Monthly Archives: June 2017

Letters from Heaven. Letter two.

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Doug, It’s me, Jake.

Bro, I know what it’s like to be an inmate. She kept me locked in the mudroom for twenty years when I first came (she will say it was two weeks but it felt way longer).  She called it two-week-shutdown, I called it bullcrap, am I right?! Melvin claims he was kept separate from Max for a few weeks too but I don’t know, she let Melvin roam the WHOLE house when I lived there.  The WHOLE damn house!

Anyway, I saw you had surgery and your leg is wonky.  Uh, welcome to my world!  You are more like me than everyone thought! And uh bro, we saw you the other day when you were pooping and you fell into your poop cause your leg gave out.  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH!  Max and Melvin even laughed.  That was too funny!  Also, been there, done that.

Remember in my last letter when I told you there would come a time that she would have to carry you.  I watched her lift you out of the car the other day.  She’s always so careful and gentle.  She kissed the top of your head to keep you calm. She did that to me too.  I closed my eyes and I could still feel her wrap her arms around me. I could still hear her say ‘I’ve got you bud’. You’re so lucky to have her taking care of you.  Heres a little secret bro, she cried the first few nights you couldn’t sleep upstairs. She’s so sensitive.

So, um, dork, maybe, stop with the death stares.  I mean she spends hours a day trying to keep you entertained with puzzles and frozen smoothie Kongs and shin bones from real cows! I never got no real cow shin bones (I mean I had tic-tac teeth but so what!)  I mean, don’t scowl at the hand that feeds you dude. We get that you’d rather be out running zoomies but we think you are really lucky to be there with her. Trust us on this, just breathe these moments with her in.

Life here is pretty glorious.  I pretty much just smell and stare at Melvin all day. You will have to take my word for it, he smells so delicious.  I really like Max too.  He’s so chill. He’s like Yoda, do you know who that is? People say I look like Yoda but Max actually is Yoda.

Melvin’s doing great.  He spends his entire day watching her. Their connection is something that everyone here is in awe of. Its like she can reach up here and touch him and at the same time he’s there beside her. He won’t even write one of these letters, something about it being too sacred. I don’t know, I’m not a rules guy so I do as I want. So anywho, I stare at Melvin, Melvin stares at her and Max is Yoda. Also, there is endless peanut butter.  But don’t be thinking it’s so great here that you need to come, the current plan is that you won’t be here for 14 more years. Don’t worry brother, we’ll be waiting for you.

Pretty sure after my last letter we decided you wouldn’t destroy any more beds.  I may not be there to physically jump you (but if I was I would jump on you so hard) but let me try going about this another way…we have some pull up here as your guardian angels. Now I’m not technically allowed to threaten you, apparently heaven is all about positive reinforcement, but um Doug, I’m Jake. I act first and worry about the positive reinforcement rules never. STOP DESTROYING BEDS. 1. I left a sleep legacy there. You are tainting it. 2. When you stress her out you stress WWE Jake out and don’t make me go all HULK ON YOU!  I’m being told to calm down. UGH.

Lastly. WTF is going on that you let a cat join our family.  I mean seriously, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUDGE? We don’t take in cats, we eat them.  There is no grey area here, Doug. Cats = food. This is embarrassing. Birds landed in our yard, I ate them. Bunnies hopped on by, get in my belly bunny cause Jake gonna eat you. Frogs hippy hopping, my tongue was their final lily pad.  But you? A cat walks by and the next thing we know is she has a rabies certificate for it and you’re calling the damn thing sister. Epic fail, brother, epic fail.

Ok, I gotta run.  We got a peanut butter eating competition against Corbin, Rufus, Dixie and Chilly.  Team Holupka all the way bro!

love, your favorite brother, Jake

 

These are a few of my favorite things.

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Here are few of my treasures in the house.  I’m not sure what was up with my camera making everything look beige.  But you get the gist.

My most favorite photo of my guy. IMG_4636

 

My daily remider. IMG_4637

 

My superheroes. IMG_4639

 

My favorite guard dog butts. IMG_4641

 

A canvas I had made on ETSY. IMG_4644

 

Doug’s first framed photo! IMG_4647 (1)

 

Our Yellow Brick Home Pet Portrait treasures!IMG_4649

 

And the book I had made of the all the Instagram memories I have of Melvin and Jake. Sneak peek video below. IMG_4651

 

 

The other leg.

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Doug is a lot like Melvin (the early days Melvin) ethusiastically.  But his hind legs are 100% Jake.

We have the ongoing saga of his newly rebuilt leg. That one takes us down the inmate path where Doug is jailed and I take his tranquilizers.

We also have the other leg. It now has a stage one luxating patella. It also, likely from several months of compensating for the other leg, hyperextends in the hock area.  The best way for me to describe this to you in a way we all understand is that his ankle area on the good leg, pops forward when he uses it.  Ankles probably should not do that.

Enter in the new brace.  When I tell people about the new brace they just assume its for the newly rebuilt leg and even when I try to explain it’s for the not new leg, they still say ‘yeah, it’s for his surgery leg’ and I say no, it’s for his non-surgery leg and then we all just agree to disagree but still agree that both legs are problematic. Then I get the vodka back out.

Here is Doug, and his new leg brace. He’s tried to eat it 4,672 times (we just got it on Friday) (bottom two videos). I break into a full sweat getting it on him. But look how nicely it accentuates his juicy thigh!

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Super Kindergarten.

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It’s the end of the school year, kids are gearing up for no more school, summer break and graduations.

Not my kid though, Doug is being held back. He’s going into Super Kindergarten/summer school.

Doug’s healing is slow going. In fact, we have had a bit of a setback. His knee has a lot of swelling and it’s pushing his kneecap back out. To be clear, back out is the wrong direction. Also, on a separate issue, one of his TPLO pins is cutting into his bone a little.

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Awesome, right!?

At our appointment last Friday they called me into a room.  Nothing good comes out of being called into a room. The surgeon said that we should cut back on activity for four weeks. Cut back on activity? What activity? Please explain yourself. What he was saying, as my soul was screaming NOOOOOOOO, is that Doug should not progress right now. We should not increase or change anything for four weeks. That adds four weeks to our total recovery time.

That would take us to 20-24 weeks.  Otherwise calculated as five to six months.

We are at six weeks now. My guess is, that come two months, Doug will be strategizing how to make wind chimes out of my bones.

He is a prisoner in a world that won’t let him run. Or jump. Or do stairs. Or run. Or run some more.

He’s most definitely planning my death.

We followed up our surgeon appointment with a therapy session.  We were hoping to start water therapy but with the activity setback, therapy will need to be low-key for the next four weeks.  They put some numbing gel on his knee and did some laser work.  I wish there was numbing gel for my hopes and dreams for Doug’s summer.

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He’s still super adorable though!  And trust me, there is a death stare under the doggles. IMG_4496

Be sure to join us over on Instagram to see the photo journal of Doug’s time in jail. We can be found @Dougholupka.for.president

Bob, the lady cat.

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As you will recall, Bob is the feral cat that I started feeding last fall, when she was just a kitten. Then Bob got knocked up, and her gender became more obvious, but I kept her name anyway. She’s Bob. Bob was trapped, she nursed her kittens and they were adopted out.

Bob got spayed, vaccinated, ear tipped, microchipped and got a three-month tick preventative this past week and has come here to recover.

Bob is an angry, rebellious teenager. And everything is apparently my fault.

Listen Bob, I get it. You’re a slutty little vixen (that sounded judgy but I fully accept who you are) and after a few nights of unprotected boy-toy time you started gaining some weight. Then one day, kittens dropped out of your area. I imagine that was uncomfortable. I don’t know how you felt about being a mom but you seemed to step-up and kept the kittens well-fed. Then the rains came, you moved the babies to higher ground and then giants stole your babies, trapped you and forced you into a cage with the kittens to be their food source. It all seems pretty hurtful. 

Then one of the giants took you to a place where they poked and prodded you and then took out your lady parts. Then a different, yet familiar, giant picked you up and put you in a high-rise cage that she built with her own hands. Even though that familiar giant paid your vet bill, and is allergic to you, and reaches into the cage several times a day to feed you, give you fresh water and clean your litter box, you take time out of your very busy lying around time TO HISS AT HER LIKE VICIOUS LION.

Yes, folks, that’s right, inmate-Bob hates me too. I go outside and use soothing tones and feed her really, really good food and she basically gives the cat equivalent of a F U. Every time. It rained yesterday, so I went and bought a huge tarp to keep Bob dry and I spent a long time trying to aerodynamically figure out how to utilize the tarp and not SUFFOCATE BOB at the same time and still that little hussy (sorry, still no judgement) hissed at me the entire time. Every time I reach in to fill up her food bowl I wonder if that will be the moment I learn what cat attack feels like.

I don’t blame her. She does not have a clue as to why her life has been disrupted and when, if ever, she will back to walking the mean streets. The answer to that is, SOON, very soon. Once free. my guess is that she will return to the front of the house where I was feeding her before her teen pregnancy and that is fine. I will feed her wherever.

I am also moderately concerned that she and Doug are planning some sort of prison coup. They can probably communicate telepathically.

I need a sturdier lock on my bedroom door.

The only thing that I know with absolute certainty is that cleaning a litter box is a new level in hell for me. It’s not even that there is poop or pee, I mean the scoop makes it really easy. It’s the smell of the fresh litter. It’s so overwhelming. It’s like someone sprays a powdery,  deodorizing, air freshener directly into my face every time. The smell haunts me, all day.

Here is Bob being introduced to her condo. This is right before poop started flying out of her butt.  It made me miss Jake.

 

She looks super sweet. Until you look at, lean towards, reach into or try to help out in any way.

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It makes me laugh how much Jake would HATE the mere idea of Bob, let alone seeing her in his yard.  I’m not even sure I would have taken her in if Jake was here, his prey drive was so severe. Bob’s existence would have haunted him day and night. He is probably flipping out about her as I type this.