playing

Here's a picture of Buster playing with Richie! Every once in awhile she gets in these ridiculously frisky periods. It was so cute -- Richie was walking her in the apartment complex parking lot as I got home. When she saw me, she started hopping and leaping around in circles and acting all crazy! When we got back to the apartment, she and Richie played tug-of-war!

more buster pix

Here are some pictures where Buster is actually awake!

Eyeing Richie's seat on the couch

I'm not camera-shy!

doing better!

Buster seems to be recovering from her surgery really well! Her appetite is back -- she licked her bowl for both meals...I'm not sure if it's the cottage cheese or that I've been adding in some Natural Balance Beef stick stuff (which smells really good -- just like a Slim Jim!), but she's definitely eating better.

Her stump is so cute...It really takes some getting used to, but it's really cute when she wags it. It's pretty bruised on the bottom, though, and today she was in one of her hyper phases and accidentally jumped backwards, ramming the end of her stump into Richie's dresser. She yelped, but otherwise seems o.k. She's only done that once, though, so it's a lot better than before when she routinely would whack her tail into things and then do a double take.

This morning I took her for a jog -- about 1.25 miles to the park. We played for a few minutes in the park and then jogged back home. The park was o.k., but kind of bland...Buster was pretty good on the jog, but she slowed way down on the hills, but that's o.k. -- I hate hills too!

assless chaps

Buster got her ass shaved yesterday for her surgery. It reminds me of when Marilyn Manson wore those assless chaps on the MTV music awards.

Buster, post-surgery

Buster's style guru

Here's a picture of Buster doing her favorite activity -- sleeping on the couch!

buster's surgery update

Buster had surgery yesterday to amputate her tail. We tried our best to get it to heal, but when the tip of her tail rotted off last weekend, that pretty much decided the issue then and there.

I dropped Buster off at the vet early yesterday morning. She recovered slowly from the surgery again, but at least she was able to come home last night! She was a little loopy and seemed to be in more pain than last time -- they also prescribed a stronger dose and more days' worth of pain medication, so this surgery must actually be more painful than the last one even though it seems like it would have been less invasive.

It was sort of shocking to see her bare white butt and stump of a tail! I'll try to take some pictures this weekend. She looks like a different dog without her tail...I'm sad to see it go, but I know it's for the best.

Hopefully this is the last of her major medical issues for awhile. The vomiting is still unresolved, but it seems to be at a point where it's manageable at least!

1-month anniversary

I forgot to mention that yesterday was our 1-month anniversary with Buster!!! Yay -- we survived the first month!

(The bad news -- she barfed yesterday for the first time in a little over a week. I guess we're not over the regurgitation thing yet.)

Adventures in Doggy Daycare

Now that Buster has recovered from surgery, Dr. Ikezawa gave her the all-clear to go to Doggy Daycare. Before we had decided to get a dog, I looked up doggy day care centers on the Peninsula. The most convenient one I found was a place in Redwood City, called Bark Park, Inc. It's only about 10 minutes away from where I work.

The website is a little amateurish and some of the images don't show up properly, but I wasn't going to judge them based on that, so I decided to check this place out last Monday, with the hope of taking Buster there starting on Tuesday. I called several times over the weekend, but no one ever answered the phone. Someone called me back on Monday and I asked if I could make an appointment to check the place out that evening. The person I talked to made it sound like it was a big inconvenience, but we managed to settle on a time for that afternoon.

I got to Bark Park and met with the woman. She gave me a tour of the facility. To their credit, it seemed very clean. But other than that, I wasn't very impressed. There was a large caged area for smaller dogs (maybe 25 pounds and less?) that looked o.k. -- it had a few couches in it, but there were so many dogs in it. It just seemed a little overcrowded.

The area for the bigger dogs seemed a lot more barren -- they were basically in a large outdoor, concrete dog run. The lady said the dogs rotated between the indoor and outdoor areas, but the outdoor areas seemed pretty barren. There were also a ton of dogs in that area.

All of the dogs went crazy as we were walking by. There had to be at least 50 dogs. Aside from the woman giving me a tour, I saw one person working in the back, grooming a dog. So, who was there to watch the dogs in case something happened? It definitely seemed like there was inadequate staffing and the dogs seemed attention starved by how crazy they got when we walked by.

I was pretty disappointed by this, since it was the one place I had found that seemed like it would be convenient. I went online again and, I have no idea how I missed this during my first search, but I managed to find Planet Pooch. This place has two locations that are both convenient for us -- one in Redwood City (close to Bark Park, actually) and another in South San Francisco a few miles from our apartment. It's also cheaper than Bark Park ($495 for 20 visits vs. $500) and has a much more professional website, including web cams of the facilities so you can watch your dog during the day!

I called and asked if I could drop in to check the place out and it was no problem. The woman I spoke with on the phone was very friendly and informative. When Richie and I got to Planet Pooch that night, we were really impressed -- the front room had a one-way mirror so we could look in at the dogs, but they couldn't really see us. Both the large dog area and small dog areas were partly inside and outside. The outside areas had gravel like stuff in it, so it wasn't just barren concrete. Then there was also another area that had some sort of AstroTurf type material that the dogs could play in.

I swung by the next day to drop off our application materials and to let Buster sniff the place out. The owner happened to be there and offered to do an evaluation interview right then. We went into a separate enclosed area with couches and a coffee table. One of the "house dogs" (the owners' dogs that get to roam around in the front with the staff) came in there with us. Buster seemed to be doing fine. The guy brought in Husky-type dog and Buster got along with her too. Then he brought in a goofy Vizsla and then an American Bulldog and Buster was fine with both of them, so he let her go into the area with the other dogs. I was a little nervous since she had been a little snappish at the dog park when she was overwhelmed, but apparently she did o.k. because the owner came back and said she was fine and seemed confident with all the dogs!

Buster had her first day at Planet Pooch on Wednesday, and I think things went well! I'm pretty sure I saw her on the web cam a couple of times and she seemed really mellow. Yay!

The Fun Stuff!

Yay - now that I'm at least caught up on Buster's medical stuff, I can write about all the fun stuff!

Here are some random pictures and videos...

No wonder why no one ever wants to pet her :(

But she's so cute!!!

I love Buster!

Richie and I went to Costco last weekend and one of the things we had to stock up on was toilet paper. Richie, being a great big kid, thought this would be a good idea...

[Edited: Made this video a YouTube video instead of a link!]

Buster's Surgery (and summary of her current medical status)

Buster had surgery on March 21st...I dropped her off at the vet's office early in the morning before I went to work. Richie and I went to pick her up that evening but as we were driving there, they said that she wasn't recovering as quickly as they wanted her to, so they wanted to keep her overnight. They said we could still come by to see her, though, so we did.

We went into the back and they said that they had just given her some more pain medication, so she would be a little loopy. She was tied with a leash to the cabinets and she was sitting on some towels and blankets, which were all bloody from her incisions. She looked totally out of it and it was hard to tell if she could even tell we were there. She was sitting up, but she looked like she was about to fall asleep. Whenever it looked like she was about to lie down, she would jerk up -- I think it was too painful for her. After about 10 or 15 minutes, though, she managed to get comfortable enough to lie down and go to sleep.

The next day, I went to pick her up with my Mom and she was like another dog! She walked normally and didn't seem to be in any pain. She had an E-collar on and she was a little freaked out, banging into stuff. It was pretty hysterical, but we decided to take it off as soon as we got to the car.

After her surgery, Buster was basically on 5 different medications -- a pain pill, antibiotic, ear infection medication, an anti-nausea pill, and Pepcid AC. Whenever I'm getting Buster's medications ready, it reminds me of my mom, Uncle Tachi, and Auntie Yoko and all of their medications!

Overall, Buster seemed to recover from her surgery very well. The incision in her leg started to ooze a few days after the surgery, so we took her back to the vet to get it checked out, but they didn't seem too concerned about it. She had to have her staples in a little longer than we had originally thought, but other than that, they healed up nicely.

When we had her staples removed, we also showed Dr. Ikezawa Buster's tail damage. By now, the two small scabs had morphed into a full-blown bloody mess. The whole tip of her tail was bloody and raw, and she kept licking at it if we didn't keep it wrapped, aside from splattering the walls of our apartment with blood. Dr. Ikezawa said that we should give it a few weeks and if it didn't get any better, they would have to amputate it.

We've been keeping it wrapped and we've noticed that it has a really foul, disgusting odor. I was hoping it was just from Buster licking the rubbery Pet Wrap material. Richie insisted that he thought her tail was rotting.

We also had noticed a new lump near one of her mammary glands. Dr. Ikezawa said that we should just monitor it since her other mammary gland tumors had been benign or mostly benign.

The other night, Buster rolled over into her weird sleeping position and I noticed she had this large bulge (about the size of 1 1/2 golf balls) in her abdomen area. I thought maybe it was a hernia, so we scheduled yet another vet appointment. This time, I couldn't go because I was tied up at work (I was there until Friday night at 8:30pm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), so Richie took her.

In her weird sleeping position

He showed Dr. Ikezawa the bulge and she said it was just scar tissue and fluid, not a hernia (the first good news yet!!!). Unfortunately, Richie was right about Buster's tail - Dr. Ikezawa thought maybe some of the tissue was rotting after all. NASTY! She suggested that we not wrap it for awhile and see if drying it out helps at all. The problem with that is that she'll just keep whacking it and licking it, and it'll never heal. So it looks like Buster'll be having another surgery pretty soon. :(

Oh, the other bit of news on Buster's medical situation is that she hasn't really vomited/regurgitated in over a week! We've been trying a number of different things -- switching to a different food, feeding her on the stairs so that her esophagus is a little more vertical, the Pepcid, and the anti-nausea medication. So hopefully we've got it under control now!

To sum up all of her medical problems (I've already talked about most of them, but some of them I haven't even written about!)...


3/14 - Tapeworms
3/14 - Lump on her elbow
3/14 - Regurgitation/Megaesophagus?
3/15 - Mammary gland lumps
3/15 - Ear infection
3/16 - Low thyroid levels
3/20 - Tail damage
3/22 - Surgery to remove lumps
3/24 - Fluid in shoulder (from sensitivity to injections)
3/25 - Incision oozing
4/2 - New mammary gland lump
4/10 - Tail smelling bad/rotting
4/12 - Scar tissue/fluid in her abdomen

The Hits Keep Coming...

The original vet called us on Friday (March 16th) to tell us the results of Buster's blood test. She had come up as having a low thyroid. He dramatically said that the normal range was 1.6-5, the low range was 0.8-1.5, and Buster was below the lowest end at 0.6. We asked his office if they could fax the results to the Bishop Ranch vet.

Dr. Ikezawa called us on Monday (March 19th) and said that the biopsy had come back as a sarcoma on Buster's left elbow, so she recommended we remove it within the next couple of weeks and since Buster would already be under anesthesia, she would also remove the mammary gland lumps at the same time.

She also mentioned the thyroid results and said that since Buster didn't show any of the other typical low-thyroid symptoms (chubbiness is the main one, I think, and she is definitely not that) that she wasn't too worried about it -- the thyroid level can vary throughout the day due to stress and other factors.

Since I had her on the phone, I mentioned that Buster was vomiting still. Initially we thought it was because of the excitement and stress of being in a new home, but she was still doing it after several days of being with us. Dr. Ikezawa asked if she was wretching and vomiting or if it was more like regurgitation. I said it was more like Buster was burping and out comes some food -- usually whole bits of undigested kibble, so more like a regurgitation. She paused for a bit and said, "Oh...That changes things then." She said there was a condition called megaesophagus that could be brought on by a low thyroid. She recommended that when we bring Buster in for surgery, we also do a chest x-ray. That way they could check if the cancer has spread throughout her chest and also for this esophagus condition.

I called the Bishop Ranch front desk the next day to schedule Buster's surgery. We hadn't even had her a week yet and already we were scheduling her surgery for Thursday, March 15th.

Sometime around then, I noticed that Buster had a couple of scabs on her tail, and when she wagged her tail, she whacked it on things - the coffee table, bookshelf, etc. It seemed like the scabs were starting to open up and were bleeding a little, leaving blood marks all over our walls. I asked the person at the vet's office if she knew offhand of anything we could try, so she suggested we could try covering it with a self-adhesive material called Pet Wrap.

Apart from her medical issues, Buster was turning out to be a great dog. She is really sweet and mellow, very affectionate. She always wants to be right next to us. If we're on the couch, she wants to sleep in our lap. If we're in the kitchen, she'll lay down on the floor watching us. She sleeps a lot, but still has these occasional bouts of friskiness. She's generally aloof with other dogs, even snappish when she's on a leash. But other than that she has a great disposition!

Buster with her tail wrapped

Buster = Bad News Bear (Day 2)

During the time when we were still considering getting a dog, I researched veterinarians in our area. I looked online and saw that there was one a couple miles from us and he had a couple of reviews that were pretty positive on yelp.com, so I figured that'd be a good place to take her for her worm problem.

The vet's website said they were available for walk-in appointments, so I decided to take Buster first thing in the morning -- my mom told me I would need to bring in a fresh fecal sample, so I brought her in as soon as she had done the nasty (Buster, not my mom!).

The vet was able to take us before his first scheduled appointment. We told him about her worms and he said that her sample had come back as positive for tapeworms. He gave her an injection that would kill the tapeworm. Buster is a complete wimp -- she yelped like nobody's business when he injected her! Poor Buster. :(

We also mentioned the lump on her elbow. He examined her body and found two more lumps in her mammary glands. The vet asked us how old Buster was and we told him the shelter thought she was about 2 years old. He shook his head as if he was really disturbed -- he said that for her to have lumps on her mammary glands would be like a 12-year-old girl having breast tumors.

The night before, we were panicking about her worms, but those were turning out to be the least of her problems. One of the other things we had noticed was that she drank what seemed like an abnormal amount of water. When we mentioned that to the vet, he said that she could have diabetes. At this point, we were dealing with a dog that not only had worms, but possibly cancer and diabetes. Other smaller things we had noticed were the vomiting the night before and excessive dandruff.

To test for diabetes, he recommended doing a blood test. As far as the lumps went, he recommended not bothering to do a biopsy, but rather we should jump right into surgery within a week. I asked him about the anesthesia he used -- one of the things I came across when doing research on Boxers was that they can have a bad reaction to the ACE anesthesia. The vet said dismissively that he has never in 20 years had a problem using ACE on Boxers, but that if I didn't want him to use it, he wouldn't. At that point, I was getting very unhappy with my choice of vet.

By the time we got out of the vet's office, I was crying and crying. I think I was already sort of emotional just from the stress of adopting a dog, in addition to a general lack of sleep, and then to get this sort of news about a dog we were already so attached to, I just couldn't handle it.

I called Wendy and told her what happened. She said that she didn't think I would want to, but I could probably return Buster to the rescue group. I thought back to the paperwork we had filled out the day before -- as we were filling it out, one of the conditions in our contract was that we wouldn't abandon Buster or giver her away. Sarah had said offhandedly that if for some reason we couldn't take care of her, like if she had cancer or something, we should return her to Boxers and Buddies. I remember thinking at the time that that seemed so unlikely.

After I talked to Wendy, I called my mom and told her what happened and that I think I wanted a second opinion. My mom offered to set up an appointment with her (really renowned) vet in San Ramon -- the Bishop Ranch Veterinary Center.

Richie's friend Mike had come over to watch the Stanford basketball game and he had some helpful advice. He and his girlfriend are really involved with the Rocket Dog rescue group in San Francisco. He suggested that I contact Boxers and Buddies and see if they would help with her treatment (I never asked them to help pay for Buster's treatments, but I appreciated the suggestion!). He also mentioned that I could probably return Buster if I wanted to, but I told him I wasn't interested in that. He also recommended a vet in Pacifica that is supposed to be good.

I ended up taking her to my mom's vet in San Ramon -- I knew they had done a great job on KayCee's hip replacement surgeries that she had when she was a puppy, so I knew they would be good. We saw Dr. Ikezawa, and she immediately made me feel so much better. She got down on the floor and talked to Buster enthusiastically. She suggested we aspirate the lumps to see whether or not they were suspicious, and then if they were, she would send them out for a biopsy. Then depending on those results she would recommend surgery. It was basically the same news as what the original vet had told us, but Dr. Ikezawa was totally upbeat about it -- even if the lumps were cancerous, she didn't act like it was a death sentence. In fact, she said she didn't see any reason why Buster couldn't be a happy, healthy dog.

We also mentioned her other assortment of problems -- the vomiting the night before, the dandruff, the excessive water drinking. I mentioned the first vet saying that she might have diabetes and Dr. Ikezawa made a face -- she said that there could be any number of things causing that and it wasn't necessarily diabetes. She said that we should have Buster's bloodwork faxed over to her when we got it back from the first vet. Dr. Ikezawa checked Buster's ears and found they were totally caked with wax and she had an infection (the other vet hadn't even looked in her ears!!!) But, overall, these other problems seemed pretty minor compared to all the lump stuff, so we didn't really focus on them too much.

After aspirating the cells, Dr. Ikezawa told us that the big lump on Buster's elbow did have some suspicious cells in it, so she had to send it out to the lab to get tested.

I got home late that night and fed Buster. I don't remember exactly, but I'm sure she probably barfed a little bit more that night. Over the next several days, she would barf about once a day.

Bringing Baby Buster Home (Day 1)

On Wednesday, March 14th, we left Tahoe after a couple days of skiing (good!) and gambling (really bad!). We met Sarah at the doggy day care center she's opening in Reno. We had to fill out tons of paperwork and pay $200 before we could take Buster home. After everything was filled out, Sarah brought Buster out to us and took our picture.

The Aranda Family

We drove over to Petco and bought all of the supplies we could possibly need -- a collar, leash, nametag, poop bags (my mom was surprised that I would buy poop bags instead of just using grocery store bags, but my OCD totally won out over my stinginess -- those grocery store bags have holes in them!!!), treats, and food! Buster still seemed really mellow and nervous. After Petco, we hit the road to head back to the Bay Area.

After a few minutes of driving, Buster put her paws in my lap. A few minutes later, it was her paws and head. Pretty soon, her whole body was completely in my lap -- a 45 pound lap dog!

We got to Mom and Dad's house after a few hours (and some Popeye's chicken -- it's the shiznit!) and walked Buster for a few minutes outside. My mom brought KayCee out to her and Buster was a little bit snappish, but she calmed down quickly. Then we brought them both into the backyard so Buster could explore.

Fat and Skinny

Exploring the backyard

More exploring

At first I was paranoid she would jump into the koi pond and eat the fish! Generally, she was pretty mellow, although she did have a short burst of hyper-ness. She got really playful for a few minutes -- running and jumping around and barking -- but it went away as quickly as it started. Her barking was what really caught me off guard -- she has a pretty scary bark!

After awhile, we fed her in my parents' laundry room. She didn't eat all of her food and she barfed a little bit a few minutes later. We figured she was probably just overexcited.

Sometime around then, she dropped her first deuce since we had adopted her. As if picking up dog crap wasn't nasty enough, we noticed that there were tons of worms crawling around in it. Oh man, was it gross. It reminded me of the scene in the Lost Boys when Kiefer Sutherland is playing mind tricks on Corey Haim's brother and makes the rice look like maggots. Ew.

At some point, my mom noticed a large lump on her left front elbow. We decided that between the worms and the lump, we should get her to the vet ASAP the next morning.

We finally got back to our apartment late that night and blocked off the upstairs. We had read that you should let your dog get used to a small area of your home first so it doesn't get overwhelmed, so we just let her roam the downstairs area for the first few days. She was great other than dropping little worms out of her ass every once in awhile...The worms totally freaked us out and we were completely determined to get her to the vet first thing in the morning.

When it was time to go to sleep, we put some treats into her crate (my parents gave us KayCee's old one - thanks, guys!) , closed the door behind her, and went upstairs. Pretty soon we heard a little whimpering. That eventually progressed to some serious crying. Within a few minutes, it was full-scale, non-stop barking. This went on for hours...I can't believe we didn't have the cops called on us. I gave up sleeping upstairs to sleep on the couch downstairs so I could shush her whenever she barked. Finally, she tired out around 1:30am and we got some sleep.

Whew!

I Want Some of Your Brown Sugar...

In early March, my mom e-mailed me this picture of a Boxer named Brown Sugar up for adoption at Boxers and Buddies in Reno early in the week. After hemming and hawing for a couple days about whether or not we were ready for a dog, Richie and I decided to go for it. He even picked out a name -- "If we get a dog, can we name it Buster?"

So after my Tuesday night basketball game, I stayed up until midnight filling out the adoption application. If we got accepted, it would be perfect timing since we were going to Tahoe that weekend and could swing by Reno on the way up to check her out! While we waited to hear back, I checked into doggy day care places, and Richie talked to the apartment management office to get info on their pet policies.

Brown Sugar

After a couple of days, we heard back from Sarah at the rescue group. She said our application was really good, but there were already 17 other applications in for Brown Sugar, so she was basically unavailable. We were really disappointed, but we said we'd still go up to Reno to check out the other dogs they had. Sarah mentioned another dog named Perdita that would be good for an apartment, but the downsides were that she is deaf and she only gets along with small dogs, which would be a problem since she would need to get along with KayCee!

That Sunday, we drove up to Reno and saw the dogs. Amazingly, Brown Sugar was still there, so I was really excited! We asked about her, but Millie, the woman running the group, said that someone was in the process of applying for her, but that they still needed to submit a letter from their landlord saying it was o.k. She implied that it was first come-first served, though, so we took Brown Sugar out for a walk.

On our walk outside, Brown Sugar was really mellow and she seemed a bit nervous. She wasn't super interactive with us, and she just seemed really dazed. We brought her back inside and didn't really push adopting her since we figured she was already spoken for.

We played with Perdita and she seemed really sweet -- when I knelt down to pet her, she put both of her front paws up on my shoulders...It was really adorable! But, we asked the rescue people whether or not she would get along with an English Bulldog and they were very doubtful, so that pretty much ruled her out.

Perdita

After watching some of the other dogs, we decided to take Anakin out for a walk! He was really playful and strong on his leash -- you could tell he had that puppy exuberance still. And with a name like Anakin, I'm surprised Richie wasn't pushing hard to adopt him! I was a little hesitant about adopting a male dog, though, since I've never had one before.

Anakin

After we went back inside, I asked the rescue lady about Brown Sugar again. We actually had the information with our apartment complex's pet policy, so she said that if we wanted to adopt her we could! We were a little hesitant because we didn't want to just snatch the dog So then we had to decide between Anakin and Brown Sugar. We liked Anakin's playfulness, but Brown Sugar was just so adorable, and it was better that she was on the small side, and honestly, a mellow dog would probably be easier to deal with.

I decided that, for me, it came down to which dog would be more likely to want to curl up on the couch with us when we were home at night, watching t.v. and the rescue lady said with no hesitation -- "Oh, that's definitely Brown Sugar. Once she's attached to you, she's really attached." That made up our minds right there, so we decided that she was the one we wanted! We were still a little hesitant because we didn't really want to snatch someone else's dog out from under them, but the lady emphasized that it was first come-first served, and the other people hadn't gotten their stuff in when they had said they would!

The last step that we needed to complete was a home inspection. Luckily, they were actually more lax about checking people who live in apartment complexes, than people who live in homes. For people that live in homes, they need to make sure that the dog has a place to stay inside and also that their yard is fenced adequately. For apartments, all they needed were some pictures.

I conned my dad into going to our apartment as quickly as possible to e-mail pictures since Richie, my mom, and I were going to be in Tahoe for the next few days -- I didn't want someone else to swoop in and adopt Brown Sugar in the meantime. I also touched base with the Boxers and Buddies people every day to let them know we were e-mailing pictures, check that they got them, and then set up a time to pick Brown Sugar up. I wasn't going to count on anything until we actually drove off with her!

Finally, by Wednesday, everything was set for us to pick her up!

Buster and Me Blog

I wouldn't normally think that someone should devote an entire blog to their pet, but Buster is definitely an exception! Not just because she's the best dog in the world (!), but because she's had so many issues since we've adopted her and I can go into more detail here than what I usually tell people, and I think it would be personally valuable to me to sort of document what's been going on while it's happening. And, I'll try to be good about posting pictures and videos here (in addition to our regular blog).

So, since this blog is starting about a month late, I'll do my best to get caught up to the present in the next few entries.