Category: dogs

09:25 – Barbara’s been gone 48 hours. Surprisingly, Colin seems to be doing pretty well. He’s not pestering any more than usual, nor demanding that I Do Something about Barbara being missing. Like most Border Collies, Duncan and Malcolm were one-person dogs, and that person was Barbara. They tolerated me. When Barbara and I were both out of the house and I came home alone, Duncan and Malcolm would bark like crazy to celebrate Barbara’s return. When they saw it was just me, they’d say, “Oh, it’s just you” and go back to watching/listening for Barbara’s return. Colin seems to be a two-person Border Collie, and he’s happy as long as at least one of us is with him.

I ran myself flat out of the CK01B chemistry kits this morning. Fortunately, I have everything I need for a dozen more sitting on the shelf, so it’s just a matter of boxing them up. We’re also down to four of the BK01 biology kits as of this morning, so I’ll get another dozen or two built over the next couple of days. Come to think of it, I’m out of the iodine solution, so I’ll have to make up another two liters of that and fill bottles before I can build more kits.

Our thoughts are with the flooding victims in Colorado. I just read an article that mentioned that evacuations were voluntary, but those who decide not to evacuate their homes are being warned that they could be without water and power for weeks to months. Given that many roads and bridges have been utterly destroyed and will require months to years to be rebuilt, those folks may literally have to hike out if they change their minds. And, of course, emergency medical care will be unavailable or at least very slow in arriving.

07:29 – Barbara’s dad is likely to be released back to the Brian Center in the next couple of days. Brian Center called Barbara yesterday to ask if she wanted them to hold his room. She told them yes, even though they’ll have to pay something like $275/day themselves to hold the room. (Obviously, Medicare isn’t going to pay for Dutch to be two places at once.) Barbara was concerned that otherwise Brian Center wouldn’t have a room available when her dad was discharged and he’d end up somewhere else that wasn’t very good.

We had an all-time record for kit orders yesterday, with 21. Of course, 20 of those were to one customer, a small private school. Still, that means that through the first five months of 2013 our kit sales and revenues are more than 50% of the total for 2012. And in 2012, we did only about 10% of the year’s business in the first five months. So of course we’re desperately trying to get more kits built in time for the summer rush.

16:35 – Geez. Colin just scared the shit, almost literally, out of the replacement mail carrier. The front door was open, with just the glass storm door between him and the mail carrier. Colin acts like a berserker when someone approaches the door. Fangs, snarling, loud barks, ramming into the glass, and so on. I’m not even slightly afraid of dogs, but given Colin’s threat display I sure wouldn’t want to mess with him. A pissed-off dog that weighs 80 or 85 pounds is no joke. Of course, if I’d opened the door and let him out, he would have made a big fuss over the mail lady, licking her hand and so on.

But I yelled at him to shut up and then opened the door and went out. The mail lady summed up her feelings pretty well. She asked me, “Are there just the two of them?”

08:26 – Barbara’s dad arrived at the Brian Center nursing home just before lunchtime yesterday. I stopped over to see him as Barbara was helping him get settled in. He’s currently on the second floor, which is the skilled-care (nursing home) floor. We’re hoping that he’ll soon be well enough to move downstairs to the assisted-living floor. The Brian Center is one of the best-rated facilities around here, which is why we chose it for my mom when we had to move her to a nursing home. That was 10 years ago, and the place doesn’t seem to have changed much. A few of the staff from back then are still there.

One of the things I found most impressive about the place is that there’s no odor. Not only no urine odor, but no pervading smell of disinfectants. The place just doesn’t smell at all, which is very difficult to accomplish in a nursing home. There are plenty of staff, and they’re all friendly. Dutch was eating lunch when I arrived, and he said the food was good. And, of course, the place is only a couple miles from our house, so it’s easy to get over there for frequent visits.

While we were there, I asked one of the senior staff members about something that had been bothering me. When my mom was at Brian Center, she had an extraordinary nurse, whose name I couldn’t remember. It was LaToya. LaToya was a delightful young woman, and my mother loved her. She was 23 years old, and a single mother of a toddler. One day, she wasn’t at work. Nor the next, nor the next. We asked about her, and were stunned to learn that she was in the hospital and not expected to live. Shortly after, we learned that she had died of a rare genetic condition. My mother was inconsolable, not just because LaToya had been her favorite nurse, but because LaToya was only 23 years old and left a young toddler motherless. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten her name. She deserves to be remembered.

Colin was due for his annual checkup, so around 4:15 we headed off to the vet, making a stop at Dutch’s apartment on the way to pick up some stuff for him. The traffic was hideous, as always, but we managed to make it out to Clemmons in time for the 5:15 vet appointment.

Our vet is Sue Stephens, and we’ve been taking our dogs to see her for about 25 years. She originally had her own practice not far from us, but 15 years ago or more she sold her practice. She’d signed a non-compete that restricted her from practicing near her old practice, and she ended up working part-time at a practice out in Clemmons. Driving out there is a pain in the ass, but Sue is the best vet I’ve ever known, and we considered it worth the hassle to continue seeing her, particularly when we had older dogs with more health problems.

So, we got out there and, as always, the first thing was to get Colin on the scale. The scale wasn’t cooperating very well, refusing to settle at 0.00 even when tared. On the first attempt, Colin weighed 85 pounds (~ 39 kilos). On the second, 81 pounds. On the third, 82 pounds. I stepped on the scale, which said I weighed 203.4 pounds (~ 93 kilos). So, we concluded that Colin likely weighs somewhere around 83 pounds. Sue wants to see Colin down to 68 pounds, which we think is ridiculous. He’s not fat now. At 68 pounds, he’d look anorexic.

I asked Sue if there was any factual basis in terms of morbidity or mortality for the recommended weights vets use for dogs. There apparently isn’t, other than one study Purina did many years ago, in which they apparently didn’t bother even to define their terms. I told Sue this reminded me of the recommended weights physicians use for people. Morbidity/mortality is significantly lower for people who are “overweight” versus those who are “normal weight”, which pretty definitively establishes that so-called “overweight” is in fact the proper weight and what they define is “normal weight” is in fact underweight. And any normal person looking at Colin would not think he was too heavy. We’re not going to make any significant changes to his diet unless and until he actually starts to look chubby.

Nor me, for that matter. On our wedding day, I was 30 years old and weighed 238 pounds. Over the last 30 years, and particularly over the last 5 or 10, my weight has been gradually decreasing. It’s not that I’ve been trying to lose weight; it’s just that I eat less and less as I get older. As I said to Barbara yesterday, I’m now almost down to my tennis-playing weight of 185 to 190, and maybe I should take up the game again. I quickly assured her that I was only kidding. With vertigo affecting my balance and some arthritis in my hands, there’s no way I’d even attempt it.

We’re on schedule to start shipping the LK01 Life Science Kits on Monday. There are 30 of them on the assembly table right now that are nearly complete, missing only a few components. We’ll finish them up this weekend.