vel's journaly thing

Rembrandt's allergies have flared up again over the past couple of weeks. No clue what he's actually allergic to, but every spring and fall he gets this weird skin allergy where tons of little bloody spots/scabs appear all over him (not fleas, he's been checked and treated for those, and he's an indoor cat). I always hope they'll clear up on their own, but they just kind of get worse and worse until I get him dosed with prednisone for about a week. Anyway, I still have lots of prednisone around, but I wanted the vet to see him because he recently developed a big nasty sore raw spot on his cheek, and I wanted to know what further treatment that might need. So for the next week he's on antibiotics for that plus the prednisone.

He also had his blood and urine checked since it's been a while since we did that, and his numbers need to be monitored for kidney issues. While he's on prednisone I have to give him the subcutaneous fluids again because it's hard on his kidneys. He first went to the vet and was diagnosed with kidney disease back in September, so he got put on a renal diet and daily fluid injections then. But I quit giving him fluids around December because he just got so horrible about it, it was impossible to hold him still and get much of anything in him. So we just went with the diet alone after that and hoped that'd be enough. Good news, everyone! < / Professor Farnsworth > His numbers are all back to being well in the normal zone, and he's gained weight. It's looking more like what he had wasn't kidney disease, but rather some sort of acute kidney malady that's since corrected itself. I'm still going to keep him on the renal health diet, of course, but it's good to know that he's doing so well! It makes sense because the first time I took him in back in September was the only time he was actually acting out of the ordinary, like he wasn't feeling well. He's been back to his normal happy self ever since then. =)

Now if only we could figure out how to cure his allergies!

I didn't get a chance to mention this earlier due to the move and everything, but we did finally have to end good old Smoky's suffering on Saturday, September 22nd. He had cancer in the entire upper part of his mouth and could no longer eat; we kept him on pain meds for a while, but it was obvious he was in horrible pain even with them. He was born in May of 1994 and was 13 years old.

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So in the midst of all the wedding craziness, I've neglected to mention a couple of new things we have around here...

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Hehe...new icons =)



Guess who singed her whiskers while investigating a lit candle earlier today... =P

YARGH!! Well, I *was* going to go to class today, but Sequoia decided to ruin that plan. Somehow she's figured out how to escape from the dogs' section of the yard through a narrow opening between the shed and where the fence ends. Today it's raining, and somehow when she does this she manages to get covered in water and mud. Of course I didn't know any of this, so when I went outside to feed the dogs breakfast, I was met by a mud rocket barreling toward me. I'm surprised no one called the police from the way I screamed! *l* I locked the dogs up inside to eat while I tried to fix the fence, so of course I got covered in mud and water as well. By the time I had finally managed to block the opening, there was no way I could have gotten to class in time. So instead I just stayed outside since I was wet already and took some pictures of Simba sitting on the fence. Argh. DOGS. I am SO completely a cat person!

I've finally returned from my house sitting job. It's hard to go without the internet for five days! They did have satellite TV, though, and I found a channel that showed pretty much nothing but stuff about horses and horse training. I need to look up what RFD-TV stands for.

Anyway, overall I enjoyed my time at their house in the woods. It was up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere and so very peaceful; it was like going camping with just myself and a bunch of animals. The dog went with me everywhere as a sort of companion and guardian. He's a great big golden retriever and does a good job protecting the house. Once in a while he would start barking at something and chase it off; this morning he scared away something...I couldn't really tell what it was through the trees, but it was pretty big. I felt safer out there with him because the owner told me there are mountain lions around! But every morning he would also run off where I couldn't find him and then come running back after a while. I don't know where he was going but I didn't like him being way out of earshot. Plus when he came back he had this look on his face like he'd been getting into trouble :p

Every morning and evening I spent about 1 1/2 - 2 hours taking care of all the critters. There were four horses, and each had to get their own special mix of grain and supplements and medications, then some hay. Three of the horses are very friendly but one of them is skittish and doesn't like to be touched, so I just left her alone. Today I caught a mouse in the hay! I kept seeing one everytime I went into the hay shed, but today it got into my wheelbarrow; it must have been hiding in the flakes of hay I took. I let it go outside. One of the horses is on stall rest for tendon problems, so after feeding I had to walk him for five minutes. That doesn't sound very long, but for some reason that part always felt like it took forever. I also had to squirt medicine into his mouth every other morning. Finally all the stalls had to be cleaned and rebedded.

After the horses I took care of the chickens; I was kind of nervous about being around those birds at first, but I got over that quickly. The chickens were all perfectly harmless, I just let them out in the yard and watched them peck and scratch for about 20 minutes, then cooped them back up. There were usually a few stubborn ones that wouldn't go in when I chased them, so I had to pick them up and carry them inside. The first time I tried that I was worried it would bite me or something, but they didn't care at all. I like bird feathers, they're so soft. Other than that all I had to do for them was make sure their food and water were clean and collect eggs. These hens laid green eggs which I thought were interesting and the owner let me keep them.

After the six chickens I fed the dog and four cats inside. They were all friendly except for one cat; for the first two days I thought I had somehow accidently let him outside and lost him. But then he finally came out of hiding and I occasionally caught glimpses of him. The other three cats were practically overly friendly. Two of them sat on me all the time; the other one lives in the kitchen and won't leave it, but anytime I was in there she demanded my attention.

The hardest part of this job was getting up before dawn to feed the horses and trying to sleep. I think the getting up would have been easier if I had been able to get much sleep at night, but I couldn't really thanks to all the animals in the bed. The huge dog and two of the cats took up much of the space on the bed, plus the dog put his head on my feet and one of the cats kept sleeping on my chest, so I couldn't really move or get comfortable. I kept waking up every few hours, so that wasn't much fun. They did keep the bed warm, though. It was always cold up there in mountains.

I feel like I should write something, but I don't really have anything to say. Oh wait, yes I do: I hate writing phrase structure rules!!! This is a thousand times worse than doing the transcription I mentioned before. Now I have to take that transcription and write a rule for how every single utterance was formulated. There are over 175 of them! So far my partner and I have spent something like 7 hours working on it, and we're barely halfway through. It's due on Monday and it looks like we'll be working on it all weekend. I also have a paper I need to start working on, as well as a couple of presentations, all of which are due in about two weeks. Yay.

In other news, someone at my dad's work is apparently looking for a house/pet sitter for a long 5 day weekend. I'll probably call her tomorrow if she doesn't call me first; I could always use extra money, and I'd love to take care of her horses, cats, dogs, and chickens. Well, maybe not the chickens but I'd do it anyway. Birds kind of scare me with their sharp beaks and claws. I still wouldn't mind another house sitting job, though. I miss the kitties from my last one.

I can't think of anything else. I need some new clothes. I absolutely hate clothes shopping, but I need more "teachery" type outfits to wear when I teach the writing lab on Wednesdays. I don't really need to dress professionally, but I want to, just so people can tell me apart from the students if nothing else.

I made a post full of cute horsey pictures, which can be seen here (when Photobucket starts working again anyway!): Baaaaaby Animals