Two Dogs - Two Vet Clinics - One Day

 Yesterday was a very busy, pre-planned vet day for us.

First up was Hailey's second follow up with the neurologist. After a good poop on the floor, Hailey went with the assistant for her exam. Her neurologist came back to say everything looks ok. She is less tippy, her eyes aren't doing the flutter thing they were at first meeting. Her head tilt is still there and may be there forever, or may get better over time. She has put on 1.1kg but that is likely do to all the eating thanks to the steroids. It appears all of this was just old dog vestibular disease that for some unknown reason needed some help from steroids to clear up.

Hopefully now that she is off steroids the hair on her head will grow back!

She does have some little tweak in her back and a slow response in her right back paw. We are not exploring this further as it doesn't seem to cause much pain and realistically, we won't be doing spinal surgery (which is likely what would be required).

The neruology clinic is in a neat round building

The neurologist asked us to let her know how she does and said while she really enjoyed meeting us, she hopes to not see us again. I told her the feeling was mutual. So we left with as clean a bill of heath as we could and this 2 month odyssey is over. 

Yesterday also happened to be the day Phod got his monthly arthritis shot. My terrified boy was very friendly with a new dog. He waited patiently and accepted the shot right in the lobby because they were super busy and didn't want us to wait any longer. He didn't enjoy waiting to pay.

I thought this was very cute, a list of all of the day's patients. 

Beau and his Lady had asked if we had tried anti-nausea drugs for Phod before, as going in the car is hard for him. Yes, we have tried all the things and no matter what we give him, if he eats, he vomits. I am happy to report that he had breakfast around 7 am, and was able to go into the car at 6 pm without vomiting today. He was happy to have a late dinner.

As these shots are so helpful, we will go back next month and will continue to do so until they aren't helpful anymore.

Yesterday I spent 3 hours in the car and 1 hour in vet clinics yesterday and she is honestly grateful to be able to provide this level of care to us both. 

Wordless Wednesday - Autumn Colours

 

Travel Tuesday - North To Alaska - Day 8 - Ketichican

Welcome to second last post about my trip with my mom to Alaska this past summer. 

Our last port before ending the cruise in Vancouver was Ketchikan Alaska. Home just over 8000 people, it is the oldest surviving city in Alaska, officially founded in 1900. It is also known as the first city because of its strategy position in the inside passage. Historically, this area was a fishing spot for the Tlingit peoples. 

Our ship was in port outside the town so we had to take a shuttle bus to town. It was a lot of waiting. From town, we took another bus to meet our local guide and go on an almost private tour. One other woman from our ship has also booked this off ship tour. 

It was here while waiting for the second bus, I realized, I had been in Alaska for a week and had no pictures of seaplanes! Many people in Alaska have planes as there are often not roads connecting towns. There are 12 planes for every 1000 people.  

Nice to see women represented in statues

The first stop on our tour was a fish ladder. The salmon were running late this year and there were many that just didn't show up well in the picture. What is a fish ladder you may ask? It is a human made structure that helps fish migrate by creating passages over or around obstacles. 

Our next stop was to a hatchery to look for bears. If you guessed we didn't see a bear, you are correct. But we did get to see a juvenile bald eagle,

a seal,

the eagle and the seal together,

and this little bird,

while being surrounded by this. 

Next we had a quick stop at Rainbow Falls. 

Our last stop was Saxman Totem Pole Park, which has the largest collection of standing totem poles in the world.

Totem poles had different purposes. There are some that are memorial totems and mortuary ones (they contain the box with the ashes). These 'parts' were from a memorial totem to a great chief. 

There are shame or ridicule totems. 

This one is of US Secretary of State Seward. He had been invited to a potlatch (ceremonial feast where the hosts give gifts to all invitees) and had not returned the generosity to his hosts. It was customary, that when you held your next potlatch, you would give more than you had received. If in his life time Seward had made amends, this pole would have been burnt down. In more recent times, his dependents had looked into righting this wrong. However, it was estimated, in today's dollars to return the generosity from the potlatch, would be several million dollars. The family did not want to pay that, so he remains on the pole.

Then there are poles that commemorate events. This pole recognizes two clans coming together when white men arrived. Ab Lincoln at the top, was the model for the white man.

There are poles that tell legends and past down history.

The park is also home to a long house. 

We arrived at Saxman's at the end of the day so did not get to see the master carvers, who are keeping this beautiful and amazing tradition, at work. 

Mom and I did ask the woman who was with us to take a picture together. Unfortunately, even with a phone, this was too much for the lady and we did not get a picture! Our guide was kind enough to drive us right back to our ship, so we skipped the shuttle buses.

Come back next week while we wrap up this adventure!

Pause For A Moment

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to pause. The world is a challenging place right now. There are natural disasters and there are man made disasters causing hell on earth. There are no winners in all that is happening.  Lady is at a loss of what to do. She has been thinking a lot of Aunty-Yam's posts about how we need the big ell Love and wishing she knew how to send it to those in need. 

Today, she says we just pause and acknowledge all the hurt, pain and terror, because that is what we can do.  We can know all the ugly is there and we can hold it and feel it and sit with it.  We hope the universe shows us how we can help in a more tangible way. But for now, this is what we can do. 

Please take a moment today to pause and send love to all those hurting and living in terror.  

We will be back to regular programming tomorrow. 

Nature Friday - The Change Continues

.Thanks Rosy and Sunny for hosting this event. You can visit our dear friends HERE 

Let's check in on how our colours are doing. These pictures were taken on a Saturday.

Week one

Week two

Week 3

Now looking toward the lake

Week one

Week 2

Week 3

The colour is coming!

We had record setting temperatures - they type that are a little alarming living with client change last week. For the first time ever in October, we had not one, but 3 consecutive days where the daytime temperature was over 30C/86F. These are summer temperatures. We want for a hike in the sugar bush one day after work. 

On leash only because he wouldn't stop eating poop

There are some spooky things starting to appear in the bush. More on that in the coming days.

Lady is sad to report her sunflowers got too heavy. 

They brought joy while they lasted, just like the deer and turkies by the apple tree brought joy (and maybe some barking). 

We hope you enjoyed some of the autumn happening around our place. 

We Didn't Get Left at Home For Once

We had something extra special to be thankful for on Thanksgiving, we got to go to the celebrations. 

Big clouds - it has been a rather rainy weekend

First we had to drive for 87 million hours (about an hour and a half in people time). Phod didn't get breakfast so was a bit stressed before we left, but not as sick in the car.

Visiting with Grammie

Once there, Lady, Man and Uncle Chris had some outside things to do to help Grammie and the Big Guy, so we barked a lot.

Phod meets a doll

Then Aunt C and her family came. Our human cousin T is very scared of us. We don't know why. We didn't even bark when he came in. Apparently some people don't like dogs!

Mostly is was Hailey scouring the floor for any crumbs, Phod trolling for scratches and just hanging around while people talked and talked and talked.

Chillin'

We each got the smallest ever piece of turkey, hardly worth it. 

Trying to nap

Then after another 87 million hours we were home, and very tired because there was just enough going on with the 9 people there to really impact our ability to nap. 

Wordless Wednesday - Thankful for her