Piper Update

Piper has been more of a handful than I expected. She's diabetic and has to pee a lot because of that. I knew that. However, she is also too unhealthy to be spayed, and so is intact. Yesterday, she came into heat. Now she's peeing even more. I have a timer set on my phone for every forty minutes to take her outside to ensure she doesn't pee in the condo.

I'm pretty sure it's not a training/behavior thing. Every time we go outside, as soon as she gets to a grassy spot, she pees. She's definitely waiting. But if I don't keep a close eye on her and take her outside a lot, I find pee spots on the carpet. That's happened three times now, and I'd like to not have any more of them. Compounding the problem is that I'm not sure about her signals for wanting to go out. I think she often tries to get me to follow her over to her food (which won't help her because she needs to eat at specific times for diabetes control), and I'm not sure when it's a 'feed me' dance and when it's an 'gotta go outside' dance. But either way, her dancing and her head tilting when I say her name are so cute. She's lucky she's so cute. *grins* I may try training her to jingle bells when she wants to go outside as one of the volunteers at the shelter last night suggested. I read about doing that online and it makes sense.

She's doing well with the insulin. She's pretty calm when I inject her, though sometimes she squirms and I worry about hurting her if she moves with the needle inserted. Once I had to re-poke her because she squirmed away before I could inject her. Danae helped hold her last night, and I think both the restraint and the touch and reassurance may help.

I asked about her backstory at the shelter last night. She was a surrender by people who had had her since she was a puppy. She's about 6 or 7 now, and when she became diabetic, her people couldn't/didn't know how to care for her. She wasn't eating much of anything except treats because she wasn't feeling well, so that's what her people were giving her. They were trying, but that was not good for her, which is why she was so skinny and unwell. She has a vet checkup on Tuesday to see how she's responding to insulin and adjust her dose if necessary.

I'm really hoping she's well enough to spay soon. I've never had an intact dog before, and this is new and frustrating. She seems to be cleaning herself pretty well, but I have found just a couple of blood drops on the floor. The shelter sent some doggy diapers home with me for her, as well as some shampoo. I'm not noticing it (I'm probably just acclimatized to dog smells), but Danae says she has a pretty strong smell, possibly due to her heat, and I'm going to try bathing her. At least she's small enough that I can do it in the bathroom sink. (I've also never had a dog who needed regular bathing. Kuma just needed brushing. We took him to the self-wash at PetSmart once in a long while, but usually only if he was dirty for some reason. I like brushing dogs. Bathing, I'm not so sure about.

All that said, I'm really glad that I'm in a position to help make things better for Piper, and I do really like her. She's a good girl; friendly, sweet, attentive, and really good to pet and snuggle. She has her issues, but don't we all?





Piper in her Diaper

(no subject)

This past weekend, I got to Kenosha to visit my parents on Sunday. I also got together in person with my undergrad advisor. I was deeply anxious and nervous about seeing her again. We've been in contact on Facebook and she's been really supportive and encouraging of me, but I have such strong feelings of shame and failure about Syracuse, and she was so important in encouraging me to go and telling me how much she believed in me and writing a wonderful recommendation letter. I felt really bad about myself whenever I let myself think about she and other faculty at Parkside who were so proud of me and believed so strongly in me.

I was going to go over to her place, but she suggested coming over to my parents' house and seeing everybody (they'd met her before). I'm glad she did. Being there and having my parents around helped make the experience more manageable. I still couldn't bring myself to answer the door when she got there; my parents did that. And as people made conversation about caught up, I kept looking down at the floor or playing with the dog. Finally, I started feeling more ok about being a part of the talking. When the topic connected, I told her about my feelings around Syracuse and how much I was worried I'd disappointed her and how ashamed I felt. She was nothing but encouraging, and reminded me again of how much I'd helped her too. That she hadn't realized how much anxiety was affecting her life until she saw my struggles with it. That She cares about me and I haven't disappointed her and she'd really like to talk more. That she'd like me to be a part of continuing work on, and talks on, Pike Creek if I'm interested.

I don't feel completely better; I have no idea how to make that happen. But I feel a lot better. And I'm going to plan to get together with her again when I'm in Kenosha, maybe at her place, to have a deeper conversation. She and I are both motivated by making society a better place. She's had a lot more experience than I have, and she has not given up. She believes in the ability to make a difference. I think talking to her specifically about what she thinks we, as people, can do, will help me. Plus I just really like her and miss her. Now that I'm not feeling nearly so ashamed and scared about seeing her, I'd really like to see her!