aside from the fact that he was unbearable cute, one of the reasons why mo was such an appealing puppy for oats and i was the fact that he’s not likely to grow to be much larger than 30 lbs. that, combined with his young malleable mind, made him an ideal candidate to be groomed for our lifestyle: we needed a dog who could be trained to enjoy life as seen from a bike trailer on long journeys, because we have planned many of them for the upcoming years and would hate to leave him behind. besides which, it’d make our grocery runs a lot easier.
i have a big bike trailer made of hard plastic that is quite good for hauling stuff, but not so excellent for small puppies. luckily, oats found a metal-framed tent-style one for only $35 on cr@igslist, and it even folds away for easy storage. this afternoon was the first bit of mo-meet-trailer training: we got him an especially yummy/revolting bone, parked the trailer in the corner of the kitchen, propped it up to that it would be sturdy, and tucked inside his favourite blanket. as you can see from the photo, the experiment was a success… not only did the bone keep mo quietly playing for upwards of an hour, but after that he decided that the trailer would be an excellent spot for a nap.
a few more days of this, and we’ll try it outside… and then on the road, biking off into the sunset on crazy adventures together.
mo’s back home and up to his old tricks, albeit skinnier than he was earlier this week… if that’s possible! i suppose that when one’s metabolism is as fast as a puppy’s, losing a day’s nutrition is rather significant. we’re fattening him up with wet food mixed into his kibble, so hopefully his ribs will soon recede under a thicker layer of flesh. in the meantime, he didn’t even try to eat a single mushroom on this morning’s walk: a big relief.
mo spent some time this afternoon "helping" oats arrange art supplies in her studio
If your dog is a canine vacuum, avoid mushrooms. This is easier said than done, here on the wet coast in autumn, but it’s still important to keep in mind. Also, consider pet health insurance, because trips to the vet are expensive and it make take a costly test or three to confirm that poison is the cause of your dog’s distress.
Mo’s doing okay, though still staying at the hospital until this evening at the earliest. I am relieved, though feeling fragile. Also, even more exhausted than a few days ago. We’ve canceled the open house/puppy warming that we’d planned for tomorrow night, because it looks like none of us will want to do much beyond cuddle on the couch.
mo’s at the veterinary hospital, hopefully in recovery from an evening of severe gastric distress. we don’t know what caused it: it could be a reaction to the dewormer we gave him this morning, or a toxic effect from some mushroom he ate, or possibly a blockage in his digestive tract. when i took him to the park after school, he was in fine form, but apparently it all went downhill after i left home to meet a friend at the pub.
i’m trying to be optimistic, because i ought to: mo is in good hands, and they will take care of him as best they can. puppies can and do recover from all sorts of crises, including bad reactions/poisonous mushrooms/blockages. he is a strong little creature, and has a lot going for him.
i’m very grateful for excellent community support: when oats rang me at the pub to tell me what had happened, my friend drove me all the way to the hospital… and s.u.m. and captain pestou drove oats and mo to the hospital, then stayed with us through hours and hours of waiting. thank you, friends.
it’s almost 1 am and i’m going to bed, tired and fighting the bad worried feelings with logic and hope. this is the first time i’ve let myself get all wrapped up in a pet since my cat died 6 years ago, the first time i’d chosen an animal instead of having them just wander into my life… i’m trying hard to let this choice still be a good one.
our boy, earlier today at the park
Listening to the radio while washing post-breakfast dishes, I was sickened by a report that there is a bill before the Ugandan parliament to not simply outlaw homosexuality, but to make it a crime for a person to not report anyone they believe to be queer. I couldn’t turn off the program, not even as the journalist spoke of being unable to find a queer Ugandan willing to speak on-air for fear of persecution.
It absolutely terrifies me, to know that this is the reality for people like me in other parts of the world. I feel exhausted by classmates who don’t take me seriously when I object to their casual homophobia, and yet my frustration is just the tip of the iceberg for global human rights and respect.
S.U.M. happened by on a laundry run, and shared my anxious outrage as I hugged Mo, who kindly responded by falling asleep in my arms. It’s scary, agreed S.U.M., and I was relieved that she didn’t simply tell me it’s happening elsewhere so I shouldn’t worry. I *do* worry, because those same ideas of hate are what make queers unsafe the world over. Even when we aren’t being imprisoned and killed by others, we are being made to imprison and kill ourselves, out of fear and self-loathing generated by the same homophobic oppression.
You can listen to the podcast and read more on the webpage of CBC’s The Current.
Also, check out the blog of the blogger who did an email interview with The Current, Gay Uganda.
(In case it isn’t obvious, I did school tasks from home again today, and no, my mood has still not improved. In fact, I may never leave the house again… Though I suppose that would really limit my career prospects as an electrician, not to mention the annoyance it would cause my lover. Hmmmm. I’ll work on it.)
i woke up feeling like shit, and decided that going to school would not improve things. it turns out that staying home hasn’t been much better, but at least i can control my surroundings somewhat. also, it’s much nicer here, because oats and i spent saturday cleaning and organizing the house: i actually have a desk now, the bathroom isn’t icky, and the kitchen table is no longer covered in junk.
unfortunately, we’re dog-sitting again, and though i love dogs in general and have nothing personal against our latest visiting friend, he’s big and young and carries himself like a fucking mack truck. in fact, let’s make his blog name mack, because he’s moving in down the street and will no doubt become a regular fixture in our lives. anyway, mo’s about 1/6th of mack’s size, but that doesn’t stop them from wrestling and playing like a couple of… well, puppies. they are so engrossed in each other that most of mo’s discipline goes out the window, and mack’s not much better. the barking is driving me bonkers, and they won’t quit on their own. for my own sanity, i just forced a time-out, by shutting mo in his room and mack in the kitchen. now i’m going to take some drugs, and drink some tea, and possibly some gin as well.
boring blogger gets dog and becomes even more boring, by blogging only about said dog and posting boring photos of the circles under her eyes. once i get some sleep, i might consider how to not be boring.
I’m back. Actually I got back a few days ago, but hit the ground running and have barely slowed since. The entire trip to Ontario felt like that, in fact… I thought I’d be all relaxed and well-rested from not having to take a puppy out to pee in the middle of the night, but there was so much visiting to do. Oats and I shared at least one meal with both my sets of parents, both of my sisters, one of my stepbrothers plus his wife and two kids, my older sister’s partner, my older sister’s roommate, two friends of mine from high school, Oats’ parents, Oats’ grandparents, Oats’ long-time family friend, and Oats’ brother plus his wife and two kids. Twenty-four people in eight days. Fun, and exhausting. Upon our return, our landlady asked how the weather was and I said that I didn’t have a clue.
It’s good to be back.
Mo went to the vet tonight for his 2nd round of shots. It was a different doctor than the one we saw before, and she wasn’t quite as friendly. Among other things, she told us that he’s underweight, because his ribs are visible. We told her that her coworker had noted Mo’s skinny hips and long legs, and guessed that he’s part whippet, in which case he is naturally very thin. At this point, he barely weighs 10 lbs, and yet we’ve been feeding him the designated amount of kibble for that size of dog since we got him 4 weeks ago! We’re going to increase it now, but still… I think he’s just a bony sort of animal.
Whatever.
I’m cranky, and need to sleep now. I’m just glad to have such a good pup as Mo, and that he’s generally healthy and a pleasure to all he meets.
Mo at 13 weeks of age, sitting pretty in the special bed his Auntie has made for him in her kitchen, so that he can be part of the action and yet also comfortable (and fashionable).
marisa from food in jars was right: that dill pickle recipe of hers works just as well with zucchini as with cucumber. i used one of those massive zukes, cutting it into spears like i did for the cucumbers, and made many jars. they are crisp and delicious!
it turns out that the farmer for whom i was doing this actually doesn’t like dill pickles, but she was gracious about it and said she’d give them away as gifts. this same farmer also recently told me that she had more green tomatoes for me, but if i wanted to make more salsa, requested that i please leave out the curry.
huh?
i suggested that she was referring to the cumin with which i lightly flavoured the salsa, and farmer insisted that no, it was definitely “curry”.
sure, whatever, i said, mentally noting that the client does not like cumin.
this prompted oats and i to make mean jokes about honkies who don’t know spice, cuz that’s the kind of (honky) snobs we are.
i ran out of jars last week. there were a few 1 litre ones kicking around, but there was nothing that i’d want to use for the jam or pickles that were on my to-do list.
after turning up nothing at any of the thrift stores (!!!), and getting no answer from any of the online classified ads to which i replied, i broke down and did something i’d never done before… like, ever: i went to s@feway and bought a dozen new 250 mL jars.
they cost $15!!! ack!
then i got a phone call from one of the ads: 9 dozen salmon canning jars for $40, and they’d even deliver. woo hoo! i returned the new jars to the grocery store, breathing a sigh of relief that i wouldn’t have to break my pledge to keep a small(er) footprint with this canning obsession.
one of my classmates is a former logger from a small coastal community, and i asked him if he fished, hoping for a free salmon hook-up. turns out that he’d done a lot of crab fishing between forest contracts, but paid top price for his fish just like everyone else. yesterday, he brought me a jar of his salmon, and asked for the jar back; i did him one better, and returned from my trip home at lunch with a jar of dill pickles instead.
we’re leaving at an unholy hour tomorrow morning for our trip to ontario, and i’m trying to get a million things done while a puppy tries to sleep on my lap. i’m going to miss him.
latest batch of bread-and-butter pickles at left, salmon in jar turned on side in rear centre, zucchini dill pickle in bowl at front centre, jar of zucchini dills at right.
looking up at me from in the puppy room, po at left and mo at right
cuddling on their aunty s.u.m.’s lap, mo at left and po at right
mo’s sister is staying with us for the next 5 days. her name is a word that is most often used to refer to the end of the world, but we’ll call her po for short.
the theory is that two puppies will keep each other busy and tire one another out, resulting is better dogs. in practice, it’s been quite noisy and rather violent. the brief hours since she has been chez nous, they have fought so much that po has a neat scrap of fur missing from her left shoulder, though no skin was broken.
usually, mo roughhouses for a good 1/2 hour, then crashes on the closest lap in a deep sleep for the same amount of time. not so with these two pups together: they chased (terrorized?) one another for over an hour and a half, barking and growling and bouncing off the walls. now they’re sleeping, but only because oats and i have each held one of them firmly in our arms until they calmed down.
i’m damned glad we have the puppy room, originally a walk-in closet coming off the bedroom. when i first moved in here over a year ago, i took down half the shelving in the closet to hang my bicycles, and used the rest of the space for clothing and milk crates of art supplies/tools. once oats and i moved back here together and we knew that mo was coming to live with us, oats spent an evening re-purposing a wooden book shelf by making it into a beautiful gate on a hinge with a big brass latch, spanning the closet doorway. the floor is the same fake wood laminate as the rest of the apartment, which is easy to mop: voila, a puppy-den was born! even as they play rough with one another, mo and po can be safely contained. unfortunately, it doesn’t stop their noise from carrying.
