Me and my kiddo

Me and my kiddo

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Alfie: Heart sore

 I just sent this letter.


Dear Safe Harbor Labs,


It is with tears running down my cheeks that I admit we’re not the right home for Alfie and ask you to find him a better match. We’ve done so many medication trials to help him but, fundamentally, he needs a home where there is more human touch available to him… that is the medication that will mean the most. 

I have a ton of information to impart about what has worked for him and what hasn’t over the last 15months. (I will provide a full vet record.)

Here are some bullet points:
- He has hereditary hypothyroidism which is now fully controlled by a a pill twice a day. The vet has checked his blood levels and his current dose is perfect.

- He has chronic anxiety. 
Things that make his anxiety worse:
-Any change from norms (doorbell, deer, squirrel, people walking on the street, thunder)
-Delayed human touch (even with touch, his anxiety will last long beyond the stimulus anywhere from 30min to hours)
-Separation from humans (e.g. when repairs need to be made and he’s in a room with the door closed because only one person is home)
-Quick hand movements around his head. He has clearly been hit in the past and despite all the love here is really frightened it will happen again. I am also suspicious that his ears were pinched because even slight pressure in petting will make him yelp and show an anxiety response.
Things that make his anxiety better:
-Human touch (He is vocal in his distress for all things that make his anxiety worse but, even when he’s making the vet’s office echo with his barks, a hand of any person on his head with sooth him.)
-Medications (He achieved some comfort on a high does of Trazodone twice a day although the fundamental challenges remained. The vet said this was not a good med for him to take longterm and we’re continuing with efforts at replacement; I’ve lost count of the number of failed medication trials.)
-Chewing will help him be distracted if the anxiety is very mild, but otherwise doesn’t help. (He does love dog chews for pleasure and is not a destructive chewer of property.)

- Other behaviors to note:
- He is GI sensitive.  He can tolerate gradual food changes but is prone to diarrhea and constipation. He needs lots of time and consistency for his relieving routine to be low stress for him.
- He is generally dog dominant and will test his place frequently.  My good natured old Lab gets along with him fine but I do need to redirect from humping at least several times a week and there have been a few times when the dominance has required separation for the old dog to get a break.
- He can walk fine a leash with a gentle leader but alerts loudly to other dogs and struggles to settle afterwards.
- He loves to rub his cheeks on furniture after eating to a level I've never seen before. It makes him REALLY happy. 
- He drinks a lot which may be part of the anxiety or the medication trials, but he does need the water bowl lifted around 8pm each night to be comfortable sleeping through the night.
- He loves to lick people and other dogs for 5-15minutes at a time and thinks eating snow is delightful.


Please guide me on how next to proceed.

I really wanted to be his forever home and my heart is breaking that we’re just not the right home for him; I deeply want him to be happy.
Rachel

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Holiday Letter... Mold

We're going for an e-holiday-letter because… it’s what I can muster this year as we navigate the twisty path of remediation for mold which has just been discovered in my bedroom and bathroom (ceilings and walls and floors). On the plus side, maybe I’ve found the cause of my worsening migraines! 




Sunday, August 27, 2023

Back at School: Time to Grow

Cameron has been back at school for two weeks, one for settling and one for the first week of classes. He just caught us up on each class and seems happy and fully comfortable with handling his first semester of junior year.  Throughout the conversation we heard chirping. Apparently, his fire alarm battery has been beeping for... five days. No, he doesn't know where his RA's room is (and couldn't locate it after walking the hallway).  No, he doesn't know how to submit a maintenance request and hasn't remembered to ask at the residential staff desk. Yes, he'd like it if we could send him a 9V battery.  








Monday, May 29, 2023

Britain Family Vacation!

We fetched home our boy after semester number two! He got A's and B's except that he has one more final to take (because he slept through it), but a very kind professor let him take an incomplete and he's scheduled to take that final in June. Then it was Mother's Day morning... I got a sonnet again and, the pet sitter picked-up (and, spoiler alert, spent two weeks spoiling) the dogs, and then we flew to Britain!







Flat #1:Gray's London

Doesn't Cameron look snazzy is this jacket! We saw Andrew's 80+ year-old Minecraft friend in Felixtowe and I checked off the bucket-list-item of visiting the cliffs of Dover! I goofed on a date, so we also took a surprise trip to Cambridge instead of staying a second night in Grays... oops, a bit of drama around midnight when we thought they'd double booked the flat, but lots of lessons learned! 








Well, considering we'd arrived at 2:30am, it's not surprising that we got a late start but we had a delightful few-hours in Cambridge while Cameron slept in the car. We also had more than hour conversation during the drive north during which we revamped how we're going to plan vacations in the future... super loving and valuable process for handling mistakes!






Flat #2 (as far as planned and really staying): Yorkshire

So excited at my first sight of the Yorkshire moors and we had a glorious dinner at the local pub called the Wheatsheaf... we went back lots!






First day we spent in Whidby! What a fun little Yorkshire-coast town with lots of yummies to sample and little boat trip too. We went back to the Wheatsheaf for dinner again. Nom nom!








Second day, we explored lots of Yorkshire spots via the on-off-tickets on the North Yorkshire Moor Railway! So much fun! Pickering Castle was the one place we got rained on all vacation but it had stopped by the time Andrew set up his tripod. I loved visiting Goathead (Hogsmead) station and seeing the fields of yellow flowers (rapeseed). "The Secret Garden" does not exaggerate the beauty of the Yorkshire moor!
























Flat #3 Wales:

Andrew wanted to drive via Liverpool as a super Beatles fan and the Beatles museum was one of Cameron's highlights of the vacation. The place we stayed in the countryside of Ross-on-Wye was so idyllic!




First day, Cameron delighted in tackling a quadizzila and then delighted in teasing me when I was trying to get a picture of him tackling the final layer. The mine we wanted to visit was closed so we mostly just saw countryside this first day.





Second day started with mellow morning games and enjoying our little courtyard (shared with some very happy bees). Then Raglan castle and then back to enjoying the area around our "flat", actually a converted barn.









Third day, Cardiff and home via Chepstow followed by so much fun with a games evening. A neighbor did knock on the door and let us know we had a flat tire... so we wound up spending much more time hanging out in that glorious location the next morning!











Flat #4 London

When we got on the road, we headed toward to Chew Magna, original home of Andrew's ancestor, Thomas Minor, who came to Connecticut in 1629 and founded several towns. During our drive the company switched the flat we were renting but we had an address by the time we finished returning the rental car and took an Uber across London, quite the experience. The whole trip, I was really glad I wasn't driving!




First day, British museum plus tea! Baker's Street and an amazing church and park on the way back. Such a full day! It was so exciting to walk into that church and hear these seven people practicing for a show that evening... heavenly moment! (That evening we found this incredible tapas restaurant right by our flat (and we returned there our final evening.) A bonus while enjoying heavenly wine and nibbles was that ComicCon was going on within a block of our flat and the people watching was seriously fun!)


























Second day, sky-tram then boat to Tower of London, then walking all over the place including St. Paul's and Covent Gardens!















Third day, we started with a visit to the Dr. Who hidden museum and then walking along the south bank and visually visiting everything from the Globe to the London Eye to Buckingham Palace.










Homeward bound... that's the south border of Britain from the plane! We got home around 2:30am London time but 7:30pm local time. We're re-acclimating after such a wonderful adventure!