Trash Cans and Traveling

Trash cans have been taking up entirely too much of my brain (and blog) space lately, but I am happy to announce that I finally found small, lidded trash cans that I could afford. Well, I don't know if afford is the right word here, but I am just not going to spend $30 on a fancy pants trash can that would hold three pieces of paper, a juice box, and a banana peel, just because it has a motion sensor that makes it open when you are nearby, so you don't actually have to touch it (which, I have to say, totally defeats the purpose of having a lid on a trash can to keep curious critters from using it as a snack bar in the first place). So, anyway, I found trash cans at Bed, Bath and Beyond that I really like. Not only are they small and simple with a swinging lid, but they are made of biodegradable plastic and they were $10 each - I just love the poetry of biodegradable trash cans. Plus they aren't ugly! Following Barrie's advice, I bought two, one for the bathroom and one for the kitchen. I almost went looking for them at Wal-Mart, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. We hates the Wal-Mart, we hates it! Anyway, that will hopefully be the last post about the state of my trash cans, we will now be leaving all the "Trash Talk" to the Clair the elusive Southern Polar Bear.

In other news, I am in Ohio for the holiday with my family (aka most of the people who are reading this blog), I arrived in late last night after a very long day of traveling. I left my house at 5:50 am to drive eighty miles to St George where I took a shuttle van to the Las Vegas airport two hours away and then proceeded to wait for three hours for my flight to take off . . . blah blah blah, we all know how these airport stories go. Anyway, I finally got to mom's house at about 11:45 pm, making it about sixteen hours of traveling, all after a long day up at BF and a short night of sleep. You may recall an earlier post talking about Sage, the dog with the head tilt and either a brain tumor or an inner ear infection. Well, I have been remiss in my duties here and I have forgotten to tell you all that our wonderful volunteers, Jeanne and Robin, offered to foster her in their home, she finally has her forever home in her old age. She has been doing amazingly well in their care, her head tilt is gone and she stopped circling (something that often accompanies the head tilt), she made herself at home immediately in their care and they fell in love with her the minute she walked in their door. She knows she is home. So you can imagine how distressing it was to be heading for the door, ready to start my vacation and hear that she was coming in and was not in very good shape, her head tilt was back, she was circling, and she was trying (unsuccessfully) to both vomit and poop. The last two things are classic signs of bloat, which, as it turns out was what was happening. She went through emergency surgery to reposition her twisted stomach and staple it to the abdominal wall so that it won't twist again. She has not been eating well for weeks, she had only had about a cup and a half of food the day she bloated, so the vets think she may have been "trying" to bloat for a while now, and it just wasn't until Monday night that she went into a full twist and bloat. With many dogs, you can actually see the bloat happening as their stomach distends, but Sage has an incredibly bushy, thick coat making it very difficult to see small changes in her shape. My co-worker, Terry, and I decided to stay with Jeanne and Robin while they waited for results from the surgery, which, thankfully, went well. Yesterday, she wasn't up and moving, yet, but she was giving kisses and seemed to be feeling somewhat better. The vets said that if she made it through the first 24 hours after the surgery, we were basically out of the woods. Thank goodness that Sage is such a stubborn, tough old broad; it was difficult to leave knowing that she was in such a precarious position, but there are a great many people that know and love Sage dearly and she does appear to be recovering well (Knock on Wood!), I just keep sending her all the good thoughts and healing energy I can muster.

While it is nice to have a break from work, it is strange to think that I won't be back at the Lodges for a whole week. Coming back from a two-day weekend can often mean new dogs, moved dogs, changed meds, and different routines, I can't imagine what it will be like to come back from a week away. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season and I will try to get a few more posts up in the coming days. Best wishes!

(All photos copyright Best Friends Animal Society.)