POOR BOOFER

A couple of nights ago, Boofer wasn't interested in eating his supper.  Boofer's the dog we took to the vet to have body clipped last month.  Didn't seem particularly sick, so I didn't worry about it.  Yesterday he wasn't interested in eating all day, although I did get some Tramadol down him in deli ham.  Had to poke him with some Predizone.  This morning when we checked him, he was sitting up, so I came in to scramble an egg to mix with cottage cheese.  Add a little green beans and you have an almost perfect "sick" diet for dogs.  Wasn't at all interested, but I checked his gums and they were WHITE, no color at all.  Local vet isn't open until 8am, so I hit the telephone book and found a clinic in Sierra Vista that opens at 7am and said bring him in.  Gave John a choice of taking him or feeding and he chose going to the vet.  So off they went.  

John has called along the way, when he got there the tech looked at his gums and he went directly in.  Drew blood, high calicum (possible tumor), low red blood cells, high white blood cells and low lymphatic cells.  They asked about poison, I don't know of anyone right around us that uses rat poison or anything like that.  But he's a wanderer and it's not that far to the next road north.  Their recommendation was a blood transfusion, which of course they don't do.  So the last I heard John and Boofer were headed for a Specialty clinic in Tucson.    Well, actually the phone just rang and it was John at the Tucson clinic.  This is something that I find "interesting" in vet clinics these days.  They give you an estimate before they do anything.  I find it strange they know what it will cost (will probably end up more) but they don't know what the problem is.  Seems like a disconnect there to me.  Maybe they are just finding out what your level of acceptance is.  I would imagine a lot of dogs and cats get euthanized at that stage.  They don't talk about 100's they go right to the 1000's.  

John said Boofer will probably have to stay at the clinic, for a few days. Wonder if they factored that in, now I'm getting snitty aren't I?  It might be a good thing John did go instead of me.......!!!!  LOL

Well at least the donkeys are all doing pretty good right now.  We had a group of kids out for a tour this morning from Caring Connections, a local group that works with at risk kids. They bring kids out 3 or 4 times a year, in fact one of the girls said she had been here before.  They do just fine, but there is usually at least one little boy that is a busy little bee, and sure enough..........  LOL  I remember years ago there was a group from Tucson that came out once a month.  One of the boys, actually he was probably late teens early 20's, with mental disabilities,  all he wanted to do was to get in the wash and dig in the sand.  He wasn't interested in the donkeys or listening to his handlers.  He'd almost run to the wash, being chased by someone.  I told them to let him go and let him dig if he wanted to.  One of the pleasures of living beyond the sidewalks, weird behavior can be tolerated without causing a crisis.  They said they couldn't let him do that, because he'd want to dig other places.  Poor kid, if digging made him happy, let him dig......!!! 

Anubis seems to be back to normal, I still think she had a stroke.  She had a spell like this in January and now this one.  If she has another one we'll take her to the Specialty clinic as the vet recommended.  If they tested her now, I doubt that they would find the cause, since she is back to normal.

Suppose to hit 100 degrees this week-end.  The last couple of days have been in the high 90's, so I guess we'll be use to it, by the time it gets here.  I just hope we don't have a long hot summer.  June is the hottest month in Tucson and then we're suppose to go into the monsoon season.  So far for the year we are a little over 1/2 inch above normal rainfall, which is really good.  But that won't last long if we don't get some rain in July and August.