The Bee's Knees

I think I first heard that expression from my Sainted Grandmother.. but being a down to earth Texas farmer's wife, perhaps not as she was not given to such flights if fancy. That is, as far as I know, though I do recall some pictures of her in styling 'flapper' type get-ups that would argue something different. According the this it has a interesting taxonomy starting in the 18th century as 'insignificant' to the 1920's meaning 'cool!'.

In any case, this summer for the first time we had a hive in our yard. Genius Daughter went to bee class and setup the thing along with Boyfriend. They administered the hive throughout the Spring and Summer, conscientiously tending to the things that needed to be tended to. It was basically all a mystery to me. In fact I didn't really worry about it after I realized that just walking around in the yard or even running the mower past them would not engender an attack.

Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, the queen, and a replacement queen just couldn't get the job done and the hive could not sustain itself. What you see in the above video is the result of a chaotic hive where many of the female drones have tried to take over the role of queen unsuccessfully, resulting in confusion. If we were earlier in the year, they could have gotten another (better) Russian queen, but given that we are late summer, there was not much to do besides breaking down the hive to store it and start over  next year.

It has been a learning experience for all of us, and I have no doubt that next year will be better. I will say that having bees in the yard has resulting in an explosion of all our flowers and the few vegetable plants we have here and there around the yard.  I look forward to watching the hive do it's thing next year, and am grateful I live in a county and neighborhood where such things are permitted.

Animal Myths...

Here's a couple of interesting animal myths that I see have been debunked...

First up is the myth that the komodo dragon bite while not containing venom, is deadly due to all kinds of nasty bacteria that live in its mouth. Now I have seen these guys on numerous trips to the national zoo in DC. They are truly scary creatures. To be pursued and bitten by one or more of them would keep me up at night if I lived in an area where they roamed free. I, like most people that read the description of them on the placard by the their cage noting this 'fact', took it at face value that it was true. Well, it turns out that some scientist did some deeper thinking about it and studied it a bit more and concluded that it was all bunk. Turns out that water buffalo that they killed by biting went and wallowed in nasty feces filled mud, then died from infection. Yea Science!

Next up is the color blindness of dogs. This is one that I have heard all my life and again took at face value - dogs can't see color. Well it turns out that isn't quite true. They just can't see all the colors. They actually do have receptors for blue and yellow, but not red and green. Scientist constructed some test to verify that was true, and Science! proved it was. Now it turns out they are just like humans who have trouble seeing red / green. Is that you? Check it out:

Mammals not fish...

So I keep hearing the Norwegian Criuse Lines ad which starts out "My parents think I was crazy for marrying a dolphin". In the background there are all the squeaks and noises to let you know she wasn't talking about a guy from the football team. A few parts of it:

"Yes I love your salty lips"

"Come over here Mr. Fin and give me some lovin"

Given the numerous occasions where dolphins attempt to rape humans, this ad is a little disturbing. Coming on the heels of the Supreme Court ruling that marriage is no longer strictly limited between a man and women, you gotta wonder exactly what this cruise line is advocating? I'm thinking that even gay people might be a little insulted...

Today's Great Idea!

Coal colored rawhide bones for people to put in 'bad dog' stockings for Christmas....

Lucky Update

I have noted here and here that my dog Lucky, a Great Pyrenees mix, had a chronic limp issue.  I guess since I don’t do facey-book anymore, this seems like the place to note his status. We have gone back and forth with the vet and an orthopedic surgeon, and they were unable to diagnose the issue, which got progressively worse. We tested for everything from bone & muscular cancer, to Lymes. Fortunately, nothing scary came back positive. We treated him for Lymes, but it really did not seem to help.

Finally, we took him to a dog orthopedic place (VOSM). The doctor there evaluated him and was able to diagnose CCL (or, if he were a human, ACL damage). Diagnosis is actually straightforward, as there are a couple of manipulations that they do assess if the noted ligaments are damaged. In Lucky’s case, it took a while for things to loosen up to the point where the manipulations gave the right indications indicating ligament damage. In fact, everyone involved noted that his diagnosis was unusually difficult. Anyway, this was actually good news, as now we knew what the problem was and the only question was what type of repair needed to be done and who would do the cutting. We settled on this guy to do the surgery, and went with his recommended TTA (described here) repair.

Lucky came through the surgery in good shape. He was good about not licking the wound, so he didn’t need a ‘cone’. After two weeks he went back and got the stitches out and there was no sign of infection. Since the surgery he has been pinned up in the living room to try to keep him as calm as possible so the leg will have a chance to heal. He will have to be confined there for two months. We have started doing short 5 minute walks and every day he is relying more and more on leg. We will expand the walks soon, going to longer and longer walks to build up the muscles that have atrophied.

In summary, I am deeply grateful to the doctors who have worked with us to bring him back, and I am overjoyed to see him healing so well. I think he is going to make a good recovery. Yes, it was not cheap, and I am glad I could afford to have it done, and the doctors have assured me they would have worked with me to set up a payment plan if I could not have afforded it. He is recovering well, and his prognosis is good. I will update this post & bump it with any new developments.

C@S RUL

Friday Is Not Amused!

It is counter-intuitive that what is indisputably the most dignified class of pets are more often than not distinguished by their inelegant moments. This was true of the previous cat that I shared a home with, and is true the two four legged jokers that roam the halls of my current palatial estate. Well, actually it's just a split level suburban, but that's certainly not the way those two see it. As indoor cats, the house is their world, and they rule all of it - with the exception of the downstairs rec area, where the slobbering, loud, undignified, and rather slow dogs are allowed to stay (mostly). The mid level living area, where the human food is stored, prepared, and begged for, is shared in an uneasy way that I suspect serves mostly to entertain the cats.

The first cat I recall sharing space with my wife and I obtained from the pound shortly after getting married. While I had all manner of pets while growing up, I had not enjoyed the company of a pet for the previous six years as my Army barracks and subsequent housing domiciles precluded it. My wife did not grow up with animals, so she was ambivalent to the idea. Baubles delighted us both as she was a cat that insisted on being constantly entertained. If she wasn't ambushing feet left inappropriately exposed from underneath the couch or bed sheet  she was clawing your arm off in a battle royal and aggressively exploring her environment. Her most memorable early exploration was almost disastrous (for her). In the middle of the night, I was awakened to plaintive meows and what sounded like an elephant rampaging through the closet. It turned out that she had discovered my fly rod with a fly still attached. Like a fish, she had bitten at the fly, got hooked, and was pulling the pole all over the closet, knocking over boxes and knickknacks in an attempt to escape. The next morning, the vet calmly snipped and extracted the hook protruding from her lip and pronounced her just fine. She had many misadventures after that, none fatal or debilitating, from learning to talk to squirrels that lived in the roof of our apartment, to getting stuck in the walls of our rental home. She died peacefully in our current home, in my wife's arms at the ripe old age of 18 or so, affectionate and connected to the end.

Our current two guys are a bit more reserved. First there is Friday. Friday also came to us from the pound. He has always been my daughter's cat as she picked him out, cared for him, and to this day, remains his slave. His name comes from either the day that we obtained him or a Robinson Crusoe reference, I have never asked or been informed which. In any case he came very close to dying right after we got him. He obtained a cold, which can be very dangerous for any cat, and especially so for a weaker kitten, as cats won't eat if they can't smell. Given his size, the vet only gave him a marginal chance for survival and he had to be force fed with a dropper twice a day. My daughter, determined that he would live, took charge of the feeding, and day be day he got better, until he grew into the bug killing king of the dogs that he is today.

The other cat was obtained on a road trip, shortly after Baubles died. We had stopped on our way home from some distant trip and checked into a motel to get some much needed rest. As there wasn't any food place near the motel still open, we called for pizza. While we were waiting outside, we saw this kitten nosing around the motel parking lot looking for food. When we offered him some pepperoni slices from our pizza, he woofed them down and was more than happy to stay in our room for the night. The next morning, after checking with the motel staff to confirmed the kitten was a stray, we packed the kids and the kitten in the van, and off we went.

When we stopped for gas and a bathroom break, we were careful to not let the kitten get out of the van. However, we were worried about him not having an appropriate place in the van to do his business. I fashioned a halter and leash of sorts out of some string we had so I could 'take him for a walk' at the truck stop. Yeah - sometimes my ideas are amazing and cosmically stupid at the same time!  As soon as the kitten's feet hit the ground he remained motionless for a beat or two, then upon realizing he was UNDER a VAN, surrounded by CARS and GIANT TRUCKS that will KILL him, he went ballistic: lunging against the string, hissing, and biting all at the same time. I realized I had to do something quick before he managed to free himself from my makeshift leash, so I reached into that tiny bundle of fury, grabbed the nape of his neck, and tossed him into the van. The result of that brief contact was that my hand and arm were covered by scratches and a few rather painful kitten teeth shaped bites. I told my wife, "That cat is Psycho!".

The name of course stuck as the kids immediately seconded the 'cool name'. It is fortuitous that I didn't use any of the other flowery language that was flowing through my head at the time. Psycho (or 'Tiger' as my wife calls him when she takes him to the vet as she is too embarrassed to let the vet know his real name) is still pretty skittish. He is affectionate, and, like all the other animals in the house, completely dominated by Friday.

The two of them can occasionally be heard late at night running the halls in a rousing game of chase or teasing the dogs at their gate at the top of the stairs. Some nights it's an irritation.  Mostly though its a comfort - knowing that it is life taken in the moment as only a cat can do.

Going To The Dogs

Growing up, my family had a dog until I was in my teens, of which I only remember two. The first was the family patriarch that died when I was about 6. He was a hound dog named Brownspots. Like all our family pets, Brownspots was a mutt, untrained, and left free to roam when and where he wanted. As I remember, he was named for the spots on his coat, but knowing my father’s wry sense of humor, I suspect the name also was a not so subtle reference to the messes he would leave. We all loved that dog, although I only have vague recollections of him. Sadly, my memory of him now mostly consists of where we buried him. That is not surprising as his loss was my first encounter with death.

The second dog we got quite a bit later and at my behest, a beagle named (I think) Pete. By that time, Memphis required dogs to be locked up and the neighborhood we lived in began to fill up with houses (and cars). Our yard was not fenced and my parents were loath to allow a dog in the house. Therefore, the poor thing ended up chained to a kennel. Eventually, he was given away to someone who could give him a better life. The third dog of my life was one we got about a year after we were married and had purchased our first home (condo). He was an ill disciplined beast when chewed incessantly on things. We of course were overwhelmed with life and kids, and not at all prepared for the relationship that a dog demands, so we ended giving him away.

This raises an interesting point. Being a dog owner is different than being a cat owner. Dogs draw you into their world, making you acknowledge them as a dependent in a way a cat will not. Once you accept the role as their ‘Alfa’, you must respond to that role. That’s not to say cats are superior to a dog, they just establish the relationship in a different manner.

There was one other dog during that period that had a great effect on my life. When I was about 10, I got my first job. There was a weekly ‘free ad’ paper that that paid about two cents a paper for us to deliver throughout the neighborhood. I guess you could call it the ‘Craigslist’ of that era. The rule was that the paper had to be thrown either on the porch or upper driveway. My parents were, by today’s standards, extremely lax. Imagine letting your kid bike around the neighborhood, as far out as a mile or so, going up perfect stranger's driveways or walks, and throwing papers. Not to mention allowing your child to work for what amounted to slave wages! It actually wasn't as bad as it sounds. We could deliver around 150 in a couple of hours, earning about $3 a week. At that time that was enough to keep flush in sodas and comic books. Not to mention it laid the foundation for a solid work ethic.

I still don’t remember all the details, but over the years I have been able to reconstruct what happened. The owners of this particular dog, a Great Dane (whose name I never learned), had chained him in their open garage, which was blocked by a cars filling their relatively short driveway. Being a conscientious delivery boy, I determined that the best way to deliver the paper to the porch, was to thread past the cars, across the open garage (and the unseen dog), to get the paper on the porch. As I pulled in front of the garage, I was greeted with the site of the largest dog in the world going from panting relaxation to full alert at the intrusion of a deadly stranger on his turf. I on the other hand offered a friendly “Hi Doggy!” It is at this point things get a little fuzzy. I think the owners responded to my cries pretty quickly and pulled the dog off of me. Most of me was under my bike, so only my leg was used as a chew toy. Apparently I had the presence of mind to give them my phone number and my parents came to take me to the emergency room where they stitched me up, albeit except for a small sliver which apparently was eaten by the dog. From that point on I remained afraid of dogs until my parents shipped me off for the summer to work in my uncle’s vet hospital. I suspect this was an attempt at therapy to get me over the fear. Regardless of the reason, working with sick and vulnerable dogs cured me. For that I thank my parents and my uncle.

My current dog is a Great Pyrenees mix. He has a kind face and a gentle disposition, making him an almost perfect dog that every kid wants to pet. Unfortunately, he has that breed’s independent disposition, which is to say he is submissive and obeys, as long as there is not something more interesting for him to do or eat. Of course this makes it imperative to keep him well leashed when walking in the woods where there are too many small (and large) furry creatures to chase.  Coming from a herd dog breed, he had moves that would put most NFL running backs to shame while dodging and running. Thus, when he was young, catching him was a difficult feat. He has slowed down quite a bit as he has aged, and currently has a chronic limp that shows no sign of getting better. Fortunately, when he is out for a neighborhood patrol, the years fall away, and you can’t see the limp. That is the eternal innocence of dogs in a big fuzzy package.