We were able to do a Skype video call tonight so I got to see how she’s doing. She was lounging like nothing happened! Hopefully she’ll be up and hopping soon. I feel far less worried about her knowing she has such capable nursing staff!

Vegas bunny is quite ill and is having a ridiculous surgery on Thursday. I’m worried about her.

This month sure sucks so far. Next!

1. The hydrangeas here can’t pick a color. I know they vary based on soil acidity, but the variety here is amazing and often occurs on the same plant.
2. I don’t think these were the intended diners when the pet store put out this dog food.
3. General Tso’s Tofu
4. The thing that trims the hedgerows
5. Stuffed portobellos and campers
6. Walter lounges

In the end David and I were with her, and I tried to make that decision when her days were more bad than good, and I know it was the right thing. Still sucks though. We are already remembering her quirks in a happy way, though. I wonder when I will see another doggy love nibble or nosing of the radiator or the fun police again.

I do want to thank everyone who sent kind words here, on Facebook, and through email… I appreciate them very much. Even if I’m a little more animal-focused than most people, I’m comforted that others recognize how important the bond can be (and so many of you are dog people that I know the feeling is understood).

Tried to keep ourselves busy the last few days… we went to a surprisingly well-attended concert in the pouring rain last week, Chicago brothers Hypnotic Brass Ensemble who were opened by a Nigerian group. They played at Charles Fort just up from our house. I think most of the people there had bought their expensive tickets ahead of time or they wouldn’t have braved the ridiculous weather. We were given free tickets so it was more of an adventure to us! David gave up before I did; we had all our fancy technical rain gear on, but mine’s all new and his seems to have lost some of its waterproofness over the years. Rain pants FTW! I love them.

Kinsale in better weather this week

Yesterday the weather was better than at the concert (though not exactly good), and we reattempted a hike in Co. Tipperary in the Galtees to Lake Muskry. We took Walter there a few weeks back and discovered it was mostly through sheep country and dogs aren’t allowed. Would have been nice for my fancy Hiking in Ireland book to have mentioned this fact… at least now I know to expect dogs not being allowed just about anywhere we want to trek. He’s a good dog but I can see why farmers wouldn’t want a dog among their livestock, plus they might shoot him or leave out poison, and that’s just not fair to chance.

Anyway, the wind howling through the valley hurt our ears but we trudged through the sheep paths and made our way up a ridge where there was a corrie (lake) suspended in the hills. It was a neat hike and we’re glad we went, but we didn’t do the whole mountain loop because it was just rather crummy out. The sheep were skittish when we got near and some of them can really run fast! David got to play with his backpacking GPS for the first time. The maps are too expensive but at least it can keep a trail of breadcrumbs running so you know how to get back.

Rest in peace my sweet sweet girl. I couldn’t have been blessed with a better friend.

Casper, July 2000 – 12 July 2010

Her blood values continued to decline even on IV at the vet for almost four days. This was the first time her phosphorus went high, and her creatinine is four times the upper limit of normal. I chose to bring her home because she couldn’t stay there indefinitely, she wasn’t getting better, and the scariness of being away from home is of course a significant factor for my old, shy dog. Quality of life can’t really be great when she’s in an e-collar after chewing on her IV line (leaving her with a swollen, painful leg) and she can only see me for an hour a day, not at all on Sunday, and I don’t believe anyone is at the clinic overnight when they don’t have emergency cases. If her numbers can stay where they are, she might limp along for awhile now that we’re cooking for her and giving medicines and subcutaneous fluids. (Pretty much no one does that themselves here but they were willing to sell me the stuff to let me try. I’m glad I’ve done it before! Plus one of the vets here is from Michigan so she’s sympathetic to American-style vet care.) She could still crash in a couple days, but others with dogs this sick take it one day at a time, so I’ll try.

I was also referred to a holistic vet and I’m considering that approach. I’m a little afraid to jump right in and I wish he were more available for the supplements I’m familiar with rather than going through the entire process, partly because I feel I’m desperate for certain items I can’t get on my own, just to see if there’s a chance she will make it for awhile, and I just can’t concentrate enough to answer a bunch of questions about her background when I fear that dog left last week anyway when her condition worsened. Maybe I just can’t get the analytical side of my brain (that might be the only side) to shut off. Focusing at work has been a challenge but I’m thankful David is at home to keep an eye on her and help during the day.

She hasn’t played with Walter since she came home but she did do her wag-and-bark at David and Walter wrestling, so that’s something, and she’s barking at the doorbell and meeting me when I come home. Walter is being gentle with her, mostly.

I’ve nursed a lot of rabbits and guinea pigs through illnesses, but I feel rather novice now. I’m glad I learned to take charge with vet care and make decisions comfortable for my situation and wishes. The vet reviewed quality of life markers as well and those basics are helpful when things look bleak. It still surprises me how much her ups and downs can affect how I feel all day.

:’(

EDIT: We have been told this is an Irish navy ship named the Orla, a patrol vessel who does drug busts and customs stuff, I guess.

Also, you can vote on how it’s my fault that Arliss had a bad case of blueberry poopy butt at her blog.

Our second day in Dublin (last weekend) included a trip to the Guinness brewery. Here’s how a conversation went after seeing the old flower ad above: How do you define flourish? Then looked up fleur de lis. That’s the symbol of the Three Musketeers. They were in Slumdog Millionaire: what were their names? Athos, Porthos, and had to look up the other one. Aramis, but can only think of someone in Ghostbusters… Harold Ramis!

Ireland is a country in love with its courgettes and aubergines. Now, I thought I loved zucchini and eggplant, but darn it, I’m getting tired of them. At home every token veg dish is pasta and here it’s pasta with aubergines or some other variation of aubergines with courgettes tossed in for good measure. Hasn’t anyone heard of BEANS? I miss beans.

There are no screens in the windows. Cheerios taste like sugar cereal here and are marketed by Nestle, not General Mills.

The letter Z is pronounced zed here. We have a lot of abbreviations and acronyms at work, so I hear zed just about every day. And I always think of General Zod from Superman II.

I found this handy from Wiktionary: (Latin script letter names) letter; a, bee, cee, dee, e, ef, gee, aitch, i, jay, kay, el, em, en, o, pee, cue, ar, ess, tee, u, vee, double U, ex, wye, zee/zed. But I’d also like to note that H is not aitch here, but rather haitch, so it’s p-haitch at work and spelling my name includes haitch in the middle too.

I’m sure it’s not dominating the US TV and water coolers like it does here, but the World Cup is going on in South Africa right now. The Irish folks at work said they would be rooting for the US since they didn’t want to root for England. We get a lot of British TV so I’m seeing a lot of support for England as it is. David and I watched the England/USA match last night and I still think soccer is boring. Somehow the US is considered to have “won” even though it was a tie game. And there was this horrible buzzing noise from the crowds the whole time. Oh well, I’m going to have to live here longer to understand this one.

Some good news from the States:
California bans plastic bags
Pet-friendly license plate will be available next year in Indiana!

Albuquerque bans companion animal sales in pet shops: “Since the ban started, animal adoptions have increased 23 percent and euthanasia at city shelters has decreased by 35 percent.”

And yes, I get almost all my news from Facebook.

We are in Dublin for the weekend. Casper came home tired but well from the vet and we seem to have found a good petsitter, so we went ahead with our holiday weekend plans. We are being boring in the hotel room right now but overplanning makes us cranky, so down time is good. We tried to fight it out from laptops with online Battleship but couldn’t get an interface that worked, so now I’m blogging and he’s working on an invoice.

Pardon the repeat first picture there. I’m not smart enough to figure out the gallery feature on this site.

Gallery: First we have the dogs earlier this week, in a picture that should be captioned, “No, we didn’t poop up here!”
The rest are Dublin pictures: a creepy statue with really long legs and huge feet. David finds Starbucks and is ecstatic (despite the way he doesn’t look ecstatic). Then we have streets and shops of Dublin. Dinner: boxtys (boxties?) at Gallagher’s Boxty House, which was a little touristy but they had vegetarian boxtys (kind of a potato pancake thing from the northern counties) and I’m just not likely to find those in most pubs. The food was really good.

On to “Why go Bald,” another bunny ad, and finally David jaywalked without me while I was looking the other way and then there was too much traffic to join him. I took a picture of him way over there, abandoning me, but that crazy giant guy (we’re calling him German) decided to be a ham as well.

We got into town in late afternoon, so mostly just wandered at St. Stephen’s Green and into Temple Bar for dinner and drinks. Hopefully tomorrow will hold more specific tourist visits.

Casper’s in the hospital again on IV, but doing reasonably well. She had the same symptoms that landed her in the emergency clinic in December. Still waiting on bloodwork, but hopefully she can come home Friday. Let’s hope her kidneys are hanging in there! She was very excited to get some turkey breast when I visited her today. She has a Spiderman blankie.

I’m really glad I established them at a vet the first week they arrived. Walter’s been pretty sad today without her!