Day After Valentine's

Hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day.

Not much is going on right now besides the fact that the dogs have cost us a lot of money this last month and a half.

First off was when Chester bloated on New Year's Eve and had to go to the emergency vet after hours. He spent the weekend there and came home on Monday. Then he bloated again a week ago, again on the weekend necessitating a visit to the emergency vet. As you probably know he didn't make it that time.

Then the next Monday we had to bring Gus in because his ears got dirty. I had noticed it the week earlier and was cleaning them every other day, but it was too much and they ended up getting infected. Plus while he was in we decided to go ahead and start him on a heart worm preventative. That requires a blood test so that was added on top of the other medications he had to take. His ears are good now but he still has to finish his antiobiotics.

Clyde went in on the 10th with the idea that we would have him take the blood test and get him started on the heart worm stuff too. As it turned out he was due for his shots the following week (this week). I figured we may as well go ahead and do it then so I wouldn't have to make yet another trip to the vet. I did tell the doctor that he reacted badly to his puppy shots so we always just did a titer test to make sure he was still covered for those (not including rabies). He said studies have shown that dogs that react to the DHLPP are actually reacting to the L portion. The L is for leptovirus which is not uncommon in more rural areas. He said he could give Clyde a steroid shot to help counter act any reaction. I decided to go ahead and try it.

We got home and about 20 minutes later he started shaking his head and rubbing his face on the floor. I could see his face was starting to swell up and he was developing hives in a few spots on his body. I called the office and said I was going to bring him back in (I didn't have any Benedryl at home). The doctor was waiting for us and gave Clyde an injectable Benedryl shot.

We'd been home for several hours when it became apparent that the Benedryl was wearing off. He started shaking his head again and was showing signs of the other symptoms too. I ran to the store to get some Benedryl liquid capsules and shoved a few down his throat. So of course two minutes later he threw up. By this time the office had been closed for about an hour so that meant another emergency call. Back to the office, another shot or two (my husband took him in this time) and back home. Around 9:30 pm the shots must have started wearing off again so I kept my fingers crossed as I shoved a couple more Benedryl down his throat. This time they stayed down and did the trick. The next morning all was well, even the facial/lip swelling was gone. I think we'll stick with the titer tests from now on.

In the house news my husband and I decided to let the Hogan Road house go. Much as we liked the house and the property it was a nightmare trying to work with that agent. I think much of the problem was that the owner is pretty much giving the agent carte blanche to do what he wants. I suspect they are partners in the logging aspect and the agent's focus is definately not on selling the house right now.

There were two main problems for us. One was that the owner was insisting on carrying the paper. Our realtor said that typically means the rate on owner carried loans are one percent over what a bank would charge. Plus we'd have to come up with a large down payment. In this case originally they wanted $100K, which I told our realtor we couldn't do. Then she asked if we could do $50K. We could, but we weren't happy about that. We only wanted to pay 10% down so we'd have more cash to do the remodeling, and possibly buy a tractor with any leftover.

The second issue was the agent refused to move the easement. He kept insisting that the place where the other gate was along the road was too steep and would cost too much. In my interpretation that means they would have to ask less for that part of the property to make it more attractive so a buyer could put a road in. I can't help wondering why someone would put a gate in if it were not usable? I know for a fact that a gate costs more than a fence. So for us the deal killer was the easement issue. Who knows what kind of neighbor we might have gotten? They would be using that easement that runs through the middle of our property. What if they had tons of kids riding quads up and down? Would we have any say about that? After all, it would be an "easement", they would be legally allowed to use that road. Sorry, but NO!

Our realtor was very understanding and she actually felt the same way. The owner's agent was difficult to work with and they were in the same realty office! She told me not to get discouraged because that means something better will come along.

So that's it for now.