Indulge.

The vet was more fun than a barrel of intoxicated co-ed bipeds.

Actually, it stunk. The vet was impressed with the extent of the damage inside Kiva's ear. In order to clean out the mess, it took her, an assistant, and me to hold Kiva down, while she was muzzled. And this is a little featherweight 42-pound dog. I can't imagine if it had been Steve the 80-pound mutt getting his shredded ear cleaned out.

At any rate, she said to keep it clean and gunk it up with Neosporin daily, and gave me a pack of antibiotics and said to keep Kiva out of the kiddie pool for a while until the ear heals. She said ears are vascular areas on dogs and tend to heal quickly. Basically, there are two gashes in the cartilage in there, and a tendon is severed. One round hunk of cartilage is severed right in half and sort of dangling in there--it's really disgusting, and I got a good close-up look at it while I held my poor squirming dog who was so scared she peed all over the joint. Poor thing. I think she shed twenty pounds of fur while we were in there too; she always starts losing hair right and left when she's scared or stressed. Oy, better the vet's office than in my house, I guess. Less fur to vacuum out of the carpet.

Kiva doesn't seem to be in much pain from it. She's eating and playing with the other two. Still a bit clingy this evening, but recovering. She shakes her head a bit every few minutes or so and the ear is definitely not perky, but I don't care what it looks like as long as it doesn't hurt her. M jokingly said about the situation, "Well, if her ear never perks again, that means we've got three ears up and three ears down amongst our three dogs." Which is true, and made me smile.

Dogs. God love 'em.

We went over to my parents' house this evening to meet their two new beagles and to swim in their pool. It's unbearably hot outside. I can only imagine what the energy bill will be this month.

I've read almost the entire camera manual now and am starting to learn my way around it. Here are a few pics I've managed to take that don't look like they were shot by a three-year-old on gummy worms and slurpies. Click on any of them for the bigger size. They're all on my Flickr page too. Don't expect dynamite; I had to reize them all and that always takes something away. The originals are slightly better. If for some unfathomable reason anyone wants an original, email me at j_star_katamari at yahoo.






























Allrighty. That's all I got for tonight. I'm pooped after adventures at the vet, bathing pee off a stressed dog, proofing stuff about IBS and poop, and dealing with this supercilious heat that thinks it can just go around kicking people's asses willy-nilly. Weather's supposed to break Wednesday. I can't wait.