w w w . S t r a y d o g* . o r g U p d a t e
POSTED EVERY DAY AT NOON CENTRAL TIME U.S.A.
Straydog Inc., The Arnolds' Happy Home for Strays, a No-Kill Dog Shelter
P.O. Box 1465, Gun Barrel City, Texas 75147 * (903) 479-3497 * EMAIL: straydog@straydog.org

* When Straydog is in red, we're running out of funds to sustain our mission.

Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

WEDNESDAY MARCH 31 2004

Erin's Vet Visit Report ...

Five dogs make the long trip to Tyler (Texas) to see Dr. Reeves

   Toby, Rudy and Julie and their hormone tests

     Dr. Reeves seemed happy to see us again. We had gotten the results of the hormone tests back a couple of weeks ago, and Dr. Reeves and Dr. Aiken agreed about the treatment for Toby, Rudy and Julie (whose levels were all far from normal). All three dogs need synthetic hormones first, two injections each, and then we will put them on the natural hormones, and they all need thyroid medicine. "Toby won't have his skin problems this summer," Dr. Reeves said. We sure hope not!

   Rudy

     Rudy weighed 60 pounds! Our extra feedings and not letting him run the fence-line all day have helped a lot! He looks really good. "Will a dog as young as Rudy need thyroid medicine his whole life?" I asked. "We'll have to re-check periodically and see," the doctor said. Getting Rudy on these medicines will help him not to develop allergies and immune-related problems in the future.

Rudy weighs in at 60 pounds at Dr. Reeves' office.

   Julie

     These medicines may affect Julie's BG (blood glucose) levels, but we are monitoring her closely (taking readings periodically throughout the day and night), and we can make the small adjustments to her insulin dosages in order to keep her glucose level as stable as we can. The doctor also drained a big vessel in Julie's ear. He put medicine in the ear and we're to bring her back two more times for further treatment in draining this big bubble in her ear!

Dr. Reeves draws blood from the bubble in the vein in Julie's ear.

   Jeannie and Foxy

     Jeannie and Foxy, who are being treated herbally for heartworms, got a dose of Ivermectin to kill the baby worms. In one month we will see if they have more babies in their systems. If they don't, we can assume that we have gotten the adult worms and can start on the monthly preventive. Sometimes these herbal protocols take as long as six months to take affect. In the future, we probably won't do the longer, herbal treatment for a healthy younger dog (because it's so work-intensive), but we will save this protocol for a dog with heart or other health problems, such as Laura, who is on the herbal heartworm treatment. Laura will go next month for a heartworm recheck.

Jeannie wonders what Dr. Reeves is pointing at.

Foxy waits for her blood test results.

   Ginger, Teddy and Katie (all three of whom did not make the trip to Tyler)

     We asked about Ginger, who had vomited white foam several times Monday night and yesterday morning but still had a good appetite. "It is probably a sore throat," the doctor said, and he made suggestions for Ginger, which were _____ (Erin to fill in this blank). We asked about Teddy's ears, and we told the doctor that Katie was doing fine. We also made an appointment for next week for Thelma and Louise to get their second set off puppy shots.

     We asked many questions, as we usually do, and Dr. Reeves took a lot of his time to talk with us. Because of Cher Imrie's generous donation last week, this week's medicines and examinations came to just $130.

     Thank you again, Cher, and thank you very much too, Dr. Reeves!

Thanks to Blind Stevie and Little Pete for sending a super donation

     The note on the check stub said that the two boys had been saving their "allowances" and their "lunch money" in order to help us out. Their donation was large enough to pay for all our dog food for about six weeks. Thanks, Stevie and Pete! You boys be good for your dad (Mike).

Thanks to Kerry Sullivan, who came out yesterday with lunch for everyone

     Kerry, a professional masseuse, gave some of the dogs massages and then set up her table and gave several of us massages. What a treat! Plus she gave us a $100 donation! Thanks so much, Kerry. You're welcome any time. She said we'd probably see her again in May.

Kerry gives Toby a hip massage.

Jack Jones was very happy we'd named his rescue "Jackie"

     Jack called last evening saying he and his neighbors had searched again high and low throughout their neighborhood but could find no puppies. Jackie is warming up to everyone now. She still growls a little bit at first at the male caregivers, but she is allowing everyone to pet her now, and it looks like she's going to be a very sweet dog who will make some family a wonderful, wonderful pet.

Jackie is a very pretty doggie.

More Photos

Some of yesterday's emails:

   Online Bill Paying

Hi Bill & Erin,

Your supporters who use Online Bill Pay through their bank can add you as a "Payee" and send contributions electronically. Once the payment is made, their bank then issues a paper check, which is mailed to Straydog. It's a great way to save on stamps, plus it's easy to track for those making regular donations, and it can be taken care of along with regular bills like utilities, phone, etc. Most banks now offer online banking with the Bill Pay feature.

Thanks for all you do!

Holly Elms

   Free Search Engines

Bill,

If you go to freefind.com they have free search engines but you do have to link to their site and the results are on their site. That's the only thing I don't like about it. But they do send you info about what people are searching for and the results of their search in a weekly (or monthly, I'm not sure which)email.

*~§~*Angela*~§~*

     Thanks, Angela. When I get a spare few minutes (or few hours), I'll check this out. ... Bill.

   Creating Spanish symbols (the accent mark and the tilde) on my computer

Hi all,

I can't help out much with any actual language stuff, but I noticed that there was mention of having to get a new keyboard in order to produce the updates in Spanish. All of this is completely dependent upon what software you're using, but in most current applications, you can achieve Spanish symbols fairly easily without having to purchase anything extra, e.g. the current version of Microsoft Word uses:

CTRL+` (ACCENT GRAVE), the letter =
à, è, ì, ò, ù,
À, È, Ì, Ò, Ù

CTRL+SHIFT+~ (TILDE), the letter =
ã, ñ, õ
Ã, Ñ, Õ

So I was just thinking that it's quite possible that there would be no additional cost (at least not for hardware or software). If this hasn't been worked out yet and you have trouble figuring it out, let me know what software you're using and I'll do some research. If it does actually come down to needing a new keyboard in order to produce the ~, I may actually have one available that I could send out--just have to do some digging!

Thanks for all of the pics and news!

Cara

     Thanks, Cara. I write in HTML, and after what you mentioned about the creation of symbols in Microsoft Word, I remembered that somewhere I have a list of how to create all standard symbols in HTML. I just need to find it. I'm sure it's available on the web somewhere. Maybe some of my old typesetting pals can fax me the html symbols list at 903-479-3440.

I'm just now getting to yesterday's photos at 11:30, a half hour till post time

     I'll continue working on the photos until I have to go do something else and will hopefully get them posted this afternoon. [I did. See above.]