At the vet

Kai is fine, and got his stitches out today. While we were at his vet, two emergencies were going on. A very nice man was waiting while his dog underwent emergency surgery after being mauled by a coyote. Both coyotes and mountain lions can pose a danger to even large dogs. Small dogs are also targeted by bobcat and huge owls. We have LOTS of bobcat and owls – you see them all the time. I’ve seen owls with jackrabbits larger than my littlest poodle, Rosie.

We have a formidable looking courtyard wall, but it won’t keep out any of those critters.

The wooden part (latillas, pronounced la-tee-ya’s), are sometimes called coyote fencing because they are harder for the coyotes to leap up on (and they don’t like going up and over without seeing where they will land). But we have a mixture of block wall and latilla, and the coyotes could easily get up on the block wall and columns. (Oh yes, coyotes will definitely jump that high, easy-peasy.)

BTW, that courtyard is looking pretty sad at the  moment, but someday there will be flowering vines on that wall, and trees and pathways…

Anyway, back to the hazards of pet ownership. The other nice couple waiting for their dog were in equally bad straights. It was an elderly couple on a long road trip from South Carolina. They had put their dog’s insulin in a hotel refrigerator and it froze. They thought it wasn’t working right, so they gave their dog extra insulin. Their dog was peeing inside (which he NEVER does), so they thought he had not enough insulin and too much glucose causing thirst and peeing, so they gave him more insulin. Then he didn’t eat dinner or breakfast the next day. By the time they got him to the vet his glucose levels were dangerously low and the vet is literally trying to save his life.

I’m guessing that the fact that the dog peed in the house was probably due to a low-glucose seizure. My dog has occasionally had a seizure and it’s hard to tell what’s happening – he is just lays there and may lose bladder control. My dog doesn’t have diabetes, he just has a very occasional seizure (he’s had about 4 in his life).

Anyway, I felt really bad for the older couple, because they misjudged what was happening and did the exact wrong thing, and made it so much worse. They might have accidentally killed their dog. They didn’t want to admit that they gave him extra insulin but they knew the vet needed to know. They obviously felt terrible. There’s nothing worse than accidentally causing harm like that.

One time years ago, I accidentally gave Darren too much medication. I’m sure I was given incorrect directions at the doctors office, but I’ll never really know how the mix-up happened. I was supposed to be gradually increasing his dosage, so there weren’t clear instructions on the bottle. Darren was fine in the end, but it was scary. That was years before my sister became a doctor. Now we have a built-in second opinion!

Anyway, back to the vet story – those dogs were both still in surgery and intensive care when Kai and I left. I’m friends with the vet (they rented our house in Placitas when we lived in California). So when things settle down, I’ll text her and ask if those dogs pulled through. I’m hoping so.

Here’s Kai, snoozing away on the couch next to me, on this fine Sunday afternoon.

And Kira on the other side:

And Rosie on the rug below.