Losing His Manhood

Where did I leave off??  Oh. Right.  Did Kairo have his neutering surgery?  If the title of this post isn't a dead giveaway, let me spell it out for you: yes, yes, he did.  I think the following picture drawn by G$'s brother, J$, depicts the situation well:


Friday:
We woke up on Friday and it appeared Kairo's system was 100% back to normal.  So it was into the car to drop him off at the vet at 8AM.  The vet called around 4PM to let us know that the surgery went well and that we could pick Kairo up between 7 and 8 PM that evening.  G$ and I arrive around 7:15 to pick up our little man dog. 

 

Full Disclosure: since I know I'll get crap from G$ if I don't put this out there...  We were out of food at home, so I suggested that we stop by this Mexican place to grab some dinner before picking Kairo up.  Our sensitive, puppy-father, G$ had an uproar at the idea of leaving out little pup alone at the vet for another 30 minutes.  Despite G$'s version of the story, I DID NOT suggest we get margaritas!  Mexican, yes.  Margaritas, no. 

So, back to the story: we get to the vet, Kairo looks a little groggy, but is excited to see us.  He has a bandage on his front right leg from the IV and you can see a little rectangle of hairless skin popping out from either ends of the bandage.  They shaved a 4 inch by 2 inch patch for the IV, which makes him look funny.  

We get him home, he drinks and eats, then jumps up on the couch and sleeps for a few hours.  Around 11 PM, we take him out for the "nighttime potty trip" and head to bed. 

Saturday:
Around 1 AM, Kairo decides it is time to get up and play and chew on bones and be his normal energetic self.  Apparently a day of being knocked out and drugged and thereby exerting little to no energy caught up to him and he became a ball of joy.  At. One. In. The. Morning.   

G$ and I tag team the effort.  I spend a few hours with Kairo, while G$ is sleeping, then I get a few hours of sleep while G$ is keeping him buy.  Around 7 AM, it's one again my "shift" with Kairo.  I spent about 30 minutes trying to keep him busy, when I finally said, let's go for a long walk.  So off we go for a brisk morning walk at 7:30.  We walk through the neighborhoods behind our apartment, past the softball fields near our old apartment and back home.  

Flooded softball fields...

When we get back, he finally is ready for a nap.  Only seven hours off schedule.  I nap/watch HGTV while Kairo is napping. Once Kairo and I wake up from our morning nap, we decide to take Kairo hiking (we figure, same as walking, just in the woods with better smells).   

After being up from 1AM Saturday through 10PM Saturday, Kairo is ready for a normal night of sleep.  And was once again back on the correct schedule. 

Sunday - Tuesday:
Did I tell you we were really dreading the few days following the surgery!?  No playtime with the neighborhood dogs. No roughhousing.  Essentially, the only way we are "allowed" to exert energy from our dog was through walks.  Which let me tell you - means we were going on very, very long walks.  :) 

The Cone of Shame.  The vet said we'd only need to put a cone or tube on him if he starts licking his incision.  And he really didn't do it much.  But *kinda* started to on Monday night/Tuesday, so we opted to put his tube on while he was crated, but he went tube-free while we were home.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any really good pictures of him with the tube on, but he really looked pathetic. 

Wednesday:
On Wednesday night, since his incision was looking good, we decided it was time for Kairo to get back to his normal 9PM play date with his doggie friends - Chester (labradoodle), Niko (miniature Australian shepherd), and Jake (a lab/beagle mix).  There occasionally are some others, but these four pups make up the "Party Time" gang.  He was so excited to see his friends and run around (and G$ and I were just as thrilled to get some energy out of him). 

Thursday:
It was back to the normal routine, we took Kairo back to daycare. 

And that my friends is the neutering recap.  We are glad Kairo had a swift, painless recovery!

<3
K$ 

The Trials and Tribulations of...Bubbles

Sunday
Bubble catching fun with the little girls.

Monday
As I alluded to in my prior post, the bubbles didn't sit too well with Kairo. Kind of funny (although G$ probably thinks differently), I originally was planning to come home for lunch. However, while in the shower that morning, I remembered I had a working lunch meeting scheduled. So G$ stepped up to the plate. I'm at my lunch meeting and I get a picture text (I'll spare ya'll) from G$ of Kairo's crate with some liquid in it and "Sweet..." I honestly thought the liquid was vomit. Not being rude, I didn't want to respond in the middle of lunch, so I waited until the walk back. And it was at that time that I realized G$ wrote a line before sending the picture: "Well it happened. Liquid poop in the crate... Do I leave it for you?" So, so, soooo much worse than vomit. I felt horrible for all parties involved. I do want the record to reflect that I offered to come home and help, but the bulk of the clean-up was already completed. The "Well it happened" was in reference to this being Kairo's first #2 accident in his crate. And no, G$ did not leave it for me to deal with.

So let's rewind and see how this all went down. G$ walked into the most retched smell ever and I'm sure immediately starts cursing me (since remember, I was supposed to be coming for lunch). He gets Kairo out of his crate and takes him to the bathroom to clean up. G$ starts wiping him down with puppy wipes, and somehow, our little pup was able to stay completely poo-free. Good job Kairo. G$'s hypothesis is that he stood the whole time. Poor G$. Poor Kairo. Poor everyone. We lost some good men out there - including his Kong and two towels. They were deemed not salvageable.

After work on Monday, I made Kairo chicken and rice. He was HUNGRY and scarfed it down faster than I've ever seen before. The fact that he was both eating and drinking made us me feel much better about the whole situation. He appeared to be getting better.

Tuesday
Since things appeared to be better, G$ and I did what in hindsight was probably a little selfish. I had a work function - our big anniversary party where we invite both current and prospective clients, employees, friends, and family to celebrate. So we had always planned to take Kairo to daycare that day, since G$ and I would be out later than normal that evening. So he goes to daycare. No reports when G$ picks him up. So I'm thinking things are great. G$ hangs out with Kairo for a bit then meets me at the work party. We mingle, I get stuck talking to our of our teaming partners for about an hour, then we head home. The whole ride home, G$ is saying, man I hope he didn't butt pee in his crate again. I, on the other hand, am thinking, no way would he do it twice in two days! Things were getting better. WRONG! We walk into our apartment to yet again (for G$) that retched smell. This time G$ takes Kairo outside and I am on clean-up duty. Yuck!

We all go to bed, but at around 1AM, Kairo wakes up, starts dry heaving, so I quickly help him get off the bed, and he proceeds to vomit in our bedroom. Awesome. Was that it? Maybe, so we got back into bed. 30 minutes later, same thing. Puke in the bedroom. I then move the operation to the living room and from 1AM to 6AM, Kairo's up every thirty minutes throwing up. At 6AM, G$ and I "swap" and I get a few hours of sleep before going into work.

I'm now thinking, was this really the bubbles, or is it something else, something more serious?! Oh and did I mention Kairo's neutering is scheduled for Friday? Greeeeaaatt - we are probably going to have to reschedule.

Wednesday
No more butt pee accidents inside, no more vomiting, but things aren't quite 100% back to normal; however, Kairo is at 100% activity level, things seem normal outside of the digestive tract.

Thursday
Same thing in the morning. I call the vet to give him the skinny and get his opinion on whether we should go ahead with the surgery on not. We leave it as - I will monitor his bathroom situation once I get home from work and then again in the morning. Depending on how things are, we'll make a Friday morning game day decision as to whether we take him to the vet or not for the surgery.

Friday
Do we go through with the neutering surgery?! You'll just have to wait and see.

And since I like to include at least one picture, here's Kairo hiking the weekend before this disaster-of-a-week began:













<3
K$

Proof of the Storms

You know a few weeks ago when there was all that rain - days and days and day of rain?! Well the weekend after, G$ and I took Kairo our favorite hiking spot. We took a different trail route to make the trek a little longer.

When we finally got to the Potomac, we saw that the little island that we normally throw the ball from. Pictured here:







Had been flooded and turned into this:







Pretty crazy, huh?!

We revisited it last week and the island is still under water.

Ok, that is all. Can you tell I'm trying to get through a few weeks worth of pictures? :)

<3
K$

Bubble-licious

I know, I know, I've been MIA for entirely too long. But...I have good news!! G$, being the selfless guy that his is, used some of his birthday gift certificates to buy the Apple Wireless Keyboard!! Which means...I'm typing this on a normal keyboard with the iPad. Love it! I officially have no excuse. And I'm not going to make any more empty promises on posting more regularly, because I know as soon as I do that, it'll go down the drain.

So from about three weeks ago, I have some super cute Kairo pics to share about...BUBBLES!

There are two little girls who live in our apartment complex. They are only here temporarily, but are dying to get a puppy. Their mom said they can't get one until they move back home again. Also kind of a tragic story, they had a puppy before they moved here, but the dog had some freak health issue and died at a young age. Long story short, they come outside with treats to the give the dogs and they just looove to walk Kairo around and make him sit for treats. Oh, and Kairo loves it to. Ha!

Well a few weeks ago, these little girls came out with not only their treats, but bubbles! At first, Kairo was very, very confused.




But then he really got into it and started stalking the bubbles:








Going even as far as jumping to pop them I think we have the potential for a frisbee catching puppy!!




Unfortunately, the soapy bubbles didn't quite sit well with Kairo. G$ and I had to deal with a "stomach-sick" puppy for the next few days. And even worse, poor Kairo. More on the disasters that this week entailed in a future post.

<3
K$

Decoys

The other morning, I was in the shower.  G$ had already left for work.  And I hear the jingle of Kairo’s collar, which from the sound of the jingle, I could tell he was running, which probably meant he got into something he shouldn’t have like a shoe or a sock.  After getting out of the shower, I immediately see this:

I walk out of the bathroom and see this:

And follow the trail of toilet paper to this:

Yes, our dog has a TP fetish!  Not just TP, but any kind of paper he can get his little mouth on, he will.  He will seek our paper in the hallways or outside that a normal person wouldn’t look twice at (or even once for that matter).  

This isn’t the first time we’ve had this little issue happen.  It was so frequent that I had the brilliant idea of putting a TP roll decoy on the holder – which was just the very end of a roll, that I dangled a few inches of TP off and then coated it with a nice layer of bitter apple to deter him from going for it.  We went weeks, weeks I tell you, without even an attempt at the decoy.  I got frustrated having the real TP just sitting on the sink counter and figured it had been so long since Kairo made an attempt, it was finally time to put the real TP back on the holder.  Wrong.  The following morning, Kairo must have sensed, “Oooo a new fresh roll of TP that I can run with!  So I will!” and took off with the one end in his mouth.  Over half a roll of TP wasted.

Although, he can be a devil from time to time – he’s such a cutie that it’s difficult to stay upset with him. 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

<3
K$ 

P.S. Forgive the clutter!  See KLars – it’s not always as clean as it was on Tuesday! :)

Hurray!!

I think the issue has been fixed.  Looks like long blog posts with pictures via email are a thing of the past....

More hopefully later today for my anxious readers... :)

<3
K$

Hunkering Down for Ms. Irene

Re-posted in hopes of fixing the feed problem.
----
Quick weekend recap and how we weathered the storm.  Well to be honest, along with most of the DC-area, I definitely was expecting the hurricane to be much worse than it actually was.  I've mentioned this to a few folks, but Kairo hates going to the bathroom in the rain, so I was especially worried about the hurricane coming and the potential for days of rain.  My solution: buy Kairo a raincoat.  The hubby nixed that one right away!  But isn't this cute?

http://www.wag.com/dog/p/Dogit-Slicker-Red-111859

During one of the trips outside, I ran into a guy with a lab who had a coat on.  I of course asked, "Does that help him go outside in the rain?"  The guy's response, "My wife thinks so." Then he rolls his eyes.  Yup, apparently guys are very anti dogs in clothing.  And I'm not saying I'm a huge fan of it, but Kairo has very short fur and does not have the undercoat that most other dogs have (read: does not have the insulation in the winter that other dogs have), so I'm thinking of getting him a coat for the winter - you know, to stay warm.  It's a necessity.  What are your thoughts on this coat/vest with a removable fleece lining:

http://www.wag.com/dog/p/PetEgo-Dogrich-Hunter-Coat-113597

I digress...here's the weekend update

We slept later than normal for us on Saturday morning - waking up around 9:30.  We lounged around, I cooked a delicious breakfast (right G$?) of Eggs Benedict, sans the hollandaise sauce and poached egg (i.e. eggs over easy on top of a piece of Canadian bacon on top of an English muffin).  Delish!  My family was supposed to get together at my parents' for a Mexican themed dinner night, but due to the forecast changing and the hurricane coming in earlier than originally expected, we opted to postpone the event until Sunday evening.  So G$ and I had the rest of the day with no plans.  Since we new the rain was a-coming, we decided to take the K-Man to the dog park for some running around and swimming.  As soon as we get to the dog park, what happens?  It starts raining.  We powered through the rain, since we knew the rain was only going to get heavier and the wind stronger.  Kairo has a good time and we actually ran into one of our neighbors who has a chocolate labradoodle, who is probably the most energetic dog I've ever seen in my life.  But, very well-trained.  We (or maybe just I) call him Kairo's doggie role model. 

G$ and I crated Kairo and ran some errands later in the afternoon, then we pretty much just cooped up together on the couch.  Venturing out into the elements only for potty breaks.    We had to go outside about four times while the storm was really bad.  The first time, we started to go out the normal door - the exit by the stairs.  This is the quickest route from the elevator to the outside and opens under this tunnel/passway.  We cracked the door and the wind ripped it open and the wind started bringing rain inside.  I don't think I've ever seen Kairo move so quickly in reverse.  I picked him up, thinking if I could carry him to a spot to tinkle and he'd be ok.  Not so much.  We get out into the tunnel/passway and the wind is so strong that I feel Kairos legs flailing.  So back through the main hallway to the lobby we went.  I coaxed him outside under the awning and tried to get him to voluntarily walk to the closest mulch bed to potty.  He was a trooper and made it.  We had another similar potty trip a few hours later.  But for the last two trips, I believe Kairo became too smart for his (or my) own good.  I imagine him saying: "You crazy, why would I go outside in the rain and wind to potty, when I can just pop a squat right here on the carpet in the lobby.  It's not my house, what's the big deal."  So we had two "accidents" in the lobby and I use the term loosely since it was not in our den home. 

Around 11pm, we took our last trip outside and headed to bed.  We get into the bedroom where G$ says, "What's that on the bed?"  I almost ignore him thinking he's joking, but no there's an 8 inch by 8 inch wet spot on our bed.  Greeeeeeat.  We look up and see that there is a very slow leak coming through the ceiling and we can actually hear the water dropping from the floor above onto the piece of drywall above us.  Awesome.  Guess we are sleeping on the couch tonight.  G$ goes down to tell the front desk and a maintenance guy comes up to check on the leak.  He confirms (as we suspected) that it was coming from the terrace of the floor above us.  And back to the couch. 

I slept like crap.  Most likely due to being cramped on the couch with G$ and Kairo, but also worrying, "Should I have filled the bathtub with water? What if we lose power and don't have water to shower or run out of bottled water and don't have water to drink?"  Yes, all things G$ may be hearing for the first time, because I was embarrassed of overreacting.  Which quite frankly, I was.  Although, hindsight is always 20-20. 

We didn't lose power.  It did flicker a few times, but never actually went off.  We woke up on Sunday and the sun was out and it turned into a gorgeous day!  My family was able to have our Mexican Fiesta and sit outside on the deck to enjoy the weather. 

As far as the apartment repairs go, on Sunday morning, the maintenance guys returned with a carpet company that ripped up the carpet and placed a industrial fan under the carpet to dry things out. 

Loud industrial fan in our bedroom!

Then Monday they returned to remove the fan and re-nail/staple the carpet back down.  While there, they also cleaned the carpet in our bedroom as well as in the main hallway in the apartment since they knew we had a puppy and saw some stains (just to clarify: not tinkle stains, but dirt stains from where a tinkle stain once was that we walked on with dirty shoes while it was wet with Nature's Miracle). We definitely appreciated that!  Then on Tuesday, they came and replaced the drywall.  The apartment is back to normal!

Hope everyone weathered the storm!  I know - I'm only five days late in saying that! 

<3
K$