HoundBlog

Woke up at 12:20 am to the sounds of dogs raising cain and thunder roaring. Got out of bed and let the Doberman in — she has developed a tremendous fear of thunderstorms, so had broken out of her run. She was running madly from door to door trying to gain access to the house to get away from the pyrotechnics. I let her in and crated her and quiet resumed. Well, sort of. The thunder was still rolling and huge bolts of lightning were flashing like some kind of light show. All the other dogs were begging for admittance to the bedroom, but I would only allow 3 of them. Lottie the greyhound, Bridget and Sebastian, Whippets. Lottie went and laid on her bed in the corner of the bedroom and was quiet the rest of the night. Sebastian crawled under the bed where he feels safest and poor Bridget, the most upset of them all climbed in bed with Ken, Skinny Marie, Taco Belle and me. She lay there panting like she’d just run 10 miles and trembling so hard she vibrated the bed. The storm lasted what seemed like hours and all right overhead. Don’t know when I finally got back to sleep, but I’m really dragging this morning. There was a red ring around the moon this morning, so I guess that means we’ll get more rain today. It was also a bit foggy, so I’m hoping that means cooler temperatures as well. Do I sound like the Farmer’s Almanac here?

I’m meeting Sharyn Hutchins Saturday to send Lucas on the first leg of his journey to his new home. His new owners are in their 80’s, but are still very active and healthy. They have had a Whippet for many many years and just lost their last to cancer. They are a very special couple and are anxious to have Lucas living with them and enjoying thier life. They have a group of friends come over every morning for coffee and a romp in the fields 😉 Well, the people drink the coffee and their dogs do the romping :LOL: Lucas will enjoy that very much as he loves to run zoomies around the yard. His new family lives across the river from the Naval Academy. Since Eddie didn’t get to go, this will be almost like sending my son there.

Speaking of Eddie — I haven’t heard from him in nearly a week now. I know he’s busy and what free time he has, I’m sure he’s talking to Yvonne and Randy and Chrystalyn. I hope he didn’t over do on his run Saturday.  — I know — gee Mom! I’m nearly 34 years old! Give me some credit.  Well, son, let me tell you, I still get the same kind of stuff from MY Mom — it’s just a Mother’s job, you know??

Guess I need to get to work.

Love to all,

Margaret

Oh dear!! My daily notes are turning into not everyday 🙁 Bad me!

Had my follow-up visit to the cardiologist this morning. He says my heart is excellent and that the murmur I’ve had these past 10 years is a benign flow murmur, so I don’t even need to take antibiotics before dental work (YEAH!). That  was very good news 🙂

On the way back to the office, I was (as usual) listening to NPR news. This was the hour , called “Performance Today” that they have classical music, book readings and so forth. Today, between the lovely Faure piece and the heavier List adaptation, Garrison Keilor read a “poem” by some lady (have forgotten her name – my poor memory at work) titled “I’m afraid so” (or something like that — poor memory again). It was a nice enough piece as things go. Garrison does a nice job of reading it — good voice inflections and so forth. I want to know, though, when did poetry lose it’s rhyme? Maybe I’m old fashioned, not hip, no longer “with it” (although I seriously doubt I was ever considered either hip or with it), but to me, poetry is music spoken. It has a rhythm and cadence or beat to it. This piece had neither. Even poets I don’t particuarly admire like Maya Angelou have this aspect to their work. I mean — there was nothing particuarly enlightening or riveting or STIRRING about this piece. Yet, it won some kind of prize for the composer and, was read on national radio by a well-known announcer and author.  — Maybe there’s hope for my scribblings yet 😛

I had a lovely lunch with Martha and Janet (have played hooky a lot from work today — just being really bad!). We ate at the Brick Street Cafe — wondeful food — if you come to Greenville, call me up and we’ll go there to eat. I had a slice of quiche(spinach, mushrooms, dried tomatoes) with green salad and carrot cake for dessert. Too many calories, but YUMMY!! I’ll have to eat next to nothing for dinner tonight.

Ken was telling me last night that the 200 Germans who were supposed to come over to help with the new model roll out aren’t coming. Something about visas and homeland security. So….that means he’s going to 5-10 hour days plus every other Saturday and probably quite a few Sundays thrown in for good measure. He has nearly 2 weeks of vacation time left and I’m thinking about asking him take a whole week of it and getting some down time.  He’s been going like this with no or very few days off nearly all year this year and I think he could use the rest.

Chris sent me some cute pictures of Wesley and Anika. Of course, he sent them via the cellphone, so I’ll have to download or send them on to my email address to get them where the rest of you can see them. Both kids are cute as can be.

Yvonne also sent me a few pictures of Randy, so I’ll try to get his album updated with those here very soon. I’m also adding links to the albums over in the links section. Ma said she had trouble remembering how to find them, so I’ll try to make it easier on everyone including myself.

Guess I need to get back to work.

Love to all,

Margaret

I’ve been trying to find information on dogs who circle or twirl on the net. Not much to find, but what I have found recommends low carb, high protein, high in triptophan diets. My reason for needing this information? The Chihuahua I got last year from fellow CCCC members Jack and Joyce Edney exhibits this behavior. He also seems to have some periods of what I can only refer to as “rage” since he gets this hard, angry look in his eyes and bites anything within reach. I’ve been calling them epileptic episodes, but they aren’t exactly like a seizure although he does appear to be exhausted and somewhat disoriented after one. Fortunately, he doesn’t have many of them and I have identified some triggers of them — baths, unfortunately seem to be a trigger as are large, white dogs :(. I thought the recommended diet was interesting and hope to get that confirmed by my vet later today.

In my search, I did find something interesting about zinc poisoining in dogs which I’ve written about in the health section. Since we recently went through this with the Cockatoo, it was alarming to read that dogs are also succeptible to zinc poisoning and from such an unlikely source! No wonder I hate pennies!

Hope all of you are staying cool! Thank goodness they’re saying cooler temps are in order for tomorrow!

Got to run….

Love to all,

Margaret

Eating a penny can kill a dog. Yes, just one penny. You see the average US Penny minted after the latter half of 1982, has a mass of 2.5 grams. 97.5% of that mass is zinc. That equals about 2.4g (2,400mg). The LD50 for zinc, or dose at which 50% of animals that have ingested zinc will die is 100mg per kg of body weight. That means, that half of the 24kg (53lb) dogs who eat one penny, will die—if not treated. This is a little smaller than an average Golden Retriever. I know you are wondering what the year a penny was minted has to do with anything. You are also probably wondering exactly how a penny might be deadly. You also may want to know if a penny can kill your baby.

For the exact mecahnism by which pennies kill, unfortunately, you may need to look elsewhere. Nobody knows for sure how zinc does what it does to dogs. We do know, however, that it causes the destruction of red blood cells in the dog leading to a low red blood cell count. This condition, which may be caused by other factors such as autoimmune diseases, certain drugs, and other toxins, is known as hemolytic anemia. Hemolytic anemia in dogs is ugly. Victims typically present to their vets very lethargic and jaundiced (Note the color of the gums and eyeball in the image). It can be quite frightening. The part we don’t understand yet, is how zinc brings about this destruction. There are theories, but nobody really knows for sure. The fact that zinc causes this destruction, however, is very well established, and unfortunately, veterinarians see thousands of these cases every year.

While a quick search on Google will convince you that zinc toxicity from US pennies minted after 1982 is not a major problem, it’s still something pet owners should be aware of. The majority of sites listed discuss the danger to dogs.

Why pennies minted after 1982? The answer is a bit of a history lesson. It turns out, the composition of the US penny has changed over time. Here’s the rundown from the US Mint:

• The composition was pure copper from 1793 to 1837.
• From 1837 to 1857, the cent was made of bronze (95 percent copper, and five percent tin and zinc).
• From 1857, the cent was 88 percent copper and 12 percent nickel, giving the coin a whitish appearance.
• The cent was again bronze (95 percent copper, and five percent tin and zinc) from 1864 to 1962. (Note: In 1943, the coin’s composition was changed to zinc-coated steel. This change was only for the year 1943 and was due to the critical use of copper for the war effort. However, a limited number of copper pennies were minted that year. You can read more about the rare, collectible 1943 copper penny in “What’s So Special about the 1943 Copper Penny.”)
• In 1962, the cent’s tin content, which was quite small, was removed. That made the metal composition of the cent 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc.
• The alloy remained 95 percent copper and 5 percent zinc until 1982, when the composition was changed to 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper (copper-plated zinc). Cents of both compositions appeared in that year.

So, zinc toxicity is becoming more common, as a greater proportion of the pennies in circulation are toxic. Should we call the US Mint and ask them to change the composition of the penny to one less toxic to dogs? I think we should. Please call:

Michael White
Office of Public Affairs
(202) 354-7222

Tell him that you read about it on kemar-k9s.com

Attended my second SQL Server Professionals meeting last night. So much of what they talk about is over my head, but I take notes and hope that someday I’ll be able to use or understand it. Of course their focus is on SQL 2005 which we don’t have here — no sense in upgrading when you don’t fully utilize what you already have :/ I am making some contacts with other people who use and/or administer SQL databases, though, so have some resources for networking.

Ken got the grass mowed yesterday. At least I don’t have to fight a jungle to get to the car in the morning now. Poor guy – just not enough hours to get it all done! He says the overtime will stop next month as they are bringing in 200 people from Germany and going to 3 8 hour shifts. That will put him working 5 8 hour days instead of 4 10’s so maybe he’ll have some time to do the “honey-do’s” that are going lacking.

Short one today — lot’s of work to do.

Love to all,

Margaret