Bed Sweet Bed

Getting to bed is at the top of my priority list right now, so that's what I'm posting about. Daun recently mentioned that her pharaoh hound scorns any human who attempts to sleep in the bed whilst she is there, and it made me realize that Tilley, Willow and Watson (plus Pepper) have it pretty rough compared to the dogs of some FFF readers. They have a couch to themselves in our mud room and several dog beds scattered around, but they are not allowed on the furniture or in the human bed. (Or not by me, anyhow...who knows what they get up to when I'm not around.) We used to have a regular bed with dog beds on the floor beside it, but I got tired of tripping on them a couple of years ago and ordered this instead. The dogs get the bottom bunk with a queen-sized futon in a vinyl cover, and we get the top bunk complete with heated mattress pad. Nighty night!

I Resolve to Resolve My Vet Bills

Welcome to 2009. We managed to keep the kids awake with back-to-back episodes of Most Extreme Elimination (one of my many guilty pleasures in life) and some rousing rounds of Stamp Stamp Revolution (thanks Daun -- that one is going to stick). It was all very pleasant.

I'm sad to report that 2008 went out with another big vet bill. Yesterday morning David was playing in the crunchy snow with the dogs and Willow started to bleed from abrasions on all of her legs. She is thin-skinned and I didn't worry too much about it until one of her forelegs swelled up like a baseball bat. I feared that something was broken and called the vet who was able to see us in the afternoon.

We stopped at the beach en route to the vet so that my sister, brother-in-law and nephews could do some eagle watching. Willow was waiting in a crate in the truck, but Tilley and Watson were out with us. We noticed that Watson's urine appeared bloody, so I just phoned the vet and asked if she could test him for a urinary infection while I was there.

When I got to the vet she looked at Willow's swelling and abrasions and asked me almost immediately if she had been into any kind of blood thinning agent -- aspirin, ibuprofen or warfarin. Then we brought Watson in and she drew a urine sample with a catheter. It was not blood in his urine but bilirubin, indicating a problem with his liver function. When I got Willow home she immediately took a big, red pee.

Much brain-wracking and discussion ensued. The vet is quite sure that Willow and Watsom must have eaten something killed by warfarin, which is possible as our neighbor across the street has a rat problem and they like to explore in her field. Tilley is fine, but she doesn't eat unusual things off the ground. This morning's test results indicated that liver function is fine in both cases so they have managed to detoxify the poison and dodge the bullet. We did not dodge the $400+ bill.

In horse news Tonka's sheath took a turn for the worse two days ago, and this morning the tips were swollen up like a couple of baseballs. I could have knocked them around a little with Willow's leg. Kerstin is on holiday now, but some online research suggest that this problem is semi-common for older geldings in winter. Others suggested that a gram of bute would go a long way, so he got that with his dinner. Keep your fingers crossed for the poor guy.

And in goat news we trimmed hooves again this afternoon. It went pretty well, except that I cut too much off of Roland McNugget's hind right and he bled like a stuck pig (sorry Jean). A sock full of corn starch staunched the bleeding, but he is limping quite badly. I'm hoping that he will heal up before we have to get another vet involved...

Man Hands

It's getting chilly (i.e. 2 degrees Celsius -- don't laugh) through the nights now and I find my fingers getting cold during morning and evening chores. Wearing gloves while working is a challenge for me, mostly because I have ridiculously square hands.

My maternal grandmother was tall and slim with the long, elegant hands of a model or a movie star. My mother and sister are very petite with tiny little hands that require child-sized jewelery and gloves. My hands are exactly like my father's, only 2/3 of the size. The fingers of any glove made for women are too narrow, and their tips inevitably extend half an inch beyond my own. The fingers of small gloves made for men are still too wide so that my hands flop around inside. Beyond Farcical Farm I am happy in mittens or those stretchy one-size-fits-most gloves, but neither is ideal for doing chores. Today I found these nitrile-coated nylon beauties. They are tight through the fingers but they are the right length and they make me look like the Incredible Hulk.

It was beautiful here today and I am finally feeling confident enough about Raven to voluntarily leave her unattended for hours at a time. David and I took the dogs down to the river for a walk in the chill wind and I snapped this picture around 15:30. Daylight hours are getting short and sweet.

And some more of the dogs, because it was too dark to take any of the horses by the time we got home:

Lie to Me

This probably goes without saying, but I like animals a lot. I like the way they all have their own personalities and I like the way they are willing to build relationships with us big monkeys. At the same time I think it's dangerous to anthropomorphise any animal. Attributing them with human thoughts, feelings and intentions muddies the relationships between us and does gross disservice to their own languages, instincts, and motivations. In general I believe that animals live in the present, with a vague-yet-persistent concept of past consequences (it sucked last time I tried to bite that monkey, I didn't die the last time that monkey climbed on me, it was awesome last time I lay down when the monkey did that with her hand) and no concept of potential futures.

This doesn't mean that animals aren't complex. Many are intelligent, thinking creatures that have huge capacities for learning. But to what degree are they capable of dishonesty? Exaggerations, white lies or big whoppers? Are some animals less honest than others, and is it nature or nurture that fosters dishonesty? Over the past four days Raven was at her very lamest on Thursday night and I wonder if she wasn't laying it on thick to really get my attention. Please. I need you to notice this.

I have read that Koko the gorilla once blamed her kitten for doing gorilla-sized damage to something in her enclosure, and I know that if my dog Tilley is injured she limps more severely when she thinks someone is watching. I'd love to hear your stories about animal dishonesty and its motivations...