Tag Archives: jorah

Firing my vet…

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To put the bottom line up front, I’m going to have to fire my current vet.

Given how often I find myself in need of veterinary services, I feel like that’s a statement that probably deserves some follow up. The fact is, I like my current vet. They’ve got a beautiful new facility. The docs and staff are consistently good to work with during appointments.

Unfortunately, it’s getting those appointments in the first palace that’s causing the trouble. I called yesterday afternoon, wanting to get an appointment for Jorah. He’s got a lot of the classic signs of an ear infection. It’s one of those things that’s not going to trigger a high speed run to the emergency vet, but that should get treated sooner rather than later. After I explained his symptoms, the receptionist offered me a choice of appointments on July 9th or 11th. I’m sorry. What? I’m sure some people will let their animals linger, in pain and possibly getting worse for the better part of three weeks for an appointment, but I’m not one of them.

They didn’t offer the option of a drop off appointment or even ask if I wanted to get on the cancellation list.

I’m not putting their name on blast here, because I know the veterinary industry is currently under a phenomenal amount of pressure and doing it while perennially understaffed. Although I understand the overall issue, that’s not going to get in the way of me using every resource I can bring to bear to get Jorah, Anya, Cordelia, or George the treatment they need in a timely manner.

In any case, I do want to voice my appreciation for Middletown Veterinary Hospital for getting Jorah scheduled for an appointment – as a new patient – in less than 48 hours from the time I called. They’re the place that did Cordy’s spay last week since my current vet of record was scheduling those out into August and September.

Based on the sum total of experiences getting this menagerie of mine vetted over the last few months, the only logical thing to do is start the process of getting the three furry ones transferred over to Middletown while I’m there tomorrow. Getting all their files transferred will be a hassle. It’s going to add 20 minutes to every trip to the vet. Unfortunately, it can’t be helped. The vet I’m firing was awfully promising, but all the promise in the world is wasted when it takes the better part of a month to get basic care.

Measuring dog years…

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Thanks to Facebook, I know that it has been four years since I brought Jorah home from what was then called the Delaware SPCA. We weren’t off to a particularly auspicious start when he threw up about 75 pounds of partially digested dog food approximately five minutes from the house. Little did I know then, of course, that I was setting out for months on end of living almost exclusively in the kitchen because this six-month-old had absolutely no indoor manners or housebreaking to speak of.

Still, he was a sweet young dog – well intentioned if a bit absent minded. That hasn’t changed much. He’s still very sweet and decidedly absent minded. I’m not sure that he was entirely well served by having spent most of his life observing plague procedures (even before staying home and avoiding people was the cool thing to do). He’ll tolerate them once they’re inside the house and deemed not a threat, but he’s not especially well socialized with people or other dogs.

Our boy does, however, have a soft spot for cats. Hershel was his best friend and he’s still trying to devise a way to show Anya and Cordelia that he’s not 70 pounds of slobbering mess hell bent on running them down. They’re slowly figuring it out. Occasionally, Anya will even give him a few head butts when she thinks no one is looking. I’m optimistic those relationships will flourish in time.

In most other ways, Jorah is a complete reflection on my philosophy of dog raising… He barks at every unexpected noise and anything moving down the street. I tell him to stop. He barks some more. Truthfully, the only strictly enforced rules are 1) The bathroom, for canine members of the household, is always outside and 2) The living room furniture is out of bounds. Beyond that, he’s welcome to the run of the place. He loves napping on my bed through the day, but has never made an effort to sleep there at night. I can only assume my sheet-twisting and flailing around disturb his peaceful sleep.

I thought for a long time that I would always be a two dog household. Maybe I am, but I’m in no rush to find that second one just now. After a spring spent focused on our misadventures in feline veterinary medicine, I’m happy enough enjoying things exactly as they are at the moment.

Four months later…

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Jorah will be rolling over the 11 month mark this week (with his official birthday designated as October 26th). It feels like a good time to assess where we are now that he’s had four months of learning how to fit into the household.

I’d like to say that the whole process has been seamless, but anyone who follows along with the day to day saga on Facebook would immediately know that’s a bald faced lie. Since Jorah was about six months old when he picked us out, he’d had plenty of time to learn a lot of bad habits at the shelter. It also meant I missed out on the early training window when most dogs learn how to act in civilized society. I’d never say that an older dog can’t learn new tricks, but getting those new ways of doing things through their fuzzy little heads is just going to take longer and require a lot more effort. Jorah’s a smart little dog, but he’s no exception to this. Teaching him any new behavior has felt like it’s taking far, far longer than it should. My overall experience has been that young pups are far more receptive to basic training. Winston and Maggie had their share of training issues, but didn’t go through months where I was legitimately concerned that they were never going to “get it.”

So four months on, where are we? Jorah is a dog who happily goes to his crate – as long as there’s a treat involved. He’s gone weeks now without randomly peeing on the kitchen floor or sneaking off to the laundry room to go. He’s started to have some self-awareness and there are fairly noticeable signs that he’s ready to go outside – noticeable at least when you’re paying a degree of attention. He still doesn’t love road trips, but he’s learning to tolerate them – even willingly walking out to the garage instead of having to be carried the whole way. He’s caught on (mostly) to what should and shouldn’t be chewed to oblivion.

Since his overall bladder control has shown marked improvement, he’s now even getting to spend time in the living room. Mostly it’s limited to an hour or two in the evenings and he’s still a long, long way from being a trusted agent able to enjoy the space unaccompanied, but it’s progress. After spending ten weeks confined to my own kitchen any progress on this front is cause fo great joy and celebration. You don’t realize how much you miss regular access to the big television and comfy seating until you don’t have it.

Progress has been slow, but hasn’t been equal across all fronts. Jorah is still peeing in his crate at night once or twice a week. We’ve mostly ruled out medical causes, which leaves me casting around to sort it out as another problematic behavior issue. For now, it’s restricting water in the evenings and pushing back my own bed time to try giving him less time overnight to have a problem. It’s not ideal, but the alternative of scheduling a 2AM bathroom break is even less appealing.

Realistically, I know he’s come a long way from the scared-of-his-own-shadow little dog that came home with me over Memorial Day weekend. I don’t know if I can realistically say that the worst is over just yet, but at this pace, Jorah might just be a tolerably well integrated member of the family by the time Christmas rolls around.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Don’t judge a book by its cover. That’s bullshit advice when it comes to buying books (and probably when it comes to judging people too). The cover is literally attached to the book there to help you judge it. The front flap gives you a synopsis and the back flap tells you about the author. Why the hell is that information there if not to assist someone in judging the book? If I only decided to read a book once I’d already read it, then gods, I can’t imagine how much time I’d have wasted reading truly awful collections of ink and paper.

2. Booksellers who don’t marking used books as “ex libris” when they’ve clearly been de-acquisitioned by some institution. I’ll be the first to admit that my tastes in reading tend a bit towards the eclectic – volumes on the rise and fall of the British Empire share shelf space with a growing allotment of Buffy the Vampire Slayer young adult novels. My collection has definitely built up some less common volumes because of my interests. They’re not necessarily expensive, but they can be hard to find especially in any kind of condition to make them worth having on the shelf. It seems like the very least a retailer could do is give me a fair assessment of the book’s condition up front and let me make an informed decision. Sometimes, for some volumes, I’ll tolerate a copy smothered in library stickers and stamps that’s hard to find or too expensive otherwise… but it would be nice to know that’s what I was getting before is shows up in my mailbox looking all dogeared and sickly.

3. Jorah the Dog. My not-so-new-anymore puppy has been more of a handful than I was expecting. Going a decade without a puppy in the house gives you time to forget the mayhem and chaos that comes with them. The furry little bastard can be quite the charmer when he wants to be, though. We seem to be getting out of the phase of life where he wants to pee on the kitchen floor every 26 minutes… but his new interest in overnight bathroom breaks at 12:30 AM and again at 3:30 AM are going to need to come to a stop with haste. He’s proven consistently that he can hold it all night… getting him to want to hold it, however, could be a whole separate fight.