Wednesday April 23

Today did not start out well. I decided to take Casey in because she had not been eating well and had a discharge. I was afraid it was 'pyometra' which means an infected uterus. It's mostly older unspayed females that get it, and it is serious. Casey's heat cycles were never normal but I put off spaying her because I was concerned about other health problems. Well, it turned out I was right. Casey did have a pyometra but she also had raspy lungs. Mike thought it could be tumors or congestion and thought she would not be a good surgery candidate. Casey was 15 1/2, deaf, couldn't see well, very arthritic, and, Mike and I thought, probably had tumors inside her. So I made the difficult decision to put her down. I will have her cremated and Aren will take her ashes up north to some beautiful place.

The rest of the day was quite busy. We have lost another tech and will have to figure out who does what when now! I was appointment tech so had quite a bit to do. Mike had a pig surgery, a hernia to repair on a show pig.

 

Here he is waking up in a dog crate.

The pig was in the dog crate because we had 6 baby goats in the stall. They were quite young, and of course adorable! They were there to have their horn buds burned off. I had sold our disbudder to the clinic when we got rid of all our goats. But it's really nice to work on goat kids every year. I do miss them!

One last picture of sweet Casey. We will miss you!

 

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Tuesday April 22

Had to work today. Busy time and the clinic needed more help since Holly is busy doing Coggins tests. Also Missy Malakowsky was job shadowing and I knew she would be totally ignored if I wasn't there.

First on the way to work I noticed my neighbors pony had had her baby sometime during the night. Heaven knows he doesn't need more but babies are so cute!

Next I did indeed start by taking Missy around the clinic. There were a lot of surgeries plus we had to ultrasound a mare to see if she was ready to get bred. I took Missy out for lunch and did this and that most of the day.

Then it was time for the Equine Vaccination and Coggins Clinic. Only Holly and I help Tom with it so it's not as big a production as the dog and cat one. Only about 35 Coggins were done so we probably saw 45 horses total. Not quite as many as usual. I think more people are getting out of horses. Here's a few pictures from the night...

 

 

Thursday is our second dog and cat vaccination clinic. Busy week!

Putting in the photo I took this morning of the sunrise. Pretty!

 

 

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Sunday addition

Oops! I took this one picture with the intent of adding it to my blog and forgot. So now it's a late addition. Today I saw my first mourning dove of the year! I hope this one brings more in and they stay the summer to raise babies. I love to listen to their call ( and talk to them like my father taught me ).

Trough the window and screen so not too clear. Also, guess what I found in my flower bed a few minutes ago...the first goose egg of the year! Yes...just maybe spring IS here!

 

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Sunday, March 23

Ok. I just thought Blogsy deleted my whole last post without saving it. But thank goodness, I finally found it and posted. That was 30 minutes. Now to tackle today's post...

I decided I really had to get something done today. First take care of the outside animals. Only SueBee, Brandy and Gitana in the big barn. In the pony barn is Rudi, Lady and Cricket. Two less horses to clean up after!

Next I loaded up Gertie and took her to the clinic for a haircut. She is really cute when her hair is grown out, but she is bringing in the mud on her feet as well as starting to get mats in her coat. The clippers are better at work, and I don't get hair all over the kitchen! Here's a before and after picture:

This is in the car after we shared McDonald's for lunch -

After a stop at Hyvee grocery we started home. I passed some wild turkeys and decided to turn around for a picture. When I got back to the turkey's, I saw some deer there too. It's a common place to see both on my way to and from work.

The deer didn't like my stopping there.

While turning back around in a farm pull out to head home I scared up a bird on the ground. I wish I had seen it before it flew off. It looked to me like a northern wheatear but that would be highly unusual! So I don't know. It did have a black ear patch. Any ideas?

Geese were out by the snowed under round pen. They can't wait for warmer weather! I have been enjoying the V shape of wild geese flying north. Spring actually might be coming some day! Just not this week apparently.

Checked on SueBee. She is missing her daughter Piper. She calls and stands on watch. I tell her it will be a long 8 weeks if she's going to stand there waiting for her.

Ok. Time to get ready for bed. Back to work tomorrow.

 

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Weekend!

All alone this weekend since Anna left for Kansas and Jacky went down too taking Piper in the trailer.

 

The dogs and I didn't do much on Saturday. I did let them walk with me to the mailbox. It was soooo cold but the dogs seemed to enjoy it! We don't have many cars but I still worry someone will run out. So I keep a very close eye on them, which can be hard to do with so many!

Funnily enough it's the little guys who go with me. The border collies stay up by the house - Bryn hunting squirrels.

Some go quite a ways into the field... That's Gertie and Traeh, probably looking for horse poop to eat!

Little Bunni ran the whole way there and back. Probably shouldn't have since she just got spayed on Thursday.

Magic has to stay with me while Anna's in Kansas. Poor Krystal and Josh found out they can't have dogs.

We had a HUGE flock of Red Wing Blackbirds visit us. It was very noisy. They stayed all afternoon.

I think I'll stop here and put Sunday on another post.

 

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Catch Up

It's been so busy lately that I haven't had time to write. So this is just a small window into the week.

Yesterday I was float and kept busy with all the boarders coming in. Some clients were heading to the Wisconsin Dells, some to Florida... The kennel is actually almost full. But so many new boarders seem to all come in the same hour so I have to play catchup with writing down belongings, writing and/or giving vaccinations, putting dogs out, cleaning messes up, entering all weights and charges in the computer....

At the same time I am often answering the phone, helping clients up front, or helping a doctor. Like yesterday when I got back from lunch. Emily was appointment person but she took the afternoon off. So as soon as I got inside, Dennis asked me to help him with collecting semen from a male dog (the stud) and AI or artificially inseminate a female dog. We don't do this a lot but a few times a year and Dennis is the reproduction specialist. Both dogs were present - a female yellow lab and a male black lab. I guess they tried to breed the two last year and failed because the female can not stand the male, Amos. She tried to attack him several times when he got "friendly". I bet you didn't know that most animals have definite preferences as to their mates...to the point they won't allow breeding to take place.

First we got the female against the wall with her head in the corner. The owner held onto her. I had Amos and just guided him and helped prevent the female from turning and biting Amos. Meanwhile Dennis had a specially shaped plastic bag that he fit over the male's penis (sorry mom). He let Amos get excited and start to mount the female then Dennis fit the bag over the private parts and continued to stimulate the male, as if he was entered into the female. We keep the dogs in the same place because of smell of the female in heat keeps the male excited. Eventually he releases his sperm into the bag.

Next Dennis took the sperm and put it into a specially designed insemination tube. Amos was done so I put him in a kennel to relax. Now was the females turn. The owner held her head and I held her up so she was standing. Dennis inserted the tube into the females vagina and then lefties her hips up on his lap. At this point Dennis is sitting on a chair and we are on the floor. We raised her back legs aff the floor and laid them on Dennis's lap while he massaged her vagina. This stimulates her tissues and muscles to contract and move the semen down to where it's needed. We sit like this for 6 minutes. The dog doesn't 't usually want to stand like this for that long so we have to constantly work with her.

All done. But we do it all again on Monday! We try to breed twice so the semen is there when the eggs are released.

I'll try to write more tomorrow. Too cold to be outside anyway!

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Busy Thursday

Wow, what a busy day. Just some quick highlights before bed. Mike there at 7:30 to start the day. He got busy with a cat neuter while I finished taking the bandages off two declaw cats. Oliver was perfect. A lovely silver shaded Persian cat whose long hair caught all the shredded paper the declaw cats have to use for a week. The other cat, Mittens, was not nearly so cooperative and I had to call on Megan to help me. We used to have the owners take the bandages off their cats but there were too many that the cats would not let do it!

Little Yoda, a chihuahua, growled at me when I walked in but he's really a sweetie. When he was a small puppy a sibling dog snapped at him and bit off a toe! Jen had to stitch it up but it looks great now. Yoda was here to be neutered.

Boxer, the neuter cat, was very nervous but Mike was able to sedate him on his own. The other cat, Tigger, was a spay. But she lives in a house with leukemia positive cats so we kept her in her crate in the barn until surgery. After she was done, and recovering in her crate, I had to seriously disinfect all surfaces. Later today she was picked up and two of her kittens left to be spayed tomorrow. More disinfecting...

Weather is warming up so lots of phone calls, appointments, people needing things. Finished mopping and washing instruments at 5:30. I'll be back tomorrow at 7 and will sterilize them then.

Took a picture of Max sunning himself outside. His owner, a travel agent, is taking a group to the Panama Canal. He appreciates pictures and emails from Max and sends him mail too!

This really tells you nothing about how busy it was. You'll have to take my word for it.

 

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