Merry Christmas! We have a new dog, Huck. He was found on the side of the road a couple of weeks ago with a broken leg, pelvis, and tail. He has just about recovered from all of that, and is quickly becoming part of the family. Gromit loves him.

The Christmas collar is a coincidence – we thought he would look good in green :-)

Not much else is going on here. Katrin is on call; the hospital is open over the holidays for the first time in recent memory. So we’re spending Christmas in Auburn with the handful of people who didn’t finagle some vacation time.
Happy holidays and all that!

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We've been wanting to get some patio furniture for a while, but the sticker shock was giving us pause. We finally mail-ordered some.

Of course, it came in some enormous cardboard boxes, which provided us with plenty of construction material for a project that we've been wanting to do since we saw it here.

The rationale here is that cats like anything cardboard, so what better material to use for luxury cat furniture? The Kid started sitting on it before we even got started. 

 

Labels: pets, projects

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While I was in New Orleans for a business trip, Katrin met a little dog from the humane society that wound up staying with us for a few days. She was really cute, but in the end we decided not to adopt her. She was even more of a nut than Gromit; he needs someone more mellow to balance him out. Fortunately she didn't manage to eat a whole lot of our stuff while she was here.

Not to worry - cute little dogs get snapped up quickly, so she's sure to find a good home. We'll wind up with a second dog one of these days, but we're not in any great hurry.

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The Kid has figured out how to extract extra food from her automatic feeder that Digby Atilla bought for her. Jim happened to catch her in the act--Busted The Kid!

Here she is innocently looking out of the window, and silently plotting her next meal...

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Labels: pets

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We've been lazy about posting for a while - there never seems to be enough time. We've also started using facebook quite a bit, which I think is taking up some of our internet social time. I resisted at first, but my last project at work was a facebook application, so I spent a couple of months messing around with it and got hooked.

So what have we been doing? We went to New Orleans and Baton Rouge for Christmas this year.  Gromit came with us, and didn't behave himself as well we had hoped. He was friendly to dogs and babies, which was our primary concern.

I made a couple of planned purchases - a new Dell laptop and a new camera (a Nikon D80.) I'm still trying to figure out the best way to share pictures - not everyone is on facebook, and I never thought Flicker was all that great. I'll post a few at the end of this post.

So just when I was going back to being frugal, our washer locked up and burned up the drive belt. It's in the same room as the water heater, and adjacent to the utility closet. It took me a few seconds to identify the source of the smell and ascertain the extent of the disaster; I was actually a bit relieved that nothing was going to explode or burn down. So we got a new washer.

And then the roof sprung a small leak, so it seemed like a good time to replace the shingles. We knew that needed doing, but we've been putting it off.

Ah, the joys of home ownership. I hope all this increases the resale value. 

Some pictures of random stuff, including the lunar eclipse:

 

Labels: pets, travel

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The College of Veterinary Medicine bought me several new labcoats with my new and improved title on them - The Kid loves them!

Here she is lounging on the labcoats and playing with the wrist strap of my camera while I'm taking a picture...

Here she is again, chillin'

Labels: pets

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I was heading to Panera to get some soup and a sandwich this evening, and saw a dog wandering down the street by itself. I pulled over and called the number on the tag, and chatted with the owner for a couple of minutes. When I told him that my wife Katrin would be home if I wasn't, he asked if she worked at the vet school! It turns out I was talking to the new emergency medicine resident.

Back in Baton Rouge we stopped to check on a wandering dog, and it turned out to belong to one of the clinicians at the LSU vet school. So we're two-for-two on knowing the owners of the dogs that we randomly stop to help.

Gromit had a new friend to play with for a few minutes until Mitch got home from work. I should have guessed that he worked a the vet school when he told me that he was at work for an hour on a Sunday afternoon.

No pictures this time - my camera died again, and it doesn't look like it's coming back this time.

Labels: pets

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My work was rudely interrupted today by a squirrel. I pulled out my camera to take a picture of the deceased and this is what I see on the screen.

Naturally, I was very excited about the prospect of having to buy a new camera. Should I get the latest tiny little Canon? But Katrin has a nice pocket camera - maybe I should get a nice digital SLR to take fancy pics on vacations and stuff. Those are under a grand now.

I tapped the camera on my desk a couple of times, and replaced the batteries. No luck. Then I blew into the battery compartment and dislodged whatever dust was shorting the circuit board.

Darn! No camera for Jim!

So I got a picture of the squirrel - that's him on top of the transformer. 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a bonus picture of Gromit attempting to pursue a squirrel up a tree. His friend Digby, over for the weekend, is older and wiser and knows that dogs can't climb trees.

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Here's a bonus picture of the pets. The Kid has been hanging out in Gromit's kennel lately, and he's as happy about that as he looks in this picture.

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We took Gromit hiking in Chewacla State Park today-he had a blast. We also discovered that he loves to swim and retrieve sticks! He was totally out of control, as you can see in the pictures and the little movie...

Labels: pets

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Today, Jim, Gromit, and I went for a hike in Chewacle State Park which is right around the corner from our house. There were waterfalls, lakes, and a lot more elevation change than any of us expected...we had a great time!

Here are some pictures from our outing.



After the park, Gromit got a bath and accompanied us to a party at our friend Niki's house. He had a great time playing with her Rottweiler, Gabi and chewing on all of her toys....

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First off--Congrats to Cat and Tony on their new baby!!

Nothing much is going on in Auburn. I'm currently on Internal Medicine which is fabulous. I have lot's of primary care responsibility, and with that, the opportunity to do some very cool procedures. Next week I'm heading to Washington DC for the annual ACVS conference. I'm very exited, and really looking forward to meeting veterinary surgeons from across the country. I'll bring the camera, so that I can actually post pictures of things other than our pets for once :) However, for the time being, here are some more fun pictures of Gromit and The Kid... They're still both fabulous!

In this picture, The Kid is warming herself on the back of Jim's laptop while checking out the wildlife in the back yard....life is hard!

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Here are some more pictures of Gromit and The Kid. Gromit's visit to work last week was fabulous-he got tons of attention from everyone! He got his vaccine and microchip, and his heartworm test was negative-yay!

Labels: pets

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So...we finally got The Kid a dog. Ever since we moved to Auburn, we've been thinking about getting a dog, and have been waiting for the right moment and the right little critter to come along. Well, that happened about 2 weeks ago. Early one morning, at about 3 am, while I was on the overnight emergency rotation, I was making my rounds and checking on all the patients in the ICU wards. I saw a little scruffy dog sleeping in one of the cages, he was one of the cutest dogs I had ever seen (aside from Sonja, of course). I checked his clinician's orders to see why he was there. "Castration" was the only thing listed on the front of his orders, and I saw that he was a Lee County Humane Society dog. I mentioned something to the night tech about how cute he was, and she said that he was still looking for a home...I came home that morning and told Jim about him. In the next 24 hours, there was a short intro between Gromit and Jim, a 2 am scare about him already having a home, an 8 am joyous message about his other adoption falling through that I received while in rounds with my fellow clinicians, and an impromptu trip to the human society. Gromit was ours the next morning at 10 am... He's about 1 year old, and completely housebroken. We thought about names for quite a while, but Gromit just seemed to fit him best (and I am a HUGE Wallace and Gromit fan).

Gromit is one of the happiest dogs I have ever seen. All he wants to do it sit in our lap, give kisses, and play with his toys. Oh, and his other most favortie activities are going to the park, riding in the car (see picture above), and chasing The Kid. The Kid usually just hisses and karate attacks him (quick literary aside...the first day when I saw how The Kid dealt with Gromit-by karate attacking him, all I could think about was John Irving's book "A Prayer for Owen Meany." This is one of my all time favorite books, and I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't read it, all I can say is that it seemed like all The Kid's karate attacks on us and the blanket were for a good reason...) . Gromit doesn't seem to mind her, he tries over and over again to be friends with her. We figure it's good for her to get chased by the dog every now and then, since she's gained quite a bit of weight since we first found her (poor fat The Kid, it's not her fault!) Gromit has learned several commands in the short time we've had him, and has also gotten over the nasty cough he had when we first adopted him (I love having the power to medicate my own animals!). Tomorrow he is going back to work with me for his vaccinations, heartworm test (cross your fingers everyone, let's hope he's negative), and a microchip. The it'll be back to chasing The Kid and the frogs in the front yard, and being a cute little dog.

More Gromit stories to follow...

Labels: pets

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Since we've moved to Auburn, The Kid has started attacking us at six every morning, if we're not jumping out of bed to feed her. Katrin has been working overnight emergencies for the past week - she's sleeping now - and the attacks have stopped! It seems that squirting The Kid with a water bottle did teach her a lesson - attack Katrin instead of Jim! So you can train cats.

In other news, my parents have been making a lot of progress on their house. Dad says the sheetrock is up, and is about ready for painting. There is a lot of work left to do, but they're hoping to be moved back in by Christmas. It looks like the gulf coast is about to get its first hurricane of the season - let's hope it doesn't break anything.

Labels: pets

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So I got The Kid a new cat scratcher at WalMart the other day, because her old one was pretty worn out, and she loved it so much! When I brought it home and opened it, catnip went everywhere. It seemed like some crazy catnip smuggler had chosen this particular cat scratcher to smuggle tons and tons of catnip across the border or something. Needless to say, The Kid has been in heaven ever since. I took a couple of pictures of her chillin'.

We've also realized that the cat scratcher is really not very flattering to her figure, especially in this "aerial shot." It appears she's put on a few pounds....Fat The Kid!

The Kid rests after a catnip induced coma. Anyone seen the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel lately?

Creation of The Kid, by James G. Rogers IV

The Kid and I want to give a special shout out to Dr. Lynn Britton who was her personal veterinarian back in May (an my good friend and classmate for the last 4 years). Dr. Britton just passed her Texas State Boards, and will begin her Internship in Austin on Monday. Great job Lynn!

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When my parents moved back to Germany in '98, they bought a really fancy carrier so that I could bring our dog, Sonja, into the cabin on the plane ride. Unfortunately, Sonja passed away about a year ago,. When I went to Germany last month, my mom asked me whether I wanted to bring the carrier back to the US in case we needed it for Colbert, The Kid. I brought it back with me, and I think The Kid will love me forever for that. We had put it in the attic after we got home, and I asked Jim to bring it down last Thursday because I had to bring Colbert to school Friday for vaccinations. She sniffed it a little when we put it on the floor, and prompty plopped down on top of it (the top and sides were zipped up at the time). I saw her sitting on it, and opened the top, and she jumped in immediately and fell asleep. She slept in it the whole night, the whole day at the veterinary school, and has made it her new house. Most of the time now when we are looking for her, or if I get up early in the moring to rush to school, she's sleeping in her beloved carrier.

School is great right now. I'm back on soft tissue surgery and loving it. I have another week of that, then I got to oncology for two weeks (talk about not ending on a happy note...), and then it's time to graduate (yikes!). I'm looking forward to that and our move to Auburn.

Labels: pets

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Hi Everyone,
Jim and I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I just wanted to post a quick picture of Colbert and the Gnomes checking out the action in our backyard together.

Labels: pets

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Jim took some really cute pictures of Colbert this weekend-she was super excited to see us after we came back from our trip of fun to Houston. Here's a really good one (I think she's spying on the neighbor's cat in this one...) . She's been doing great and has adjusted well to life in our house. She's got a ravenous appetite and drinks out of every water glass left standing anywhere. I guess she learned some survival lessons living in post-Hurricane New Orleans by herself for 2 months. Maybe one day she'll realize that there is no shortage of water in this house.

I'm about to start baking some christmas cookies a la mom. I think it's so great that I can pick up the phone and call my mom for recipes even though she's thousands of miles away. Thanks!!! I'm sure the cookies will taste great!

Labels: pets

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Colbert went under anesthesia yesterday and an internist, a resident, a tech, and I were successful in placing a stomach feeding tube using an endoscope-it was really cool!! She is now proud owner of a tube, and a brand new yellow sweater! So far I have not observed any sweater paralysis, but I will definitely keep my eyes open for signs of that...She's been doing great, she is eating on her own and tolerating the feedings very well. Everyone in ICU loves her because she is so sweet and affectionate. Here are a few pics.

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"Colbert" is hanging out in the small animal intensive care unit at school right now, getting re-hydrated. We did some bloodwork this morning, and it looks like she has hepatic lipidosis-the same disease that Muffin has...She's acting great though, you really can't tell that she's as sick as she is! Tomorrow she is scheduled to have chest and abdominal x-rays, an abdominal ultrasound, and then she will get a stomach feeding tube so that we can get her all the calories she needs to recover from her disease (since she's not eating much on her own). I'll see if she can live without a sweater over her tube, we don't want any more incidents of sweater paralysis. I'm still hoping that we can find her owners, but Jim and I have really fallen in love with her, even though she has only been with us for a short time!

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I have a patient in the ICU right now named Muffin. She is a 10 year old cat who was left in a house in New Orleans East during the hurricane and did not eat anything for over 1 month. When she came to the Veterinary School she was diagnosed with a disease called hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver syndrome (common in cats that are stressed and don't eat). She doesn't want to eat anything, so for the past few weeks I have been feeding her through a tube placed into her stomach (sounds kinda scary, but it's really not). To prevent her from messing with the tube, she was fitty with a snazzy yellow "sweater" that fits over about half of her body. Muffin is super sweet, and super cute, but she always seemed really weak and lethargic to me. She wouldn't really move, and if I took her out in the mornings to weigh her, she would just fall sideways off the scale if not supported. I was concerned about this, so I decided to talk to my clinician Dr. Ryan (super cool internist whose practice in Mandeville sustained quite a bit of damage, so he's currently working at LSU). Dr. Ryan immediately knew what I was talking about, when I explained Muffin's signs to him. He introduced me to the phenomenon of "sweater paralysis." In his infinite wisdom, he explained to me that cats don't really like wearing the sweaters, so once you put them on, they freak out and don't move anymore. Hmmm...and all this time I thought it was because the sweater was yellow, and that just wasn't Muffin's color! So anyway, I decided to take the sweater off Muffin over the weekend, and now she is bouncing around her cage! The sweater paralysis syndrome-seeing is believing.

We also had a major breakthrough today-Muffin ate on her own for the first time in 6 weeks, meaning she is on her way to recovery...She'll be ready to go home soon.

We also had our picture taken today by the local newspaper. She and I might become famous yet :)

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