Well, It's Christmas All Over Again

SUMMARY: Santa Claus is coming to town. Tonight. I hope I've been good.

I haven't done much decorating this year, just no time. But my tree's lights are twinkling quietly in the background, and oddly I don't miss the Darth Vader ornament--which I hang every year but this time didn't get around to--saying "[inhale]You are not a Jedi yet, young Skywalker[inhale]" every time I turn on the lights. I realize that its absence detracts from the whole Christmas spirit thing that I try to evoke, and yet--huh--nope, don't miss it.

Never did perch the annual dragon atop the tree's highest branch.

But it sure smells wonderful in here every time I step through the door from outside and smell that conifer! And I love the twinkling lights; have always been my favorite part of the tree, along with a wide variety of unusual ornaments. This year, none of my old faves made it--no time--no grinch, no cookie monster, no Thing One and Thing Two flying their kite, no pink panther climbing down the chimney, no Batman descending the rope hanging from his batarang entangled in a tree branch. None of the whole entire box of mostly purple (with some blue) ornaments of all shapes and sizes and themes. Nor the other 3--or is it 4?--boxes of ornaments. So much for spending all that time thinning out the tree so I could hang the collection!

This year, the only ornaments are just half a dozen new ones I bought during the year that I hadn't packed away yet: A sparkly purple spiny thing, a sparkly blue not spiny thing, a blown-glass Leica camera, three silver ornaments with my initials (E L F -- seemed apt), a blue and purple velvety beribboned thing. A bunch of candy canes, which aren't lasting very long I must say.


Didn't get around to setting up the creche--mostly hand-painted by yours truly years ago although goodness knows why, I'm pretty agnostic and think that the God's Only Son story is a nice myth--OK, yeah, I think it's an interesting myth with a nice message (peace on earth, good will towards men, can't ask for much better than that)--which means that the dragon bearing the gift of a sparkling orb never made its appearance behind the manger. But that's OK, I eventually got tired of the detail work and so Mr. and Mrs. Christ and their little Christ child and half of the wise men are gorgeous, but the shepherds and camels are a little spotty, and the sheep and cattle--ha! Let's just say that I'm sure there were plenty of albino livestock in bethlehem that year.

Christmas is a little different around here.

Have done the little bit of shopping I was planning on doing, and everything is wrapped. Am not planning on baking.

After the diverse family entities trickle gradually to my parents' house tomorrow afternoon, my whole extended family looks like will be together for the first time in maybe years. I hope I can get a few photos before they all start trickling away again to their various corners of the valley or the country.

I'm thinking that I'll give the dogs their really big juicy bones for gnawing as soon as I'm done here, try to keep them on the sheets I'll spread out and off the carpet. Ha! As if!

Christmas music is playing quietly in the background. Life is good.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

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No, Me Go!

SUMMARY: In which Boost won't take a treat but nearly takes my hand off.

Last Thursday's class found Boost almost over the top, after no class for the preceding two weeks and no agility trials (just the Fun Match) to really take the edge off.

When she did her first Aframe, and it was a really nice 2o/2o contact, I ducked in to hand her a nummy treat, and she just ignored me, staring straight ahead. Nancy calls this the "No, me go!" behavior, which makes me laugh. Me have brain, me use brain simple thoughts, me Border Collie, me no eat--me go! So I have to insist, "No, you take treat!"--that she take the reward I'm offering to emphasize that (a) I'm scripting the show (b) it is a reward, dammit. Then she takes it realllllllly slowly, barely moving her head, eyes fixated straight ahead. I have no idea whether she's swallowed it.

She will, however, always take a toy reward. (Such as playing tug-o-war while holding her rear feet on the contact.) She LOVES her toy reward. She will go NUTS for a toy reward. I need to go back to rewarding her (with a toy & play) for taking treat rewards, since I need the option of using either in different situations.

(In the early part of that class, she panicked about something. We never did figure out what it was. Lasted about 10 minutes. Eventually calmed down and went back to work.)

Fast forward to last night. After Tika's class, I was beat and my knee was acting up, but Puppy had been in her crate for almost 2 hours and as usual I try to get her out just to do a couple of tunnels and weaves before Lights Out on Power Paws field and we head home for another half hour in the car. She was, once again, over the top. (She puts up quite a fuss in the car at times during Tika's class. I keep trying to leave the door open but eventually have to close it to shut her up or at least mute the noise.)

I did a wee bit of warm up, then led out and put her through a chute to practice calling her into a sharp turn after coming through the fabric. She went wide, but did come in to my right side and I rewarded her with the Riot Tug from my right hand. Don't remember whether I kept the toy in my hand or threw it, but I think I threw it. Now, repeat, with the intention this time of continuing to the weaves. She blasts out of the chute, turns sharply to come in towards my right side, and I step forward with right arm and leg (toy clenched in right hand) towards the weaves, and she came past at 90 miles an hour and snapped onto my hand. The pain--was tremendous--

She didn't keep holding--in fact I think I heard her teeth snap shut as she landed about 5 feet beyond me, but I was way too overwhelmed to really think about it. A couple of classmates came running over--from the far side of the field, they had heard a snap and thought it was my knee again. I thought maybe she'd broken my hand, but then realized I could move it fine, and in fact had barely even broken the skin in one spot. But it still really hurt. A little bump raised just under the skin, so I thought she'd broken a blood vessel.

They thought I should ice my hand; were afraid that I had broken it anyway and not realized it, but by the time I left a few minutes later, I could use my Monty Python voice to assure them it was only a flesh wound.

But this morning there's almost no pain at all, and just a little lump, right on top of the tendon going to my middle finger. I'm thinking that she must have hit directly on a nerve for it to hurt so much at the time and yet have so little to show for it the next day.

Dang toy-motivated dogs. Well, it IS darker on the field than she's used to, and she probably couldn't see very clearly...and she LOVES her toy reward...

Anyway, class today, we'll see how she does with everything.

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Goodies Didn't Cause Seizures

SUMMARY: Clarifying that brain tumor most likely cause.

Although I thought I was clear in my email/blog post that the tests had eliminated most possible causes (including goodies) of Jake's seizures except a nodule or tumor on the brain, several people have asked about the goodies. The emergency clinic did quite a panel of blood and urine tests on Jake right after the first seizure, and everything was normal. This ruled out some causes of seizures, such as hypoglycemia, liver disease, or kidney failure. Xrays showed nothing odd in the stomach like lead fishing weights that could have caused sudden lead poisoning. I was able to provide the vets with the torn-up packages that Jake got into, and they said that there was nothing in the ingredients that would cause seizures even in quantity. As far as I was aware, there had been no trauma to his head at all to cause swelling, another possible seizure cause, and there were no symptoms of concussion, edema, or encephalitis. And no signs of heart problems or tumors, which could also have caused seizures.

Most likely at his age, they concurred, it would be a brain problem, and not even most probably a stroke but more likely a tumor or other nodule or growth in the brain. They considered that his brief stroke-like symptoms--having trouble standing--two weeks ago today was much more likely related than was his goodie fest. Furthermore, his main post-seizure symptom--pacing steadily in one-directional circles--is very typical of a brain tumor on that side of the cerebral cortex. And he had been drinking prodigiously all day, which could have been related to the goodies but I think he'd been doing it beforehand, too--don't remember--and that's another symptom of brain tumor.

I followed up with some reading on the internet, and nothing I found contradicted these opinions (which two emergency room vets and my own vet all agreed on). Basically, any one thing could point at several causes, but put everything together, and the brain tumor seemed most likely.

At 15, and with the seizures coming quickly, lasting forever (in excess of 3 minutes each) and miserable confusion and loss of self combined with horrible despairing yowling any time we tried to get him to hold still or confine him, lasting for hours after each, it seemed pointless to do more diagnostic tests. If we had confirmed it was a tumor, we could have put him on constant antiseizure meds, with no guarantee that they would work. If it wasn't a tumor, we could have spent ages doing more tests, also using antiseizure drugs, and maybe or maybe not coming up with an answer. I just couldn't bear to put him through any more of what he'd been through.

A little further reading on seizures in dogs:

• NCSU College of Vet Medicine site
• Dr. Graves site
• Vet Info site
• Claws and Paws Vet site
• First aid for dog having seizure

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