Sunday, March 21, 2004
(Cathy posting): Anyone else have lots of aging pets? Our greyhounds are 9, 10 and 11, soon to be 10, 11 and 12. Seems like pet care has increased dramatically over the last few years.
I spend about 15 minutes every Sunday morning dividing out the pet meds into little daily pillboxes for morning and night for Cori and Luci. (Tess just gets vitamins and fish oil.) I get their medications in three different places - our vet's office, the local pharmacy and a specialty pet pharmacy in Yarmouth - Petscripts.
My morning pet routine takes almost an hour. This includes letting each of the dogs out. Scooping the litter box. Feeding and medicating the cats. Giving Cori her morning food plus medication. Meds for Luci. Letting Cori out again. It seems to go on and on. I haven't even addressed walking the dogs and scooping the yard. Those happen later in the day.
Then there are the intermittent bodily fluid clean-up projects. Right now it's biley vomit some days, urinary incontinence others. I'm getting quite handy with the incontinence pads, tucking them under the tushy as it descends onto the bed, couch, floor, etc. We've been addressing the bile stains with Nature's Miracle, which is pretty good, but our carpets are definitely suffering. Cori is the one with these particular ailments, related to the kidney failure, we think. Yesterday she vomited a biley mess in my van.
Luci and Tess are pretty well these days. Luci's heart seems to be stable. She receives lasix and vasotec daily and is on antibiotic pulse therapy for her terrible gums. And potassium supplements. Tess is just our happy-go-lucky girl. Last summer she had two weird allergic episodes where she swelled up and broke out in hives over most of her body. Benadryl helped. It hasn't happened again. Maybe reactions to a bug bite?
Not to mention that we have two elderly cats - Toby (17) and Nick (16). Nick is hyperthyroid and receives daily medication for that. Plus he's deaf. Toby has been losing weight and suddenly he's on the hyper side too. Vet visit this week to see what's going on.
This all keeps me busy and mentally occupied. How did we plan so poorly that all our pets would be reaching old age at once?
I spend about 15 minutes every Sunday morning dividing out the pet meds into little daily pillboxes for morning and night for Cori and Luci. (Tess just gets vitamins and fish oil.) I get their medications in three different places - our vet's office, the local pharmacy and a specialty pet pharmacy in Yarmouth - Petscripts.
My morning pet routine takes almost an hour. This includes letting each of the dogs out. Scooping the litter box. Feeding and medicating the cats. Giving Cori her morning food plus medication. Meds for Luci. Letting Cori out again. It seems to go on and on. I haven't even addressed walking the dogs and scooping the yard. Those happen later in the day.
Then there are the intermittent bodily fluid clean-up projects. Right now it's biley vomit some days, urinary incontinence others. I'm getting quite handy with the incontinence pads, tucking them under the tushy as it descends onto the bed, couch, floor, etc. We've been addressing the bile stains with Nature's Miracle, which is pretty good, but our carpets are definitely suffering. Cori is the one with these particular ailments, related to the kidney failure, we think. Yesterday she vomited a biley mess in my van.
Luci and Tess are pretty well these days. Luci's heart seems to be stable. She receives lasix and vasotec daily and is on antibiotic pulse therapy for her terrible gums. And potassium supplements. Tess is just our happy-go-lucky girl. Last summer she had two weird allergic episodes where she swelled up and broke out in hives over most of her body. Benadryl helped. It hasn't happened again. Maybe reactions to a bug bite?
Not to mention that we have two elderly cats - Toby (17) and Nick (16). Nick is hyperthyroid and receives daily medication for that. Plus he's deaf. Toby has been losing weight and suddenly he's on the hyper side too. Vet visit this week to see what's going on.
This all keeps me busy and mentally occupied. How did we plan so poorly that all our pets would be reaching old age at once?
