Tag Archives: Frida

Two Circles

10 Replies

Two Circles

Two big problems were solved for me today with the construction of two circles.  First of all, the lovely installation created by Leonardo in my garage was removed today and reconstructed in a better spot so the garage is free again to park my car and load it up with supplies for my two month stay at the beach.  Eduardo, an artist friend who is also Leonardo’s father, is here for the next 6 weeks to build flower boxes around my flower plots in the garden, to build a brick sidewalk leading down to the pump for my irrigation system and to repair salitre damage and paint my house.  We have negotiated the terms and most of this work will go on while I am gone.  Here, then, is my first new circle.  It is just to hold the sand for construction, but I’m fond of it already.  perhaps a little pond here later?  No, probably not.

IMG_1163 (1)I love how he incorporated the flower pot into the design! Actually, a semicircle now, but we will imagine the other half of it, for purposes of maintaining my theme!

So, with one problem solved, I set about trying to figure out how to keep Frida from licking her “hot spot” wound.  The neck cone definitely didn’t work.  She was a crazy woman for the one night after I put it on her and that made me a crazy woman.  Also,  although she’s taking a course of antibiotics, they will do no good if she keeps licking the wound and reinfecting it and also it does no good to put Neosporin or other medicine on it because she licks it off. So, what to do?

A friend suggested colloidal silver for the wound.  She had tried this before and it had worked, so yes, I went to town and bought a big bottle of colloidal silver and put it in a spray bottle.  Another blogging friend suggested I tie a rolled up towel around Frida’s neck to keep her from bothering the wound on her hip.  I couldn’t think of how to keep this on her until I had a flash of inspiration.  When my nephew Craig and Jessica visited, they purchased an upscale neck pillow to aid with sleep on the plane.  When they left, they asked if they could leave it as they hadn’t used it and it was cumbersome to carry around.  Voilà!  I was even able to locate it–wonder of wonders.  I took off Frida’s collar, sewed the pillow to it with a huge needle and six strands of waxed linen and fastened it around Frida’s neck.  She didn’t even flinch.  Here she models my new invention which I should patent if it works!  Brilliant!!! (If it works.)

IMG_1170 (1)We will see how Frida’s new “necklace” looks after being outside for a day.

So that, my friends is how I resolved my two biggest problems and how circles came to save the day!!

Frida Now and Then

20 Replies

DSC07911                                                                     Frida Now and Then

 

Found this adorable picture of Frida that I took right after I found her trotting down the shoulder of the main road that runs lakeside. The other picture was taken right after the vet said I should put the cone on her. She hyperventilated for hours until I finally had to take it off. Anyone know of something I could put on the sore on her leg to make her stop licking it?  She gets infection after infection in it because she can’t leave it alone.

Pobrecita!!!

15 Replies

IMG_1101
Pobrecita!!!

Poor little Frida. She has a place on her haunch she has been chewing and chewing at.  It has become infected and when a course of antibiotics didn’t heal it because she kept chewing on it, the doctor’s  decree was that she has to wear this cone around her head for two weeks and go through another ten day round of antibiotics.  Can you see by her worried expression and turned down ears how much she hates it, is puzzled by it, wonders if she’s being punished?

When I first put it on she went charging around the house knocking against everything, tipping over pots and little tables, ricocheting off the edges of furniture, even running into me!.  When I took her to her bed, she just put the cone down on the floor with her nose to the floor, curled her tail down between her legs, compressed her body  to the point where I feared she would implode, and just stood there as if made of stone.  She wouldn’t respond to treats, my voice, pats, hugs.  She was mortified  and so she insisted on also being ossified!

Finally, I had to remove the cone because she refused to eat even a dog biscuit, let alone her dinner.  After dinner I heard her chewing on it again, so I had to put the collar on again. Poor little girl.

Bedtime in the Bodoga

9 Replies

 Bedtime in the Bodoga

Frida and Morrie both got new beds today, thanks to Morrie who ate Frida’s old one and has eaten two of his own as well as one of the cat’s beds.  He  leaves only his idol Diego’s bed alone and sleeps in it whenever he can get away with it, so I bought him one just like Diego’s. (It’s upside down for now with the plastic side up just in case he decides to have an “accident.”  (That’s not unknown to happen!) Once he’s a big boy, we’ll put the hot pink cloth side up. (Although it isn’t obvious in this picture, he does still have ears!)

IMG_9303

Frida got a big pillow that isn’t even tacky.  First one I’ve found that isn’t obnoxious colors or plaid or some other horrid print. At first Frida was suspicious and wouldn’t sleep on or even put one paw on her bed, but as you can see, she is now giving it a chance:

IMG_9298

Since Morrie is still being mean to her, Frida gets to continue sleeping in the main house.  She should have a few privileges of age.  We all should!  She now likes her new bed and I think it will be more hair-resistant than her old bed that seemed more like a hair-receiver than a bed.

Here’s Diego, in his same old bed that has made it through six months with Morrie:

IMG_9302

The carpenter came today to measure for the shelves and storage bins for kibbles.  They’ll have aluminum liners so the mice can’t get in–or the dogs!!! And, they have their own tiny fridge for opened tins of wet dog food and fresh bones, which the vet tells me I have to freeze for two weeks before giving them to them.  Do you think the Taj Mahal got this much press when it was being built????

I tried removing the cages and just had their beds in the room, but they were so restless and that was when Morrie ate Frida’s bed, so I’ve put their beds back in cages and they seem much happier.  I haven’t been shutting Diego’s door and he hasn’t reminded me to do so.  He used to want it shut and locked.  Morrie has learned how to open his cage door.  Smart little trouble-maker!!! He’s even opened the side that has two locks instead of one.

I think I mentioned before that my friend Dan of Dan and Rhonda fame has dubbed the Doggie Domain with a new name:  The Bodoga.  (A bodega is a storage room so the bodoga is of course a storage spot for dogs!)

Let me know when you are sick of Doggie Domain (Bodoga) news.  I don’t seem to be able to stop myself.  I have a cool slide series showing the entire construction process but can’t figure out how to have the last pictures I want to add go on at the end and also I don’t know how to post a video or slides on WordPress.  I just now learned how to find the Shortlink and how to post on Thursday Doors! Does the learning curve ever flatten out?????

Different Thanks: JNW’s Prompt Generator

6 Replies

 Different Thanks

IMG_4226

                                                      Family Thanks Giving

Three dogs, paws up on the gate to the garage whenever I get home. The little one leaps up and down like some ballerina at the bar, the biggest with his irritating barks–loud and harsh and insistent—for whatever reason, be it mom’s arrival home or a dog who dares to pass by in the street. All of them escorting me to the door, attempting to help me with my bags and bundles.

The big dog sneaking into my room at night when she thinks I haven’t noticed. Wanting to be even closer than within eye-shot down the hall, she sleeps on the cold floor in lieu of her warm padded bed, perhaps because she wants to remind me that although the second dog is cleverer and handsomer and the newest dog is the littlest and most pleasant to have jump up on the bed with me, she was the very first and has known me for the longest. She has put up with intruders—both these two canine upstarts and the one human one who entered my house and stole my house guest’s laptop years ago when she was my one and only!

And although I am allergic to them, I wash off the licks of thanks that Morrie gives for a few cuddles on the bed before he sinks down to the foot to curl at a more hypoallergenic distance. Wash off my hands and arms after I’ve pulled off clumps of Frida’s thick undercoat. Dress the wounds that Diego’s claws have left on my legs and arms when he just can’t resist jumping up for closer contact. All of these wounds and welts and sneezes and wheezes just the aftermath of the constant thanks these kids adopted from the streets offer every day, as often as I will allow them.

*