escapades of the elusive kat

Today started quite well: the weather was amazing, no more rain, the dog walk was fine, everything was ok.

So I started to go on my way to work.

Half way, I see a dog walking in the middle of the street when it was the morning rush hour!

I tried to approach the dog, and was able to see he wasn't really afraid of people, but he was wary. I tried to reach out to touch him and he jumped off when I made contact.

So I followed him to see where he was going. I tried to call my Sis for help. She works in a shelter, and while I know for a fact her shelter was full and wouldn't take the dog, I was actually calling for help to either catch it or contact someone for it. No. She just go, "ah, try the municipal kennel"... I'm like, I don't have the time for that, I'm chasing after the dog!

Whenever the dog tried to run into the street, I sped up my walk and blocked his way to the street, trying to keep him on the pavement. But still he managed to get to the middle of the street a couple times and I was chasing the dog in the middle of the street.

I came to the conclusion he might be partially blind, because as he walked, sometimes there were some very slim or thin barriers for plants and he totally didn't see those and hit his face on it and then he'd jump back.

Meanwhile, with all the gracious help from my Sis (read: none) I decided to contact the lady from a Chinese dog shelter group (knowing very well the shelter I volunteer for is also full and can't take it, besides, they don't have the team to go help catch the dog). This lady just said sorry can't help, go post on Facebook. WTF. Then I remembered about another dog shelter later and I contacted her, and this one contacted the kennel directly and in less than 5 minutes someone came over.

I saw them bring out the nets but it was obvious they wouldn't need that for the dog, so they took the leash-thing (but it looks more brutal than a regular leash) and I decided to not see anymore. Even though it's to help the dog, that I suspect the dog would struggle and I'd hate to see a struggling dog.

By the end of the day, the lady from the shelter that I volunteer at was questioning me like I did something wrong. And some people on Facebook were also asking why I let the Municiple Kennel get the dog and that it's just death row for the dog.

Right this moment I am very upset. If the dog has to die, I'd rather the dog die in the Kennel where at least it's controlled, rather than get hit by a car then slowly wile away. So I am not taking it kindly these judgemental questioning of my actions. I don't see people actually coming to bloody help me, and I walked with the dog for a whole hour and a half, late for work, all sweaty, and had to skip lunch to make up for my tardiness today.

So, over the previous weekend, stuff happened.

During the typhoon Saola last week, the doggies got a very short walk, because of the inclement weather.

The following day, on Saturday morning, there was an incident. I was kneeling on the ground getting Max together for their walkies, when Frankie tried to squeeze between the wall and me. Suddenly he yelped and even had a bout of incontinence and pee-d himself.

He looked totally terrified, so for a moment I thought he had some kidney/bladder/urine track issue. However, thinking back, we did notice that he had been a little more quiet in the previous days recently.

Showed the vet a video of his walking with difficulty, and the vet diagnosed very quickly "It's IVDD, it's genetic, bring him in today, we are open."

Okay?

I've mentioned this a few times before, we trust this vet (Vet 1) completely because he is very knowledgeable. The only thing I personally would have a less-than-positive comment about him is, when we get overly friendly, he starts to get careless in aftercare.

So he diagnosed the dog with IVDD without any scans or X-rays, which, fair enough, if you are experienced enough to recognize that by sight, more power to you, man.

So with IVDD the treatment plan was to have laser treatment (daily to start with, then can set a regular schedules of 2-3 times per week), painkillers for the first week, and cartophren shots for life. His own nurses had commented that with IVDD it would be nice to pair the treatment with acupuncture. So, I contacted an acupuncture vet.

Went to the first consult yesterday. Maybe that doctor (Vet 2) is less experienced, maybe it was a money-grabbing opportunity, maybe it was a clinic SOP, but they asked to make an X-ray of the dog. Who am I to say no? So I okayed that.

So she saw an obvious less-space between his L3 and L4, so that's why he had that pain last week. Then on the upper body part she mentioned there looked to be some genetic deformity on 8 (but I did search online but neither C nor T would go up to 7-8, so I'm not sure which part she was on about). She also mentioned some degradation on his hips. And an enlarged heart, but the heartbeat's fine. Nothing so serious that he needs to be on medication, but she suggests to be on some supplements.

So today (just now) when Frankie went to the original vet (Vet 1) again for the laser treatment, I just mentioned to the vet about the acupuncture visit and the treatment plan there. The vet didn't look quite happy, but asked for the X-rays, I said I'll send them to him when they send them to me.

During the laser treatment, one of the nurses (that I vehemently dislike) started chatting and asking what's going on and why I went to another vet and why I didn't do the X-ray with them. I was like hey, your own nurses suggested acupuncture as a supplemental treatment and that vet asked for the X-ray. It's not like I'm jumping ship and changing vets. I'm not even undermining Vet 1's treatment. I'm still going to Vet 1 for the main treatment. I'm just going to Vet 2 for acupuncture. Though It did seem that Vet 1 threw a mini hissy fit upon my telling him of the X-ray and the diagnosis from Vet 2.

For a moment I thought I did do something wrong. But then coming to think of it, nah. It's good if Vet 1 thinks he's in hot water, let him. Maybe this way he'll take more care with Frankie's and Max's future treatments. With all that fiasco with Menina last month. Honestly I'm not being sour, but even objectively, part of the problem indeed was because of oversight in the aftercare. Let him stew.

WTF what did I just watch LOL. The TV's on and there's some kiddy show and there's this talking dog and he would swing his ears rotating like a helicopter so he flies up to a tree to look at baby blue birds LOL.

I've finally taken the plunge and ordered a wheelchair for Max

I guess I can only say it's lucky I was sort of into Legos and Nanoblocks and enjoyed a good IKEA puzzle. But since Max is now a bit weak even on the front legs, so he tends to tip his head forward, so I had to take some other unused harness and hoop it over the front, so it sort of catches him at the chest/neck.

Just need a bit more of getting used to it and with a lot of treats LOL.



I'll probably bring this thing down to the carpenter or mechanic and ask if they'd be willing to saw off the 4 long bars from the wheels. It's part of the design and can set the whole thing higher, but Max won't be able to walk if he's hanging. He's now at a height where if he places his paws firmly on the ground then he can walk, but if he wants to he can just relax and will be hanging.

It's going to be a little better for him this way as his elbows and a part of his leg is starting to have bed sores and such, from always lying down.

For now we hang him up on the wheel for a bit in the morning, then I put him back on the ground for the duration of the day, then when I'm home, I'll put him in the wheelchair again and entice him to walk more. Down again during the human dinner. Then out for walkies (not confident enough to walk outside yet, we tried), back home, back on the wheels for another hour or so.

We'll try to prolong the wheel hours and get him to walk outside with the wheels too. Hope it all works out.

The week was eventful.

So over the week, before typhoon and then after, my left wrist was acting up again, up until on Thursday I couldn't even drive easily. So on Friday, after work, I decided to go see the Chinese medicine doctor (also a chiropractor). For some reason I've got an inflamed joint and so he did some suction cups and wrapped my wrist in some medicine paste. It felt heaps better, my wrist was not so stiff.

Menina had her appointment to remove that tumor or growth in her eyelid today. The vet was very chill, seemed to be not worried about anything. I guess that was somewhat a good sign? So Menina was dropped off, then I went to hunt for some lunch, and figured I might as well go pick up my ferry tickets to Shekou/Shenzhen tomorrow. Yes. I’m doing it. I’m actually nervous and freaking out as this is my first time going to China-other-than-Zhuhai-Gongbei ALONE.

Once I got home, there was nothing really much to do, so I changed out my nails. I now do sticker nails. Sticker base, and then a gel on top so the sticker stays longer.

Prepared the dogs’ dinner, and received a call from the vet around 4pm saying everything’s done, but that to leave Menina on the drip a little longer, so they asked me to go back around 6. During the phone call I could hear Menina doing her usual complaining. Bark bark bark (because she wants to get out of the enclosure). For an almost 20-year old dog, she has some fire. Keep up with the attitude, my girl, we love you for it!

Went down to the market to do some random shopping and kill time till 6pm and then went to the vet to pick Menina up.

The growth on the eyelid was cut off, she had a tumor in her neck/throat and that got cut out too. Apparently that was a potential malignant thing as it was attached to an artery or vein (the nurse gave me a diagnosis in Chinese). The vet also decided to drain out a fatty lump node in her chest. He left the fatty lump on her hind leg, it’s not going to affect her much, so I didn’t care too much.

I had a surprise on paying. The nurses do try to look out for us. So Menina was only on a “care plan” (pay an annual fee and throughout the year consultation fee is free of charge, only pay for medication and surgery, and frontline/flea treatment and de-worm pills included). She was not on the dental plan, so I was expecting to pay for the teeth cleaning as well. But the nurses said, since the dental plan includes a full panel blood test, and Menina did a blood test last week, they only charged the difference of the blood test, and the dental plan. So this way, it was like I bought the dental plan for Menina. The final bill came out cheaper than I was imagining, so that’s a win.

In the morning when I drove Menina out, I wrapped my wrist in a support wrap thing. It helped restrict the movement of my wrist so although it was a bit tough to drive, my wrist was feeling good. In the afternoon when I went to pick up Menina, I thought I could forget that thing and it's now the biggest regret I have haha. After the drive now my wrist is starting to feel pulled up and stiff again argh..........

When Bido passed away 2 years ago, we cremated him pretty much immediately and kept his ashes in a plain urn.

Around the same time, I started seeing doll-making videos. I'm not sure what that technique is called, only that it's poking with a needle? It was amazing seeing the artist making an identical doll.


I managed to track one artist down and her portfolio was really impressive. Her dolls looked really like the animal as shown on the photo.


In all actuality, I stalked her online shop for a couple of months, to wait and see new pieces. Finally, I decided to take the jump and ask her. She said her waiting period was 2 years, and finally in June she said she's going to work on Bido.


She does a few kinds of dolls. I really liked that portrait walking out of frames concept, so it's like those... hunter displays of animal heads? But it's 100% doll only. I thought it would look cool to have all our dogs on the wall that way.

She also does entire "free-standing" dolls, not mounted on a frame or anything. Those were impressive too.


But I'm not sure if it's because it's other people's dogs, so I don't know every single angle of the other dogs, so I found them really identical.


However, she has sent me a photo of Bido now, and... well, I can see it's Bido, but there's something not quite right that I can't place my finger on it. It's probably the eyes. Bido had somewhat advanced cataracts and I had asked for the eyes to be made cataract-free, in hopes of seeing Bido a bit younger. But. I don't know. Something just doesn't sit right.


I'm definitely not going to pull a Karen and say it's not good. But hm.... I still can't point out where the problem is.

I asked her the other day if she's taking any new orders and what her new prices are (it's been 2 years) and she says she's not taking any more new orders as her waiting time is now until 2026 (!!!!) Wow, that's a lot of orders. I looked around to see other artists and it seems now, 2 years later, the general prices are somewhat double of what I had paid. So, ooooooohhhhhh, good business. But a lot of work too!

On my daily dog walk with Frankie this morning, he took me (yes, he decides the route) up the Penha Hill and we walked past a fancy rich people housing estate. He wanted to walk into the non-gated part of it. I tried to liaise with him, explaining that it's just a dead end and we'd have to u-turn and walk back all the way up.

Frankie is a dog (frenchie at that) and doesn't understand any sort of negotiation, so, yeah, we walked down that road and had to u-turn back up. The bastard.

Then we went up the Penha Hill and walked the main road down the other way. We walked past this building that only now I noticed had the words SKYLINE on it. Did a quick internet search and found only one reference.

In the evening I asked Dad and he said it's who-and-who's home and that back then when he drove Father (didn't catch the name) he would drive him to this house (and another one of a local tycoon). He said it's just a residencial house, and that it's huge.

Here's a random old 1976 photo of the Vienna Hilton opening team soon after it opened. A friend of my Dad's on Facebook posted it, Dad isn't tagged but he's an easy find LOL. I just thought I'd archive it myself as well.

When Frankie the Frenchie is bored, he'll find whatever trouble to vex us all. Yesterday morning, a piece of cleaning cloth. And then it's a wrestling match

Random photos of food... Dad sometimes takes the shortcut and just gets IKEA cinnamon rolls. Though, he doesn't follow the instructions on the packaging. The packaging says to just take out and bake it without defrosting. The rolls come out hard when you do it this way. Dad lets the frozen rolls defrost first, then bakes them, and they get all soft and nice and DELICIOUS. Kitty (yes, the cat's name, seriously) was curious. And the other dish with the beautiful sunny side up is the minchi, famous Macanese dish of minced meat and fried cubed potatoes. Usually served with white rice, but I have to minimize the carbs. But the deep fried cubed potatoes were just toooooooo gooooooooood.


La-di-da! I started a tag for Frankie on IG. Since he's the one that decides his dog walking route, I sometimes take some photos of him at certain locations and post it on the dogs' IG, sort of introducing Macau as well, LOL.

On this one he is sitting in front of the A-Ma Temple. Legend has it that when the Portuguese first arrived, they arrived at this "Inner Harbour" and this is where the first conversations of the Portuguese and Chinese was had. The Maritime Museum is also situated here, just across the plaza. Wiki Link because I'm lazy.

So... Sai Lup's back at home.

But this is exactly what I was worried about. Are we just extending his miserable life? He likes to walk - he can't now; he likes to eat - because he can't walk so can't stand up to sh*t, we can't give him food that would make his stool overly liquid, then he'll dirty himself and everything else. He'll cry and whimper if he wants anything (peed sheets, food, hungry, want to turn around, etc). I don't mind about the extra work and money, but I'm honestly concerned about my quality of sleep in the long term if he has any such emergencies over the night.

The head tilt is going to be semi-permanent. He’s whining non-stop. He wants something but I can’t decipher what. But he has just quiet down now, maybe he's fallen asleep.

Sai Lup is at the vet's. Ugh! I miss him!

Hindsight's 20/20, I understand that, but it doesn't keep me from not feeling guilty.

Sai Lup has an ear infection that has caused an... imbalance of the fluids in his ears... it was such a scary thing to see, him rolling his eyes and his head just waving left and right. And then because he was trying to get himself straight so he struggled, so it was as if he was having a seizure. It was horrible!

The vet decided to have him stay at the clinic... he's been there for 2 nights already. He still can't straighten his head. The vet seems confident that it's an easily treatable matter. He's half-blaming my Sis because when she noticed Sai Lup with his head tilt, she cleaned his ears, and the cleaning liquid actually made the infection worse. It did seemed like it, because his woozy shaking started after she cleaned the ears.

Before we took him to the vet a second time on Sunday night, we came to an agreement if it's something severe and untreatable, then we'd rather him NOT suffering. In a casual chat, the vet also mentioned about Sai Lup's age, but when I brought up the family decision, he said it's not really such a severe thing. He's confident that Sai Lup can come back home.

Okay, we'll trust the vet. This vet is well known to be very expensive. There's a lot of badmouthing about him, people saying he's expensive and no use, but well... BECAUSE he is expensive, people don't want to spend the money at his clinic, but by the time all the other vets can't help their pets, they go to this vet for their "second opinion" or last resort, but he's also just a vet and not a miracle worker, so he can't always save the real critical and severe cases. I understand that. And anyway, Dad likes this guy (both "foreigners that are not-Portuguese in Macau").

I'm feeling somewhat guilty because Sai Lup had been humming and ermming the past few nights, trying to scratch his ear. On Facebook (or maybe it was IG), a video of a lady asking if her dog was giving her signs that the dog had an ear infection (dog was scratching the ear and also humming and ermming). I mean, I was given enough HINTS that my dog was not well, and I did not take the hint.

Okay, get ready to pay an arm and a leg for the dog. Time to go out and collect the debts owed to me.

The answer is dogs.

The first Shopping Mall in town to allow dogs to go in. Yes, granted, only allowed on a wagon (not allowed to step on the ground indoors) but still... it's a step towards being a pet-friendly place. (Pssssst it’s the side-project)

Yes, Frankie can be cute, but he's a terror on a wagon. He attempted, and actually managed, to jump ship a few times. It was tiring just holding onto him, LOL.


Sai Lup, on the other hand, since he's having trouble with actual walking, seemed to enjoy his wagon ride. In fact, it felt like he thinks that's a war tank and he's up there barking at others (when they get too near) and he actually enjoys riding around. It's made us consider actually buying a wagon for him.


We actually had to wait for a wagon (we can loan one with a deposit) because it was a Sunday and they didn't have enough wagons to go around... So for a while I had to carry him everywhere. It's like... if what I've seen on FB is right, it's like the New York subway. As long as the dog isn't on the ground (indoors), then the dog can go on the train, or something like that.


Autumn is FINALLY here, though I'm not sure for how long we can enjoy this fresh-but-not-bitingly-cold time of the year. It's been very nice for running. Yesterday we had a typhoon day, despite the typhoon being very far away, it brought some rain, and then today, it's chilly. Yay.