Kenai looking for a playmate, 2 yrs old
My apologies for taking so long to get this post up. The past couples weeks have been tough. Kenai started acting oddly not long ago and having tummy troubles. Another bacterial overgrowth in the small intestines lead to the icky stools and vomiting. He’s still fighting the yeastie beasties in the ears, and his brother is badly bothered by a skin staph. Mostly though, that strangely intense behavior reappeared in Kenai style full force last week; intensely over-excited about critters, intensely rough playing, intensely fearful of people/things he’s used to, intensely stubborn about going here rather than there… It’s like adolescence, exponentially ramped up on steroids. Just totally out of character and intractable. Even our trainer shakes her head in disbelief! There’s an unnatural intensity, like like his limbic system is on fire, and he just “goes native”, overreacting to everything. That’s how I know to check his tick titers again. Always the personality going sideways. He’s still got a good weight, 130 pounds, but he’s not himself. This time it is the rocky mountain spotted fever that is the dominant organism. He’s clinical, that’s for sure. At least I can look back and understand those times when he went all weird on me. Like the puppy class freak outs, and the sudden inability to handle going places he liked to go. It was so absolutely perplexing back then. Small comfort, but at least it makes sense. There’s the neurological stuff like fear/dizziness on stairwells, refusal to cross shiny floor surfaces, vast increases in whining, bloodshot eyes, secondary infections (skin staph, yeast in the ears etc)…add to that, add to that. He’s having a hard time to say the least. Oy my boy. Needless to say, I’m exhausted. He lets me get about 2-3 hours of sleep at a time, for the most part. Sometimes 4 hours. Ouch. Sleep Dep is the, THE, worst possible thing to do to a body with CFS/FMS, not to mention the inner ears go bezerk. But we are trying to make the best of things, with short car rides in the evenings when he usually feels the best, and as much outside time as I can endure. Kenai has his own “salt lick”; a tub of cream cheese to get him to take his medicine and eat his food. He even watched me write his name on it! Poor BB’s maddening itches have been partially usurped by Kenai’s crisis. But little buddy is getting attention too. He gets his baby baths–soaked with witch hazel and rubbed down with a tea tree oil spiked lotion. He gets to play outside with big bro, which makes him uber happy. He gets attention, just not as much as he’d like. Par for the BB course, right? He knows something’s wrong, getting upset when Kenai is lethargic or sick to his tum. He really gets bent out of shape when I tell him Kenai has to go to the vet. Oh the hound howling when that happens. Little bro all worried. He parks his bony baby butt on the bed and looks out the sliding glass door for hours until I bring Kenai home. Beebs is NEVER in one place that long for anything else! They may drive each other bonkers, but they’d be lost without each other. The Brothers Grin. Just when I start sliding into the poor-me, I discover a dear four footed fellow named Dylan lost his battle. He was recovering from Wobblers surgery, doing well, then was hit with a stroke. Dylan, sweet guy, you were loved, and will be sorely missed. *** Talos is learning (re-learning) a mannerly wait at the gate, after a self initiated gate crashing incident. Teenagers…http://smartdog.typepad.com/smart_dog/ He thought it was fun anyway, though his human was not amused. Nothing like a teenager to frighten the life out of ya. But his “mom” is a smart lady, and had both the wits to go fetch the hot dogs, and the good fortune to have other dogs to feed them too until Talos brought his juvenile self back inside the yard! Nothing like a touch of competition to make the left out boy give up his chase-me games. My two knuckleheads won’t be getting out much until next week, thanks be to a honkin winter storm. We got about 10″ of snow, and out here in the boonies, that means it takes awhile to get out again. The drive way is 1/4 mile uphill, with three sharp corners. Miss the corners, it’s a 20 foot drop. We sit it out! But the boys get ample reindeer games in the snow, having nothing else to do! There’s enough of it this time that you could literally lose a Maltese! Kenai is 35″ tall and the white stuff is over his hocks, to give you some idea. And prissy boy don’t like cold toes for something as blah as just going potty. I’ll get lots of pics the next few days, but I’d better get this post up while I can. Then it’s nap time, a la pain pill–I’m too old and beat up for all this shoveling!
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