The Pete Report

We’ve been feeding Pete smaller portions of scrambled egg and cheese because they’re a better source of protein than red meat for dogs with liver disease and he’s been able to keep it in his stomach.

My online research led me to wonder if hempseed oil might be of some value, so I ordered a bottle from Amazon.com. It arrived via FedEx this morning and I drizzled some onto a fresh bowl of the Hill’s Prescription wet dog food. Pete went after it with unexpected enthusiasm.

A diligent web search will turn up several testimonials about hempseed oil being involved in dramatic reversals of liver problems in people and dogs. There doesn’t seem to be much scientific research on the subject, but there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence that it’s helpful, possibly because it’s rich in Essential Fatty Acids like Omega 3. There are hempseed oil preparations made especially for dogs, which I plan to try if we see good results with the Nutiva Organic Hemp Oil.

I dropped by the Animal Medical Center to update Dr. Heather Curry on Pete’s situation and outlined what we’ve done to stimulate his appetite. She endorsed everything we’ve done. While she said she has little experience with hempseed oil in veterinary medicine, she figures that given Pete’s current prognosis, it can’t hurt.

Thanks again, Gen. Tibbetts

 

I let the 67th anniversary of Hiroshima get past me this week, so I’m catching up with this post.

This is me shaking the hand that piloted the Enola Gay on Aug. 6, 1945. Gen. Paul Tibbetts was at a militaria show in Louisville, Ky., about 10 years ago and Maria, Austin and I drove down to meet him and take in the show.

I thanked him for what he did that day. Had it not been for President Harry S. Truman’s decision to use atomic weapons on Japan, it’s entirely possible that my two sons and my granddaughter would not be here today. My ex-wife’s father was a captain in the U.S. Army’s 144th Field Artillery Group. Following V-E Day on May 8, 1945, he and the rest of the troops in Europe were expecting orders to continue the fight against Japan. The planned invasion of the Japanese home islands would have cost an estimated 100,000 casualties since the Japanese were expected to put up a fanatical resistance.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki broke the Japanese will to continue the fight, saving countless lives on both sides.

It makes me sad to hear revisionist historians and bleeding hearts who have no sense of the zeitgeist of 1945 second-guess Truman’s decision. Had he chosen not the nuclear option, those same people would revile him today for letting the bloodbath continue for months, or years with the invasion and eventual defeat of the Japanese on their home soil.

Still working with Pete

We’re struggling to get Pete to eat. He turns up his nose at the Hill’s l/d Canine Hepatic Health canned dog food the vet gave us to feed him – presumably two cans a day. He has yet to eat a whole can of the stuff.

I tricked him into eating some of it last night by sprinkling in a little dried salmon and bits of Jack’s IAMS food – it’s always a big deal for one of the dogs to get some of the other dog’s food – and he ate a little.

I did some online research this morning into recommended diets for dogs with liver problems in the hope of finding something that would excite his palate. Following recommendations I found at dogaware.com, Maria whipped up some scrambled eggs and cheese since eggs and cheese are a better source of protein than meat for liver-impaired dogs.

Pete loved it (see photo above) and wolfed it down, but then barfed the whole thing up about 10 minutes later. This in spite of twice-daily anti-nausea pills.

We’re now giving him just a little bit at a time to see if he can keep it down without getting his stomach overwhelmed.

Thanks for the support and prayers. Please keep our little Aussie in your thoughts and prayers.

Poodle foot

I picked Pete up at the vet’s office yesterday afternoon and brought him home.

The vet has him on a special liver-support diet of prescription wet dog food with a plan to shift him to the dry version in a few days. He’s also on an antibiotic and an anti-nausea pill and something else that I don’t remember what it’s for. That’s in addition to his Leventa for thyroid and Denamarin for liver.

Pete clearly feels better and is enjoying being home with his pack and having all the petting and love he can stand. We let him sleep on the bed with us last night and I think he couldn’t believe his good fortune. He’s a good bed sleeper – just flops down and goes to sleep without a lot of rolling around or fidgeting.

You can see where they shaved his right front leg for the IV, leaving him with what we call a “poodle foot.”

Thanks to everyone who sent good wishes and prayers. Pete isn’t going to live forever – maybe only a few more months – but the slippery downward slope just got a little less slippery and we hope we’ve bought him some quality time.

Steve found this

Sunday brunch at Boscos

Jazz brunch at Boscos in Memphis before heading for the airport.

We thoroughly enjoyed having Steve and Lisa here for a few days. It’s a bit of a challenge to find interesting stuff to see and do when your company lives in one of the top entertainment destinations on the planet.

They graciously shared the drama surrounding Pete’s hospitalization and I’ll always be grateful for their support.

I just checked my FlightTrack iPod app and see that they’re about 250 miles west of Memphis, cruising at 36,000 feet and about 540 mph. They should be home in about 2 hours and 13 minutes.

Pete’s condition is improving

We visited Pete yesterday afternoon at the Animal Medical Center and Dr. Heather Curry said he was much improved and more interested in his surroundings.

They brought him into the examining room with an IV bag tethered to his right front paw. He was overjoyed to see us, making his little happy noises and rubbing up against us.

We called again this morning and Dr. John Huff said he's better still and opined that Pete will likely be ready to go home tomorrow afternoon.

Dr. Huff said a dog’s liver is capable of recovering and healing itself unless it’s completely and irrevocably shut down and it looks like Pete’s liver is rebuilding itself.

We're very hopeful that his liver can recover and he'll be with us for several more months or maybe even longer. Recognizing that his time may be running out, you can bet that we’ll treat him like the King of the Dogs when he comes home, which includes getting to sleep on the bed with us – something he really, really loves. This will, of course, make Jack insanely jealous, but he’ll just have to deal with it.

Thanks to every one for your support and prayers. Keep it up. They're working!

Lisa sews

Lisa and Maria made a quilt block last night.

It’s hard to tell who’s having the most fun here.

Thursday afternoon report

Lisa got a tour of a newspaper today and was impressed with the half-ton rolls of newsprint.

In the meantime, we took Pete to the vet to determine the cause of his weight loss, loss of appetite and inability to keep water in his stomach.

Some X-rays and tests later, Dr. Heather Curry said the problem is that his liver is on the verge of complete failure. She is keeping him for a day or two or three to give him antibiotics and other meds in hopes of breathing life into his liver which is underdeveloped because of a lack of blood supply, a congenital condition that we’ve been treating for years. The best case scenario is that she can maybe give him another eight months or so of reasonable quality of life. She didn’t recommend putting Pete down without trying to reverse his downward spiral.

I’m praying for success because I’m not ready to say goodbye to my little Aussie buddy just yet. He could probably use your prayers too.

Waiting at the Pig

Son Steve and granddaughter Lisa flew in to Memphis yesterday and we adjourned to Beale Street for ribs and barbecue at the Pig on Beale.

They were up late, being on Las Vegas time which is two hours behind us and Steve just got up at 10:30 a.m., which is 8:30 to him and still way too early for a professional musician used to working at night.

When we’re ready to roll, I want to take Pete to the vet and find out why he’s not eating, gorging on water and barfing frequently.

Help!!!

Jack, our 11-month-old Aussie pup, who is as strong as a horse, pretty much destroyed the heavy vinyl flap on our PetSafe dog door, gnawing the sides and ripping it out of its track.
We have company coming and I want to keep our screened porch mosquito-free, so I installed a new flap ($49.50) this morning, which he promptly damaged by chewing the side.
I've since coated the edges with Tabasco sauce. I can't tell if that actually deterred him or if he's just contemplating some other kind of mischief.
Does any one have a fool-proof way of making chewy objects hideously distasteful to Aussies?

Tuesday morning report

We’re in a cleaning frenzy this morning, getting the house ready for company since my son Steve and granddaughter Lisa arrive tomorrow from Las Vegas.

The new dog door flap arrived via FedEx this morning and I fervently hope Jack will refrain from gnawing on it or yanking it out of its track once I get it installed.

He ripped the old flap out again a couple of days ago and consequently the back porch is full of mosquitos, many of which eventually find their way into the house. This will never do with company coming.

In the meantime, I drove down to the post office to collect our mail and photograph Postmaster Sandra Sandborn on her last day of work before she retires.

Sandra has been with the U.S. Postal Service more than 36 years, 12 of them at Brookland, and was the 2008 Arkansas Postmaster of the Year. She will be missed.

I’ll post the photo after it runs in the paper.

Here’s a photo of Jack before his summer trim. We can’t wait for his hair to grow back so he’ll look like an Aussie again.

Held hostage

It’s almost 8 p.m. and the heat index is still 106° (air temp 96°).

The temperature sensor in my Lexus read 104° as I drove home from town at 2:53 p.m.

Being a prisoner of this damned heat wave feels eerily like being snowed in by an Indiana blizzard. Except for essential activities, we just hole up in our air conditioned house and dream of milder days when we can sit on the back porch, play with the dogs in the back yard, go for a motorcycle ride… But all we can do is just hunker down and wait for it to be over.

There were a few rain showers to our north and northwest earlier this evening but they missed us. There’s always a chance of rain, since there are pop-up showers all over northeast Arkansas this evening.

The good news is that, after spending about $350 to resurface the rotors and replace the pads, my brakes are buttery smooth now.

Charlie stopped by this afternoon on his way home from work to pick up the new tires for the K75S. The plan is to re-tire the bike at his place tomorrow evening, but the heat may make that an unwise decision. The Weather Channel says it will be 97° with a heat index of 105° at 6 p.m. tomorrow and Charlie’s shop is not air conditioned.

Next Sunday or Monday evening are expected to be slightly cooler, but I’m prepared to wait much longer if necessary. I’ve had the tires for several months already. Another month or two won’t matter.

But at the moment, I must undertake a mission of mercy. I’m drinking the last of the Coke Zero, which leaves none for Maria. Fortunately, the new Dollar General just down the road has 2 liter bottles of the stuff for a good price.

Nothing like a brisk, sweaty hike first thing in the morning

I took the Lexus to Gateway Tire this morning to have the brake rotors turned. My son Steve and granddaughter Lisa are coming to visit this week and I want to have the car in good shape for two runs to the Memphis airport and lots of to-ing and fro-ing in between. The pulsing of the brakes has been an annoyance for several weeks.

I had the car in for an oil change and lube and brake diagnosis last Thursday and determined my best option for the rotor work was to show up at Gateway when they open at 7:30 a.m. today. I was there at 7:25 but there were already three guys ahead of me and I was chagrined to learn my car won’t be done until around noon.

I had anticipated a much shorter wait and figured I’d just stroll across Caraway Road for an IHOP breakfast and come back and collect my car.

The prospect of a longer wait inspired me to strike out for Panera, about a half-mile distant as the crow flies. I picked the wrong route and ended up hiking twice that distance. (My route was dictated by a deep, weedy swale behind the businesses and shopping malls that front on Caraway, blocking my path to Panera.) Even though it was only 77 degrees, the humidity was about 80 percent, making for a sweaty march, punctuated by a clap of thunder from an ominous cloud. Fortunately, the only rain I saw was way over on the eastside of town (see photo).

I’m seriously considering asking Maria to meet me here for lunch so I can catch a ride back to Gateway, since the Weather Channel says it will be 98 degrees with a heat index of 106 by noon.

In the meantime, I’ll stay cool and amuse myself with Panera Wifi.

My kind of place

This is the kind of business I prefer to patronize.

Gun-free zones scare the hell out of me because they invite attacks by armed criminals. I’m not big on boycotts, but I make a conscious effort to avoid businesses that ban guns.

Hey, Pete! Add a Memphis concert!

The Who just announced a North American tour beginning Nov. 1 in Sunrise, Fla. and ending Feb. 26 in Providence, R.I.

Unfortunately for us, the nearest concert venue is Nashville, Tenn., some 5 hours distant. Even so, it’s probably worth the effort.

The Who concert in Indianapolis in March, 2007 was the best live concert Maria and I have ever seen.

FWIW: Quadrophenia is my “desert island” album. I never get tired of it.

No slaughterhouse for me, thanks

The sign on the left is on the door of Boscos Restaurant in Memphis, but it could be any place in Memphis that sells alcoholic beverages because it references a city ordinance.’

The sign on the right is in the front window of Grass Roots BMW Motorcycles in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Given recent events in Colorado and elsewhere, I feel decidedly uneasy patronizing a place that tells crooks and crazies that there is no one inside who is prepared to resist or thwart an armed attack. It just strikes me as an open invitation for bad guys.

Conversely, I feel right at home with the sign on the right. It tells me – and anyone with malicious intent – that this is a hardened target and bad behavior will likely be met with lethal force.

A few patrons of the theater in Aurora packing heat could have saved a lot of lives the other night, just like the old guy who broke up the holdup in the Ocala, Fla., internet café earlier this month.

An armed society is a polite society.

Belated birthday lunch at Boscos

Being a faithful patron of Boscos Restaurant & Brewing Co. in Memphis, I got an emailed certificate for a free birthday lunch a couple of weeks ago, redeemable anytime during July.

Since Maria was off today, we drove to Memphis for lunch.

Here I am with my Wood Oven Planked Salmon – North Atlantic salmon marinated in a soy-pineapple glaze and roasted on a cedar plank and served with roasted asparagus. Also, my Boscos Mug Club mug filled with their very own Midtown Brown.

Maria had one of their Germantown Purist wood-fired oven pizzas – BBQ chicken and shaved red onions with smoked and whole milk mozzarella.

Damned fine lunch.

FlapJack

Here’s Jack, exiting the dog door with his Friendly Fox. I really like the play of light in this HDR image. It reminds me of some of the surreal paintings of Salvador Dali.

This was before Jack’s extreme haircut and before he ripped the dog door flap from its moorings for the fourth time one day last week.

It happened as I was preparing to leave for the BMW MOA rally and I haven’t gotten around to re-mounting it. As a consequence, the screened porch is filling up with mosquitos and some are finding their way into the house. I killed two in the bathroom this morning.

Ruthie and Pete never bothered the flap. They just blew through it. Jack, being a puppy, gnawed at it. When he got big enough and strong enough, he discovered he could yank it out of the mounting track.

It’s about a 10-minute job to undo some screws and reattach the flap and I probably ought to do that before it gets crazy hot again this morning. In the meantime, I went online to www.petsafe.net and ordered a new flap.

I have no illusions about Jack respecting my expenditure of $49.50.

Too bad this guy wasn’t in the theater in Aurora, Colo. last Friday

OCALA, Fla. -- Surveillance cameras captured a botched robbery that ended with both of the armed men shot. It wasn't what they expected when they walked into an Internet cafe the evening of July 13 in Ocala.

The Marion County Sheriff's Office said the two teens tried to rob the customers inside, but one man wasn't having it. In the video, you can see 71-year-old Samuel Williams fighting back.

"This guy kept popping. He didn't stop,” one witness who didn’t want to be named said. “He just kept popping, so I think he shot both of them and then they managed to get out of the door and started scrambling out the door, but we were so shocked. It happened so fast that we couldn't hardly move."

Williams was one of about 30 customers in the Palm Internet Cafe when the two suspects walked in. Because of him, everyone inside was safe. The armed teens, one with a gun and one with a bat, were chased out the door. Both were shot.

"After he started firing, they took off,” sheriff's office spokesman Judge Cochran said. “They fell on top of each other trying to get out of the café."

Davis Dawkins, 19, and Duwayne Henderson, 19, stopped by the hospital on their way to jail.

Both face charges of attempted robbery with a firearm and felony criminal mischief. Dawkins was released from jail Sunday on $11,000 bond, while Henderson was released Tuesday on $31,000 bond, according to the Marion County Sheriff's Office.

The sheriff's office said Samuel Williams has a concealed weapons permit, and will most likely not face charges thanks to Florida's Stand Your Ground law.