It’s been one.
The lawncare guys are usually very good about closing the gate to the backyard after they finish. I am usually very good about checking to see the gate is really truly closed before letting loose the Dogs of Disorderly Conduct.
This morning, the lawn guys weren’t and neither was I.
I opened the back door, released my crew, then watched in stunned silence as King shot through the open gate. I managed to close it before Gaby followed, then spent ten very long minutes playing Search and Chase. No, King does not come when called and chasing really doesn’t work because to him, that’s playtime. So I ran through neighbors’ yards, on the lookout for other dogs and cats, coyotes and cars–my neighborhood is pretty quiet, but folks were leaving for work and the odd truck does barrel down the road from time to time. Tried lying on the ground, because sometimes that lures him. Not this time. Tried running back to the house because that triggers his chase instinct and he often follows. Not this time.
I almost had him about five minutes in when I saw that he had run back to the now-closed gate, I assume because he lost sight of me. That’s how it used to work when I let him off-lead during wilderness walks. When he lost sight of me, he would panic and return to the last place I was. If he spotted me, he figured all was good, and would go back to whatever it was he was doing.
Which was pretty much what happened. King spotted me before I reached the driveway, and took off again. More running through yards and circling back to the house–I will say that the sprint intervals are starting to pay off–when again I spotted him in the driveway. This time, I was able to trap him and leash him, but as I opened the gate to herd him back in, Gaby squirted out and took off.
Gaby used to come when called. I used to be able to trust her to stop at the end of the driveway and wait for me to leash her. Those days are gone. Several weeks ago I left the gate open while putting tools back in the garage, and she ventured out to the driveway. She walked to the end, which wasn’t unusual.
Then her head came up. She either smelled something or heard something, the Call of the Wild or a cat or some other damned thing. Off she went, first to the neighbors on the corner, then down the street to a couple walking their dogs. Gaby thought she had met new friends until the twin chihuahuas yapped and snapped at her. I leashed her and dragged her off just as she started grumbling back.
But I digress.
Anyway, Gaby now bolts just like her Big Brother. I gave chase. More hilarity ensued. The only good thing that occurred was that when I got close enough, she did stop and wait for me to leash her. Maybe the tone of my voice stopped her. Who knows? Anyway, I got her back home and locked her up with her partner in crime. Then I went to work.
We’re out on the deck now. They’re resting. Gaby limps occasionally–she apparently did something to her dodgy right rear leg. I can’t find a wound, so it’s possible she strained something during her escapade.
Or maybe she’s just doing it to drive me crazy.
↔
When I picked up Gaby after her teeth-cleaning yesterday, the tech said that she might feel a little off because of the sedation, and to feed her a light dinner. Well, Herself refused dinner. She refused breakfast this morning. Then she refused lunch. Given that her last full meal had been Tuesday evening and she was allowed no food after midnight, that meant a day and a half without significant intake. This can be bad because dogs get nauseated if they don’t eat for several days, and my fear was that given her IBD, she would get sick enough to trigger an episode. Worst case–she gets very sick and goes off the duck & sweet potato, which would mean a hunt for a new type of food. Please, no.
I phoned the vet’s office, and spoke to one of the techs. She told me that her dog went off his food for several days after the same procedure, so there is apparently something about the sedative that affects susceptible pups. I was able to persuade Gaby to eat her daily doses of famotidine, which I mashed up in a teaspoon of food, as well as the odd hypoallergenic biscuit, and I took heart this evening when she lay on the kitchen floor next to King while I put together their supper instead of staying in the living room. I was prepared to go to the nearest pet supply big box to see what hypoallergenic foods they carried, but to my relief, I didn’t have to. Gaby ate her dinner, and was still hungry enough afterwards to munch on a biscuit, then hang around me while I ate dinner. No, I didn’t give her any. No people food.
For a sanity check, I dug through my blog archive for the posts I wrote when Gaby cut her leg on ice early last year. She was anesthetized prior to being stitched up, and she didn’t eat for about a day and a half after that. Once is a data point, but twice is a trend. I would have thought the sedative would be easier on her system than full-blown anesthesia. I guess not.
∂
I had planned to roast a chicken last Sunday, but made Ina Garten’s Tuscan Lemon Chicken instead. That left me with a couple of heads of fennel and a pound of carrots to do something with. Tuesday night I chopped them up, added a large sweet onion and some paper thin slices of lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted the whole mess. It tasted great with leftover chicken, but I made so much that I had, well, leftovers.
Tonight I dumped them into a pot along with some zucchini and red pepper I roasted over the weekend. Added a small container of veggie stock, simmered it for a while, then dumped everything into the food processor. The resulting soup was way too thick, so I added a half-liter of my homemade chicken stock. Had it with the last of the leftover chicken. Whole grain sourdough with butter. More a fall supper than a summer supper, but it was tasty and I have enough left for dinner tomorrow.
Hoping for a boring day.
