrible story, and just another example of the huge mess caused by pet over-population and shelter over-crowding, not to mention animal shelter apathy.  I don’t envy the people who work at the shelters, and I know that it must often be a difficult job, but there are lives at stake and the animals deserve better.  Hell, the taxpayers deserve better—you finally need to use the system you pay for and it rewards you by killing your dog.  Here’s the entire story, but you may need to register for the website to read it:  Wrongful euthanasia infuriates dog lovers.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/24 at 07:13 AM
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Stock tips from someone who knows nothing

I really know very little about the stock market, but I know what I like.  I also think both Flippy and I have a good feel for “trends” in the marketplace, and that’s been helpful over the past few years as we’ve done a teeny-tiny bit of stock market dabbling.  Sometimes we’re successful; we bought Starbucks when it was priced around $14, and we bought Jones Soda when it was still just on the Canadian stock exchange, and priced at about 75 cents per share.  We gave Flippy’s dad a good tip many years ago and I think he profited from VCAI, long before it turned info WOOF.

We’ve also had our “crash and burn” moments, though: investing in BN.com during their IPO, with the assumption they’d do well because Amazon.com stock was close to the $100 mark at the point.  Uh, no… we lost a bundle on that one, as we bought at $18 and then the company bought back their stock a couple of years later at about $1.40.  Nasty.  We also lost on House to Home, which was an offshoot of the ill-fated “Home Base” retail outlet.  You’d think the economy could support two major “do it yourself” retailers, but apparently, it can’t.

So, it’s with caution that I write about a couple of our recent stock market purchases, specifically, those in the pet sector.  I don’t know if the companies are destined to make billions, but I do know they’re making good products and have good ideas, and I think that’s a step in the right direction.

The first is Pet Ecology Brands, who advertise themselves as an “animal health management” company.  They’ve got a couple of neat products on the market—a line of fat-free dog treats, and an environmentally-friendly, scoopable cat litter called ScoopLite.  What I really love about the litter, though, is that it contains a component which will help cat owners detect UTIs in their pets!  The litter changes colour in the presence of alkaline urine, as the less acidic the urine, the more conducive the enviroment to bacteria, crystal formation, etc.  A product like this could have helped us detect Derek’s problem long before blood appeared in the urine, so I think it’s an excellent idea.  You can read more about the litter here: Scientific Cat Litter.  Pet Ecology Brands is currently trading at about 14 cents per share.

The second company I’ve been watching is Pets Mobility, Inc..  Their first major project is a bit silly—they’re designing PetsCell, a cell phone for dogs.  The idea is that the owner can “call” the dog during an absence, to reassure the dog, have a little chat, or whatever.  The project has some broader applications, though—the phone would allow an injured owner to call for help via the cell phone, and there’s also the ability to enable GPS tracking on the collar to trace a missing person who’d been found by a search dog, for example.  The collar could also have a remote camera attached for the same purpose.  I personally like the idea of integrating microchip ID technology and GPS (to allow owners to actually track a missing pet), and I think this is something the company is looking to in the future.  The stock is currently about 40 cents per share, and while I don’t think the company’s projects will appeal to every pet owner, they’ll certainly attract the attention of those owners with a little extra cash with which to pamper their pet.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/24 at 01:47 AM
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Tuesday, August 23, 2005 , terribly early in the morning

Dogs, 2; Bowlingual, 0

Finally, after almost two years of waiting, I bought a Bow-Lingual Dog Translator.  When they first came out they were $100, then $60, then $40, and now they’re only $9.99 so I knew it was in my budget :)  We’ve got two “problem barkers” in the house—Cricket, an incessant yapper, and Dante, an Anatolian shepherd who only barks when he’s being scary, so I thought the Bow-lingual would give us the upper-hand on the dogs’ innermost thoughts. 

Here are the good things about Bow Lingual:  it’s sturdy, the instructions are well thought-out and detailed, it comes with batteries (5 AAA), and it’s just pretty neat with all its little graphics and and buttons.  It’s also just $9.99, don’t forget that part.  The bad things include the fact that the battery compartments are sealed with annoying little Phillips’ head screws, so they’re a pain to remove.  It’s also annoying that while the hand-held receiver/translator unit automatically shuts itself off after a couple of minutes (or goes into a standby mode), the transmitter which attaches to the dog’s collar is all or nothing.  It’s either on or it’s off, so you have to keep that in mind if you want to conserve batteries.

My first experiment was with Dante, who goes into “scary, crazy, tired old man” mode when he wants to go to bed.  He goes out into the middle of the yard and barks and barks, and if I ignore him, he’ll come into the house, plant his feet, and bark like a madman until I put him in his crate.  While he’s always been (mostly) harmless, he’s still alarming when he acts like that (he has a BIG bark), and I hoped Bow-Lingual would shed some light on “the many moods of Dante”.  I put the transmitter on his collar when he’d already started barking and figured he’d go back outside, but no, he just stood inside silently.  I then put him in his crate and sent the little dogs outside, something which gets him all riled up at any time of day, but he didn’t make a single peep.  We pulled out all the stops—Flippy came downstairs wearing scary “headache hat” and Dante was mute, and we even opened the freezer door, something which usually causes him to react as if he’s been set on fire, but HE DIDN’T MAKE A SOUND.

Next, I tried Cricket, who will yap at anything—the cats, Eli, a noise outside, etc.  I had some trouble getting the transmitter on her collar because she’s so small, but I eventually got it attached and waited.  I waited for the barking.  Waited, waited, waited.  Flippy went to pretend she saw something out the window and was rewarded with just silence.  Eli strolled over to say hello and there wasn’t a sound.  Finally (and this was very mean of me), I used Frank as bait and took him with me to where Cricket could see him.  We then got two barks out of her—one translated to say she was “frustrated”, which I think was appropriate given that she was barking at a cat outside the bedroom, a cat she wants to play with.  The second bark was again in the frustration category, and translated to say, “I’ll be good”.  As Cricket always wants to play with Frank, and Frank will have nothing to do with Cricket, I think both translations were certainly believable.

Ultimately though, I think the BowLingual is nothing more than a dog silencer!  I think it sends out a signal to paralyze the dog’s vocal cords so they can’t make a sound.  I’ll continue to experiment and see if I can really put the unit through its paces, and I really want to put it on Eli before I play with her with the hose.  She loves/hates the hose and it always makes her bark up a storm.  Hopefully Bow Lingual will really tell me whether is it “love” or “hate”.

Oh, the manufacturer, Takara, made a Meow-Lingual model for cats, but I guess it never took off as it didn’t hit the US market.  I’ve looked for them on eBay, but only found one, once, on eBay Japan.  As the unit was in Japanese and not English, the translations wouldn’t have been very helpful for me!  Takara currently has a “Purr Indicator” product for cats, but it’s more of a “feel-good” product than an actual learning device.  If you’re interested, it might be a cute gift for a cat lover, though:  Purrfect Mood Detector

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/23 at 06:58 AM
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It wasn’t poop *or* vomit!

If that’s just not the most enticing title for an entry, then I don’t know what is.

On Saturday, Derek the cat (aka “Lumpy”), was having a hard time trying to climb to the top of the tall cat tree in the living room.  He struggled and struggled with the final jump to the top, and Flippy and I teased him about having to haul such a heavy load.  When he finally got settled up top though, something about him seemed “wrong”.  He hadn’t made any noise, but he had a look on his face as if he was in pain, and he turned to face the wall rather than facing outwards to keep an eye on everything.  I got up to check on him and he refused to look at me, but when I held up a snack, he merrily ate it as if there was no problem.  I figured that meant everything was okay, and that maybe he’d pulled a muscle or something during his climb.  Later in the evening he came down to sniff the food dishes but didn’t really eat, but I again assumed it was just some minor issue from earlier.

On Sunday morning I got up to check on Derek and he was wandering around, being his normal self, so I thought all was well until Flippy noticed weird brown marks on the carpeting.  “Skid marks!” we both cried, but on closer inspection it just wasn’t poopy-looking but seemed to be more like blood.  I cleaned up marks on the carpet and the sofa, and then I went to check out Derek and he had brownish ick all over his butt.  Ewww.  I washed him off and all I could see was a small bald mark on his rear leg—it almost looked like a rug burn.  I couldn’t think that a rug burn would make him bleed like that, and couldn’t figure out where the blood had come from.  I then found the final clue—a towel on Derek’s favourite sleeping chair had big, wet, brown stains on it.  Being the brilliant detectives we are, we decided that Derek wasn’t feeling well after his climbing accident, he’d eaten, he’d vomited, and he’d sat in it.  In our minds, he’d then dragged his butt around on the carpet to try to clean himself up.  The only problem with this theory was that the stain had a weird odor, something unlike poop or blood or vomit or any other bodily fluid I’d dealt with.

Cut to today, when we took Derek to the vet for a urinalysis to make sure the crystals in his urine were dissolving on the Urinary SO food.  The vet looked him over and I mentioned in passing that he’d hurt himself and that his back end was still a bit dirty (soap and water hadn’t removed all the crusty bits).  I said that while it has originally looked like a rug burn, I now thought it looked more like a ruptured blister.  The vet picked him up, took one look at the back of his thigh, and said, “Abcessed cat bite”.  Again I say, Ewwww!  We have no idea when Derek was bitten, or even who bit him, because we haven’t had any cat fights in recent memory.  The vet pointed out that a bite on the back of the thigh probably meant Derek was trying to run away (or in his case, waddle away).  It turns out that what I thought was poop, then blood, then vomit, was really a ruptured abcess…. ewwww!  I finally know what the officers mean on “Animal Cops” when they say that a dog with an infection has “a smell”.

It was very lucky that we already had the vet appointment today, because even after I’d cleaned the wound up with soap and water, I still thought it was some sort of rug burn!  I don’t know how long it would have taken me to figure out it was an infected bite wound, or how bad the infection would have become by that time.  As it is, the infection is literally a quarter of an inch deep—just a big, open pocket of nastiness.  I have to clean the wound out with Chlorhexiderm Flush, and I don’t mind except Derek now has a perpetually soggy rear end.  I also have to give him antibiotics, and we’re all still recovering from the The Curious Incident of the Cat Poop in the Night-Time so I’m a bit nervous.  This time he’s getting Baytril, which isn’t supposed to cause diarrhea, but you know Derek.  He’s so hard to pill, too—he’s got a great gag reflex (and I don’t mean he’s got great comedic timing).

If you’re queasy, don’t click the next link, because I have a photo of Derek’s wound, post-cleaning.  I just think it’s unbelievable, yet it doesn’t seem to cause him any pain:

abcess.jpg

Frank was at the vet today too (yes, it was fun being in the car with both of them!), because he needed yet another in his series of vaccinations.  I haven’t had a “kitten” in so many years that I forgot how many shots they have to get, and even though Frank isn’t a kitten, we’re treating him as if he’s never had any immunizations before.  Not one to avoid drama, on the weekend I was giving Frank a little shoulder rub and I found a small lump between his shoulder blades.  I don’t know where I’d read about injection site sarcomas but that immediately sprung to mind, and it worried me a bit.  I showed the spot to the vet today, she felt it, and I’m to keep an eye on it and to bring him in immediately if the lump gets larger.  Also, if it hasn’t gone away in three months, he’s to go back in for a biopsy.  It’s no larger than a grain of rice right now, but it concerns me.  I’m so in love with Frankie McFrankenstein that I want nothing more than 20+ years of good health and happiness for him, and really hope the lump fades away long before we get to a biopsy stage.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/23 at 05:32 AM
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Saturday, August 20, 2005 , early morning

Please adopt Celine

No, not *that* Celine—somebody please step up and adopt Celine the cat.  I first put the Petfinder listings on my blog when I started my blog late last year, and Celine has been in the adoptable rotation ever since.  She’s 11 years old, she’s lost her home, and I’m sure all she wants is a little peace and quiet, a sunbeam, and a can of Fancy Feast.  Doesn’t someone out there know of, say, a retired couple who’d enjoy a little furry companion?  Little Frankie 8-toes wants her to come and live here, but there’s an embargo on new cat immigrants in our household for the time being.

One of the only good things to come out of my bad experience with the Las Vegas Animal Foundation is that I’ve gotten to know Randy Warner, who has a great website, 21st Century Animal Resource & Education Services.  Well, it’s an informative website, but it could use a bit of a makeover, so maybe that’s something I could offer to help with when I get all my proverbial ducks in a row.  I also used the Animal Foundation incident to write an email to the editor of the Las Vegas Review Journal.  The letter didn’t get published, but I did get a phone call from a reporter doing a story on the AF’s “no kill” policy.  So Stewie, maybe one good thing will eventually come from our time with you—maybe a little ass is going to get kicked.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/20 at 07:00 AM
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Smoothies! The Original Smoothie Books (vol. 1 and 2)

These books are winning the “biggest disappointment” contest for 2005—I found very little of redeeming value in Smoothies! The Original Smoothie Books.  I ordered the two-volume set because Flippy and I have recently become smitten with our local Smoothie King, and are spending far too much money there, so I thought these books would help me make tasty smoothies at home (in my poor, beleaguered blender).  The books promise “professionally developed” recipes from such large chains as Smoothie King, Jamba Juice, Juice Zone, etc., so I mistakenly assumed I’d actually be getting a recipe or two of smoothie blends you can buy at these establishments.  Alas, all you get in the book is literally what is promised, “professionally-developed” recipes—recipes which don’t seem to have been good enough to make it into the regular rotation at smoothie outlets.  There’s an “apple smoothie” recipe from Smoothie King—blah.  Could they really not have parted with one signature recipe, like “Light and Fluffy”?  “Light and Fluffy” certainly isn’t the brain surgery of smoothie recipes - I think it’s just strawberries, bananas, and orange juice—but it would have been a nice gesture and would have made me feel like I was being taught the secret to a “real smoothie”.

My other big beef about these books is redundancy.  Volume one features a history of the smoothie industry, a list of potential ingredients, a glossery, a guide to techniques, and a list of online resources, and Volume two features all the identical information!  As this information comprises 75% of the pages of both books, you’re only getting 25% of new material in the second volume.  What a waste of paper!  It’s not even good redundant material, either—the online resources section features links to shareware programs about dieting, for example.  If I wanted to know about shareware, I’d buy a book about shareware.  It seems like a really obvious effort to fill up pages and to make a “second volume”, when they should have just reprinted the first volume and raised the price to account for the extra recipes.

So, I’m still looking for a good smoothie recipe book.  If I find one that I really like, I’ll be sure to write about it.  In the meantime, I’ll keep buying pre-made smoothie mixes that I can doctor with my own fresh fruit.  I also really love Big Train’s Fruit Tea Blast—the Peach Pizazz flavour is delicious!

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 08/20 at 03:53 AM
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