Bark bark bark bark...GOOD dog!

Mina's a sweetie, but she has an annoying habit of barking whenever there's someone at the door. We've tried various tactics to stop her, from "go sit in your bed!" to "Ok, ok, I hear you, now STOP" to "all right, stop and you get some treats!" None have really worked.

Well...I was sitting on the couch in my living room tonight, around 11 pm, watching tv with Mina on my lap. All of a sudden she's up and barking like crazy! I couldn't imagine that she was just barking for no reason, so I stood up to go investigate...and as I turn around, I see a man I'd never seen before standing IN MY LIVING ROOM! My jaw dropped - this had never happened before and I was too stunned to react. But Mina knew this was not right and she barked frantically at the stranger, circling and staying between me and him.

"Is this where [name] and [name] live?" he asked.

"Uh...no, that's next door," I answered over Mina's barking. At the same time, I was idly wondering if she'd bite him. I could see now that he was just a lost party-goer, looking for the neighbors, but the pure shock of having a stranger walk unannounced into my home still had me kind of floored and I just gaped at him as he figured it out.

He thanked me and left, and after the door was shut - and locked, this time! - I sat down on the floor with my dog. She quieted after a moment, to a frustrated little moan, then stopped and laid down next to me.

Right about then, my husband comes wandering in from the other side of the house. "What was that?" he asked. When I told him what happened, he knelt down and gave Mina a big hug and a heart-felt "Good dog!"

"Remember this," I said, "next time you're mad because she barks when someone comes over."

He agreed and called Mina a good protector, and gave her another long scratch and hug.

We all learned something tonight! I won't have quite the same reaction next time Mina barks when the doorbell rings, from now on.

Here we go again

Survived another wave of layoffs, which is nice and all, but I dread seeing what my workplace will become over the next few weeks. They're not saying, yet, but I suspect big changes (besides these) are coming. I'm a little worried...oh well. If the worst finally happens, I'll be all right. For now, I've got a job, so that's good.

Best damn dog ever

Kind of a big day for us – since Mina has been recovering well from her back injury, and since she's been advised by her medical professional to avoid too many stairs, we decided to let her go free-range this week for the first time while we're at work. We had done a test run on Saturday evening, staying out for hours seeing Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at Marymoor Park. She did fine at home, so today was the big day: dog alone at home, with the run of the house.

Coming home from work, I was worried that she might have chewed up a pillow or two, eaten all the cats' food (or the cats themselves), or maybe unrolled the toilet paper...but to my joy, she'd done none of those things! As far as I can tell, all she chewed on was her approved Little Faceless Bear and Little Squeaky Lamb, and various Stinky Bones which reside around the house. Yay!

It's enough to almost make me forget that there will probably be massive layoffs at work tomorrow. Ah well...if it's me, I will be a stay-at-home dog mom for a while. I can deal with that.

Summertime; the livin' is more or less easy

Mina has now had about a week of restricted activity, and she really seems to be improving. She's still tentative when she sits and lays down, and walks a little slowly (especially on the steps leading to the back yard) but she's definitely better. She's restless a lot, poor pup, and probably wishing for at least some of her usual exercise. But we're trying to be good parents and keep her rested as much as possible.

Last night after work we walked down to the park for Shoreline's concert and celebration, amusingly titled "Swingin' Summer Eve." Sounds like a feminine hygene product, but it was actually a cute and fun little event; a great disco/70s cover band called "The Afrodisiacs" played, there were those big bouncy inflatable things for the kids, and a hot dog stand run by the local fire department. Lots of people brought dogs, so we were sad Mina couldn't have come, but it was still a good time.

Tough time for a smallish dog

Day three, and the poor pup is living the crate life. She can come out for potty time; when she stands up, she cries a little, so we can tell that she's still having pain from her injury. It's hard to get her to eat or drink anything; she sleeps a lot, or lays there with her eyes open. In the morning, I have to persuade her to get up at all.

We did take her outside a bit yesterday and today, guiding her slowly down the stairs to the back yard. She perked up a bit at being in her favorite place, and ate some grass and drank some water, and took care of her bathroom needs. But when we brought her in, she headed right back to her crate. I'm not sure if the drugs are doping her up or if she's just pained and sad. It's hard, hard, hard to see her like this.

I had started this collage/pastels experiment before all of this happened, so I decided to finish today while the house is so quiet.

Uh-oh (We learn about Intervertebral Disc Disease)

We've had our first serious medical problem with Mina, and it has to do with her long back and Dachshund heritge

She was fine yesterday when we left for work, but when I got home she wasn't as excited as she usually is; she seemed lethargic and had trouble coming up the stairs. I was a little concerned, but when we went for our walk she seemed ok; a little slower than normal but she kept up, and even pulled ahead as she likes to do.

But over the rest of evening she started showing signs of discomfort; she would whine when getting up from her bed, and finally just went and laid in her bed in the bedroom, before bedtime, which was very unusual.

In the middle of the night she started panting, and she was shaking. I tried to make her comfortable... At this point we thought she must have eaten something bad. She cried a little when she sat, and had to ease herself down to lay down. When we got up at 6 am this morning, she was still panting and clearly in distress, so we took her to the emergency vet right away.

The vet noticed a reaction she had as soon as a spot on her back was touched; she yelped and pulled away in pain. We hadn't seen her do this yesterday, so possibly the aggravation had gotten worse. He determined that she is probably suffering from an inflammation caused by a vertebrae protruding into her spinal column: a symptom of Intervertebral Disc Disease, very common in dachshunds and their relatives.

Right now, she's not as bad as she could be; she can move her back legs fine, and after taking some medication, seems to be in much less pain. Still, the vet said that she has to stay in her crate "23 and a half hours a day" for two weeks, and be let out only to potty. If we can keep her quiet and it heals well, it is less likely to re-injure some time in the future.

After this she won't be able to jump up on the bed or furniture ever again. I'll really miss cuddling on the couch with my pup, and seeing her "go get daddy!" by bouncing onto him in bed early in the morning. And she's going to hate being confined to her crate for so long, poor thing. She loves her walks. It will take a while, after all that inactivity, for her to get back to normal, so we're probably looking at another two weeks after she's allowed to start exercising again.

I know it will take a while but I believe she'll be ok.



Graphic is copyright Hills Pet Nutrition, from the Atlas of Veterinary Clinical Anatomy.

Neighborhoods, communities and the internet

As much as I am interested in, and participate in, various online communities, I often feel that they're a sort of vague, unreal part of my overall world. There are purportedly people out there, on their computers, who are interested in some of the same things I'm interested in, but they don't feel "real" sometimes. It's just words on a screen; for all I know, it could be a very advanced piece of software that someone has written to emulate a whole community and I am the only real member.

Yeah, of course I know that isn't true, but that sort of feeling has always led me to wonder if there aren't online communities that cross over into real life groups. One group we all fall into is the city where we live, so I searched online for a social network tie-in of some kind to my city, Shoreline, WA. There are Facebook "neighborhoods" that sort of fit the bill, but they only seem to serve as marker that yes, you live in a certain place, and there's no interaction based on that fact.

I did finally make an interesting discovery in a corner of the web: a blog called "Ronald Bog" (the name of our local mini-lake, I guess you'd call it). It's a blog about Shoreline, and I was happy to find that it covered the kinds of things I like to know about my town: what's going on, what's that new building on the corner going to be, what are the restaurants everyone likes or doesn't - that kind of thing.

Cutting out the lengthy middle of this story, I ended up becoming a co-author of the blog. Right now, it's a pretty low-traffic site. The blog's owner and I are trying to think of ways to promote it, and get more of our fellow Shoreliners (Shorelinians?) to come and participate.

I envision that people in the area will exchange ideas and thoughts about everything from local government to where the best sushi can be had. I'm thinking about ways to get more people here in Shoreline involved (and would love any suggestions!) and will be writing articles on the things I think are interesting about my town. And I'll probably still keep writing posts here about the dog- can cat-owning life and what I've managed to draw in my free time, and other stuff of interest to pretty much just me.