Nov 11 2014

The day of Dr. Beth's initial consultation.
She left and I went back upstairs. Milton was still quite upset, barking and leaping at the gate. I let myself into the kitchen with him and ignored the distress, just happy-acted "oh, look at all the treats!", picked some up and offered them to him. He ate a couple of them and ignored the rest. He got calmer and I made myself a slice of toast with peanut butter. He was calm at that point so I removed the gate and we went into the living room. He ran around a little, sniffing, looking to see if Dr. Beth was still there, I guess. I sat at the table, ate my toast. Milton lay down in the sunshine and was obviously worn out. After I inhaled my toast, I went over to him and leaned over, gave him his pettings and sweet nothings ("my sweet boy, yes, it's been a hard day! are you tired? I'll bet you're tired! I love you! Mommy loves her Milton!" etc. etc.). I picked him up and held him, kissed him, and was able to easily put him in his crate and leave for work as usual.
I didn't get home until 6:30!! CVS didn't have the scrip ready when I got there, so it took half an hour. I always leave a light on, and the Dog's Ear music was playing, but he was still quite glad to see me. As soon as I opened the crate door, he came flying out, jumped up on me and did "reachies" (with neither aggression nor joy, from what I could tell), ran around a little looking for you or someone... so I figured the postdude had come to the door and left a package there since there hadn't been any mail in the mailbox. He was very insistent about getting out the door - I put him on leash and we went out - sure enough, there was a package for mommy. And, he really had to pee! So was he still a little wound up from Dr. Beth's visit? the postdude coming to the door? having to pee worse than I've seen up to this point?
NOTE: normally when I open the crate door he comes out relatively slowly, stretches, maybe plops down for a petting or gets a toy out, etc. - pretty calm.
Anyway... then it was time for din-din! (7:00 tonight). I started him on the extra half tablet of prozac. He ate well. We went out for walkies and had to do an immediate u-turn since my good neighbor (Gene) was just getting home. But going the other way means almost pitch dark, and it's really hard for me to walk in that area. A flashlight barely makes a dent in the darkness. We got to one of his sometimes-poop spots and he was thinking about doing some solid business, but then there was another u-turner situation, meaning we had to go back toward the pitch-dark section of neighborhood. We got to another maybe-poop spot, but along comes another distraction, and at that point I just started to jog toward home as well as I'm able to. He seemed to enjoy that. He never did poop this evening, but since he did a nice one at noon, he's good for the night. Something's gonna need to change about the walk situation, though. I can't be running around in the pitch dark, because if I fall and injure my hip, that would be really, really, really bad from an expense standpoint.
Speaking of poop, I went in the back bedroom and happened to notice some little brown presents in the half-bathroom back there. I don't go in there much, so I don't know how long ago he did it. He doesn't even have access to that area much - so he's a sneaky little thing! He hasn't missed a morning or evening poop lately either, so I guess he made an extra one just for his mom! :-)
I spent a little time at work trying to set up a blog for this journal - what the heck has happened to wordpress and blogspot? They're practically undecipherable now. But I'll figure it out. So now it's 8:30 and I'm about to leave the computer for the night and cuddle and read with Milton on the couch for awhile. I was up until after midnight to meet my work deadline last night, so we might both fall asleep there. It happens frequently.
Hope you enjoy reading - this is what you get when you tell a writer to write!