Glaucoma is one of the disorders that can affect dogs and cats without any visible signs. As with bloat, the fact that your pet is suffering is often not apparent until the situation is critical. At least glaucoma, unlike bloat, will not kill your dog or cat. Unfortunately, as with epilepsy, even if glaucoma is diagnosed in your cat or dog, there may not be much that can be done. Glaucoma in animals is not as readily treatable as it is in humans.
Being Canadian, health insurance policies are a whole unexplored subject for me. I was 16 when Canada got universal health care, just a year before the birth of my first child, Lucky us, to not have to find the money to pay for the obstetrician and maternity ward when we were struggling students.
There are people who will scoff at my use of the word ‘tragedy’ in the context of the story I am about to relate. Certainly these events, involving as they do just a boy and his dog, are dwarfed by the many grand scale tragedies occurring every day, devastating the lives of large numbers of both people and animals. Even in our years caring for dogs and cats in our little kennel, we were peripherally involved in events that would be more deserving of the word ‘tragedy’ as it is more commonly understood.
This was just a small family tragedy. An intimate, human scale ‘series of unfortunate events’ that will never be the stuff of a Shakespearean drama. But somehow it left it deep impression on me.
Calmness, confidence and competence can get you a long way in this world, whether you’re engaged in a stand off with a bear, or trimming your pet’s nails.
Personally, of the two, I think I might prefer dealing with the bear. Unless she’s protecting cubs or food, she’s unlikely to engage with you. The chances of blood being spilled are much higher when you give your dog a manicure.
It was a humid summer night. It had not been a great day so far.
It had taken all day for The General’s mother to be discharged from the hospital, where she had had a stent put in to correct a blockage in an artery. Apparently super important heart surgeons can’t be bothered with details like speaking the magical words from their Olympian heights that will produce the prescription necessary for a patient to get the hell out of his domain.
The General and I started our pet resort knowing nothing about the kennel business, other than what we didn’t like about it. This was in 1998, when the internet was just starting to be a thing. We didn’t have HTML content. We didn’t have – gasp – social networks. We were using modems.
If you’re a faithful reader of Auntie Awesome’s stories, you’ll know that I did just about everything wrong when it came to our first dog. If you’re not a faithful reader of Auntie Awesome’s stories, then what is wrong with you??
“My puppy has kennel cough!” the voice of our new client on the phone exclaimed accusingly. “You made me show my vaccination certificate, but obviously you didn’t do the same with everyone. Otherwise this couldn’t have happened!”
There was so much wrong information in those statements, it could have appeared in Weekly World News along the Bigfoot and Elvis sightings.
Brachy – what? Is Auntie Awesome posting about dinosaurs now? If you have never heard this term and are just making a wild guess at its meaning, then you probably don’t own one of the most popular breeds of purebred cats.
Every summer we read the stories. Dogs suffering heat stroke, or being rescued from cars so they won’t suffer heat stroke. C’mon, this is a total no-brainer right? We know that dogs and cats don’t have a very efficient cooling system because they have no sweat glands except a few in their feet. Mostly they pant. It’s only common sense that big coated animals, old pets, sick or fat dogs and cats and those with pushed in faces are particularly susceptible.