Down the Pie Hole

Ivy and I went hiking in the National Forest with my friend Julie and her Rhodesian Ridgeback, Kylie, one morning this week. Everything was going well, meaning that Ivy was slightly curtailing her exuberance due to Kylie's fairly shy nature. We were hiking along, everybody was pointed in the same direction (trust me, if you hike with your dogs you know how difficult this can sometimes be), and we spotted something red and gooey just up ahead. Julie sucked in her breath, I believe because she thought it was a chewed up critter. Ivy normally leaves those types of things alone, so I knew by the way she was running to it that it was something sweeter than carcass. As it turns out, it was actually an entire pie, of what looked to be the strawberry variety, right there on the trail. Seriously? Somebody left a perfectly good pie on a hiking trail? When you start seeing pies on hiking trails you really have to wonder where our country is headed. Just seeing such a lovely pie on the trail makes me feel both morally degraded and utterly dejected. I love pie.

This is a close approximation of what the pie
looked like. I would have taken a picture, but
it was down the gullet within a matter of seconds,
so this stock photography will have to suffice.

Hungry Much?

You know those pieces of massive machinery that crush cars into tiny cubes of metal? Yeah, I have one of those. Let me start at the beginning.

Our vet recently told us that Milo's esophagus is at least 25 times larger than it should be, which basically means that when looking at a lateral radiograph, the edges of his esophagus run closely parallel with both his spine and his sternum. That is a widely-diametered piece of tubing there. Basically what happens in a dog with megaesophagus is that the esophagus is so stretched out that it doesn't constrict to force the food downward into the stomach. So we have had to drastically change the manner in which we feed Milo, as well as changing the schedule to accommodate quatro-feeding (my term for feeding four times a day). Milo lacks any real strength in his hindquarters and if he sits, he often needs help getting up. So we have to have Milo sit on a pillow, making his esophagus completely perpendicular to the ground. This increases his chances of the food he ingests (as opposed to the food he throws into the air while sitting and which ends up on his back) actually reaching the stomach rather than just sitting in that stretched out esophagus and quickly making its way back out.

I think that the quatro-feeding makes him hungry, as he's only fed small meals throughout the day. He's never been much of a grazer. More of a gorger. This was once a full-sized can of dog food with a label. Now it's just scrap metal, completely licked clean both inside and out.

So thoroughly compacted that there aren't even
air pockets that would allow an ant to survive for 60 seconds.

How much can you get for pre-crushed scrap metal anyway? Honestly, with the vast amounts of money we've spent at the vet this year, I think we may be entitled to making use of this new skill of Milo's.

I am beginning to see a pattern in both Milo and Ivy's eating patterns. Milo has progressed from inedibles, and now tends to stick with things that are digestible, mostly foodstuffs with the occasional cardboard or paper casualty depending upon how badly he wants to eat something that is encased in such a material. Ivy just plain eats anything that was not meant to be ingested: wooden knitting needles, shoes, sticks, plastic, rocks, chicken feathers - you name it, she's happily eaten it.

I Thought We Were Over This

I really did. I thought Ivy was pretty much through her chewing stage. The last thing she chewed was the sad shoe all the way back in January. Evidently I was wrong.

I went out of town last week and left the dogs in Mike's capable hands. I was gone for 4 days and Mike stayed home during those 4 of those days with the dogs. However, he was called away to something called "work" and had to leave the dogs home one day. Since Milo is having health issues, and Ivy suffers from some type of syndrome that makes her absolutely obsessed with going outside every 15 minutes, my super sweet friend Kim dropped by in the middle of the day to check on things and let them outside. She subsequently called me in a slight panic, asking if an ingested wooden knitting needle would create much of a problem in a dog. I sighed, said no, as it was explained to me that the needle was really just chewed to shreds, and went about my day thinking that it was a bit of a bummer that I had lost a knitting needle to Ivy's boredom and obvious growing frustration with my extended absence. When I got home from my trip, I saw that Mike had left the knitting "needle" on the kitchen table for me to see, but alas, it was not just one knitting needle. No. It was about 15.



I've had these knitting needles in the same basket for about 2 years now with no problems. Now I just have an empty basket. Oh, the humanity.

Use As Directed

Adding to his long list of ailments, Milo is in the full throes of megaesophagus. I'll spare you the details - google it if you are interested. Let's just say it is a noisy illness and I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in about 2 weeks. Thus, more medications are needed. Getting meds from the vet is pretty expensive - $28 for 30 tablets as opposed to $27 for 100 tablets from 1800petmeds. I've ordered tons of medications from online veterinary pharmacies, and it is my understanding that their primary function is to provide drugs for veterinary purposes only. In other words, don't expect to be able to get your own prescriptions filled via an online, again may I stress, veterinary pharmacy.

Imagine my surprise when I was inspecting the plastic vial that came in the mail filled with Milo's prescription:

"May cause drowsiness. Alcohol may intensify this effect.
Use care when operating a car or dangerous machinery."

This is the extra sticker that they put on the prescription vial when there is a potential for an adverse drug interaction. Placing this sticker on the vial is an action that actually takes human effort, and, one would think, some rudimentary research to determine if there is indeed a possibility for a detrimental effect. And so I am left wondering what actually facilitated the necessity for this sticker on a veterinary prescription.

So great. We have to take away Milo's alcohol stash. And have you ever tried to take the car keys away from an ancient Great Dane? I am not anticipating that it will go well. Nor will taking away his dangerous machinery.

Even a Surfing Accident Can Turn Into Things Great Danes Eat

After re-reading this post to check for spelling errors, it occurs to me that this is one of the more disgusting posts on this blog. You know how you shudder and gag when you find just one hair where it's not supposed to be? This story is about a whole chunk of hair, so consider yourself forewarned.

I have been feeling the urge to purge the house of unnecessary items lately, and in the process I have been reorganizing pretty much everything in our lives. Mike and I recently went to Hawaii and surfed on the North Shore, which was, as I'm sure you can guess, utterly fantastic.

So I was cleaning out of drawer of surf accoutrements and I came upon one of my rash guards (for those who don't surf, this is a garment worn to keep you from getting these nasty rashes from your board - depends upon the board whether I wear one or not). When we got home from Hawaii I washed everything (really, I swear I did) and folded it up and put it all away nicely in a drawer. For some reason, this week I decided there was a better drawer for these things. When I pulled out one particular rash guard a lock of hair fell from it.

This is where we surfed. Obviously we aren't surfing in
this picture, but I can hardly take a photo while standing
still, let alone while standing on a surfboard.

I know this is gross and maybe you will stop reading at this point. But I will explain. I wear my hair in two pigtails when I surf. As you may or may not know, wet hair is much more fragile than dry hair. I got hit by a particularly nasty wave one day and knocked my head on the board, which resulted in a scalping that pretty much decapitated a good chunk of my hair from my head. I now have bangs when I really didn't want them, but you work with what you have. But I digress. So this lock of hair that must have just gotten stuck on the inside of the rash guard fell out and onto the floor, whereupon not 2 seconds later Ivy scarfed it down. I think it was because it was salty from the seawater.

So, grossly, add "salted hair" to the list of Things Great Danes Eat.

emmi is here!

And by "emmi is here," I sadly do not mean that we have adopted another Great Dane named emmi. Nor have we gotten the pig that I have been wanting. More on that later.

Moving on! Very exciting things happening over here. I have begun a collar and leash business, and they are now in local stores! emmi is an acronym standing for "emily, mike, milo & ivy." If you are in the Evergreen, Colorado area and would like to see examples, please stop by Bella Vita.





Not only does Michele carry my products, she also has an excellent selection of sweet-smelling, organic, soft, lovely home goods. And of course, being ever mindful of appropriate themes, behold this adorable dog (named Bella, of course) made of recycled magazines that Michele has adopted to watch over the collars and leashes:

Bella

I have about 30 styles so far, and custom orders are available. I am working on my website and etsy shop. You can check it out here (www.emmilovespets.com), but please don't set your internet shopping expectations high. I am not winning at internet right now. Check back soon though for updates!

Sick Puppy

sick puppy

It seems that all the organic, inorganic, unidentifiable, and truly disgusting things that Milo has eaten over a lifetime of 11 1/2 years has finally caught up with him. After three weeks of severe gastrointestinal issues, Milo has at last been diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Disease. I say, if I were Milo's bowels, I would be irritated too.

Some things Milo has eaten in the past 11 years that stand out include, but are in no way limited to:

Cell phone;
box of tea bags;
doggie diapers;
photographs;
books;
one over-sized stuffed chair;
empty ziplock bags;
bamboo knitting needles;
3 pairs of glasses (totally my fault. I had a fairly steep learning curve regarding proper storage of my glasses).

Seriously, I can't believe it's taken this long for his bowels to become so irritable.