Tonight is the full moon. Give your monthly preventatives!
Note: If you have another way to remember to give your preventatives, that’s okay too! Do what works for you. I thought it might be fun for us to all give it together.
Last week at the hospital was a little bit nuts! We ended up doing surgery three days last week instead of our usual Wednesday. On Thursday we were having a slow day, I had booked enough time off to ride my horse at lunch. She’s less than 10 minutes from the clinic but I had ridden before work that morning. We had a new client come in at lunch with his dog that had started vomiting over the weekend. We didn’t know what he had eaten but we were pretty sure it was stuck! The dog had eaten the squeaker from a chew toy and I removed it Thursday afternoon. Some dogs love to ingest things. I’m more suspicious that a dog ate something unusual if he’s a one to two-year-old (read teenage) large breed dog. Usually a lab or a golden retriever. I don’t know why this is the signalment for “I just ate something stupid” but it is. Dogs with a stuck foreign body vomit and they don’t feel good. They can’t keep food down. They may want to eat but food just comes back up and they lose weight. Not all foreign bodies require surgery. Some things can pass with enough hydration if they don’t get stuck and damage the intestines. The pressure of a foreign body that is stuck in the intestine can damage the intestine so that it dies and the damaged part has to be surgically removed.
What is a “safe” chew toy? I’m not sure there is one. I like the compressed Nylabone style chews and I offer them to my dogs, but they can swallow those and I’ve removed at least one surgically. Dogs are known to eat a variety of things from socks and underwear to corn cobs. The width of a corn cob is the perfect size to cause intestinal blockage. I’ve removed a superball. The ones that are super bouncy and sometimes come in gumball machines. I’ve removed the nipple from a baby bottle that was the perfect size to cause a blockage. Earbuds are the perfect size to obstruct our feline friends. Real bones can fracture teeth and if they crush and eat enough of them, the crushed bones can form a dam in the colon or further up the gastrointestinal tract that can cause a blockage. Rawhide, if ingested, will sooner or later cause a problem that requires a veterinary visit. Ideally, you are looking for something that is too big to swallow (depending on the size of the dog) and soft enough that they don’t fracture their teeth. Things with strings (eating the carpet or a dish towel or for cats dental floss or sewing thread) can be particularly problematic because the strings can saw through the intestine in different places causing the intestines to scrunch up like a scrunched up sock! My daughter’s dog, Winnie, must have known I was writing this because she just walked over and started chewing on the firewood! What possesses these creatures!!!
I’m trying to get outside daily. On Thursday morning, I saw three otters in a local pond while I was riding. It is the first time I’ve seen otters here! I’m waiting for the first turtles to appear on the log in my local pond and I’m looking for the first skunk cabbage to appear in the wet areas. It’s definitely mud season, with big ruts in our driveway left by the melting ice turning to mud. We had our first flower bloom in the garden in front of the animal hospital on February 26th! The gardens are south facing and get a lot of sun. I am continuing my class on spiritual companioning. I have a class on Monday nights studying the work of Thomas Merton. He wrote The Seven Story Mountain about his conversion to Catholicism and about how he became a monk. I visited his grave at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky last summer with my son Carter. On Tuesday nights I am taking a class on Workplace Spirituality. I plan to take a little time off in March and April when Dr Mack is back. I signed up for Theology Beer Camp in St Paul Minnesota October 16-18. It was so much fun last year. If you have any interest, link is HERE.
Office updates:
*Dr Janet Mack is BACK! She starts seeing appointments on March 17th,
so if you’ve been waiting for her to return, call now to book an appointment!*
- Destiny has finished her internship.
- Sydnee has finished her internship and will graduate this month!
- They are both continuing to help us out and Sydnee will be joining our team officially in the coming months!
- Congratulations to them both!
Here are some ideas for enjoying the spring season, used with permission from my class last month:
Preparing for spring
- Visualize yourself as a seed sprouting inside the earth. See a brave and hearty shoot rising from you, making its way to the surface. Imagine that shoot entering the air, greeted by sunlight and warmth. Imagine Spirit/the
- Goddess/God/the garden welcoming that shoot, gently showering it with water and encouragement. Imagine that shoot having everything it needs to grow strong and vital.
- Movement – Imagine you are a seed and dance the emerging sprout.
- Rituals of dedication – Create a simple ceremony to dedicate yourself to a practice, a vision/goal, a value, a deity, a vow for the year.
- Spring cleaning – Clear out papers, clutter, dust. Make room by giving/throwing away. Or pick one area (i.e your altar, your desk, the garden) and make it clean and ready for new life.
- Wear sandals in the snow. 🙂
- Bless your tools – If there are tools you use in your ministry or your work or vocation, bless them for the work/service ahead. You might use holy water, essential oil, olive or coconut oil, or just your intention.
- Readying rituals – A ritual bath; shedding stuff and/or outmoded practices; imagine your re-entry into the world before it actually takes place.
Spring
- Seek physical experiences of balance – walk across a log or beam; lean as far as you can in one direction without falling, then shift to the opposite direction, passing through a perfect balance in the middle.
- Build a seasonal altar – eggs, flowers, grass, light green colors, butterflies, bees, damp earth, water…
- Decorate eggs.
- Plant a garden.
- Connect with your child-like nature – color, make mud pies, be silly, chase butterflies, have a water fight…
- Seek signs of rebirth in nature.
- Sing sing sing (perhaps with the birds).
- Revel in sacred pleasure.
- Start or renew an ecstatic dance practice.
- Dance a celebration of renewal.
- Wake early and watch the sun rise, honoring the return of the light with your presence.
- Spring cleaning.
- Ritual baths with flower petals or essential oils.
- Burn flower scented incense.
- Spritz yourself with rose water.
- Surround yourself with cut flowers or blooming plants.
- Prioritize fresh herbs and seasonal vegetables in your diet. Prioritize fresh, raw foods like salad.
- Weave colored ribbon around a maypole or braid them into decorations hung around the house.
- Wear flowers and ribbons.
- Explore neurographic drawing.
- Draw how you might nourish the awakening happening within
- Spring cleaning – get rid of stuff, clean out the closets
- Plan the planters and go to buy the flowers
- Go to the farmer’s market!
- Be in the woods and watch the small changes – when things come up around here the skunk cabbages come up first in the wet areas.
- Prepare the soil and plant seeds
- Listen to the birds sing and watch the robins build their nest
Happy Spring (finally)!
Happy full moon gazing!
Remember your monthly heartworm and/or flea and tick prevention!
– Dana