awful bad weekend.

My friend's dog, Maybelline, died in an accident Saturday night. She was about 2 years old, rescued from the L.A. City Pound after she was found abused and functioning as a puppy producer for a pit bull breeder. She was one of the sweetest dogs I've ever known and had a wonderful life with her owner. We will all miss her terribly.

17 months!!

Honey had her every-3-month chest xrays yesterday, and apparently climbed right up on the chair in the waiting room and sat down on it like a person. The doc even examined her while she was sitting in the chair, and gave her some lay's potato chips, that spoiled brat. But the good news is that she's now 17 months out of her original diagnosis, where we were given 3-6 weeks, and her lungs are "fantastically clear" and her lymph nodes are "perfect" and her heart sounds "awesome" (a concern 'cause she's been on prednisone). Also, her energy is great and her coat is all shiny and she's HAPPY, which is the most important part :)

Hunolympian!

We had a big weekend. Saturday we were up before Honey and that weirded her out considerably. But once she figured out she was going with it was all good. We headed up to an estate sale in silverlake, followed by a few stops at garage sales and then breakfast at an outdoor cafe (where she got a whole hard boiled egg) and the farmers market. Saturday was also the day the Dark Knight hit HBO so we spent the evening watching movies. Sunday we just hung out at home, except for a few walks. I was impressed that she was walking on the grass, she usually prefers sidewalk cause she has contact allergies to grass, but instead of her usual half block out-and-turn-around trick, she just kept going. I know a 7 block walk is just about nothing on most dog-walking-scales, but for Hun it's QUITE the walk. We called ehr the olympian for the rest of the day. And she even wated to play fetch yesterday afternoon!

She goes in tomorrow for chest x-rays, her first since having palliative radiation. I'm pretty sure she also needs antibiotics, her nose is pretty stuffed up.

Those strawberries were awesome!

Leaving the farmers market

sleeping on Gus

The last thing that squeaky hedgehog will EVER see...

THE NIGHT VISION HUN!!!!

tramadol stepped down, and Hun feel awesome. awesome enough to kill poor hedgie. I did this with a mac, so I have a feeling the pics will be messed up. 

post-palliative checkup

So Honeydog weighs 62 pounds. Pretty impressive for a dog who was at an all-time low of 42 during the thick of definitive radiation side effects last year. It looks like we're out of the woods side - effet wise now, nothing should pop up, and she doesnt seem to have any sores or pain. We've been keeping her on tramadol in case she's hurting but so far it seems all good. She did feel bad Sunday, and we all just stayed in bed and watched movies until she got up, then we took her to petsmart for some noms. The vet said we can go ahead and start weaning her off tramadol and then off prednisone after about a week. She'll get some follow up xrays in July to look at her lungs.

Through Radiation, on to world dominays-HUN-s.

Hun had her last dose of palliative radiation Monday and has (as of Wednesday afternoon) no side effects. I don’t think we’re out of the woods totally yet, we’re waiting until next Tuesday when she has her follow-up vet visit to clal a victory, but she can already breathe out of her nose and sleep through the night and apparently had a BLAST going to the vet every day and made a friend, Candy, who also has nasal chondrosarcoma and even looks like Honey. Boyfriend didn’t manage to get a picture because they were licking each other and wouldn’t hold still, but I’m impressed, since she started losing sight in her left eye she’s been pretty mean (scratch that, downright catty) to virtually all other dogs. Case in point - last night we had to wake her up and bribe her with duck jerky to take her for a walk at like 11pm, and she was seriously dragging – giving us these looks like ‘I cannot believe you would be so cruel as to make me ride an elevator and actually take multiple steps, you obviously live to torture doggies and don’t love me’ but its all an act, as soon as Maybelline (a grey pit-bull rescue that live in the building, about 3 years old, and mega-submissive, really a doll) and her human walked outside Honey launched herself across the sidewalk snarling with all her hackles up and teeth showing. I had to catch her in mid-air as she flew by me.

We’ve been giving her tramadol and prednisone and we’re both glad we get to start weaning her off. I think another few days on the tramadol to make sure no sores pop up and any that might be inside her sinuses have time to heal and we’ll cut the does. She’s acting completely fine though, playing tug of war and fetch, nosepunching the food container when shes ready for dinner (which is about every 45 minutes) and attempting to eat all the other dogs she can see. I think we’re going to take her to the beach over memorial day, or at least to get some pinkberry. I need to take some pictures of her for the vet, they have her day-by-day side effects photos from first round radiation and I wanted to give them the same for palliative, I think it would really help anyone whose dog is going through this, to see how hun reacted to both kinds. The problem is she wont stay still long enough for me to actually take a decent pic. Its always like honey mid-run or honey chewing on a ball or honey eating. I’ll really devote some time to it tonight, and I’ll post so everyone can see her xmen ‘do.

In other news...

I'm way too freaking sensitive. I just felt a 2.0 earthquake 28 miles southeast of here.