Old Dogs, Old Joints, Old Bladders

If you've read my tweets lately, you know I've been dealing with a bit of a mess lately when it comes to my dog Bella, and by mess I mean the wet kind.  For the last couple of months, she has been wetting herself in her sleep.  Thankfully, it hasn't been an every night thing, and I'm pretty sure the majority of the incontinence came from an ill-advised change in dog food.  Since switching back to the more expensive brand, the wetting has become less frequent, but it's still happening.  In fact, it happened last night, and I still have a wet king-sized pillow to prove it.

I'm sure part of it has to do with Bella's age. She'll be ten in June so, if she were human, she'd already be a card-carrying member of AARP and visiting area nursing homes.  The other part I think has to do with her joints.  A lot of times she wets herself when she tries to stand up and she can't quite get her rear legs under her.  She had surgery years ago to repair a torn ACL on her back left leg, and ever since then she's struggled with arthritis in that leg. I've noticed recently the arthritis has been getting worse, especially now that it's cold and rainy out.

Bailey has his own issues with arthritis due to a FHO he had on his right back leg not long after I adopted him.  I used to give him and Bella a product called Dog Gone Pain, which worked great, but Petsmart stopped carrying it, and truth be told I haven't been that happy with some of the cheaper alternatives I've found.  I also haven't been happy with the prescription stuff.  One made Bailey stop eating.  Another caused Bella to wet herself.  A third caused Bella to have a pancreatitis flare up. A fourth made Bella break out in hives.  In other words, none seemed really worth the money, risk, or the trip to the vet.

Consequently, I have been trying to manage their arthritis with just baby aspirin.  (Yes, my vet said this was okay.)  Some days it seems to help.  Some days, especially when it's cold and rainy, it doesn't.  Luckily, VetDepot.com contacted me recently about trying out one of the joint supplements that they sell on their site, Cosequin DS.  Since I'm tired of waking up to my pillow and bed smelling like urine, not to mention seeing my babies limp and in pain, I jumped at the chance to try it out.

 For those of you unfamiliar with the product, Cosequin DS is a glucosamine supplement as opposed to a typical pain reliever or NSAID.  It contains glucosamine hydrochloride, sodium chondroitin sulfate, and manganese, ingredients that help rebuild cartilage and synovial fluid in the joints.  As you can see from the photo, each pill is about the size of a dime, maybe a little larger.

I just started giving Bella and Bailey the products on Saturday night so they're on the start up dose.  For Bailey, I give him half a pill in the morning and half at night.  For Bella, who weighs more, I give one whole pill in the morning and one at night.  After a four to six week period, I can switch them to the maintenance dose, which is half the start up dosage.

The pills have been easy to break apart.  Given their size, I was a bit scared to give Bella a whole one at once.  As you all may know when it comes to Bella, if she can break, tear, choke, or otherwise get hurt on something, she will, so to be safe I break hers in half, and then I break Bailey's halves in half.  That way they each get two "treats" twice a day.

It looks like from the ingredients that the pills are roast beef and garlic flavored.  I don't know if the dogs like the flavor because I learned a long time ago that, no matter what flavor is listed on the bottle, my dogs won't swallow a pill unless it's covered in something.  I can't afford Pill Pockets right now, and the dogs have figured out how to eat hot dogs and cheese from around the pill, so my pill hider of choice these days is peanut butter. It sticks to the meds so well that, if the dogs want the peanut butter, they have to eat the meds, too.

So far the dogs have taken Cosequin without incident.  They love peanut butter, so I would assume they see the supplements as their twice daily, peanut buttery treat.  They definitely get excited when I say, "Medicine!" and come running for it.  Since it takes several weeks for glucosamine chondroitin supplements to kick in, I can't say yet if they supplements are working.  I'll have to update this post in a few weeks to let you know that, but my fingers are definitely crossed.  I'll owe a big thanks to VetDepot.com if they do.

Now speaking of that wet pillow, I suppose I should go stick it in the wash before it permanently smells like urine, huh?

FTC Disclosure:  While VetDepot.com provided me with the joint supplements, the opinions expressed above are all mine.

I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts

Here is a little gem that happened to me a few weeks ago that, while it won't scare you, may at least make you laugh on Halloween.

My sister calls me. I answer, figuring it was the same old, same old. Our grandmother is driving her crazy. Our father is driving her crazy. Our stepmother is a gold-digging skank.  She has a headache and therefore must be dying of an aneurysm.  You know, the norm.  Instead, she tells me this: "I found hairs in the bathroom."

Me: "Um, okay."  (Who doesn't have hairs in the bathroom?)

Her Highness: "Hairs down there."

Me: "You mean pubes?"

Her Highness: "Yes, pubes, all in the sink."

Me: "And you felt the need to tell me this, why?"

Her Highness: "Because a ghost put them there."

(It's a good thing I didn't have Coke in my mouth right then, or I would have ruined my laptop.)

Me: "A ghost?  A ghost put pubes in your sink?"

Her Highness: "Yes."

Me: "As opposed to say yourself or Chandler."

Her Highness: "Yes. I know I didn't do it, and Chandler swears right and left he didn't."

Me: "He's 11.  He's hitting puberty. Maybe he shaved down there and was too embarrassed to tell you."

Her Highness: "He swears he didn't."

Me: "Are you sure you didn't just throw your razor up there after shaving and forget?"

Her Highness: "Yes, I'm sure."

Me: "Maybe Chandler and his classmates decided to play a practical joke on you."

Her Highness:  "Why would they do that?"

Me: "Because they're boys, and they're inherently gross."

Her Highness:  "He swears he didn't. I'm telling you, it's a ghost.  It's probably the same one Chain Smoking Granny keeps hearing in the kitchen."

Me: "That's not a ghost. That's Jesus or Elvis or whoever the voices are in her head. I told you she imagined me standing in the doorway twice at Christmas and calling her a bitch."

Her Highness: "But maybe she didn't imagine it.  Maybe it was a ghost doing it."

Me: "I was right down the hall.  Don't you think I would have heard the ghost calling her a bitch and have clapped or at least given it a high five?"

Her Highness:  "Not if you weren't paying attention."

Me: "What about the dogs? In the horror movies, the dogs always sense the ghost first."

Her Highness: "Well maybe they didn't this time. I bet you it was Mama or Ese."  (Ese is what we called our great grandmother)

Me: "Were the hairs red?"

Her Highness: "No."

Me: "Then it wasn't Ese's hair."

Her Highness: "How do you know they were red?"

Me: "I don't, but she was a natural redhead so I'm just assuming the carpet matched the drapes."

Her Highness: "Fine, if they weren't Ese's, then they were Mama's."

Me:  "First of all, Mama died in her own house. Watch a few movies. Ghosts tend to haunt the places they died in."

Her Highness: "So? Maybe she's so pissed at the way Chain Smoking Granny has been treating us, she decided to haunt her house instead."

Me: "Ok, so then why pubes?  Do you think our dead mother has nothing better to do as a ghost than to break out the Nair and groom herself down there?"

Her Highness: "Maybe."

Me: "Oh...my...god..."

Her Highness: "So maybe it wasn't Mama, but it was a ghost. I know it was. Nothing else makes sense."

Me: "That's right. There's no other rational explanation than your bathroom is haunted by a ghost who wants to maintain her Brazilian in the afterlife."

I had all I could take of my sister's nonsense at that point so I hung up and spent the next hour shaking my head at how I could be related to someone so stupid.  Now don't get me wrong.  I don't discount the possibility of ghosts.  Heck, to this day I'm still too scared to go into a dark bathroom, look into the mirror, and say Bloody Mary five times.  However, what I do discount are ghosts who leave their pubes all over the bathroom sink.  Let's see that show up on an episode of Ghost Hunters, and then we'll talk.  Until then, all I can do is laugh and hope that, if I'm wrong, the poor ghost didn't end up with a bitchin' case of razor burn.

So Now I'm One of Those People

It seems I am now officially one of those people. You know the clueless few who are always technologically behind the rest of the world, like the ones who use flip phones instead of iPhones or program VCRs instead of DVRs. Well, considering I have been doing those things for years now, I guess it was official a long time ago. I just got a reminder yesterday.

I had another Charter Communications service call yesterday morning.  My cable keeps freezing up and cutting out so I thought maybe the connector had come loose again at the junction box or whatever that green thing down the street is called. That's all that was wrong last time.  Before the cable guy checked that though, he ran a check on my modem to see how my signals were doing.  This is the modem he saw:

And this is what he said with a laugh: "Wow, I haven't seen one of those in awhile."

Yes, apparently my Surfboard SB4200 modem is a dinosaur.  I've had it since 2003, maybe even earlier. I can't really remember when I bought it. I just know that I've had it awhile. I know that I probably need a new one, a black one that matches all the newer electronics, but I just can't say goodbye to this one yet.  I've had it longer than I've had one of my dogs.  It still works.  I can stream movies and play games with it.  I get faster internet speeds with it than I'm paying for.  So why do I need a new one?  I guess because it dates me.  Well, so do a lot of things, like my love for 80's music and my preference for the original Karate Kid and Footloose, but don't even get me started on the topic of remakes.  I could go on for hours. 

For what it's worth the guy from Charter said my signals were fine, although he kept trying to talk me into buying a new modem.  In turn, I took notes on his recommendations right in front of the old dinosaur, which is why today I feel really bad for my modem. If modems had feelings and could do things like talk, this one would probably be calling around asking for Botox treatments and a lunchtime lift just to impress me. I feel like I need to give it a pep talk now and tell it that I don't care that it's old or a strange shade of off-white. I just care that it works.  I feel like maybe I should even name it and give it a bedazzled makeover just so it makes it another year or two.  Then I can introduce it to my Gameboy Advance so it doesn't feel so lonely.

Yes, that still works, too.

Columbus Day Sale

Over at Blogging Bella, I'm having a Columbus Day sale. 10% off all prices this week only.

As for here, I have some posts in mind. I just haven't had time to write them yet. Sorry about that.