can now be added to my list of achievements. This morning during my run I found one of these guys on the side of the road with 2 broken legs.


S/He seems to be in pretty good shape except that it's legs don't work. I have a call into the wild bird rehab people and I'm waiting to find out what to do with this guy. It looks fairly catastrophic to me and I honestly can't imagine what can be done for it. But it's now resting comfortably in a basket lined with towels and awaiting it's fate.

Update: Turns out nothing seems to be broken. It's a very young bird who is underweight. Also, by the time I got him to the rehabber he was starting to move one of his legs. The belief is that with some good food and a little rest he'll gain weight and strength and be released back to the wild. Yea for those selfless people that will take in a bird like this. He will need to be force fed for a few days until he can stand, then he will have to learn to hunt again. Thank god for people like the rehabber.

A couple of weeks ago we found a female jackson chameleon in our yard. She's still hanging out on the tree by our gate, we see her every once in a while.

A little while ago we heard Nala barking. Now Nala hasn't barked in 6 months, there is just nothing that is worth her getting all excited over. So we heard her barking and went running thinking something was wrong. Turns out there was an intruder in her bed. This was walking across her bed:


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This is a male jackson chameleon, you can tell by the horns, and apparently he was under our shed because he's all dusty and has cobwebs on him. We took him and put him on the tree the female lives in. Who knows, we may end up having babies. Since these guys sell for a couple of hundred a piece, maybe that will be my new job :)

For Rocco I mean, not for the earth. Rocco didn't eat breakfast on Wednesday. He did eat his dinner so I didn't think too much about it. Yesterday he didn't eat breakfast again, and again I didn't think too much about it since New Year's Eve is pretty traumatic for him. He really hates fireworks. Last night he would not even look at his dinner. He wouldn't even take a treat. This is when I started to become concerned. Rocco may turn his nose up at kibble but he will never pass up treats. When he wouldn't eat the treats I started to worry. We bribed him with some meat and gravy trying to get him to eat a little bit. Then about 2 hours later he threw up everything we had convinced him to eat. He continued to vomit occassionaly during the night. Then this morning he was so lethargic and terrible looking I finally called the vet. I took him in this morning and they ran some tests and he has pancreatitis.

A glandular organ located near the liver and duodenum, the pancreas performs two different types of glandular functions. The first endocrine function is to produce insulin, an important hormone in the control of metabolism and blood sugar levels. Secondly, the pancreas has an glandular function, to make digestive enzymes (chemicals that break down food for digestion) that secrete into the intestines, critical for normal food digestion.

When the pancreas is injured either from disease or from trauma, the production of digestive enzymes decreases, or the enzymes may actually start to digest surrounding organs including the pancreas itself.

Even though I asked the vet a ton of questions I had to look it up when I got home. The above info is what it boils down to. I don't know what's going to happen. It's impossible to say how bad it really is or what caused it. I have to give him fluids and medication for the next week or so and we are hoping that will clear it up. Pancreatits can be life threatening and I've got my fingers crossed that it's not in this case. Say a little prayer for my Rocco.

I know there are a couple of people who pass through this blog who have a bully dog. If you've never had the honor of being loved by a bully you are really missing out on something. These dogs are incredibly special.

I got my Nala when she was 7 weeks old. At the time I had 3 dogs and I did not want to own a pit bull. But through a series of happy accidents she ended up becoming part of the pack. Once I knew we were going to keep her I decided that she would be the happiest, most well adjusted pit bull anyone had ever seen. Up until then all I had heard was the bad stuff about pits. But I was a long time dog owner and I knew with the proper care and training she would be an awesome dog. I was right. Bullys have such a desire to please humans that they will do anything for you. That is also unfortunately what makes them such good fighters. If it makes you happy they will do it. From the very beginning Nala just wanted to be with us. She was part of the pack but would rather spend her time with the humans. She excelled at obedience training until we stopped because her knees (I thought) were bothering her. In the 13 years we've had her she has always been our calmest, most relaxed dog. She loves to see us laugh and will do whatever we laugh at over and over and over. She still thinks shes a puppy and will demand to sit on your lap. She has that goofy pit smile that just melts your heart. I always felt incredibly safe with her around because not only is she scary when she barks but I knew she would do anything to protect me if it came down to that. When she was diagnosed with brain cancer a few months back my heart literally broke. I love all my dogs and losing them is always hard, but to lose my bully is going to be the toughest lose of all. I swear, if you've never had the honor of being loved by a bully you do not know what you are missing.

When I took the mail out of the mailbox today this was staring up at me:

This hit me for a couple of reasons. First, the Vick dogs hold a special place in my heart because of the amazing things that these dogs of accomplished. They are literally breaking new ground in animal behavior. Instead of just killing them outright, as is typical and what PETA and the Humane Society wanted to do, they rehabbed most of them. By turning them over to experts in the field and letting them try to save them, they learned a lot. They learned what can happen after great abuse. They learned that these dogs are not 'born' mean. They learned how much love these dogs are capable of. They learned that love and humane treatment really do go a long way.

But what really got me about the picture on the cover is, that could be my Nala.

The chest blaze is similar, the face is almost the same, the ears are goofy, and the eyes are the gentle amber of my Nala. It kills me to think of the things these dogs went through and then to think of my Nala going through that. It absolutely breaks my heart. By the same token, it does my heart good to hear so many of them have overcome their early life and are now living happy, healthy lives with new owners. The cover dog, Jasmine, is a special one though. She was apparently very traumatized by the whole ordeal and will probably never be just a normal dog again. But she has a home with people who love her and understand so she'll at least live out her days in peace.

If you get a chance to read this article I highly recommend it. It's heart wrenching and heart warming at the same time. It gives you faith in mankind.

There's a quote over the door of the Oakland Animal Services by Gandhi. It says:

THE GREATNESS OF A NATION AND ITS MORAL PROGRESS CAN BE JUDGED BY THE WAY ITS ANIMALS ARE TREATED.

Thanks to Northview Diary for this!!!

So I still have Mo only we've started calling him Grumpy. Every time you get anywhere near his cage he starts growling at you. Like a dog. So the name Grumpy seems more appropriate than Mo. The other 2 seem to be adjusting well to their new homes and that is very good.

Today is acupuncture for the dogs. Rocco is not doing so well. He seems to be a lot weaker in his rear than he has been. I don't know if we should up his medicine or what. I'm concerned.

Nala seems to be doing okay. She has not had a seizure since Thanksgiving so that's good. She seems pretty out of it most of the time though. I wonder if she gets any joy out of life anymore. Is it still worth living for her?? It is times like these that I wish she could talk. Let me know what's going on inside that pit bull skull of hers. Oh well, I just make the best decisions I can based on what I see.

Everyone else is doing fine. Mr. P really wants to be friends with Grumpy. He keeps going over to his cage and trying to play with Grumpy. Maybe they'll become friends. Who knows.

Saturday night I ventured out into the rain to rescue some Senegal parrots. Their owner had died and the family didn't want them.

There was Larry:

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Mo

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.and Curly


The owner had these birds for 11 years and never gave them names. Also, they lived outside under a tent with holes in it so when it rained they got wet and their food got soaked. The cages were also rusted and they had no toys or anything to play with. It was sad.

The good news is I brought them home Saturday night and by last night 2 of them had new homes. Only Mo is left. This is so great. They are with experienced bird people who will take good care of them and give them really good homes. Now I only have to find Mo a home.

One of the reasons I love this theme so much is that it's changeable. I can alter the pictures up at the top and down at the bottom fairly easily. I haven't done that in quite a while, but it is doable. This morning, since I'm grounded, I decided to put up some new pictures. I'm want to get into the habit of changing the top picture once a week. I have enough animals and I take enough pictures of them so that picture can be constantly new. I also what to change the pictures at the bottom more frequently. Also, if you don't scroll down to the bottom you should, I have some really cool animal pictures down there (all of which have been taken by me). Okay, that's enough for now. It's nice outside and I want to go play with my camera.

How cool is that? Kamila the camel has given us this award:



This award stands for:

“These blogs invest and believe in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

This is the first award this blog has won and I want to thank Kamila very, very much. Now I have to pass it on. It doesn't say how many bloggers I can pass it on to so I'll chose a couple of my favorites.

Rattitude

NytroGirl

Angus

This weekend we were leaving the house when we noticed something on the fence:

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Hmmm, that green thing on the fence doesn't look right.
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Upon closer examination this is what we found:



A female Jackson chameleon. I know it's a female because she has no horn. They are pretty common here in Hawaii but I've never had one living in my yard. Hubby picked it up to move it out of harms way:

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People keep these guys as pets but I prefer to find it in unexpected places in my yard. I enjoy being surprised by nature.

Okay, after throwing a hissy fit at the vet, I ended up taking Rocco to his other vet (the acupuncture one) and finally got his prescription refilled. I also had to get Nala's phenobarbital prescription refilled at the vet I threw the hissy fit at, but they really were very understanding and I got the prescription right away. So all the medicine is stocked up and I'm happy again.

Friday night our bird club put on an event, we brought in Dr. Pepperberg from Boston. It was an amazing evening and I think she had a good time too. The day started really early with us on the 6 am news:



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That's Dr. Pepperberg with a local news guy and the camera guy. They were on air talking about the intelligence of parrots.


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There she is with the events coordinator, the person who put this all together. It was a fantastic event.

The festivities continued that night with her speaking at 6:45 pm:


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And finally, a cocktail party to top the night off:


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It was great fun but not something I want to do again any time soon :)

Rocco is on prednisone and has to have it to walk. On Wednesday I called the vet because he was running out. They said they would call me when it was ready and I figured I'd hear from them on Thursday. Thursday afternoon I realized I hadn't heard from them so I called again. I was told that they would find out what was going on and get back to me. By Friday afternoon I'd heard nothing. So I called again. This time I was told that Rocco was late on some blood work and they were waiting for his vet to get in on Sunday. Ummmm, no. Rocco is now out of medicine and starting to have trouble walking. They said they would talk to the vet on duty and have him call me. Nothing. It's now Saturday morning and I still haven't heard from the vet. WTF????? This office is usually so good, what the heck is going on??? They don't open for another hour so I have to wait to call them, but I'm a little pissed. I just watched Rocco struggle to get up, much more than normal, and I have to take him to the vet without medicine so he can hardly walk?? That is just not right. Okay, I'm going to calm down now so I don't blast the vet when I call :)

We took the 'tiels nestbox away today and so we took them out to the aviary and gave them both baths. They loved it. They love taking showers and after a month without one I'm sure it felt great.

Nala just had another seizure. She's on kind of high doses of phenobarbital and I don't know what more we can do. I know there is more medicine we can put her on but, the way I see it, the longer we can put those off the longer she'll be around. It's possible I'm fooling myself.

It's so hard having older dogs. If it's not one it's the other. It is really, really difficult. I can completely understand how people get into these positions where they are providing extraordinary care to loved ones. If you had told me I would be cleaning poop up from a dog who can't control it and helping him up and down stairs and holding a dog while they have a seizure, I would have told you that you were crazy. But these things creep up on you slowly. First Rocco had a hard time walking. So we helped him. Then he started losing control of his bowels. So we clean it up. Then it got harder for him to walk. So we helped him more. Then Nala went lame in one leg. So we helped her. Then she started having seizures. So we hold her till it's over. If suddenly I had to do all these things I might fight it, but it creeps up one thing at a time until you're doing a whole ton of stuff for your animals. {{Sigh}}

So there we have it, another seizure. The seizure lasted about 40 seconds and the recovery lasted 2 1/2 minutes. Now, it's off to bed for everyone.

Friday when I got home from work Rocco could hardly walk. I don't know what happened or if something happened, though I'm thinking it did, but he was in a bad way. Yesterday wasn't good and I ended up giving him a whole prednisone, he normally takes 3/4. I put a call into the vet and she said to up the dosage to 1/2 a pill everyday for a week. After that we go back to 3/4 of a pill every other day. Today he was much better. I hate when those things happen because I know at some point nothing is going to work. At some point he won't be able to walk anymore. Every time it happens I get scared that this is the time it all ends.

Nala seems to be doing well. She is not reacting too badly to the up in medication. I was afraid it would make her really lethargic, but it didn't. She's doing pretty well. I'm kind of dreading tomorrow night. For the last 2 Mondays she's had seizures. I'm afraid of what tomorrow night will bring. Here's another one, I know at some point it's all going to stop working and we'll have to put her down. I don't want that day to come, but I know it will eventually.

They are going. I hate when someone asks me that question. I never know how to answer it. I know that, in essence, it is a rhetorical question and they don't really want an answer. But there are so many things going on that to say Fine is a blatant lie. Bleh.........

Anyway, things are going okay. Nala hasn't had any more seizures since Monday. Rocco is a happy dog. Sammy is a sweetie. Mr. P is talking up a storm, and the 'tiels are in the nest box making infertile eggs. They now have 4 eggs and I wonder if Chubs is a female instead of a male? If he is infertile?? Or something else is going on. I just don't know.

Today was acupuncture day and both dogs were a little antsy at the vets. Don't know what was up, they usually enjoy the acupuncture. Oh well, who knows.

Thank you to ALL the veterans out there!!!

I just downloaded the pictures from my camera and I have some to share.

This first one I took the other day while it was pouring rain. This little cardinal was hopping around in the rain looking for food I guess. It had been raining for about 3 days, I guess the birds were getting hungry.

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This one is of Nala walking around. I realized that all the photos I have of Nala recently are of her laying down. Here she is walking around and you can see her lame leg. She keeps it up and does not use it at all.

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This is how she eats.

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Yep, laying down. I guess it's not that unusual. Rocco does it once in a while too.

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I guess that's enough for now. I have some other pictures I'm going to post on the photo blog.

As usual I'm late to the party. I just discovered Picasa and the cool collage things that can be made and blogged. How cool. Finally I can display my pictures and not make posts a mile long.

I was just reviewing this blog, because that's where all info is kept, and found that Nala started her seizures on Sept. 7th. 8 days later she had 2 more and we put her on phenobarbital. Since that time she has been seizure free though a little dopey. That ended last night. Around 8:30 last night she had one of the worst seizures I've seen, not that I've seen a lot thankfully. It took her a while to recover but she seemed just fine today. I, of course, called the vet this morning and she said these breakthrough seizures are not uncommon. It's only if they become excessive will we change her medication. It's sad but there's nothing we can do about it. She made it about 6 weeks seizure free. Let's hope that happens again.

I realized that taking a picture of Nala everyday becomes boring quickly. She is lame and on phenobarbital. She just doesn't do much. How many pictures can I take of her sleeping or laying on the bed?? I'm going to make an effort to get some pictures of her doing something, but she just doesn't do things anymore.

But Sammy on the other hand, is constantly doing things. He's constantly playing or making noises or eating. He's a busy, busy bird. The other night he was getting ready to go to sleep and I took some pictures of him in his sleepy spot.



Although you can't see it in the photo, he has one leg curled up and is standing on just the other leg. He faces the back of the cage then sleeps with his head spun around and buried in his back. This allows him to keep an eye on the doorway which is the way danger will come. Birds do that. Sleep so their head is facing the direction danger will come in. That's why you see birds in the wild sleeping in large flocks in trees all facing different ways. That way all sides are covered.

When he gets into his sleepy spot he grinds his beak. It's similar to nails on a blackboard and almost as annoying.



Now he's starting to get pissed at me because I'm disturbing him. I can be in the room but don't be flashing that thing at him. That's just rude :)

That's it for today. I've got a ton of schoolwork to do and I didn't really do any of it yesterday.

First up is Nala. This is her this morning rolling around on my bed, the little bugger.



And here is Monkey (aka Rocco) waiting patiently for Nala to get up so they can have breakfast. He's such a patient guy.
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As much as I love this layout I think I may have to change it. For whatever reason, the posts don't post the way I want them to. Every time I write a post I have to go back in 3 or 4 times to edit it so make it look the way I want it too. I don't know enough about XHTML or whatever it's called, to just fix it so I have to fix it by had every time. It's getting annoying. If anyone knows how to fix this I would appreciate the help. Look 3 posts down from here. See how the title of that post is out of place? That's my problem!!! Any help????

Because of school last night and my wireless connection getting flaky on me, here is yesterdays photo:

Again, sleeping. She does that a lot :)
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And here is Sammy and Hubby:

Sammy was getting goofy. That's it for now, I have to get myself to work. Tonight I will post today's pics.