Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Miscellaneous Update

I am having the most difficult time eating this egg sandwich I made for myself. The egg keeps sliding out from between the bagel slices every time I take a bite, and falling into my lap. I have to put the whole sandwich back together in order to take another bite... and then it just happens again. Good thing I'm wearing my apron!... which now should probably be washed...

Anja's been waking up earlier lately, which means our morning walks happen earlier. This morning was so beautiful! So crisp. We saw Mr. Gettings and our friend Matt Scherger. As much as the return of the Purdue students is an inconvenience when it comes to traffic and empty tables at Vienna, I do like having them around for the most part. Through the summer whenever Anja and I took an early morning walk we wouldn't see anyone but the bums. All the working people were in their offices and nobody else was around. But now the trolley stops are full of students with their little iPod earbuds and their cute, trendy clothes. I really like seeing them. And knowing that so many college kids are living downtown makes me feel safe.

Tomorrow we're taking Karenin to the vet. We don't know what we're going to do. If her bowel problems are just the way she is, we might have to have her put to sleep. We've taken numerous poo samples to one vet who kept telling us she was fine, but she's so clearly NOT fine. The days when she has a solid poo are few and far between. She's had constant diarrhea since the beginning of July (and before that, since Easter, it was about every three days) and she's skinnier now than when we brought her home from the shelter. We can see her rib bones. And then this morning she's been poo-ing blood. So we're taking her to a different vet tomorrow and hoping he gives us a decent answer of some sort. But if he says there's "nothing wrong" we may just put her down. It isn't fair to make an animal live so miserably. But, we'll just wait until tomorrow to see what they say and make our decisions from there.

Today I'm making my mom's spaghetti sauce. I haven't made it in more than a year! Today is the perfect morning to start it, all cool and sunny and I have the doors open and the breezes are coming in. I'm taking dinner to the Daily family tonight who recently had their seventh baby--a little boy after a line of six girls! I figured if I made enough spaghetti sauce I can take them a whole batch to eat and freeze the leftovers, and we'll have enough for dinner for ourselves and hopefully a bit to freeze as well.

But I'd better get started, my morning is slipping away!

4 comments:

Elisabeth said...

Sorry to hear about Karenin! I hope that the vet can give you better news tomorrow. Poor puppy! And poor you guys for having to deal with all of that mess!

Anonymous said...

I have to remember it's always risky to read your posts while eating.

I hope this vet gives you better advice. : (

Ben Hatke said...

annie, there is this all raw meat diet you can give dogs that I know Regina Farinholt uses and she gets all her meat bones for free from meat packing plants that they throw away. She just gets one out of the freezer in the morning and gives it to her dogs. And that's all she does just once a day. She claimed that it gave her dog one solid poop every few days and that was it and clean up was much easier.

I don't know the first things about animal digestion but it makes sense that a carnivore like a dog would fare better on raw meaty bones than on dog food which is mostly corn. Just a thought. You could probably google raw meat dog diet. It is a lot of trouble to go to but it might help Karenin. . . .

Anna

Annie Hatke Schap said...

Anna,

We're going to try the raw meat diet (it was our plan before we had the vet appointment) but we're waiting to find a good cheap freezer on Craigslist. I've heard only good things about it!!