The Dog Doesn’t Die

My book group read this as a light summer reading choice. And I have to say — as I told them — I was disappointed. I’m perfectly capable of getting into chick lit, but this felt like it was written by a software program. In other words, it was way too predictable. Yes, genre fiction follows a structure. But this book went well beyond that. And the set-up involved a single lost piece of paper on the crowded desk of the overwhelmed protagonist, a successful attorney. This single lost piece of paper led to huge financial losses and a scandal. Oh, please. In any office I’ve been in, there would have been 100+ e-mails checking on the thing. Single lost pieces of paper do not happen any more.

Oh, well. Were there any animals in it? Barely. One of the other attorneys brings his dog to work. So this book is Safe for animal lovers. But I’m not recommending it because there’s better chick lit out there. For example, Elaine Viets is a better writer than Sophie Kinsella, and her books are more amusing and shorter. Check out Viets’s Dead-End Job series next time you’re tempted to try Kinsella. Just be careful with her book on the pet care business, because it’s not completely safe for animal lovers.

Before we get down to business being silly, here is an important announcement: Eddie’s tube is out! Yay! If that doesn’t make sense, see the previous two entries.

Today’s silly stuff deals with the concept of flight, or failure to fly, or reasons not to fly.

This illustrated story of office workers saving ducklings is pretty funny, and cute as well. In fact, it comes from Cuteoverload.com . Ducklings can’t fly. They can plummet off the side of a building, and they can waddle, but they can’t fly. Fortunately, there were people around to help these particular ducklings survive the plummeting and the waddling. Let’s hope the ducklings grow up to be smarter than their mom.

Rabbits normally don’t fly, but in Denmark, bunnies do take to the air in the sport of show jumping.

Finally, David Owen writes about a fantasy airline. It won’t cost you $50 to read about it, although he’d probably like that very much.

He’s so much better!

Doesn’t he look good? His energy is back and he’s eating on his own a bit. In fact, last night Dr. Carter and I decided to transition him back to feeding himself. Since he’s gained weight on a combination of a high-calorie prescription diet and an appetite stimulant, I’m going to give him fewer tube feedings throughout the day in hopes that this will become the secondary source of nutrition. We’ve got an appointment on Friday to see how it’s going, and if he hasn’t lost weight, we’ll just use the tube feedings as a medication delivery system with a few extra calories tossed in.

Speaking of medication, Eddie is taking mitrazapine (which I often see online as mirtazapine, too) as his appetite stimulant, which is a common veterinary use for it. However, this drug is used primarily for people as an anti-depressant, and one of the common side effects is wild dreams. I have found stories of mitrazapine-induced dreams all over the Internet, and some of these seem borderline hallucinogenic. For example, one man dreamt of airplanes on streets and another person compared the dreams to being on a recreational drug. So what does this do to Eddie’s dreams? All I know is that he is only supposed to get this drug every 72 hours, and the night after he gets it, he’ll wake me up and want to “talk” to me. I think he’s having some vivid dreams that he wants to share somehow, but I’ll never know for sure.

Finally, I sent these Dancing Deer brownies to the vets and staff, and they loved them. As Dr. Carter said last night, “we like flowers, we like fruit, and we love chocolate.” So next time you need to send a gift for a special occasion, consider the Dancing Deer brownies to have an informal endorsement from my cats’ veterinary practice.

I visit a wonderful veterinary clinic, the Sacramento Veterinary Hospital, which has three skilled and creative veterinarians, and a helpful and compassionate staff. They’re all lovely people, but I’ve had to spend way too much time with them during the past three weeks.

In a nutshell, both of my cats, Eddie and Priscilla, had loose stools for a couple of days. Priss recovered, but Eddie ended up with stools of just blood and mucous, so I took him to the clinic. Eddie is also diabetic, which means his health is somewhat fragile to begin with. And, to make a very long story short, a few days after I first took him in, I dropped him off first thing in the morning so he could go on an IV. I expected to be called to return so that he could have that last injection we never want to give our pets.

Instead, our veterinarian, Dr. Carter, called later than planned to tell me she’d stabilized him and to ask what I wanted to do. The thought was that if she and the other vets and staff could get him through the next several days, they could send him home with some chance of a full recovery. But I would have to tube-feed him for at least a couple of weeks. She asked if I would be willing to do this. I said yes. She asked how I would feel if, after tube-feeding him, he died anyway. I said I’d feel terrible, but I’d at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I’d fought for him.

Since then, I’ve learned that people are often reluctant to tube-feed their pets in a medical crisis. So I feel like I have to take a stand. As Dr. Pierson says on her page discussing tube-feeding, this is a very valuable method of getting a cat through a temporary medical crisis. Just as you can’t leave a pet in the veterinary ICU forever, you can’t tube-feed long-term. If your cat has incurable cancer, for example, that’s not likely to be a situation appropriate for tube-feeding. But if your cat is likely to recover, then why not do it?

So I’m going to detail my experience of tube-feeding Eddie, complete with pictures. Tube-feeding is not for wimps, but it’s not hard, either. I am easily frustrated, so if I can do it, most people can do it as well. After you give a couple of tube-feedings, you start to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It is somewhat time-consuming, and it will dictate your schedule for 2 to 3 weeks. But if you have some flexibility, it’s worth it.

The first couple of times I did it this time, I was very frustrated. Tube-feeding has potential to be messy, and I got food and water all over the place. I also had trouble getting food into the syringe without a lot of air. But I quickly got past those issues, and now it’s just routine.

Here is a picture of Eddie sleeping in the bay window, which is about 3 feet from the floor, and which he jumped onto himself. Notice that you can’t see his feeding tube, which goes into his esophagus through his neck. He’s sleeping on the tube, in fact, which is one of many indications that it doesn’t really bother him.

In this picture, there’s the basic “stuff” that I need for the tube-feeding. On the left is a red t-shirt, machine washable and baggy enough to throw over whatever I’m already wearing. The potential for mess is always there, and instead of changing clothes, it’s easier to keep using the same large shirt as a sort of smock. There are also syringes, one for food and one for water, plus a mortar and pestle for grinding up pills that go into Eddie’s food. This time the food is already liquified, but you may end up having to use a blender.

Dave took a few pictures of me tube-feeding Eddie. It has to go slowly, because you can’t dump a lot of food into a cat’s stomach all at once. I’m giving him about five 25-30 cc feedings a day, since the usable food from his can comes to about 140-155 cc’s of high-calorie, high-quality, prescription cat food. A 25-30 cc feeding takes me about 12-15 minutes, plus 3-5 minutes of preparation time. So we’re talking about just over an hour and a half a day. Eddie is worth it.

I am looking forward to Eddie’s full recovery. He’s begun licking but not eating the regular cat food, which is Wellness canned food. He’s behaving normally and seems to be regaining his energy, although his weight is still down from the trauma of his medical ordeal. The veterinarians are optimistic, so I’m optimistic, though it will be a huge relief to have him eating on his own again. And if for some reason that doesn’t happen and I lose him, at least I will have made the effort.

This book caught my eye a few weeks ago and, since I’m always on the lookout for a good novel based on Russian history, I grabbed it. I think what I really want is a book that’s as good as the movie, Reds. The People’s Act of Love is good, although it isn’t that ideal Russian history novel I perpectually seek. However, author James Meek has some unusual characters, good plotting, and unexpected background situations. I would recommend it but for the fact that it is Extremely Unsafe* for animal lovers, especially in regard to horses.

Unfortunately, too, I can’t say something like “skip pages x through y” because a number of pivotal plot points occur in scenes that integrate the damage to horses. For example, one of the main characters is in the Russian cavalry and finds himself in the midst of a massacre that changes his life and the lives of other characters profoundly. It’s realistic that the horses would also be harmed and killed in this situation, and it’s shown. Meek does an excellent job portraying this and similar incidents, and like it or not, he goes into some detail.

I hope this provides some people with a better basis for making a decision about whether to read this book.

*If you don’t care about violence to animals, by all means get this book, read it, and enjoy. However, one of the main purposes of this blog is to provide people who don’t or even can’t enjoy books in which animals suffer or die with a means of screening books that might disturb them.

Meg Cabot has written, oh, about 40 books, many of which were aimed at teenagers. Yes, this is the woman behind the Princess Diaries series. Moving up the food chain into the chick lit category, she has also written a series about Lizzie Nichols, the Queen of Babble. The one book in this series that I read was harmless, and SAFE for animal lovers. Sure, there’s a reference to someone dissecting a lab rat while in school, but we don’t see it. And there are nice people with dogs in the book. If are an animal lover who wants to read the literary equivalent of cotton candy, go ahead and read this book. It’s mildly amusing and sweet. And there are times when that’s the kind of book you want to read.

Next up — serious literature! But not for a few days.

I am a huge fan of the TV show Top Chef, and I was really torn between wanting Stephanie Izard and Richard Blais* to win Season 4, which ended last night. Stephanie claimed the title, and the only thing wrong with that was that Richard didn’t win as well. (Too bad he didn’t compete in Season 2, he would have blown those clowns away.) So congrats to Stephanie, and may she and Richard have successful careers making beautiful food for the rest of us. I look forward to buying their cookbooks someday, and maybe dining at their restaurants.

For a bit more info on Richard, see the comments below. And I have been misspelling his last name, which is Blais, not Blaise. Oops. I did get a lot of hits from people who made the same misspelling, so I’m keeping the tag for the benefit of the misspellers. Fellow misspellers, if you Google “Richard Blais”, you will get the info you seek. Here is the link to his website.

And the first Top Chef cookbook is out! It’s really half cookbook, half show chronicle. I recommend it to one and all.

Away from the television and my fantasies of making television food, I have discovered a new Ethiopian restaurant. If you are unfamiliar with Ethiopian food, here’s what you need to know: it’s different. It tends to be spicy, often but not always hot, and there are no utensils. You eat it by tearing off bits of ”injera”, a spongy pancake, and using the injera to pick up bits of food. Anyway, Meaza has won great praise as an “authentic” Ethiopian restaurant in the Washington DC suburbs. Dave and I were there for about an hour and 15 minutes the other night, and for the first 45 minutes everyone else in the place appeared to be Ethiopian immigrants. The food was exceptional, especially the lamb tibs, which we will definitely order again. With two beers, one salad, and two entrees, we paid about $40 plus tip, so it was also reasonably priced. I can’t wait to go back!

Doesn’t it sound glorious? You pack up the family and move to a mansion in another country, get to know the locals, experience various mishaps that you laugh about later, turn the dilapidated estate into the home of your dreams, and write a book about it. This has just about turned into its own genre. And while I rather enjoy it, not all books in this category are equal. Fortunately, Tahir Shah’s book, The Caliph’s House, is among the best of its type. Unfortunately, it is entirely Unsafe for animal lovers. If you are sensitive to the treatment of animals, you may want to read The Caliph’s House anyway, but be forewarned that there are some cringe-inducing scenes involving animals.

It’s not Shah’s fault, by the way: he’s just reporting what he experienced. The Washington Post described the book as a “black comedy,” and that is correct. Shah is Afghani by heritage and lived in London for many years, which is presumably where he made the fortune that allowed him to purchase the wreck of a home that he and his family moved into. In Morocco, there is a belief that an empty building attracts Jinns, which are invisible spirits that seem to rule most aspects of Moroccan life. It’s all well and good that Shah doesn’t believe in them — the workers who refurbish his new home, the three guards who seem to come with the property, and his indispensible majordomo, Kamal, all believe. So Shah is held hostage to the whims of the Jinn whether or not he believes. I’d head back to London, but Shah is more intrepid than that. Plus, I believe he sees this as a test by the locals (a common theme in the big-house/strange-country genre).

Anyway, this blog exists in part to tell animal lovers whether they’ll be upset by a book due to violence against animals. And as much as I otherwise loved The Caliph’s House, I found it out-and-out creepy in regard to the treatment of animals. Sheep must be killed to placate the Jinn, Shah comes across cats that are killed as a warning to him, Moroccan boys torment squirrels and other animals, a bull is killed, more sheep are killed, etc., etc. It’s pretty ugly.

I still liked the book and recommend it to those who think they can deal with the animal issues.

We are overdue for some silly stuff!

First, do your pets get enough exercise? Sure, you take your dogs out for walks, but what about your cats? Have you ever thought about getting them a treadmill? Yeah, me neither.

Maybe the reason cats don’t exercise so much is because cats are existentialists. Do existentialists exercise? I doubt it. They do mope, however, and existentialist cats are particularly good mopers.

Finally, are you female? Of a certain age? At that very special “time of life”? And awake at night? Then you have insomniac sisters. Extra points if your name is Judy.

Since I loved Kathryn Davis’s The Thin Place so much, I thought I’d read another one of her books. I don’t know if I chose the wrong one or what, but I wasn’t that impressed with The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf. I liked the concept, about two women, a Hans Christian Andersen tale, opera, and missed opportunities, but the book didn’t come through for me. I think my main problem was that I wasn’t drawn to either Frances or Helle, the two main characters. And it really seemed as if Davis had some fascinating ideas that didn’t translate to the page. Oh, well. I’m not going to give up on her, but I was disappointed.

As for the animals, this book is Mostly Safe for animal lovers. There are a few unpleasant images, such as foxes being made into a fur coat, and a poisoned wolverine. But, as in The Thin Place, Davis treats animals with respect. Along with a couple of dogs, one of her characters befriends a rat, for example. Unlike The Thin Place, the animals do not have their own voices and are not characters in and of themselves.

My recommendation is to read The Thin Place if you haven’t already, skip this book, look for anything new Davis writes, and — please? — let me know your thoughts on any of her other books you might have read.