Suspected poisoning

It was raining heavily when I came home yesterday, so I had to wait for a few hours before I could take our new dog, Cora, for her delayed afternoon walk. As usual, she was very pleased to see me when I came home, and followed me everywhere I went in the house (yes, she tried to enter the toilet with me). Even when I was sitting down and she was lying down, her eyes would follow every movement.

When the rain finally stopped, we went out for a walk. As usual, she investigated the hedgerows and picked up loose paper with her mouth. When we got home, we noticed that her mouth was white; in fact, she was producing volumes of foam. This is exactly what happened with Mocha the evening before she died, although the foam appeared several hours after our final evening walk. When I saw this, I immediately told my wife that we were taking Cora to the vet.

Once we arrived,  the vet gave Cora a quick check: her pupils were fixed and enlarged, and she was still foaming. First, he weighed Cora (22.5 kg), then gave her an injection containing an emetic (apomorphine); as the linked wiki article states, "The emetic properties of apomorphine are exploited in veterinary medicine to induce therapeutic emesis in canines that have recently ingested toxic or foreign substances."

After Cora vomited three times, the vet shaved a patch on her foreleg, inserted a cannula and proceeded to give her an infusion of Ringer's solution, in order to prevent any dehydration which might have been caused by the foaming and vomiting. All this time, Cora was very quiet - as much due to the apomorphine as to the suspected poisoning; she was also shaking a little. After the infusion finished, she sat with me in a corner for an hour, under observation.

By the end of the observation hour, her pupils had contracted and were now reactive; she had stopped shaking and was behaving in a more normal manner. The vet said that we could go home, but if any symptoms returned, then we should get in contact, even at 4am. My wife sat with Cora for another hour for continued observation.

This morning, Cora was as if nothing had happened, although maybe she was a little subdued. I took a completely different route for our morning walk, walking inside the kibbutz instead of outside. My wife took me to work in the car (because of the heavy rain), and at the beginning of the drive, I showed her the route that our walk had taken us the previous evening. In the daylight, one could see that one hedgerow had been sprayed with weed-killer; a strange practice to perform when it's raining heavily (the rain deactivates the weed-killer and washes it off the bushes).

Thus we managed to save Cora from dying; she was the beneficiary of the harsh lesson that we learned from Mocha.

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On a completely different note: for some forgotten reason, I again looked at the list of notable Old Bristolians on the Wikipedia, and was surprised to see someone from my year: Sir Andrew Cash. I think that he was in the parallel class to mine for several years but we weren't in the same house (I suppose that everyone these days knows about Gryfindor and Hufflepuff, so there's not much need to explain) and so we would have known each other by name but would not have had much interaction. 

It turns out that there are two lists of distinguished Old Bristolians at Wikipedia: the one which I linked to and one connected with the entry for the school itself. Sir Andrew does not appear on the second list. Well done, Andy Cash.

Training the dog

We have had Cora the dog for three weeks and a day. At first, she was almost frozen until she began to get accustomed to her new surroundings. She seems like a good dog, but there are some aspects to her behaviour which need to be improved - like barking and snarling at people (and dogs) outside of the home and also inside. We had been told by the kennels that she was well behaved, but that observation didn't appear to be accurate. As a result, we were given the phone number of a dog trainer. The kennels said that they would pay for the training (although that promise has yet to be fulfilled) - and I thought that we might have to pay the kennels for the dog. 

So far we have had two training sessions. The most important point is to show the dog who is in charge: the humans, not the dog. As we have never had such problems with our previous dogs (or we had forgotten), we have to be taught this as well. The first thing to change was the lead - we have a 3m flexi-lead which was very good for Mocha but unsuitable (for the time being) for Cora, as it allows her to wander around whilst being nominally connected to me. The kennels had given us a fixed 1.5m cloth lead when we took the dog home, and this is exactly what we need.

Yesterday we continued with our lessons. The first thing was to add a second collar - this one is 75% cloth and 25% chain; this is very important as a short tug on the lead connected to the collar simulates a nip on the throat by the dog's mother. The trainer taught Cora a sign for 'sit!', along with the vocalisation. When she didn't sit, he gave a short tug and the sign again; this time she sat. Of course, whilst training, he gave her treats to help reinforce the lesson. This went on for several minutes, then it was my turn. Although at first she wasn't too co-operative (obviously I'm not authoritative enough), she soon got the message.

This morning, when we went out for our walk, I tried the 'sit!' manoeuvre, which went surprisingly well. I didn't even use the hand sign; I just gave a short tug on the lead and Cora sat. For a change, she also relieved herself while we were out - toilet training has been a problem. I noticed that both last night and this morning, she was much more compliant, so the lessons are having an effect! I seat her when people come close and this helps.

One problem which we will have to sort is the reaction between Cora and Gutz, my daughter's dog. They came over on Saturday night for a while; this time, there was less barking but both dogs were kept on their respective leads and didn't interact physically. We are going to have the dubious pleasure of Gutz's company for a few days at the end of January, so I sincerely hope that they will begin to tolerate each other's company. 

There are no problems with our cat, whom Cora meets on the stairs every day. The cat (whose name is Brazil, but we rarely call her by name) had become accustomed to greeting Mocha and rubbing up and down against her. She was at a loss when Mocha died, and when Cora arrived, she tried to continue where she left off. Cora tolerates - or ignores - Brazil, which at least means that we don't have fights on the stairs. But we haven't got to the stage of physical contact yet (well, it's only be a few weeks) and the cat seems disappointed.

[SO: 4032; 3, 17, 38

MPP: 632; 1,  3, 6]

Going to see a man about a dog

Yesterday, we "went to see a man about a dog", or in other words, went to a dog shelter to see whether there was a dog available for adoption which met our requirements. When we spoke to the supervisor on the phone in order to check whether they had dogs (the previous day we had phoned somewhere else and were told that they had no dogs for adoption), we were told very enthusiastically that they had 120 dogs and that we were very welcome to visit.

The shelter is about 20 minutes' drive from our home, coincidentally where my brother in law and his family live. This is a rural setting and the shelter has plenty of room. When we arrived, we saw many dogs milling around outside, playing or resting, along with about ten people. Most of the people actually work in the shelter; there were only a few outsiders checking adoption. Unfortunately, of those 120 dogs, about 110 are male and we want a female – this creates fewer problems with the other dogs on the kibbutz. First, we checked the dogs which were enclosed in pens (or cells); these were all male. Of course, all the dogs are of mixed breed; it's difficult to imagine how a pedigree dog would end up in such reduced circumstances, and anyway the folk wisdom is that mixed breeds are hardier than pedigrees.

We did find two bitches outside: one was almost all white and one was almost all black.  After some thought – and taking one for a short walk – we decided to adopt the black one ("Cora" – probably someone had been watching Downton Abbey). She's a size or two smaller than Mocha, and about a year and a half old. Although the supervisor tried to tell us the dog's history, it was very hard to hear for all the barking (we had come at feeding time). We think that she was brought up with a family and then something happened. The supervisor was only too willing to allow us to take the dog for a test period, between a week and a month. If everything works out, then we will notify the shelter in order to receive the dog's documentation. We will also have to ensure that the data saved in the dog's chip will be changed. This idea of a test period is very good; it takes a few days for any dog to get accustomed to new surroundings (especially after the somewhat less than salubrious surroundings of a dog shelter) and some prospective adopters have to get used to the idea of having a dog.

Yesterday evening went reasonably well: Cora was very quiet, but of course she needs to get used to us and the house (and especially to the smell of a non-existent dog). We went out for three walks yesterday evening and one this morning, so that she could get used to the regular walking path. She didn't sniff very much, and more importantly, did not excrete. Unfortunately, she did empty her bowels this morning – but inside the house. Hopefully these behaviours will change quickly. I haven't heard one bark although she did cry when she was left on her own this morning (on the balcony, not inside).

Remembering Mocha

It's the little things about Mocha that I'm going to miss the most, like

• Coming home in the afternoon and hearing her feet scratching the wood of the balcony in welcome
• Getting up from my chair in the evening and going in the bedroom to put my walking shoes on; a moment later, a head will peek around the door to see what I'm doing
• If I don't feel like walking, she'll come and peck at me with her nose to remind me that I still have to take her out for a walk
• 'Ringing' her food dish to show that she wants to eat. She rang it yesterday evening after we came home from our final walk, and she ate ravenously
• Whenever we would sit down to dinner, if the smell of the food interested her then at some stage a head would appear by the side of the table, taking in what was there

I wonder how the cat will react. Normally she finishes 'breakfast' at the same time that Mocha and I would return from our morning walk; the cat would rub Mocha up and down, whilst Mocha stood there stoically. Today, when we went out in the morning, I had almost to drag Mocha down the stairs (she doesn't like the rain and maybe she thought it was still raining), and the two of them stood together for a moment on the landing. I was tempted to take a photograph of the two of them together - it's a shame I didn't.

Goodbye, Mocha

Mocha, our dog for the last nine years, died about an hour ago. It seems that she ate something which she shouldn't have; all night, she behaved strangely, salivating constantly, and this morning she barely came out with me for her walk. We were in touch with the vet, but Mocha died before we could get her to be examined.

Let us remember her in her prime. The pictures below was taken about three months ago.

And this is when she was a puppy

One of her favourite positions

Watching television

Goodbye

Emerging from the morning mist

As today is Saturday, it is my habit to take Mocha the dog for a long, off the leash, walk in the hills behind our house. We started out at about 6:45 in the morning, and as winter seems to have returned to our parts, there wasn't very much light at this hour. On the path leading up to the graveyard, I could see two figures looming out of the mist: one seemed to be the size of a dog, so I assumed that the second figure was the dog's owner.

As I came closer, I became puzzled about these two figures. For a start, they weren't moving at all, and the larger figure didn't seem to be a person - in fact, it didn't seem to have an upper body at all. Was I hallucinating? When I came much closer, I could see that in fact I was looking at a donkey and its foal. Mocha had been interested in some smells arising from the vegetation so she had been behind me, but shortly she came up and started trotting towards the donkeys. They in turn started moving away from us. 

Judging by the route that they took, they probably came from an encampment of Bedouin which is sited a few kilometers from the kibbutz. 

I couldn't get very close for a picture (every time I tried, they retreated), so below is the best that I could do.

Pictures from a balcony (6)

More pictures which were previously thought to be lost. My daughter bought a pedigree Boston Terrier puppy about two weeks ago; she brings him over on Friday nights when she comes to visit. Until now, our dog and the puppy have not got on too well: Mocha (our dog) feels that the puppy is invading her territory and also taking our affection, so she frequently growls at the little dog. It doesn't help that the puppy - being a puppy - is full of energy and is constantly running around, examining his foreign environment. As we say, he's like the Duracell bunny - and I wish that my daughter would remove his battery before he visits.

During the Passover holiday, my daughter went away for a few days so she brought her puppy to us so that we could look after him. Both dogs spent most of the time on the balcony where they seemed to have formed some kind of truce. I would take both of them for walks, and it was interested to see how the puppy would follow the adult dog, trying to imitate and learn what the elder dog was doing. These walks didn't faze Mocha very much but the puppy got tired (which was partially the point of the walks).

Those few days were also very hot: we were (and still are, occasionally) experiencing 'sharav' (aka khamsin) weather, which is when a very hot and dry wind blows. These days can be extremely uncomfortable and I tend to be inside (with the air conditioner activated) when a sharav blows. Whilst Mocha seems to spend most of her time laying flat out on the balcony, this was a new experience for the puppy.

Mocha too goes on holiday

Mocha the dog celebrated her fourth birthday in the past week. We're not sure of her exact birth date; we found her at the beginning of January 2007 and the vet estimated that she was about three months old. So she was born sometime during October 2006. Happy birthday!

While we were away, we decided to take her to a 'dog hotel' ('kennel' is hardly appropriate); this is basically someone's house and garden in a neighbouring settlement where the dogs are allowed to run wild. They get looked after and there is always plenty of company, but they are responsible for their own exercise.

Mocha displays the affect of high speed and gravity on her body as she is chased by another dog. After running around, it's time for a rest, her favourite occupation.

This tickled my fancy

My dog sheds hair all the time, and someone suggested improving her food by adding a teaspoon of olive oil each day. I'll check the dietary values of her food this evening.

Whilst idling googling dogs and olive oil, I came across this pearl of wisdom:

Q: If you give olive oil to your dog, will it make my dog's nose any wetter?

To which the reply was "No, your dog's nose won't get wetter if I give my dog olive oil".

Someone has a problem with pronouns.

Visiting the vet

We took the dog to see the vet yesterday. My wife was worried about a little bump by the dog's right ear, which turned out to be nothing. While we were there, the dog also underwent treatment for worms (trying to force pills down her throat), vaccinations for rabies and other dog ailments, and a general checkup.

We discovered that Mocha (aka the hound of the Baskervilles) weighs a mere 40 kg; the poor vet had to lift her up whilst weighing himself so that we could determine this (in order to know how many anti-worm pills to give).

We also left behind a fair amount of the national debt.

Here is the dog herself in all her glory:

One gets an idea of her size when one considers the size of the couch behind her.

The photo was taken from my new (as from February) mobile phone, a Nokia 6288. At first, I really hated the phone, as I couldn't get it to do anything. The manual seemed worse than useless, as it told the user all kinds of information, everything but what I wanted to know. But after a while, things settled down, and I started to learn how to get the phone to do what I want it to do.

As I have reading glasses, I find it difficult to see who is phoning me when I'm not wearing the glasses. I discovered that I can take photos of people and then attach those photos to the person's contact record; now, when someone phones, I can see their picture and so know who is calling.

The phone also has a video call function which seems like more of a gimmick than anything else. I tried it with someone in the next cubicle, and it worked well enough, but of course it only works with other phones that have the same option. My son was always ragging me about my previous mobile phone, which admittedly was a very old model (but good enough for me). Even though he too has had his phone updated, he had to admit the other day that my phone is much better than his.

A mobile phone is one of the few items about which a man is prepared to brag that "mine is smaller than yours". With this new breed of phones, it seems that this trend is actually reversing.

Lots of things to do

I received a package from Amazon a few days ago, containing the following

• "Trisector", the new cd by Van der Graaf Generator
• two Rebus books written by Ian Rankin, "The Falls" and "Exit Music"
• one book written by Brian Viner about his life in the countryside
• one book about cognitive therapy, called "Feeling Good" (or similar)

I am slowly working my way through the package for I have several activities competing for my spare time, to wit:

• writing and updating programs for my occupational psychologist
  
• taking the dog for long walks
• writing important letters
• watching films which have accumulated

Last year on the way to Santorini, I bought a dvd machine which records as well as plays, and so I've found myself recording several films a week. One ridiculous weekend not so long ago had me recording 6 films over 24 hours, as the satellite company showed good films in the run-up to the Oscars. I've had a look at this week's schedule, and there are "only" five films in the entire week which I want to record. Anyway, the machine has been fritzing for quite some time: I can record properly and finalise the discs, but when I put them back into the machine in order to watch them, the machine refuses to recognise them (even though the discs are readable on the computer). On Saturday the machine stopped initialising and so I knew that it was time to take the machine to be repaired. I had taken it a few weeks ago when it started acting up, but the technicians said that there was nothing wrong with it. This time there was no argument, and the laser within the disc drive was replaced. So far I've managed to watch 45 minutes of "Shirley Valentine", and today the machine will have its first real test when it is supposed to record "Local Hero" (one of my top films; my wife can't watch the bought version because it doesn't have Hebrew subtitles) via timer this afternoon.

Anyway - I have all these films taped - but I've only seen part of them. One needs personal time to watch and enjoy them.

Israel moved onto Summer Time on Thursday night, which means that it doesn't get dark until after 7pm. As a result, I can now take the dog for long walks after I get home from work; previously there were days when we could only manage a swift walk around the block before darkness fell. These walks take between 45-60 minutes, and whilst they give me physical exercise and a chance to unwind, they also take time.

I've been working very long hours this month writing programs for the occupational therapist. One exam has been converted for use externally - that is, we put it on the Internet, from where companies with which we are in contact can download and then administer the tests in their environment, sending us the raw results. The first thing which I did with the program was to convert it from using the BDE to using a resource stored stringtable, in which are stored all the questions, as well as various strings which are displayed on the screen. We are hoping to have the questions translated into different languages (Russian is the major target), and now the program can easily support this. Another problem which we encountered the other day was that the program cannot be run on a mobile computer (well, of course, it can be run, but the user interface depends on pressing keys on the numerical keyboard, and a mobile doesn't have these keys). Letting other people run this program tests it properly.

We are also developing an aptitudes exam, which has caused me to learn new things (like how to store a JPG image in a database and then display it) as well as looking at these programs in a new, more abstract, light.

Our flagship product, the program which reads and evaluates users responses, is continually undergoing changes. The output is becoming more and more sophisticated, and now we are tailoring it for the specific needs of external companies. These results, simply put, give a psychological profile of the person sitting the exam; initially they were used for communal settlements wanting to check whether prospective candidates would make successful settlers, but now we are trying to move into the business market, and so are trying to tailor the results so that they fit into a business orientated mode. We have added - on the basis of existing data - filters and aggregates to check how a candidate does in specific areas of management. Whilst the base of the program - and the exam - remain unchanged (and have to, in order that the statistic analysis which resides at the bottom layer is unaffected), I am constantly adding new tables in order to handle new ways of looking at the data.

I also realised the other day that I could combine several tables, each of which contains only an id and a name, into one table, containing id, name and type. I can't do it now, as those ids are not unique and of course are scattered amongst other tables, but if I find myself having to add a new table with an id/name tuple, then I will extend one of the currently existing tables. This is the approach which I used in the aptitude test, when we decided to store each examinee's occupation and educational level. Keeping a separate table for five or six entries has a high overhead.

So now it becomes apparent how little time I have for reading books. More about them later.

Speying the dog

For some unknown reason, I haven't felt like updating this blog in the past few weeks. Too many days off work (for holidays) cause the mind to go mush-like, and blogs don't get written in this time.

A few weeks ago I took our young dog (Mocha) to be speyed. I should really call her a puppy as she's only six months old, but to me a puppy is a small dog, and this one is anything but small!

This picture was taken about two months ago and doesn't really give a good idea of her size, although some people who have seen it say that they can judge by the size of her feet. Anyway, this is a big dog who hasn't finished growing yet.

I stayed to watch the operation as I thought it would be interesting (I also didn't have anything else to do at the time). Anaesthetising the dog was amazing: after the vet managed to insert a cannula into Mocha's leg, she injected some liquid and in literally two seconds Mocha relaxed from heavy breathing into heavy sleep. The cut in the abdomen produced disappointingly little blood and in fact, no real bleeding could be observed at any time during the operation, although of course subcutaneous blood vessels were leaking all the time.

Again, to my disappointment, the vet didn't lay Mocha's abdomen open for me to see inside; instead, she reached inside the cut, felt around a bit and then brought out some filmy tissue which she said was the ovaries, Fallopian tubes and uterus. She carefully cut and stitched, and within about 40 minutes the entire operation was over: careful and slow.

The vet says that current thinking says that it is best to spey dogs prior to their coming on heat for the first time; this improves their hormonal balance (or prevents hormonal imbalance) and will lengthen their lifespan. I'm used to thinking about gynaecological details of women, and of course bitches are somewhat different!

It took Mocha a few days to recover her normally undending enthusiasm for life, a period longer than the vet had said, so much so that I was tempted to take Mocha back for a checkup. But soon her lethargy departed and she was back to her old tricks (chewing shoes, scratching the carpet and generally running around). I'm not too sure which behaviour I prefer; we are waiting for her to grow out of this phase.

Next time: thoughts about two new books.