Our Pack
Life with our "pack" - Meko, Kitsu, and Jacquay.
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- Written by: DJ Geribo
- Category: Our Pack
Yes, our girls do spend a lot of time napping throughout the day, especially when we are busy working and don't have time to play with them. I'm actually surprised that Meko, sleeping soundly here, was awake most of this day especially since she woke me at 3:30am and spent the next few hours barking until I came downstairs at 7:30am.
And why was she barking? She and Kitsu, my other Pomeranian, sleep on my bed. They usually sleep through the night but this past summer Meko was getting up a lot during the night, looking for a drink of water and needing to pee. She was getting up quite regularly and I was getting tired of it, literally! Dogs love their routines and this was becoming too much of a routine. So I had her sleep downstairs and then she would come up at 5-5:30am, waiting to come back up on the bed and sleep for a couple more hours until it was time to get up.
Last night she was on the bed and jumped off to go downstairs. I put her in the kitchen, put papers on the floor for her to use along with one of the beds that we have in the living room for her to use, and I went back to bed. She was not happy about this arrangement and proceeded to bark, thinking she would get her way. She didn't. I was as stubborn about not setting up this routine as she was about getting back up to my bed.
Unfortunately, last night it was at the expense of any of us getting any sleep!
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- Written by: DJ Geribo
- Category: Our Pack
If you are a dog or even a cat owner, most likely you have come upon your pet eating something it definitely should not be eating. With our three dogs, and even more so with our first Pomeranian, Samara, there have been times over the years when we have caught them with something completely unedible in their mouths. One time Sammy got into a tied-up trash bag, that was ready to go to the dump, and ripped it open to consume the rancid beef suet we were throwing out. Just the thought of it makes me gag, and that was about 15 years ago! She was notorious for getting into the trash baskets around the house, pulling out used kleenex and tearing them to shreds, leaving a scattered mess all over the floors. When she was a puppy, and we did not know any better and left far too many 'things' within her reach, she got hold of a beautiful gold cross pen that Jim had just bought me and left a series of teeth marks all over it. She also destroyed many pairs of my underwear (that's right, mostly my stuff) and a variety of other items. When we got Meko, Sammy tried to teach her the fun of getting into the trash but Meko never grew as tall as Sammy so was unable to get into the trash quite as easily.
And of course, I can't even imagine the amount of money we've spent on stuffed toys that end up chewed, ripped, destroyed with all of the contents pulled out and either ingested or found in clumps around the house. I'm pretty sure my dogs aren't the only dogs who destroy stuffed animals in this way, which makes me wonder, why don't they stuff these things with something that is actually edible instead of something with a warning label that says 'poisonous if eaten' on it?
Jacquay enjoys pulling trash out of the buckets from time to time, especially if that long nose of hers smells something she just can't resist. I have learned not to throw any wrapper that once had food in it, even if there is no sign of food in the wrapper, into the trash buckets we have around the house and that she can reach.
Living rurally now, it troubles me when we take them for walks and they find something on the ground, grab it, and chew and swallow it before I get a chance to stick my fingers into their mouths to try to take it out. I will occasionally watch them as they wander around our front yard when I've put them out to do their business, but instead they find something that smells just too good to pass up and into the mouth it goes. I make a mad dash to try to stop the putrid-smelling item from entering their intestinal tract. Often though, if they don't get a chance to swallow the unknown bacteria-laden pod, they will quickly drop and roll in it, determined to get the smell somewhere either in or on their bodies.
So far, none of them has gotten too ill from eating anything, except the time Sammy swallowed a piece of bone that got stuck in her esophagus that the hospital had to cut out of her... but that's another story!
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- Written by: DJ Geribo
- Category: Our Pack
There are no rules to naming your pet. Unlike children whose parents often name them after themselves (so there is a "junior") or a grandparent or they want a Christian name for their newborn, dogs and cats often end up with some of the silliest names. Some of the recent silly names that people are naming their pets are colors (friends of ours call their cocker spaniel Mr. Blue), months (April, May, always popular, even for people), days of the weeks (seven up, 7-11), and states (Carolina, Philly). There are always cute names, based on your pet's looks (furball, snowball) and names after Hollywood stars (Rocky for a bulldog or Arnold for a doberman).
We always check every source, from baby name books to the internet, when thinking of names for our pets. And it seems to take longer to come up with a name than it does to actually decide on which puppy to buy (never from a pet store). The names of our dogs were decided on after much careful consideration. And now that they have each had their names for quite sometime, I really think the names fit them perfectly!
Kameko ("Meko")
Kitsune ("Kitsu")
Jacquay ("Jacqs")
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- Written by: DJ Geribo
- Category: Our Pack
For several months now Meko, our oldest (and my favorite... shhh, don't tell the other girls) and the one I wrote about in my book, The Miracle Dog, has been coughing a lot. She used to cough when she played too hard and ran around too much. But now she is coughing daily, when she gets up from a nap, when she is walking around, even when she changes sleeping position during the night (which means, none of us are getting a very restful sleep most nights).
Although I hate to think about it, she is getting older (she will be 12 years old in November). She has been through a lot, more than most dogs since she fought and survived IMHA (Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia). But she keeps going, enjoys life, playing, suckling her toys, and snuggling and I believe she has many more years left in her.
As for the coughing, what we found out is that she has a heart murmur and as she ages, she has more problems with her heart. She is currently on low doses of Enalapril and we just started her on Lasix. Since it has only been 5 days, I have seen little improvement from the Lasix (which cuts down on the fluid in her lungs and helps her breathe easier). But like a lot of medication, we have to give it time. She has good days and not so good days. But Meko, our little fighter, isn't in a big hurry to leave this world, not while there is still pizza to eat!!!
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- Written by: DJ Geribo
- Category: Our Pack
Although it is hard to believe that our animals have feelings of jealousy or dislike for other pack members, sometimes I see evidence of it in their behavior toward each other (or maybe it is just me humanizing my dogs?)
Recently, Kitsu, our newest pack member, has been having her own unusual health issues. Now, we have had Meko since she was two months old and now, at nearly 12, she is definitely our number one girl. She also has the most personality of our three dogs. Meko has been coughing a lot, a symptom of an enlarged heart. Because of her coughing, we are giving her extra attention. Kitsu, who has been healthy since we got her a year and a half ago (she will be 8 in about a week) knows she takes a back seat to Meko, always. But suddenly she has a variety of issues that is getting her nearly equal time in the attention department.
She has been a good jumper since the day we got her and she'll jump up on your chair (with little notice) and she runs up a flight of stairs, taking them two at a time. About a week ago, I heard a lot of stumbling as she followed me upstairs and tripped. When I went to check on her, she was holding her paw up. Over the week this happened another time or two and then she jumped off the bed, which was never a problem before, but now this seemed to do more damage than either of us liked.
We are off to the vet's office tomorrow. I do believe she strained her ankle or did some damage to her foot, and we'll find out for sure tomorrow. But she is really building it up, too. She is getting more attention than before, so whether she really hurt her foot or not, it worked!