(Sometimes, when all the diapers are in the wash, Jake has to wear the pink diaper.  Don’t tell him I posted a video of him wearing that).

Puzzles provide a good brain workout for dogs.  Puzzles are also good for dogs with mobility issues as they have to not only figure out the puzzle, but also how to remain upright during the process.  Sometimes, easier said than done.

As for Jake and puzzles, 100% of the time, he cheats.

Happy Birthday, Jake!!!  It’s funny that Jake is only eight because he has always come across as the oldest dude in the house. Melvin was exuberant and jolly and Jake is a little more ‘reserved’ and ‘grumpy’.  But in a way that I love.  Come as you are baby cakes!

Jake was turned into to rescue on his 5th birthday.  I always wonder if his first family knew it was his birthday. From what I was told, it didn’t sound like they celebrated Jake very much so I doubt they knew.  His life has changed a lot in three years.

When Jake was five, he really only knew existence.  He sat and waited a lot.  Affection was not something he wanted nor was it something that seemed  familiar to him. His behavior with Melvin was primarily to snarl and lunge at him. But as his life progressed in his forever home, he learned that life here was soft.  That we were kind, loving, wanting to be near him.  That five-year-old Jake seems like a distant memory now.

Also at five, his legs worked fine.  But here is how I know he knows that this is where he belongs… when his legs gave out that fate filled day in December, his first, terrified glance was to me and his second, ‘help me’ glance was to Melvin.  He’d found his family and we vowed to never let him struggle.

Eight looks good on Jake. Even though he can only see it through one eye.  He owns his life like a boss. He’s more confident with his mobility issues now, he just moves forward in any way possible.  He has experienced the greatest love. I don’t know that he will ever love another dog the way he did his brother, but I do know that their beautiful bond transformed Jake and I do believe that because of their great love, he can do it again if he chooses to.

Jake is funny, stubborn, vulnerable.  He will lean into you for snuggles but if you stop petting him, he will leave.  He is unhappy when I leave a room without him, but will leave me in a room alone any time he pleases.  He is noisy, he almost always smells like pee (even post bath), and if you are a creature that is smaller than him, he will hunt you and he will kill you. He is a lover AND a fighter. But when he loves you, it’s fierce and it’s deep. Same with his hunting style.

I never knew I wanted Jake.  He found me.  I never knew I’d be a dog clothes person or a woman who would order a dog stroller. We have grown together, we have suffered great loss together. No dog has ever made me laugh as much as Jake has. We have taught each other about perseverance. He is my baby, I love him and I know that he knows that I am his forever.  He no longer sits and waits, he is found.

Happy Birthday, nugget!

There are always moments with our dogs (or cats) where we say ‘what in the world are you doing, you goofball?’.  And although we don’t really expect an answer, we ask it out loud anyway.  Probably to communicate to others that yes, we are in fact crazy and crazy people talk out loud to their pets.

But there are some moments with Jake, where I ask that and I really need to know.  Bud, what’s happening?

I came out of the office yesterday to find him like this. He’d left the office about 30 minutes prior so I guess he got five steps away and thought, too far, must rest. But why not lay down?

And he sat at the door, a door he never goes out of, staring at the closed blinds for 20 min.  I have been saying all along that I question if he has any vision in his bionic eye but perhaps his vision is now so spectacular that he can see through wood. 

And this one from a few weeks ago.  Staring out the door, to the lovely landscape of the wall. 

Pretty sure he expects me to rename this blog, Oh Jake! And in case anyone is worried, Jake sees a neurologist regularly for his spine from hell.  So from what we can tell, this is just Jake.

It’s been five months since Melvin died.  The grief has settled in, it no longer feels like a foreign body trying to take me down.  It’s a part of me, like my hands and my thoughts. It’s still grief, but slowly it becomes bonded with memory.  One day it will just be the latter.

I can now go days without crying.  Photograph still plays on the radio when I walk in the house. It makes me smile and take pause in the most beautiful way. He may not greet me anymore but when I walk in and hear the song, I’m reminded that he no longer needs to greet me, he travels with me.

Losing Melvin was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.  That is not to say that losing people in my life wasn’t difficult, it just goes to show you that you don’t get to choose what breaks you the most.  I will always miss him.  But slowly, it becomes less of a void and more of an awareness.

I have been using the ‘on this day’ feature on FB to reconnect with old blog posts and they make me smile.  So much.

I think I can safely say that Jake has gotten through his grief of Melvin.  I’m so grateful for that.  I’m guessing that after five months, there are no longer scents of Melvin in the house.  His ears still perk up when I say Melvin’s name in conversation however he no longer looks up or looks around when he hears his brother’s name.

Having Melvin here made me a really good person.  I can’t explain it but Melvin’s existence compelled me to be better, giving, compassionate and loving. He made me patient, which is odd since he was anything but. Since losing him,  I have to encourage  myself to do better, do more, be selfless.  It came easier when Melvin was here. With a single glance from him, I always strived to be more. For example, I get a little frustrated in the middle of the night after 6 or 7 bedding changes for Jake.  When Melvin was here, he’d sit up each time I got up to change the bedding and I’d see him and his face would say ‘poor little guy, he was sent to us for a reason’ and I’d never get frustrated.  I’m working harder on that patience and trying to channel my inner Melvin.

I have donated  a lot of his stuff.  Stored things that I will probably never be able to part with and set aside things that a future dog might be able to use. It’s funny the things I have not been able to purge.  There is a vial of his allergy shot medication in the refrigerator.  I am not sure why it remains.  I also still have his box of meds that I would pull out every Sunday to do his am/pm pill box for the week.  And I still have the plastic covered feeding instructions for him and Jake for the dog walker.  Grief is funny.

I have lost fifty pounds since the day I found out Melvin had cancer.  I jokingly call it the sadness diet.  At first, when he was diagnosed and I thought he’d die at any moment, I just couldn’t eat.  After he died, well after he died I just didn’t look at food the same way.  Food has always been a source of joy for me.  Melvin however was the greatest joy and when that was removed, my love affair with food changed. Other joy sources just didn’t stand a chance.  And as far as the food part went, that is a great thing for me. So it’s funny when people ask ‘how did you lose the weight’ and I smile and say the sadness diet!  It’s like, why is she smiling and what the hell is a sadness diet!?

Five months. We are surviving.  There was never a doubt that we would persevere but there were certainly moments when we didn’t want to.  #loveliveson in the most beautiful ways.

I was video taping Jake the other day because he was giving me slim-shady eye.  He would look at me, then if I was looking at me, he’d dart his eye away (keep in mind he can only look at me with one eye at a time).  So I started recording him.  There is about 10 seconds of his shady eye movement and then a liquid burp (keep it sexy Jake) and then he does a few moves that I am pretty sure are…

Now watch me whip…now watch me superman.  Then more eye darting.  Enjoy!

Jake’s eye.  That eye really likes center stage.  It does not want to be a pair with the other eye, oh no, this eye would move to the center of his forehead if it could.

The good news is that the graft is starting to heal nicely.  We went in for our fourth appointment (the one month since surgery appointment) and the graft is FINALLY healing as they want it to.  Yay!!!

The concerning news is that, the red growth (that had started growing a week post surgery), was continuing to grow.  It is near the area where they harvested the graft  tissue (under his eyelid) and it is so big that his eye lid either can’t let it out or can’t let it back in. It actively bleeds, all day long. It is about the size of a marble.  We are seeing one of the premiere eye surgeons/ophthalmologists on the east coast and her exact words were ‘I have never seen anything like this’.

If I had a $1 for every time I’ve heard that.

I put a photo of Jake’s eye on our our adoptive parents FB page for the rescue I got Jake from and again, everyone said, never seen anything like that.  And that group has seen A LOT!

So the doctor removed it and sent it to pathology.  We are still awaiting those results.  In the meantime, within only days of being removed, it’s growing back.  I’m trying to stay on the positive side and patiently (ok, fine, I call to check on the arrival of the pathology report several times a day) waiting to see what it is.  Until then, although he has been cleared for the cone for the graft part, this growth is keeping him in the cone longer.  We are now in our 8th week of that mother bleeping thing.  There is a bonfire in that cone’s future.

Here is Jake, mean-mugging after I woke him up trying to take his picture.  

You’ll recall the poisonous toad story from two-weeks ago (here).

This past weekend, we were out back for the before-bed-potty-break, standing in the glow of the motion light set up on one side of the backyard.  Jake was sniffing and peeing and then I saw it, ANOTHER LARGE TOAD WITH POISON SPRAYERS.

Just as I saw it, Jake saw it.  And the bleeping motion light went off.  I scooped Jake up before the light could even register my movement and got him inside.  I then went and got ‘the’ shovel.  It was dark and raining but for the love all things good, I was not stopping until I found that toad.  He was under a tree.

Crisis averted, although not loving my new career as a toad evictor.

This morning, I was having patio repair done (thanks a lot chipmunks) and one of the guys came up to chat with me.  At the end of the update of what they were doing he said: “oh, did you want us to leave the dead bunny in the back yard?”.

WHAT THE WHAT?????? Come again?

He said there was a dead buddy, a ‘jugular kill’.  I may or may not have passed out.  I somehow motioned with my hands the universal signal to ‘remove slashed necked dead bunny from my yard’ and went inside.

Jake did not kill this bunny.  I weeded the flower bed where they found it in just yesterday and I was with Jake on all his outings out back after that.  Also, it was an adult bunny with a big head. Jake can barely open his mouth and he has tic-tac teeth. He lifts food into his mouth with his tongue (meals take forever!) so so his killing is usually of the sitting on it variety. Unless you have a little head like frogs, birds and baby bunnies, then he will put you in his tiny mouth and suffocate you.  And often attempt to swallow you. So… I worried a little about what is using my FENCED IN back yard as a killing ground. After many conversations with me talking in a pitch only dogs can hear it was decided that the bunny was likely attacked outside my yard (probably by a dog) and crawled into my yard to die.  Otherwise, the hunter would have eaten his or her trophy.

Poetically, the bunny died in a little garden I made that houses memorial stones for Max and Melvin.  So it was a good choice on its part.  It’s not getting a burial stone, but it was a good choice.

In relate news, I still don’t enjoy nature.

Did someone say bunny?!

Time for more giving!

As a reminder, each month, we will do a giveaway that celebrates the unique nature of our furry friends. There will be monthly categories, so if you have a dog that falls into that one, you can nominate them to win. If your dog does not fit into this month’s category, do not fret, we have a pretty all-encompassing list for the entire year – we eventually got you covered!

This month, a category near and dear to our googly-eyed, cone-wearing, Jake and to our angel buddy, Rufus (from Our Waldo Bungie) (And Jen at Sirius has a one eyer!!!)…

Dog’s who are visually challenged — one eye, no eyes, blind, limited vision — let’s celebrate you! 

Here is how it works…

This goes beyond just a giveaway (but yes, there is of course some loot!). Our goal is to remind each other that we are all in this crazy life together. That through these giveaways, we can all bring empathy into play. As you share stories of your visually challenged dogs, read the stories of others. You may nod, and realize you are not alone. You can message others and share your experiences and advice. Friendships will form. Support can be shared. Joy will be spread!

Share your visually challenged dog (your dog’s name, a photo. and the story about their vision) on either our Facebook page containing this post, on Sirius Republic’s Facebook page when they share this post. If you are not of the Facebook world, you can email your info to ohmelvinyojake@gmail.com. You can also post the info below in the comments, although you probably can’t share a photo on here (and that’s ok). No matter how you submit your info, you will be entered to win.

READ ALONG AS OTHERS POST. DON’T FORGET TO REACH OUT.

We will pick one female and one male winner at the end of September!

Next month, it will be a new category!

The whole ‘it takes a village’ concept, it’s applicable to Jake. While I may take care of him, and clean up after him, and buy him bionic eyes, there are just some solutions that I need help with.

You might wonder why all our giveaways include Sirius Republic.  It’s because Jen (the heart and soul of Sirius Republic) is one of the best people I have ever known.  And I know a lot of wonderful people, so Jen is pretty spectacular. Supporting a company that is owned by an AWESOME person, yes please!  During the late nights before I lost Melvin, when Melvin’s Project Joy came to life, Jen was the very first person I reached out to.  Without her, the Joy would not be as lovely and powerful as it has been.  I’m forever grateful.

Jen is the person who when you are at the beach on vacation with her and your monkey named Jake smells like a pee factory, she says ‘lets give him a bath’ (said with a lot of enthusiasm that you do not share!).  And she gets in the tub with said stinky monkey, even when you warn her that HE WILL PEE and when he does pee ON HER she says ‘awwww, he loves me!’.  Good people.

One of the biggest, life changing things has been Jake’s belly bands.  Without those bands… well I can’t really think where we would be without those diapers.  Jake’s body is so odd that custom was really the only way to go.  When Jen reached out last year and said she was making him diapers to help out, I cried.  I cried because I was at my wit’s end and she is an angel who swooped in to save us.  And over the past year, she has worked with Jake’s changing situations to perfect the belly band (we recently got a new batch that allow for more room now that we are doing cloth inserts instead of pads).  Rumor has it belly bands for boys might be something she adds to the Sirius Republic mix one day (Girl diapers are much more difficult to do, sorry ladies!)!!! But boys, rejoice!!!!

Recently someone reached out to me, asking about the belly bands.  This person said they had a dog in their rescue who had Spina Bifida and they were in need a diaper solution similar to Jake’s, but more elaborate due to the structure of the sweet boy’s hip and spine issues. Finding a solution for Bart the Pit Bull (on Instagram @Bart83014) could make the difference in him being adopted.  I reached out to Jen “do you think you can help”?  I knew the answer already, she got to work on the item and design.  And she donated her time and talent  and materials to help this sweet boy out. Best of the best of all the people.

Today’s lesson:  surround yourself with awesome, loving, giving friends.  Together, you can start to change the world!!!

We love us a good long weekend!  We had a house guest this weekend, of the 5-year-old-niece variety.  We have not had that much exuberance in the house since Melvin was here so it was fun to see her running zoomies and bouncing off of things. Also, Jake loves Maddy, he leans into her like he leans into no other (this might have something to do with her love of Oreos).

I worked with her to help her understand that Melvin is in heaven now and answer questions (why, why, why, why) that she had about that. Why he was there, why he couldn’t come back, that she wished he could come back (me too sister!!). The importance here is that, it’s pretty obvious Melvin is not in the house so she needed answers and also, one of her dogs has cancer so this is something that will help her in the next few months.

Maddy is a song-and-dance-firecracker, she will dance if she hears any music, anywhere and she will break into song (original songs that she makes up on the fly) throughout the day and night.  A lot of this weekends songs were about Melvin, sweet songs about him being a beautiful angel or watching over her or helping Jesus (she heard me, yay!).  But there was one song that she sang (and it was so heartfelt that it was impossible not to laugh hysterically (silently of course))….

Melvin’s in heaven with Jesus, We really miss him so much.  TT (that’s me) only has one dog left, if Jake dies she’ll be all alone.

I mean, life through the eyes (and song) of a five-year-old, brilliant!  I of course assured her that Jake was not going to die (even though his eye started spurting blood while she was here and she claimed it might be Jesus calling him to heaven) and that if he did die, I wouldn’t be alone to which she said, ‘well you will have people, but all your dogs would be dead’.

I love her!

She was very amused by Jake’s love of destroying stuffies.  “Destroy another!” There was quality fairy time.  Jake started drooling excessively when she ate an apple and she proclaimed ‘what’s wrong with his mouth? It’s leaking!’ 

This was a dramatic reenactment of ‘fairy is dancing so dog needs cone to protect bionic eye’. 

Jake hunts frogs (or anything else that dares to come into his yard).  Problem is, there are some poisonous toads so I try to keep an eye on his safari adventures, especially at night. Lately, it’s been a non-issue because he can’t really see.

Which is good since I found a GIANT POISONOUS TOAD IN OUR YARD. (Just typing that takes me back to the horror filled moment).

Thankfully I found it and not Jake.  And thankfully my dad stocked my tool closet with a shovel. Melvin would have sensed that thing and ran inside, never to return outside again.  Jake would mount that toad and hold on tight, even as it sprayed poison into his face, He’d die trying to wrestle that dinosaur thing.

This is the toad I found, please note it’s size in comparison to a normal size brick. In addition to its gianormous length, It was easily as high as the brick.  I thought it was pregnant. It was the size of a large grapefruit. 

Our dog walker will confirm that this is how big it was (not our photo, just showing this to explain to you the GIANTNESS OF IT!). She was there when then war went down. 

And here it is tainting up the bucket I captured it in (I threw the bucket away, I mean I can’t keep it now, it’s a reminder of frogmagedon). It is honestly the size of an adult turtle. Look at its fat arms, I think it’s on steroids.

I don’t really enjoy nature.  I certainly do not enjoy poison.  But if any animal threatens the safety of my dogs, well you might have poison sprayers on your neck, but I have a dad-issued-shovel and an industrial sized bucket and I will take you down.

PS.  If you are wondering how to tell if  a toad is poisonous or not, see, those kidney-shaped lumps on its back, just below his head — those are the glands that house the poison.  Normal toads do not have those.  You’re welcome.

There are so many moments during any given day that I have no idea what he is doing.  Like this one.

I don’t talk a lot about Jake’s spine/walking issues.  The progression from good to bad, for the most part, has been slow and steady, so it’s given him time to learn to acclimate.  Every once in a while I’ll find a video of him from the early days of him living here and recall just how mobile and fast he used to be.

It is what it is.

Until it’s not.

The cone is a pain, for sure.  There is no dog who has ever worn a cone and loved it and there is no owner that has had a dog in a cone that hasn’t thought ‘do we really need to use that thing’.  Jake is on week 4 of the cone (24/7).  We have to protect his eye.  But in doing so, it has become apparent that it was at the mercy of his spine and legs.  It’s not just holding the cone up, it’s the posture he’s forced into while wearing it.  His leg function has decreased.  A lot.

If you asked me if I would rather he see or keep leg function as long as possible, I don’t know what my answer would be.  I hate finding out there has been a trade-off but the reality is, his legs were always going to decline so I guess protecting the eye was the right thing to do.

One of our awesome readers suggested we try this mask thing for Jake  It’s much lighter than the cone and it does protect his eyes.  The problem is that Jake is flat faced and even though we ordered the flat-faced version, he is too flat faced for even that.  So he can wear this while I’m home but he has to still wear the cone when I’m not home and at night.  But giving his back any break is a good thing, so we are pretty excited to present to you, the newest Power Ranger!

You can still see his hamburger eye, through his Power Ranger mask. 

PS. His eye is not healing very quickly.  The graft is taking but it’s still ‘too thick’ so we have a whole new set of eye drops. I would say more on that but I am trying to curse less.

You know that game, ‘would you rather’? Before HGTV, when asked if I’d rather give up TV or music, every time I’d say TV.  I am a music always on type of person.  Even when music is not on, I’m singing, or humming or it’s playing in my head. I often dance.  True story.

Music accompanies me.  Through long car rides, through flights, through workdays, walks and late nights on the patio.

Right now, for the last couple of months, whenever I hear Ed Sheeran’s Photograph, I immediately think of Melvin.  And that song makes me feel like he’s near, and that makes me strong, and happy and mindful of the loss in way that starts to bridge me to being able to think of him more often, look at photographs, watch a video or two.

I leave the radio on for Jake when I leave.  I do not discriminate on what station, whatever station will come in best on the little clock radio I have plugged in next to him.  And every day when I come inside the house, the precise time that I am still learning to accept that Melvin will not be greeting me, the moment that I unlock the door and take a deep breath to accept the visual, wagging, void, that song is almost always playing when I walk in. And that makes me grateful. Because accepting that I can’t see him anymore, does not mean he’s not still here. That song greeting me time after time, is my Joy.

And that song, will become another song. For me, there is most definitely a glorious soundtrack to my life!

Sorry for the lack of updates — last week stunk!

• Jake’s eye is not healing as fast as they’d like. At the appointment on Thursday they said it might always stay like this — like raw hamburger meat slapped across his eyeball.
• His eye drops were supposed to get cut back but they did not, so I’m still relying on a spreadsheet.  Ironically, Jake’s eyes do not produce tears but mine produce plenty!
• He is still in the cone.  We are going on week four.  To help protect his neck I cut up a pair of yoga pants and made liners for under his neck.  It works great although I should not have used black pants — it makes him look like he is in ISIS.
• Then Jake had a bad reaction to his pain meds but we got that switched up
• AND his ear infection refuses to heal so we are trying a new set of drops for that.

He’s definitely my dog.

My mom had (planned) surgery, she’s doing good.  Then I got a two-day migraine.  That gets your caught up!

On a completely unrelated note to any of the above. I have a really big SUV.  I actually ordered it for Melvin (because my last SUV was too small for him, it was too tight for him to jump into and he didn’t fit in any of the seats (with Jake) or in the back with the seats folded down -he had to hunch over).  Melvin died one week before it came in.  The universe writes strange poetry.  Anyway, there is a big SUV parked in the driveway so I like to be a bit balanced on the green front. I’m constantly looking for ways to tip that balance. Last week I realized that  our biggest crime against the environment might not even be the gas guzzler (especially since I work from home), it is likely Jake’s maxi-pad addiction count for his diapers. I mean between the giant SUV and my male dogs maxi-pads, well if fire winds start blowing, you can blame us.

So we are TRYING cloth diaper pads.  I don’t have kids so I had no idea what options were out there but Amazon knows everything and they served up some charcoal, anti-bacterial pads that claim they can handle a lot of liquid and keep skin dry so we shall see.  They are like a giant pad, there is no adhesive so I just place one inside our awesome belly bands and velcro tight.  I wash so many loads of laundry for Jake every day (bedding, diapers, blankets) that I cannot imagine these will make a difference in that respect. We shall see.

So you are all caught up!  My new full time job is eye drops, Jake dresses like a terrorist, cloth diapers make their debut.  Hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday so far!  We’ll be picking our August Melvin’s Project Joy winner this week – yay!!!!

Cloth diaper liner. A drawing of Jake from the talented Carly! He even has his diaper on! It’s like his body is trying to distance itself from the pee and his eyes!  Off to the vet with hamburger eye, it’s what’s we do! (PS. he is locked into the seatbelt clip — safety always!)  Jake? Are you wearing a black hood? 

It was a long, way too quiet (no seriously, Jake snores so loudly that now I can’t sleep without his fog horn) night without Jake. It made me additionally miss Melvin. The ophthalmologist came in early Monday, just to see Jake and she and I talked around 8am.  Even though it was a phone call, I immediately loved her and felt at ease that she’d be doing the surgery. There are a few surgeries to fix ulcer issues but Jake required the most extensive one.  While other surgeries had a 50% success rate, his had a 95% success rate (that they’d repair the ulcer and repair and fill the hole in the center of his eye before rupture).  While he was under, she was also going to remove a growth from his other eye via laser.

The surgery went well and I went to pick Jake up around 4pm.  DUDE WAS HIGH.  He couldn’t walk (worse than usual) and his eye was really freaky.  So freaky it gave me chills. We headed home with instructions for all (so, so many) eye drops, that had to be given all day long, 5 min apart (I had to do a spreadsheet) and pain meds. I also found out that a compounding pharmacy in NJ was making ‘Jake tears’.  Not only did they make them the day of his surgery, they arrived at my door (in VA) the next morning.

Giving Jake eye drops is excruciating. He wiggles and locks his eyelids shut and when you have a bionic eye surgery underneath the lid, you cannot put much pressure.  The amount of trepidation I have when it’s time to give drops is rivaled only by the frustration I feel as he tries to flail his body off the cliff (the couch). There may or may not have been moments I’ve had to walk outside and scream so that I don’t implode in front of him.

The day we had our first follow-up appointment, Jake’s eye started bleeding.  Just like in True Blood.  The bad news is, it’s as terrible as it sounds.  The good news is that, it’s good news.  Jake had tissue transplanted into his eye – to fill the hole and stitched (yes, there are stitches in his eyeball) across his eye.  The tissue was connected to blood vessels.  The bleeding means the tissue is alive and there is blood flow. Everyday I have a hard time convincing myself it’s good.  Up to now, bleeding has always been bad.  So eyeball blood being good…so strange!

I’m amazed that animal ophthalmology is so cutting edge and so grateful that they saved his eye.  We are so blessed.

Here are some photos of the patient and his eye (look away if you get grossed out easy). Also, a few days into eye-magedon, Jake got an ear infection that caused him to howl in agony.  My response was to scream ‘ENOUGH’ at the universe.  Enough.  So far, the universe seems to have heard me.

Sometimes when I talk to him he is not even looking in my direction.  Also, he can barely walk cause the cone is too heavy for his back legs to balance out.  

He flops over his bed very dramatically every night.  I put blankets up so that all the walls are soft and he moves them open (like curtains) with his cone head. Jake sleeps in the jail so he can be diaper free at night (junks gotta air out) and because pain-meds-Jake wanders. 

And here is his eye.  That dot in the middle is where the hole was (that is now filled up with tissue).  The flap that goes across is connected to the white part of his eye. In the second photo, you can see the active bleeding.  (go ahead and gag, i do). 

We take a break from Jake, to do a little giving…

As a reminder, each month, we will do a giveaway that celebrates the unique nature of our furry friends. There will be monthly categories, so if you have a dog that falls into that one, you can nominate them to win. If your dog does not fit into this month’s category, do not fret, we have a pretty all-encompassing list for the entire year – like if your dog is a cat – we eventually got you covered!

This month, in honor of a cyber dog and dog mom (L&M) that I’m in awe of, we are celebrating…

Dogs with less than four legs!

Here is how it works…

This goes beyond just a giveaway (but yes, there is of course some loot!). Our goal is to remind each other that we are all in this crazy life together. That through these giveaways, we can all bring empathy into play. As you share stories of your dogs-with-fewer-legs, read the stories of others. You may nod, and realize you are not alone. You can message others and share your experiences and advice. Friendships will form. Support can be shared. Joy will be spread!

Share your dogs-with-fewer-legs (your dog’s name, a photo. and the story how the leg count came to be) on either our Facebook page containing this post, on Sirius Republic’s Facebook page when they share this post. If you are not of the Facebook world, you can email your info to ohmelvinyojake@gmail.com. You can also post the info below in the comments, although you probably can’t share a photo on here (and that’s ok). No matter how you submit your info, you will be entered to win.

READ ALONG AS OTHERS POST. DON’T FORGET TO REACH OUT.

We will pick one female and one male winner at the end of August!

Next month, it will be a new category!

Saturday: Jake’s eye with the little ulcer had improved.  Jake’s eye with the ‘very deep’ (seriously, they repeated the very deep part about 15 times) was not improving. We’d been doing eye drops for about four days and they expected to see improvement with both. So, they took Jake’s blood, and made eye drops out it. I 100% expected the drops to look like blood and that after I put the drops in Jake’s eyes, he would look like one of the vampires in True Blood when they cried.  (In case you didn’t see True Blood, the vampires cried blood). Instead, the drops were a milky liquid derived from his blood. And in a test tube. Add this to the list of things I never expected when I became a dog mom.

Sunday: We woke up, I fed him and then got him up on the couch for his eye drops (this is also known as the time he thrashes around like I am performing an exorcism on him).  After I put the drops in, I looked into both eyes (knowing full well I had no idea what I was looking at or knowing if I’m qualified to notice a change).  The left eye seemed fine.  His right eye, the one with the deep ulcer, had A HOLE IN IT. I looked around the room and thought, it must be a reflection of a light or something, THERE CANNOT BE A GAPING HOLE IN HIS EYE. But there it was, a perfectly round hole and I could see into it and it was deep.  No one had mentioned a hole but I knew it wasn’t good (I’m that smart). We were at the ER 20 min later.

ER: The ER was packed but they put Jake in a room immediately and the dr came in pretty quick.  When Melvin and Jake are your dogs, you know the ER vets by name. He looked at Jake’s eye and said ‘it’s bad’ and left the room to call the ophthalmologist for an emergency consult.  When he left, he told me to hold Jake very still, that any sudden movement could rupture his eye.  Uh…what? I’m not qualified.  I held him and then as any parent would do, I replayed all the sudden movements he’d had since seeing the hole.  I then had a silent conversation with my crazy self that I of course didn’t try to rupture his eye and that I didn’t know there shouldn’t be sudden movements and then I continued along the silent conversation route saying there was no way to not jar him a little when putting him in his car seat since his body is not flimsy, it’s more like a cinderblock.  And then I had an out loud conversation with Jake about how I needed him to hold his eye together.  Crazy person, room three. The doctor came back and said he’d consulted with two ophthalmologists and both agreed that Jake should be admitted, sedated and have emergency surgery the next day. I sorta knew this was coming since they day the ulcer formed.  My dogs like to push the limits on how far they can take each health conundrum.

Sidenote: You all know the extent of vet visits I have had with both boys.  There are very few things we have not faced and very few tests we have not had.  We have been to the ER so many times, I lost count.  There have been surgeries, MRIs, Spinal taps and issues that vets had never seen before.  Melvin almost had to have a lung lobe removed for cripes sake!  But never, ever, never (and I don’t know how this is possible) but never have I had to leave a dog overnight.  So I started sobbing.  SOBBING.  Which turned into an ugly cry and mumbling about things that didn’t even make sense to me. (For example, we were currently in the room that I was with my friend Virginia in when we thought we’d have to put her beagle MollieAnne down and I had gone out to get her (the dog) fast food and the only fast food close by was Roy Rogers and the cheeseburger and fries I brought her that night brought her back to life.  And in my crying fit during the present time visit part of my mumbling was that being in the Roy Rogers room would certainly have to work in our favor too and Melvin would be with Jake in his condo and maybe I could bring them both Roy Rogers).  The doctor just looked at me and nodded, even when I said ‘ROY ROGERS ROOM’. And the thing is, I have complete faith in this hospital.  The Life Center is one of the premiere vet speciality hospitals on the east coast.  But mama was overwhelmed and the thought of abandoning leaving Jake seemed impossible.  They told me my reaction was normal (sometimes it’s kind to lie) and they let me come back to the ICU with Jake while they got him settled in.  He pee’d on the way into his new condo and that made me laugh.  So I sat with him for a while and then when they were ready to sedate him, I left.  It sucked. I called every 15 minutes regularly to check on him but since he had to remain calm, me visiting him was not a good option.

Tomorrow, I’ll finish the hospital and surgery story. And we have a Melvin’s Project Joy giveaway for August coming too!

Until then, here is a little check-list for sanity.  It’s some preparedness tips for ‘a just in case’ ER visit with your pet:

• Write out all your pet’s meds and take a picture of that list.  When in the ER with your pet, you will not be able to recall the name of the meds they take nor will mg/dosage be within your brain’s reach.  Even if the pill your dog takes is called ‘pill’, that word will escape you.
• If you think for one minute that the emergency will require your pet to stay, bring their critical meds with you.  I had to go back and get Jake’s meds and True blood eye drops and bring them back over.
• Have an emergency plan for the car (a blanket in the garage you can throw down, easy access towels, a plan to secure your pet (this is just a good idea in general for regular travel). I learned this one the hard way when Melvin had is first (of several) bout(s) of bloody poop. I know, I know, the glamour.
• Keep a leash in your car.  You will forget it and unless you can carry your pet, you’ll need the leash.
• When your pet has blood work done, have your vet send it to you via email or print it out for you.  Bring that most recent blood work report with you.  They almost always want to do blood work.  In Jake’s case, he had just had a full panel done a few days prior and having that saved us a lot.
• Ask the ER vet about payment plans.  Regular vet care is expensive.  ER vet care is crazy expensive (albeit worth it).

Jake went to the vet on Tuesday.  He goes monthly (sometimes more).  He got a bath, a legs check, a look at a rash (staph (diaper issue), got antibiotics), blood work and a look over.  Eyes, ears, heart, etc.

Wednesday I noticed his eyes were bloodshot.  This is not a new thing except his eyes are usually only bloodshot when he is stressed, which he was not.  Luckily, we had his therapist (laser therapy and B12 acupuncture) coming at noon.  I asked her to look at his eyes.

She looked and said, he needs to go to the vet right away.  He has an ulcer and it’s big.  It’s an emergency. Yep, sounds about right.

When you love your vet, you are willing to drive 45 min one way.  When you love your dog, you will do this day after day if need be.

His eyes were fine on Tuesday, I spoke to the vet that saw him (not our normal vet) and on Wednesday he had an ulcer in each eye, and one was very deep.  He also had edema and  vascularization.  How does this happen overnight? We have eye drops and a cone. He goes back on Saturday.  If the ulcers change at all or grow or start oozing liquid, we are to go to the ER vet immediately for emergency surgery.  He could lose an eye over this.

When I was told Melvin would lose his tail, I was heartbroken.  His wildly wagging tail was the barometer of his unending joy.  That tail defined his purpose. It had become a visual I counted on. (Not to mention I was convinced he would not be able to communicate in the dog world or that by not having it, he’d miss out somehow).  But then I realized, his nubbin wagged and that even if it didn’t, his joy was palpable. Tails are sometimes overrated.

Eyes are not overrated. I do not want Jake to lose more than he has already loss.  Partly because his googly eyes are something I stare into daily and they connect us in a way that I can’t explain.  But mostly because he has enough challenges, and I am still pretty sure he can see Melvin with his magical eyes. But if he does lose it, if this does not go in our favor, we will figure it out.  It is what we do.

Poor thing is in pain.  He can barely walk on his own let alone with a cone weighing him down.  He’s the most ‘special’ dog I have ever seen.

He fell asleep sitting up.  Rough day. 

Is anyone shocked that I have a cone collection for ‘just in case’?

He got to sleep with mom last night.  I put down 45,000 blankets to catch pee and meatballs. He flopped down like that pretty dramatically after his eye drops.  Giving Jake eye drops is like wrestling an alligator with  your hands and legs tied behind you. I also had to put a diaper on him just to do eye drops because he tried to pee on me. True love. 

Today is not much happier. 

I don’t hunt.  I don’t get the appeal but I know there are those who have a passion for it. Like Jake.

Jake and I were in the backyard the other day.  He was wobbling around in the grass and i was hosing off the patio.  All of a sudden I heard a scuffle.  I went to the grass and saw Jake — FULL ON TAKING CHASE OF SOMETHING. I mean it was like his guardian angel (Melvin) arranged for him to have speed and he was, in his own glorious-wonky-way, on the heels of a chipmunk!  I love Jake but that chipmunk must have been embarrassed as hell that Jake was able to remain on his tail (even after wiping out a few times).  I started yelling ‘GET’EM JAKE, GET THAT INTRUDER’ (really loudly and passionately and I scared myself a little). Eventually Jake’s legs lost their heavenly sent power and the chipmunk got away.

I went over and helped Jake up and I high-fived his efforts. I had to go get cheese just to get him to let the chase go and come back inside.

We limit Jake’s hunting to the back yard. And since I cannot stand the chipmunks that are wreaking havoc on my yard and patio, if Jake were to catch one, I’d squeal with delight.  Sorry Alvin and brothers, but you come into Jake’s house yard, you are dinner.   He’s gonna eat you.

After he got back inside, he moaned to go back out, while also full on hyperventilating from the heat.  Oh, Jake.

Here is the hunter, in his monkey diaper. Resting up for the next outing.