Cogs' Surgery & More

Well, Tuesday Cogs had his tooth removal surgery. The vet ended up giving him a shot of antibiotics so that we wouldn't have to fight with him to take a pill / grind up pills in his food.

When we picked him up he was terrified. But he was so happy to be united with Brian and I again. (Which, I'm slightly annoyed because our old vet must not have paid attention to us. In Cogs' medical records he was listed as a female... And they never mentioned that he got his vision back. So, at the vet they had been treating him as if he was blind.)

He came home and rested. We got him to eat a little bit of wet food, but he still seemed groggy. The next morning I woke up around 5:45 a.m. and he was cuddled up to me. He's such a sweetie. I cuddled with him for about 15 minutes before he eventually got off the bed.

Now that it's been a couple days, he seems comfortable and content. Though, he still has the runny nose. We're basically just waiting on the DNA panel (for the virus) to be sent back to us. Then he can get on the proper antibiotics to get rid of his runny nose. He'll be so much more comfortable when that happens. I can't wait.


This is him Tuesday night. You can tell by his large pupils that he's still groggy.


This is him tonight (Thursday, 2 days later). You can see that his nose is pretty runny still.


Closer view. This poor guy has always had issues with his upper respiratory system.

Cogs has been through so much that it makes me incredibly sad. In his 4 years he's had nothing but upper respiratory issues, an abscess from the back of his throat removed, a total of 8 teeth removed due to his immune system attacking the tartar on his teeth, and he went completely blind about a year and a half ago. Thankfully his vision was only gone for about 2-3 weeks.

I'm glad we switched vets. And I feel that things are going in the right direction for Cognac now.


And now...


PICTURES...


Lots and lots of pictures...


Georgia. I love this picture.


Georgia again.


Bella.


Bella up close.


Maggie. She looks so annoyed with me. But, maybe she was since I had a huge camera in her face.


Our nubby kitty. :)


Please excuse the mess that is our bed. But I had to post this picture. This is 4 cats in close proximity to each other... NOT FIGHTING. It's a rare shot. :)


Three in a row.


Cheech LOVES our new window kitty hammock. It's called a Sunny Seat. We got it at Meijer for $10 on clearance. It's an amazing find. Cheech is a 20 pound cat... He's been laying on it all week and it hasn't budged at all. (Oh, and we got new window treatments... I'll post a blog later about it... The new curtains were up for about 4 days before Charlie and Henry sent some tumbling to the floor.)


Cheech again.


Carlos and Henry.


Charlie's favorite spot is the recliner. He's in it constantly.


Charlie again.


Henry. Doesn't he just look so sweet and innocent?


Henry again.


Augustus. :)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Cognac Update

If you remember from past blog posts we had found out about two years ago that Cognac has an allergy to his teeth.

Today Cognac went to the vet. A new vet this time, too. Our past vet told us that Cognac would pretty much always have a runny nose.

Last weekend I was cuddling with Cognac on our bed and I noticed that he had horrible bad breath. Not just any bad breath... It smelled like it was infected. So, I called our vet's office and made the appointment.

The vet told us that Cognac doesn't really have an allergy to his actual teeth. It's more like his immune system attacks the tartar build up on his teeth.

Please keep Cognac in your thoughts and prayers this week. Tuesday he'll be knocked out and two more of his teeth will be taken out. (He had 6 taken out previously.) While he's out, the vet is going to swab his nasal cavity and he'll send the swab away to find out the genetic make-up of the virus that's causing his runny nose.

So, Cognac kind of has two things going on here. He has the problem with his teeth and then he has the problem with his upper respiratory system; nasal drainage.

All of this will take a couple weeks treatment-wise. And we're going to talk to the vet about getting Cogs regular cleanings to prevent future build up. We can't really clean his teeth on our own, either. Since all of these tooth problems started a couple years ago, he will NOT let us really touch his teeth. It has been a chore enough for him to let me remove his little nose boogies.

Please keep Cogs in your thoughts this week. He's got a lot of pain ahead of him.

New Year, New Problems.

Hey Y'all,

Recent news:
Henry got hurt - again. A few weeks ago on a Sunday I noticed there was a ton of blood all over our carpet. There must have been 100 spots of blood everywhere. We discovered that it was Henry. He had cut his foot. We didn't realize how serious it was until later that night. We called our vet's emergency number, but he wasn't taking emergencies that day and referred us to an animal hospital in GR. We got Henry in there. They had to knock Henry out and suture his foot. $420 later we thought we were in the clear. They informed us that his bandage could come off the next day and that in 10 days we could get his sutures out. Brian thought it was odd that they didn't give H any antibiotics. He asked repeatedly if Henry should have some, but they kept saying no. This place charged us crazy amounts of money for cheap things. (The dog collar that they sent him home in was $40 alone and it was crap. PURE crap.)

Two days later, Henry's bleeding again. He had taken his sutures out. We called our vet and actually got to speak with him. He told us to bring Henry in first thing in the morning at 7:00 a.m. (He was doing us a favor since he doesn't open until 8:00 a.m.) He wanted us to put some pain relieving salve on his foot and tape a sock to it. Henry was in so much pain that he couldn't bear us to even touch his foot. Salve on a q-tip was a complete failure. So, we decided to put betadine on it. Even that hurt/scared him. We finally got some gauze pads from our emergency kit and put a ton of salve on it... Then we basically adhered that to his foot and then we were able to get a sock on it and tape it to his foot.

The next morning, we got him into our vet. He was not happy. First of all, the cone was way too small for Henry. So, that' how he was able to reach his sutures and pull them out. Second, he did NOT like that Henry was sent home without any antibiotics. Lastly, he was not impressed with their instructions to have his bandage come off so early.

Our vet re-did EVERYTHING and more for Henry. That cost us $175. Big difference. He wanted to see Henry every couple of days to re-dress his bandage. So, that's what we did for the first week and everything was good. Except Henry couldn't really play and he had to wear a cone. (How can you make a puppy NOT play?) After about a week, Henry became this genius ninja and was able to get his bandage off WITH his cone on. We still don't know how he did it. When we discovered that he had gotten it off, we also saw that he had pulled on a few of his sutures. Not good. We got him to the vet the next day and he said that if Henry kept getting at it that he would have to cut off the excess skin and treat it as an open wound. Open wounds take 6 weeks to heal. (That meant NO groomer appointment. And Henry was already SO stinky.)

The next day, Henry got that off, too. He had pulled out the remaining stitches. Our vet wasn't too happy but he had said that it was sealed up okay, but he still wanted a bandage on it for a while. And he wanted Henry to take antibiotics for a little bit longer. So, they sent Henry home with bitter apple bandages on his foot to deter him from taking the bandages off. Henry didn't care and still got it off. I guess he likes bitter apples...

In that last week, Henry spent 3-4 whole days at the vet for them to keep re-dressing his bandages because he kept pulling them off. It was a nightmare.

But... He's completely healed now. And he was able to get a grooming appointment. And now he's clean... And has been dubbed "Henry Houdini" at our vet's office. He's definitely a celebrity now.

This is Henry before the groomer (not flattering):

He was soooo stinky. And I'm sure his hair was annoying for him to see through.

This is him now (also not flattering):

HUGE difference! And he doesn't smell like a foot anymore!

That's really all there is to report.

Well, okay... Here are a few more recent pictures!


Playing.


Carlos.


Mmm... Tag.





It is incredibly difficult to get pictures of Henry since he's so crazy and moving ALL the time.

Here are some pictures of Augustus. He must find me very boring since he's mid-yawn in all of them:






Auggie in a Kohl's box:


My new camera has this feature where it can only take pictures of certain colors. So, here's a picture of Bella emphasizing her green eyes. (I'll admit, it's a little weird.)


Lastly,
Cheech:

Update

A lot has happened since my last post. I apologize.
We've had a lot going on. Sadly, I haven't been able to really use my camera much, so all of the pictures on today's post will be from my phone.

Charlie and Henry turned a year old on November 9th! I didn't get any pictures of them. I had my wisdom teeth out that day and was a little out of it for a few days. This upcoming Saturday is my birthday and I figured we'd get pictures of them eating their puppy ice cream. So, I'll post those pictures.

A few weeks ago Henry got really sick. Like, really sick. He started laying on the floor and covering his ears and his eyes. We called our vet and, thankfully, they made time for Henry to come in. I stayed with Charlie since he has separation anxiety so bad when Henry isn't around him. The vet told Brian that Henry was in a lot of pain. Brian, myself, and the groomers weren't really plucking Henry's ears very thoroughly. Honestly, though, you need medical tools to get all the way down into their ears, so I don't think it's something that we can really do.


This is Henry just after he had gotten home. He was still pretty groggy.


Charlie and Auggie really missed him. And didn't really wander too far from Henry's kennel. (Auggie is actually laying in Henry's bed.)


Auggie in Henry's Kennel again.

The day after I had my wisdom teeth out we had our first snow! It was beautiful! Though, I'm sad that summer and fall are over.


We've noticed a slight change in Charlie's personality, too. He used to never want to cuddle or be a people pleaser. But now he wants to cuddle all the time.

Especially with Brian. :)


Charlie and Henry. Charlie's looking pretty happy, too. :)

I haven't really announced it, though, I've mentioned it a little bit on facebook. Brian and I have a cougar that lives on the state land behind our property. We've seen it on several occasions. We haven't been able to get any pictures of it from our gaming camera, though. But if you want to know what we hear at night, then click here. (WARNING: It might autoplay the sound clip.) It is quite creepy at night when you hear a cougar screaming in the dark woods, too. We've been researching cougars quite a bit and have learned that they will kill pretty much any animal that they can get a hold of. So, Charlie and Henry are never outside unattended. Ever. We try to stay on high alert when Brian and I have to run outside after dark. Do I fear it? Not really. Cougars naturally try to stay away from humans. Do I want it to die? Not at all. It's only "guilty" of being what it is. But, Brian and I are trying to prevent an attack from happening. Hunting season has started and I've found myself a little worried that someone might shoot it, actually.

But we're staying safe.

Lastly, just a couple of cute pictures of Georgia and Cogs...

Remembering Aesop

It's obvious that I've been putting this post off for a while. Aesop passed away on January 18th this year. It's been really difficult for Brian and I. And I have to be honest, it took me a long time to come to terms that he was actually gone. But here they are, as promised, pictures of Aesop.






Aesop with Amelia.




Laying with Cognac.


So handsome.




Aesop with Amelia about 5-6 weeks old.




With Cognac.










Probably the funniest picture of him. We got this to happen several times while he was sleeping.

Here they are... The last pictures ever taken of him... They were with my phone:

This was at the vet. On January 15, 2011.

And the very last picture:


I remember telling Brian that I couldn't do this again; taking in fe leuk kitties and living in constant worry. And Brian said something like this to me, "That's like saying you wouldn't take Aesop and Amelia again." Brian makes a very good point. And I don't know why I even said that because I would seriously do it all again in a heartbeat.

I donate often to Safe Haven Humane Society. We got Auggie and Maggie from there. It wasn't until we had Natilee over a few weeks ago that I really realized how much Auggie reminded me of Aesop. I wrote a letter to Safe Haven yesterday with a donation and I said, "I can’t even begin to describe how much Auggie reminds of us our cat Aesop who passed away from feline leukemia. He’s like him in so many ways. We are truly blessed with him in our home and we feel that we were meant to have him in our lives." I truly believe it.