What a couple of weeks!!!

 Hello from paradise.

Did you know that paradise is full of non-paradise things?  One is Rat Lung Worm Disease for which I give the dogs special medicine to keep that from happening, and another is feral pigs.  Volcanos, lava, etc. can be worrisome sometimes.  Mostly it is paradise though.

On March 2nd, Reese, Kathleen's Border Terrier, encountered a feral pig.  The pig put some holes in her right arm and I got to sew that up.  You already know that if you read the last blog.  Yesterday, I took the stitches out and she looks very well.  The wounds have closed nicely and no one will ever be able to even see her scar under that lavish coat she carries around.  Today there was a pig outside my yard driving my girls bananas, grunting as it went along the fence, ignoring the dogs barking at it and me yelling at it to go away.  It couldn't care less about us.  Luckily, I have a chain link fence and they can't come into my yard.

On March 3rd, poor Mer/Mermaid and I experienced eclampsia.  I had never seen it and hadn't known to look out for it.  My super friend, Nancy, told me what it was when I sent her a video of Mer's legs stiff and shaking.  I threw some calcium into her and headed for the vet.  The vet gave her a regimen to follow and we came home, loaded down with Tums (calcium,) and yogurt, etc.  She did OK until the 9th when it happened again.  I was told to keep the puppies away from her except that two could nurse once every two hours.  That means I feed the other four, every two hours.  It is working, they still look fat and healthy and I look tired.  Nancy helped my by giving me recipes for making puppy food and she even made me yogurt in her InstaPot.  I make up the formula and feed it to the pups.  Kathleen and I painted the puppies with fingernail polish (which falls off them fast), but I need to know who is who so that they each get a chance to nurse on mom.  I'm not sure, but I think some of them are tired of the formula and want to only suck on mom instead of on a sponge full of formula.  I'd vote for that, but I will continue the sponge thing to protect Mer Mom.  

Nancy thinks that they will soon be up and around enough that they will start eating off a plate.  I am hoping.  Since they opened their eyes the day they were thirteen days old, they have been doing better and better about walking on four feet.  They have a LONG way to go in that department, but they are getting better at it.  I am thinking I will soon be seeing if they will eat off a saucer.  Fingers crossed.  I'm sure that they will eat it, but figure for awhile that more will be on the whelping pen blankets than in their tummies!  This too will pass.  

As far as floods, we didn't have one in Hawi.  Maui and Kauai were hit the hardest, I think.  There were gullies full of water roaring down to the ocean near Hilo, that side of the island, but the Kona side no.  Kona side is the dry side and we feel lucky to get rain.  Hawi, where the dogs, Kathleen and I live, is kind of on the line between dry and wet.  The perfect "side."  We are up at the north tip of the Big Island.

So there, all is well, as well as can be expected.  

Aloha from Curmudgeonville

What a day!!!

 Yesterday took all!  I awoke at about 0500 to my phone going off.  It was my daughter.  She wanted me to go get Reese and take her to the vet.  She had been hurt by a feral pig in their yard!  Luckily, Kathleen caught that rascally Border Terrier before the pig got away and Reese chased her down into the gully by Kathleen's house.  Reese might not have survived that!  Kathleen had loaned her car to my sister and was walking to work every day.  Of course I jumped into the car FAST and picked up Reese and tried to console Kathleen. 

Who needs vets?!!!  Not really, I totally don't mean that, BUT, I stitched up people for many years, why couldn't I stitch up Reese?  Kathleen, when she was young, had a cat who had developed a cancer.  I took big lumps off of her and extended her life for a couple of years.  So, why not try?!  With the help of my son's girlfriend, who happened to be around, I injected Reese with lidocaine, shaved off the hair around the wounds, cleaned the areas and sewed her up.  She didn't like it, but with lidocaine, she didn't fight me.  The lidocaine was the hardest part.  

The entire rest of the day, my shoulder muscles were in a knot, but that has mostly gone away now.  Above are the before and after pictures.  She limped for a bit of the day, but fairly soon, she was walking as if nothing had happened!  I wasn't about to throw a ball for her, but I'm pretty sure she would have run after it and jumped for it AND caught it!  She has even forgiven me for hurting her with the lidocaine.  That's a Border Terrier for you!

Feral pigs are rampant here.  They walk around town during the night, and are in the fields surrounding the houses pretty much all the time.  They are lethal to dogs.  Too bad they aren't lethal to mongoose!  

Kathleen, as one would think, was beside herself all day long.  I tried to tell her that Reese was doing well, but I don't think that she believed me until I took Reese to her after work and she saw the girl who acted as if NOTHING like what had happened had happened.  Could one of US have done that?  I doubt it.  Anyway, Kathleen turned happy after seeing her best friend doing so well.

Now you want to know, why there isn't a fence keeping the pigs out.  There is a pile of posts growing in the yard and all the other stuff needed for said fence.  I am thinking that it will be up very soon, but life in the islands is awfully nice and sometimes it takes a long time for things to get done as the surf might be up or a poker game or one must go fishing for dinner, etc.  It is also fairly hard to find anyone who will work, but our worker is on the ball and getting it all ready.  Soon Reese will be able to go outside and not have to be on a lead.  

The babies are doing well.  Yesterday, four of the six had weighed over a pound and two more were close behind.  They are a week old today and in six days will have their eyes open.  I, so far, know of two people who are coming to stay here and pick up their babies close to the beginning of May.  I am hoping to keep one of the boys myself.  It is always fun to see how they grow.  I LOVE puppies.  When they are able to run around in the grass, we will spend most of our days outside in the side yard under an avocado tree and I will watch them learn to climb, jump, balance, investigate, wrestle with the others and do all kinds of puppy things.  It is exciting just thinking about it.

I discovered some black bamboo in my yard yesterday, all in pieces.  My tenant had brought them in after I had planted a row of them alone the front to, hopefully, keep some of the noise of the road out of the yard.  He wants to see if he can bonzai bamboo.  Interesting.  

Kathleen had her first vaccination for COVID-19 yesterday.  She works in a medical office.  They won't vaccinate anyone younger than 75 in this state, at least not yet, so I have not had my vaccination.  I'm more than glad that COVID-19 doesn't get dogs, at least not MOST dogs.  

Didn't you just want to have me babble on and on.  You don't ever have to read the entire thing, you know!  I guess I'd better stop this and go hang another orchid in the lychee tree and make sure the two youngster girls are not getting into trouble.  I have them in the back/side yard, away from Reese.  They are too rambunctious and could tear open her wounds.  Reese will not be back with them for quite a while.  She'll just have to put up with me!

I hear babies calling.  Better go see who can't find mom because they got themselves wrapped up in a blanket or some such.  Believe it or not, it is cold here, for Hawaii and puppies can't control their temps.

Goodbye for the day,  The Curmudgeon

Perseverance. We waited long enough!

Yesterday, February 24, 2021, Mer, aka Mermaid or Elwha's Siren of the Deep Blue, gave me six puppies.  The first was a girl and weighted almost 7 ounces.  She was the smallest.  The last, and largest, was a girl, 8.9 ounces.  In between were two more girls and two boys.  All are doing well and quickly figured out how the milk bar works.  They are quite mobile and I have to find them in the blankets and dog beds that are in the whelping box to keep them on soft bedding and to keep them warm.  Warm, you say?!!!!  Yes, it is winter in Hawaii and the wind is blowing quite hard today and last night.  Puppies are born wet and that can be cold.  I tented the whelping box/elevated bed and they dried out quite nicely and then they stayed warm all night and today.  I have the windows closed.  Babies do not have the ability to control their temperatures as more mature beings do.  Mom/Mer is keeping them nice and warm giving out warm milk/colostrum and cuddling them.  These babies will all be grizzles even though their mother is a blue.  Dad obviously doesn't have a blue gene to share.  

Some of the people getting a puppy are already making plane reservations to come pick up their babies and have some days of warmth in Hawaii.  Others don't yet know that they are getting one!  I need to start calling people.  Some puppies will fly cargo to get to the mainland and others will fly in the cabin.  

Dad is Duke who recently moved to Federal Way near Seattle.  He has now learned what snow is and also what a TV is.  Roger says that he loves TV, especially when there is a dog involved in whatever is playing.  The first full day Duke was in Washington, he ran away from something that scared him in front of a pet store and was lost for three days.  That was a scary thing, but the "club" of people known as Lost Dogs In King County found him and returned him to Roger.  Thank goodness.  A very nice man saved him from being run over by a car as Duke weaved in and out of cars on a busy arterial.  Never again will Duke wear any kind of a collar besides a Martingale!

I didn't think that I could get a picture on here.  I'll try to get more on here that show the pups, soon.  I cheated and stole this from a text I sent to my daughter last night.  She couldn't come over and see the pups because she loaned her car to my sister whose truck is in the garage.  (I am thinking of getting a truck the next vehicle I have.  I love my Prius and the mileage it gets, but I live in a place where one does NOT want a low to the ground car.  Crazy thing scrapes the ground too often for my liking.  Oh well, it will be awhile still before I can afford a new vehicle.)  

Border Terrier puppies are always born black.  One might well think that these babies are going to be blues, but no.  They will get lighter and lighter in color and end up whatever shade of grizzle they will be at about seven months of age.  Blues don't have a brown head, except for their eyebrows which are a brown line, much like a Rottweiler's. These guys have black at the tips of the brown hairs covering their heads.  

I guess that I have prattled on long enough.  All I really wanted to say was HOORAY!  PUPPIES!

Later, The Curmudgeon