Meeca Update: Post Surgery

by 5:00 pm. It has 68 Comments.

Scamp Dog sent me an update this weekend on Meeca to share with you:

The picture is a few days after surgery.

Meeca’s surgery went well, and she came home after an overnight stay at the vet clinic.  She’s gotten a little more mobile over the two days she’s been home.  Her incision is healing nicely, although she won’t let me move her knee to increase her range of motion like the vet wants me to do.  She’s able to get down the stairs to go out, but I have to carry her up when we get back.  She’s 62 pounds, so I’m getting my exercise!

Thanks again to everyone who donated!

I know we reached about 2/3rds of the goal for her surgery. So if you still want to contribute, here’s the link.

Paypal for Meeca

Again, thanks to everyone. Meeca went from being the product of a divorce and homeless, to being a featured Balloon-Juice adoption, and then having help with her surgery costs.  A real Balloon-Juice pet success story!





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Open Thread: All I Have For You Are Great Danes

by 7:09 pm. It has 98 Comments.

It probably won’t surprise you that I stayed far away from newsy things today. Instead, took some photos of the dogs, revamped the recipe blog with a whole new theme,  did a bit of work, okay, a lot of work.  So all I have for you tonight are two cute pups, who help keep me sane.

Oh and some ducks – I’m still waiting for them to actually wander into the kitchen. I leave the door open for the cats to enjoy the backyard.

I also have two quickie Instant Pot Shredded Chicken recipes here.  They don’t really deserve their own post. They’re pretty simple.

Open thread





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Thursday Morning Open Thread: … There Is Always Vengeance

by 5:54 am. It has 125 Comments.

Ugly political stuff below the fold, so if it’s too early to face, may I recommend Alain’s On The Road morning post?
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Sweet Dreams Open Thread

by 6:00 pm. It has 40 Comments.

Here’s six seconds of weirdness from last night:

Look at those snappers! Maybe he was dreaming of flying beef jerky. Open thread!





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Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Percy, for Persistent

by 5:47 am. It has 109 Comments.

A respite from politics, from frequent commentor, gifted gardener/photographer, and general Friend of the Blog Ozark Hillbilly:

I thought people might like to meet the newest member of the Hillbilly family Ozark, Percy.

Percy first showed up at my neighbor’s “B” house with a friend, and the pair soon picked up the nom de guerres “Beavis” and “Butthead” (he was Beavis). “B” was really unsure about taking in 2 dogs, one of which was very hyper (that would be Butthead, a very sweet female of unknown heritage, lanky and loves to run). I was helping her get them settled in, with crates, proper food and sufficient living arrangements (“B” also has 2 older and very much fatter house cats) and helping her to understand dog behavior better. From time to time the 2 would show up at our place and hang around chasing various critters.

Then Hurricane Gordon came thru with a two-day soaking and Beavis just refused to leave. I set him up on the porch with a dog bed, food bowl, and water, knowing full well it was a mistake. Sure enough, after 2 days he had pretty much decided he liked things here and just refused to leave.

So we changed his name to Percy, short for Persistent.

The top pic is as he showed up, the long hair tangled in burrs.

Living where we live the long hair was impossible, so we got his hair cut short where it will be from now on, as in the second pic. You can see 2 of the 3 scars he has on his forehead. The signs of abuse have piled up till I can no longer deny it. He is a very sweet dog, loving and not aggressive (except towards chickens) in any way, but he cowers when I bend over to pet him, tucks his tail when getting petted, hates getting into vehicles and hates staying in them even more, is very insecure especially when it comes to me (he always has to be near me)(except when chasing a rabbit, then fuhgeddaboudit), etc etc.

The 3rd pic is not a very good one (they wouldn’t sit still competing for my one available hand) but it pretty well captures the Woofmeister’s attitude about all this.

Having had experience with Beagles I had sworn I’d never own one. Percy seems to have just enough Spaniel (?) in him to temper the urge to chase anything and everything till the cows come home as he tends to chase for only 10-15 minutes.

Due to Woof’s congestive heart disease I have been trying to convince my wife to adopt a 2nd dog as a bridge for the post Woof days but she was resistant. Percy took care of it for me.


Urgent Pet Bleg

by 8:29 pm. It has 22 Comments.

From a reader:

This is an urgent call for a foster home for two wonderful dogs, Dexter and Derby, in the Atlanta area. The two are in a kennel, but the owner, who lost his home, can’t afford to keep them there and they need to go to a long-term foster home. We would like to keep them together if at all possible. A lot of friends are helping, but only a few live in the area, and of those, none can take the dogs.

Friends of the owner have been gathering money to pay the kennel fees, and some have been paid. The vet has agreed not to turn the dogs over to a shelter right away and has even agreed to a deep discount on the fees, considering the circumstances. All anyone wants if for these two to be taken care of. One of the things that the vet wants to know is that the dogs will be removed to a proper home, so finding a foster home is an important step in resolving this.

Dexter (left) is a female Pitbull. She is a sweet dog and is apparently experiencing a great deal of anxiety due to the separation. We do not want her to suffer any further by losing her best friend, Derby (right). Derby is a Doberman/Australian Shepherd mix and a total sweetheart. Both dogs are young adults and have lived with other, smaller breeds. They lived in a nice house in a nice suburban Atlanta neighborhood and are well-behaved.

Not to be too melodramatic, but they are all the owner has left and knowing that they are safe is the first good news he’s going to hear in a while. Getting Dex and Derby a foster home, will help more than just the dogs. If you know of anyone who can take on these pups, or even if you know of resources in the Atlanta metro area, please contact me at lovedogs (at) charles.forsythe.name

That is a real email address, promise)

As a bonus, I included a photo of Dex meeting Derby for the first time on her inaugural ride home from the shelter.





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Excellent Read: “Kavanaugh & the Blackout Theory”

by 8:11 pm. It has 199 Comments.

First, some comforting news — everyone can read Paul Bronks’ twitter feed again!


 
I guess Saturday night is either the worst or the best time to post these links. The Washington Post has an article (from an ex-Yale prof!) warning “Many teens drink. Rich ones like Kavanaugh are more likely to abuse alcohol. Affluence is a risk factor for dangerous behavior”.

In the NYTimes, Sarah Hepola:

… One of the trickiest things about blackouts is that you don’t necessarily know you’re having one. I wrote a memoir, so centered around the slips of memory caused by heavy drinking that it is actually called “Blackout,” and in the years since its 2015 release, I’ve heard from thousands of people who experienced them. No small number of those notes contain some version of this: “For years, I was having blackouts without knowing what they were.” Blackouts are like a philosophical riddle inside a legal conundrum: If you can’t remember a thing, how do you know it happened?…

There are two kinds of blackouts. The more common is fragmentary, where slivers of the night are missing. The more extreme version is “en bloc,” where several hours can be wiped from the memory drive. Fragmentary blackouts start at a blood alcohol concentration of about 0.2, though they’ve been found at lower levels; everyone’s brain is different. En bloc blackouts happen closer to 0.3, and it’s worth noting that at 0.35, it is estimated that about half of drinkers will die, so blackout drinkers are getting up there.

A common bonding experience in drinking circles is “piecing the night together”— friends sitting around the next day, laughing as they scroll through text messages and camera rolls, trying to fill in the gaps in one another’s memories. Some of the missing dots are easy to connect: Oh, that’s right, we went to the bar! Others might be confounding: Wait, we went to a BAR?

“Piecing things together” is a phrase that jumped out at me when I read Judge Kavanaugh’s 2014 speech to the Yale Law School Federalist Society, in which he describes drunken heroics as a routine part of campus life; Senator Richard Blumenthal also leapt on this at the hearing, although Judge Kavanaugh deflected the inquiry, as he did every question about any possible dark side to his consumption…
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