Radiant Rachel Reflecting on Ruby, Rails, Righteous Rants and Random Rubbish
Pets
We Had to Take Izzie to the ER
January 26, 2012
in Pets
Last night we had to take Izzie to the ER. It was totally my fault but wanted to post about it so that if one of my readers came about this post, they would heed my warning.
In my office I have a packet of paper tacked to my cork board that has little over one hundred food and plant items that are toxic to dogs. Many of these items I didn’t know were toxic before I got Isabella even though I’ve had a dog in my life for more than a decade (did they not distribute this information in the past?)
When I first brought Izzie home, I reviewed this list and tried to remember this as much as possible and I am usually very careful with what I feed her. For instance, she has a horrible allergy to wheat, and if she eats anything containing it, she breaks out in hives and won’t stop biting herself where she flares up. I don’t feed her table scraps and I scold Adam whenever he feeds her from the table.
That being said, she IS a corgi, and they are well-know for their insatiable appetite and will do anything short of killing you to get a piece of food. Last night, I was finishing up a plate of Thai fried rice and pulled out a bunch of onions that I didn’t want to eat. I had to run to the restroom and left the plate out. From the back of the house, I could hear Izzie jump on the couch and audible gulp the remaining morsels from my dinner plate. No volume of screaming from the restroom would halt her in her food reverie and a few moments later she waltz into the bedroom licking the stay food particles from her lips.
It was then a race around the house trying to find out exactly how much onions were toxic to dogs and who I should contact at 10:30 at night in case it was going to be an emergency.
My first call was to the Animal Poison Control Line run by the ASPCA. After waiting on hold for a few minutes and giving them all my information on the incident, the operator then told me that it would be a charge of $65 before they could even give me advice. This wouldn’t count any time of actual emergency intervention, just advice.
I quickly hung up and dialed my veterinarian. Unsurprisingly, they were closed but gave me numbers to two 24-hour emergency animal hospitals in Brooklyn and I gave them a call. The first hospital was already dealing with an emergency but did tell me that I needed to get her attention soon. I called the second hospital and they too confirmed that she needed to throw up the onions. I could either give her hydrogen peroxide (not the stuff you use on your hair) or bring her to the hospital. I had none of the hydrogen peroxide at home and it would take probably 20 minutes to pick some up at the local CVS and even then it wouldn’t be a sure bet that she would actually vomit.
All the while I am freaking out running around the house, Izzie had since plopped herself down on the carpet and was already ready for bed. I decided to tell her we were going for a walk and quickly shuffled her to the car so I could speed down 4th Avenue to the animal hospital.
When she was finally seen by a technician, they alerted me that onions are particularly harmful to dogs because it causes anemia, which makes them lethargic and prevent oxygen from getting into their red blood cells. If she isn’t treated, the worst that could happen to her was that she would need a full blood transfusion otherwise she would die. Soon that $200 vet bill didn’t sound too bad.
They gave her an injection of a medication that would make her nauseous, but she was still quite stubborn before she gave up those onions! The process made her pretty loopy and I had to take turns with Adam to carry her back home from the car and she spent the rest of the evening curled up in her bed.
The Take-away
If you have fur-children, be sure to keep a list of toxic foods/plants in your house for reference and be careful what you have laying out that your pets could possibly get into.
Also keep an emergency veterinarian number in your mobile phone. And if there isn’t a 24-hour hospital in your area to call, at least get the ASPCA number in your phone, you might be out $65 for advice but better than burying your loved-one.
A lot of people know about how chocolate is toxic to dogs, but the reality is that most chocolate has a high milk content and dogs (depending on weight) need a LOT of chocolate in order to get to toxicity. Usually, chocolate is not as bad as you may think unless they decide to gorge on a pound of 85% cacao. Onions, and other surprising food items, are actually a lot worse.
For a list of toxic food and plants for your fur-child, download a copy of this list to keep around the house. http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/poison-control/plants/
For Lily
March 1, 2011
in Pets
It’s taken me quite a while to put together my thoughts because every time I think of her I start to cry. I knew this day was coming, and I knew I wouldn’t be near here when it happened. On February 12, my family lost our family pet, Lily. For the past few years she has had various health problems, and every time I would come home, she would look skinnier, grayer, and less likely to want to be handled or pet. However, something in her eyes always lit up whenever she knew everyone had come back home and she got to be around all five of us.
When I moved away from college, of course I would miss my parents, but the hardest thing and the most that I missed was Lily. She couldn’t talk on the phone like my mom or come to visit like my dad would. Whenever I did go home during vacation times, I always felt that Lily held some kind of grudge over me like I had abandoned her. I was arguably the most attached to her whenever she was a puppy and was always eager to take care of her and do the “doggie” chores. I’m sure I probably over-state how she treated me when I got home because I am not sure dogs have resentment or complex feelings like that, and it was more likely it was my own guilt of leaving her behind. After a few days, she would likely come and cuddle back up with me and we’d be best friends again.
I’ll never forget the way she was always there for me whenever I went through my most trying times growing up, like heartbreak and my paralyzing loneliness that no human could have healed. Even with Isabella, my new dog, even though we’re best friends, I still don’t have that level of understanding and uncompromising loyalty that Lily displayed to me.
While I was home over Christmas, there was an evening where the whole family sat in the family and watched the movie “Inception.” For more reasons than one, that night was the nicest for me. We had a low-key Christmas and it wasn’t about the presents or whatever we were eating for dinner. We all had tough 2010s and needed to spend and do less over the vacation. That night Isabella was especially restless and was cranky over not being able to sit with me and Adam on the couch. I then relented and snuggled up on the floor on a blanket with her. Slowly Lily made a rare entrance and plopped herself down on the blanket on my other side and let me hold her. I wish I would have had someone take a quick snapshot of the setting because I’ll never forget this moment and when it happened I told myself to hold on to it because it might be the last time I saw Lily. It turned out that I was right.
When I got a message on my cell phone and then a message left for me on my work phone from my mother for me to call her right away, I knew immediately it was pertaining to Lily. She had been especially sick the past week and had stopped moving and eating. When my mom told me they had made the decision to put her to sleep, I started to bawl right in the office. Obviously, I knew it was coming, it was hard to not see what was coming, it just weighed on me so heavily that my best friend was leaving me and I couldn’t be with her to help her on her way and see her through.
So here’s to Lily, the best friend a woman could have, made of endless love.
I’ll see you at the Rainbow Bridge.
Lily and Rachel
Little Dog in the Big City
September 22, 2010
in Adventures, Pets
Isabella and Adam in Grand Central Station
On Saturday, I made the brave decision to bring Izzie on the Metro-North and travel down to Grand Central Station for her first trip into the city of New York.
I was nervous to bring her on the train even though I’ve seen other puppy parents do it, plus it was the weekend when there would be noticeably fewer people traveling. However, Izzie gets territorial and protective over me, and it was no different this time and she barked and whined and many people who approached me on the platform.
She turned into an angel though whenever we got on the train. She immediately shut up and huddled close to my legs and sat on my feet. She was nervous but seemed to take the same approach to traveling on the train as she does when she’s in the car.
We pulled into Grand Central Station and exited the train to the platform. Everything was going quite well but then for some reason Izzie suddenly planted all four paws on the cement and refused to move even with my urging and leash tugging. I resorted to picking the poor girl up and carrying her to the main concourse. She briefly met with a new beagle friend as we walked up the stair cases to the outside.
The day wasn’t without some messes from the nervous dog, but I think she did remarkably well considering she is more of a suburban, almost farm suited, dog. We will be eventually moving to Brooklyn so really it was a matter of time before she would need to be exposed to crowds of people.
We met my fiancé, Adam at the New York Times building and made a pit stop at a local cup cake shop for an early birthday present! Our little family trekked down to the piers next to the Intrepid where we knew there was a small dog park. About a dozen or so dogs were in and out of the compound through the afternoon while we were there, and while we were hoping Izzie would be more social, after we took her leash off she was apparently quite content just sitting next to us in the shade. I felt like a mommy trying to get her reluctant child to go off and play with other children on the first day of kindergarten!
Adam attempted to get her to play in the kiddie pool that the town had set up for the dogs to play in but she would have none of that! She immediately jumped out and went back to chilling out in the shade. I couldn’t blame her, she seemed to be relaxing and enjoying herself. After more coaxing and a little more playing, we decided to start to head back to Westchester, but first stopped at the Shake Shack in Midtown that we had heard so much about! Luckily the lines weren’t took long and we were able to snag a small cup of soft serve ice cream that we shared (Izzie was particularly fond of the treat!) The trip back home was otherwise, luckily, uneventful and again Izzie was a perfect little angel on the train.
Mommy and daddy wrapped up the night by having dinner at a local Italian restaurant that was down the street from my place but in the two years I’ve lived in Elmsford, I had no clue it existed! We joked that it was better that we didn’t know about it, otherwise we would have been poor and fat from going to it often. When we got the menus we picked out appetizer and main courses but entertained the server when he asked us if we wanted to hear the specials. We were immediately awestruck at the specials offered and changed everything we had planned on ordering. 
Adam ordered a delicious duck that was roasted in, of all things, strawberries and strawberry sauce! We started with the crab cake and for my main course I tried the lemony swordfish. The night wrapped up with a huge slide of tiramisu that we couldn’t finish.
All in all a great way to ring in my birthday! 
Hot Weather and Your Pet
July 21, 2010
in Pets
My poor Isabella has been sick since Independence Day and I think all this hot weather is to blame. Adam and I decided to take an afternoon walk that Sunday and Izzie tagged along. Well, perhaps “tagged along” is the wrong phrase because it turned into us dragging her along the road in the heat as we made our way to the dairy farm up the road from my parents’ house with frequent stops in the shade of the few trees that spotted the road.
I really should have known better than to bring her outside. She’s notoriously bad in hot weather (who wouldn’t be in that much fur!), so much so that even on tame 70 degree days when we bring her to the dog park in White Plains, she’ll spend most of her time huddled by me under the cement bench in the shade.
Happy Birthday, Isabella!
April 24, 2010
in Pets
Izzie 5 Weeks
My baby, Princess Isabella of Ascot, turns 2 today.
It’s hard to believe that we’ve been together for almost 2 years. Every day you look up to me to take care of you, feed you your favorite kibble, take you on long walks, and rub your belly and pat your head. There’s not much else you want from this world other than to feel loved and I’m here to give it!
Unfortunately, Izzie spent most of the day by herself because Adam and I had an engagement party to go to (or so we thought, we actually got the date wrong!) But when we got back, we fed her a special doggie version of a black and white cookie and her favorite treat, a tri-twisted bully stick.
She seemed to know it was a special day for her, every time she heard someone go by the apartment she would yell out, “It’s my birthday!” to anyone that would listen.
