Luna

The Tuesday before last, October 25, we lost Luna.  I realized after a while that she wasn't coming out of her crate.  By the time my wife came down and we were trying to coax her out, she couldn't stand, fell over when she tried, and was having constant mini seizures.  She's been seizing for a long time and having incidents of falling over, falling into things, and sort of narcolepsy-ing.  She was calm, but not herself, and had clearly had a major event like a stroke during the night.  She wouldn't eat, wouldn't drink, and appreciated all the attention, but was clearly befuddled.

We were very happy her last full day involved running at the neighbor's house.  Ted was always good to her and running next door was her happy place, across three different neighbors in that house.  And she was excited when the neighbor from the other side came over to check on Bailey the cat who we thought was actually the animal in the worst health, although she's rallied for a few weeks.  But Luna passing didn't do her any favors. Luna was always super excited about visits from people she recognized. 

We took her to the vet so she could pass peacefully and the fact that she wasn't slobbering like she had rabies was a telltale sign that it was really bad, particularly after I'd carried her in wrapped in a blanket.  She always foamed like crazy when excited and stressed.  It was pretty obvious she'd had a very long life and had decided she was all done.  A was still at school and we didn't want Luna to deal with any pain or being scared while waiting and I think they understood.  They're still a little mad about when Sandy passed back in 2008 and we didn't tell them it was happening.  But they were so young at the time and didn't like death.

Luna was a good dog. Barked too much.  A little too tightly wound.  Thought she was more clever than she really was and often tried to sneak in a poop when she thought she was being sneaky behind me instead of where I could see her. But we loved her and she loved us and she was happy.  We have lots of fond memories, even those that involve her being a little crazy like when she went bark crazy when my phone made a bee-boo noise [it's a sad noise now], or when she pooped half a dozen times if she went for a walk.  She was a gift from an old VP of Tech at TR after Sandy died.  We were drinking at the bar for a manager event and I mentioned my dog had died when I became a manager, and she mentioned her husband had a pile of oops hunting puppies.  We took A to her farm and she played in a pile of puppies and took Luna home.

There are piles of photos on my blog and Flickr.  But as I posted over on FB, what I see now is all the places Luna is not.

Her favorite place to nap next to my office.  The gate was to stop her from hiding in the basement behind the furnace when she got older.  She claimed it as her own and liked to sleep with her head resting across the bars.  When the treadmill was in the basement, she'd often sleep with her head on the base bars there instead.

Her auto water bowl.  Toward the end she drank a lot of water and sometimes couldn't seem to quit unless someone asked her to take a break.

Her kennel where she slept.  Sans comfortable blankets and towels.  Those are all her favorite 'ducks'.  Whenever someone new would show up, she'd haul one out to show them and hope for some play time.  There are some fun photos of her trying to get a burnt pancake off the top of the cage which was a game for a while. I think Luna was sad when I quit burning pancakes.

The neighbor's house, right outside my office window.  When we took her over to play in the yard she'd sit by the entrance and just quiver until she got the go-ahead.  Then she'd take off for the far side of the yard at full tilt, only deviating if she could find a squirrel or bird to chase.

The crooked back door where she liked to sit, enjoy the sunshine, and watch the birds, the squirrels, and the neighbors working in their yard.  That's her nose goo all over the window.  It's still there - we haven't washed it yet.  That'll feel like really letting go.  More so than putting away her bed.

One of her favorite spots to sun in the neighbor's yard and stare down squirrels.

The tree she was obsessed with toward the end after she realized it was squirrel central where the squirrels moved between Ted's house and Ty and Alexa's house.  She'd sit under there in the leaves and stare them down.  There was a day not so long ago I posted to FB about whether anyone had seen her because I couldn't find her and I thought she'd gotten lose and taken off.  Instead, she was in the leaves under the tree ignoring me.  This is where we buried a bunch of Luna's ashes.

A photo I don't think I posted for my family anywhere else from when Luna was just a puppy.

One of my favorite days with Luna, out for a walk in the snow.  She loved the snow and would bury her face and almost whole body in the snow banks.  She never felt it was a good excuse not to spend time next door.  I think she'd have pulled a Jack Nicholson in the hedge maze and been grinning as she froze.

Thank you for being a good dog, Luna.  You made A happy and that would have been enough.  But you made us all happy and gave us many great memories.

Snowmobile

Last night I noticed some flashlights flickering in my front yard.  I looked out the window and three guys with a truck were struggling to get a snowmobile out of my yard and my neighbor's yard onto the road. I watched for a while, a little confused as to why a snowmobile would be anywhere near my house given we're separated from the neighbors by a very small area and we're seriously suburban residential.  My house doesn't have a fence, so you could get a snowmobile around the back yard, but you'd be fenced in by other neighbors.

After a while a guy showed up at my front door to say that they'd run the snowmobile into my tree.  He seemed disconcerted I'd answered the door in my bathrobe like the guy off National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, sans flappy hat.  I asked if anyone had been hurt and he assured me no, just the tree, and wandered off.

I found some boots to go with my bathroom (very Christmas Vacation) and went to look at my tree.  He hit it pretty good.  Particularly as the snowmobile wasn't running.  I think my tree will live, but there are some good gouges.

Here's where they struggled to get it through the snow back up into the street.  They probably had to push it up the little hill between the houses as well.  That must have been some work.  I've done it with a malfunctioning snowblower in less snow and almost gave myself a hernia.

It wasn't just my tree, however.  They pinged my neighbor's house where he has the little hut over his old fireplace.  Not that it's any less ugly to see any part of your fairly new siding crunched.  I cursed myself a little for letting the guy get away without an address and phone number before looking for damage.

But on further inspection, it's pretty obvious where they took the snowmobile.  So there won't be any problem talking to them about property damage.

Some friends wanted to know why I didn't call the cops, check for alcohol, or yell at them.  I can't be sure they learned their lesson, but their snowmobile certainly wasn't working.  That seems sufficient as long as they don't screw my neighbor over when it comes to fixing his siding.  Not everything in this life needs a lawsuit and cops.

I am glad it was at night.  Worrisome that they might be headed into the back yards if there's a chance kids are playing back there.

Unrelated: I helped my neighbor chase down her dog Bandit and told her to hang at my place until her folks got back as she'd locked herself out of the house without a coat.  She and Eryn hung out for 15 minutes and ate the Jolly Ranchers I brought back from Cub (and there were blue ones; usually the bin is picked clean!) until the family car rolled past.  So a very neighborly 24 hours.  And, while damaging to my tree, better than the 24 hours where I shoved 16" of snow off my yard, Tyler's yard out back, and Dan's buried car on Cleveland in St. Paul.

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...an extract

I wanted to keep this where I can find it for later should I need it; it's me critiquing my friend's daily desk calendar: Texts From Dog Daily 2017 Calendar.  While listening to A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (BBC Radio version) the tea dispenser bit came up, so I repurposed it to express my dislike of the calendar.


MICHELLE MODEL 2017 CHRONOMATIC CALENDAR DISPENSER:
If you have enjoyed the experience of this calendar, why not share it with your friends?

KEVIN:
Because I want to keep them! Will you try and comprehend what I’m telling you? That calendar-

MICHELLE MODEL 2017 CHRONOMATIC CALENDAR DISPENSER:
…that calendar was individually tailored to meet your personal requirements for scheduling and humor

KEVIN:
Ah! So I’m a masochist on a timeline, am I?!

MICHELLE MODEL 2017 CHRONOMATIC CALENDAR DISPENSER:
Share and enjoy.

KEVIN:
Oh shut up.

MICHELLE MODEL 2017 CHRONOMATIC CALENDAR DISPENSER:
Will that be all?

KEVIN:
Yes. No look it’s very, very simple. All I want - are you listening?

MICHELLE MODEL 2017 CHRONOMATIC CALENDAR DISPENSER:
Yes.

KEVIN:
…is a simple, plain, calendar. Just the dates. Got that?

MICHELLE MODEL 2017 CHRONOMATIC CALENDAR DISPENSER:
I hear.

KEVIN:
Good. And do you know why I want a simple, plain, calendar?

MICHELLE MODEL 2017 CHRONOMATIC CALENDAR DISPENSER:
Please wait.

KEVIN:
What?

MICHELLE MODEL 2017 CHRONOMATIC CALENDAR DISPENSER:
Computing…

KEVIN:
What are you doing?

MICHELLE MODEL 2017 CHRONOMATIC CALENDAR DISPENSER:
Attempting to calculate answer to your question: why you want non-humorous jottings on dead trees...

Luna and the Pancake

Pooteewheet says I'm mean because I sometimes throw a pancake for Luna on top of her indoor pen.  I feel I'm being considerate, because that way she doesn't burn her mouth trying to wolf down a pancake in the two seconds it would take her if it was where she could immediately reach it.  There's video at the bottom.

Bitten!

Yesterday, I went to Woodville, Wisconsin, to ride my bicycle on the local trail and do some geocaching. There's a nice string of caches that follows the trail from Woodville south. I'll post about the caching later. Lot of fun. But let's skip to almost the end of the seven mile trail, when I'm exhausted from 27 caches (and a few did not finds [e.g. DNF]) and meet up with some small dogs that are the vanguard for a lady walking four animals. They came up to check me out and were being a little pushy, so I remained on my bike where they couldn't really reach me. Unfortunately, one of the other two dogs wasn't so small - a bloodhound of sorts - and decided to take over. Not with a slow jog along side my bike hinting of warning, but a sprint/lung/attack on my left leg. It wasn't even like I was wearing a Vikings jersey or, as Kyle asked on Facebook, a retro Brett Farve Packers jersey. Fortunately, it was rather chilly out, so for about only the third time in twenty years, I was wearing a pair of Levi's instead of shorts. That didn't stop me from bleeding, but it probably did prevent hanging strips of skin or deep punctures.

I put the bike between the dog and me and the dog stopped when his owner got there. She gave me her name, a phone number, the dog's name (Daisy) and the comforting advice that she didn't know if it had rabies shots because it was her son's dog. As I got back on my bike, it lunged at me a second time and I hopped off the far side and pushed the bike toward it. That was the only time I saw the woman panic, presumably because she thought the dog might get hurt. She grabbed his collar to hold him while I biked away. I pedaled six miles back to Woodville (actually, about eight, as I quickly pedaled to the end of the trail as that had been my goal all day) and asked the librarian to point me at the police station. She pointed me two doors down. I walked to the Woodville police station, where they asked, "Where did this take place?" When I noted it was five to six miles south of town, the receptionist assured me it was a county matter and handed me a phone number on a sticky note. Not a big deal - I wasn't bleeding out, and the local policeman came out to talk to me while I sat on a bench outside their headquarters. Twenty minutes or so later, the county cop showed up to take down my story. He learned two interesting facts. 1.) that there was a trail leading out of town. And 2.) what geocaching was. I learned the strange coincidence that his last name, an uncommon one I'd never heard before, might be the same last name as the company that just did the concrete driveway for my neighbors. He was great. He gave me a case number and assured me they'd call me after talking with the woman a second time as she was tracking down vet details. The dog was a brand new purchase off Craigslist and paperwork hadn't exchanged hands yet. As you can imagine, I was a bit nervous about that and worried that there might not be documentation, or even a vet. Rabies shots were not something I was looking forward to.

I drove back to Minnesota and picked Eryn up from school and went home to make dinner as urgent care didn't open until 6:00 p.m. and there wasn't a chance I'd die from rabies or lockjaw in the next hour or two. I was less concerned about those problems than the twenty sick people in urgent care touching everything. After about an hour and a half, they ushered me into a room and cleaned the wound and gave me a tetanus shot. Antibiotics are only if I start to show symptoms of infection. If it had been a cat bite, they'd have given me antibiotics de facto. Cats are nasty, disease-ridden, germ bags - at least that's what I take away from the conversation with Jennifer, who processed my wounds. I told Eryn during our ride home from school that rabies was a possibility. Then I barked at her loudly. Freaked her out, although she thought it was funny after she'd recovered.

So overall, pretty harmless. Four wasted hours of my life. A $20 copay. A very sore right arm from the tetanus shot because they don't want to mask my heart attack by giving it to me in the left arm, and a sore upper ankle where I have a deep tooth scrape. Wisconsin made out less well because after I got bit I wasn't willing to eat at the local cafe or fill up the gas tank, so they lost my day of tourism dollars.

Dog Blog

Eryn and Luna hanging out in the front room watching television.


Luna, striking something of a stupid pose.  She's been a lot better lately since Pooteewheet bought a shock collar for training purposes.  It sounds mean, but 99.999% of the time (literally) the only action required is to give it a beep, not a shock, at which point she lays down and refuses to move.  It reminds her too much of the shock collar used to keep her from barking and being hauled away by the Eagan police.  It has also made her act like a normal dog around small children instead of jumping on them, which makes it well worth the price.

Dog Blog

Some movies of the dog being all doggish while out for a walk and in the neighbor's back yard. Do you know how you keep Luna busy and stock still for an hour? You put a squirrel in a tree where he can eat a nut. She doesn't move until the squirrel moves.

Things That Distract the Dog When She's Trying to Poop

• Birds
• Rabbits
• Squirrels
• Imaginary birds
• Imaginary rabbits
• Imaginary squirrels
• Ice Cream Truck
• Neighbor spraying his yard
• Tasty grass
• Potentially tasty weeds
• Wind
• Other dogs
• The locations where other dogs have previously been seen
• Beach balls
• Shadows

Rest and Relax

Luna, enjoying a cup of water after a long walk to Ring Mountain. She also enjoyed the ends of three small cups of ice cream, so she was extremely happy.

It's All a Matter of Perspective

Apparently, Eryn's braid issue with the dog could have been so much worse.

"Brancheau, 40, was rubbing Tilikum from a poolside platform when the 12,000-pound creature reached up, grabbed her ponytail in its mouth and dragged her underwater. Trainers rushed to help but could not save her."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100225/ap_on_re_us/us_seaworld_death