Burros!

We lured them to the yard with a trail of mesquite beans. The herd is growing and two of the girls look like they'll be giving birth soon.

Low load 

Wide load

Tux Meds

Orders placed today:

Itraconazole from CanadaRxConnection. Ninety 100mg caps for 45 day supply. (Expect delivery from UK in 3 to 4 weeks.)
Fluconazole from Scottsdale Pharmacy. Ninety 150mg caps for use until above arrives. 

Tux still eating heartily, stamina improving. Dry, scaly nose clearing up. 

Hooper eating canned K/D only if mixed with a little liverwurst.  White rice, cream of wheat, cooked veggies, sweet potatoes, egg whites, small amounts of hamburger, probiotics.

A Trapper in Oatman?

Three coyotes at the gate this morning. One with three legs (three and one half actually) is hanging around a lot. Must be difficult to hunt with that handicap so the beans are easy nourishment. Wish I could help him. Tux and Hoop barked at them for hours last night. Finally brought them (the dogs) in and locked the dog door. One of the dogs made her displeasure known and left a turd at the door for me to clean up in the morning. Probably Hooper. She does some odd things in her old age. Temperature a little cooler, 80, without the cloud cover this morning, but a solid 100 by 9 AM and climbing. Working on ordering Tux's Itraconazole from Canada.

Three legged coyote

Miniature Treasure

Bob found the neatest little metal bottle somewhere in the wash. It's no more than two inches tall. We were thinking maybe it was something for a child's playhouse until Bob took the top off and found a tiny stub of a pencil!

Some searching online turned up another one in newer condition. A vintage miniature promotional pencil holder. (Are we rich now?)

Feeding The Pack

Who needs burros? Our coyote was back for breakfast. There are piles of fresh bean-filled scat all the way up the wash and over the ridge into the next drainage, so I suspect the whole pack has been visiting. Three flashes of yellow and black flushed off the roof when I went out to snap a picture of the beans, most likely yellow-headed blackbirds. The temperature was 85 degrees at 5 AM and partly cloudy, a reminder that the monsoon season will be starting soon.

Mesquite beans

Season of the Mesquite

The burros haven't been seen down this way for weeks and we need them to clean the mesquite beans from the yard. The three large mesquites dump their sweet and nutritious beans this time of year littering the front yard. We pushed a load down the drive and out the gate hoping to catch a passing burro, but no luck yet. To our delight, a small coyote dropped by this morning and spent about half an hour skittishly eating her fill. Quail, cactus wrens, flycatchers, thrashers and a gilded flicker are taking advantage of the shade trees as the day heats up. It was eighty degrees when I got up at five thirty this morning, and the worst is yet to come.

Coyotes really do eat mesquite beans!

Human Mortality, Individual and Collective   A blog essay by Josh Mittledorf that moved me.

Saving my sanity with clay

Trying out some new things.

$1500 per Month

Yes. Fifteen hundred dollars a month. Unbelievable. But that's what the vet's pharmacy quoted for the anti-fungal meds Tux needs to take for Valley Fever. The vet's assistant is trying to reach the research vet at the University of Arizona's Valley Fever Center for Excellence to confirm the form of the medicine needed. Apparently the pharmacy can make a compounded version of Itraconazole for much less cost, but the research done indicates that the powdered compound isn't absorbed by dogs. They have to take the capsule with little balls, and it is hideously expensive, but a suitable generic is available through Canadian pharmacies at a fraction of the cost. We'll see how this plays out.

Speaking of problems with compounded anti-fungals... it makes me wonder if that is why Tux hasn't responded to the Fluconazole. She's been taking a compounded version. I don't dare ask. I don't want to know. I would be furious. 

Now with Hooper refusing the K/D dog food that seems to be working so well for her kidney issue I am presented with a new feeding challenge. This isn't going to be a matter of just letting her get hungry enough to eat it. She has lost three pounds in the last three months and will pick up a bite of the K/D then drop it and walk away. Attempts to mix it into tastier foods haven't been going well. 

Sheesh. I've lost patience with trying to feed these sick dogs. Thank god Tux is eating everything in sight these days, even the food Hooper refuses, or I would be totally out of my mind. Maybe I am already out of my mind. Who in their RIGHT mind spoon feeds their dog Chicken With Gravy baby food? But there I was in the back of the pickup in Washington recently, spoon feeding Tux when she was too sick to eat. One hundred calories in a jar and that was all the calories she would take in a day. No surprise that she was down to 49 pounds when we went in for her checkup. 

I have looked into my crystal ball and I see NO dogs in my future.

Dog Update

Tux and the Valley Fever monster: 

Just got the bad news. Results of blood work taken this week weren't good. Six months of treatment with Fluconazole and there is no improvement in her blood titer. Vet recommends switching to Itraconazole. Now we're talking at least $6 a pill - one per day - so something like $180 a month, for who-knows-how-long! Less if I can buy it through a Canadian pharmacy. I'm stunned. We've just gone through six months of treatment that did nothing but make the poor dog miserable.

Hooper

Small favors here. Her blood work was good. Kidneys holding steady. Vet recommends continuing $70 per month probiotic and expensive K/D dog food. Of course, she has gone on a food strike, refusing to eat the dry K/D so I am mixing the canned stuff with foods that are OK for renal failure, hoping to get her eating again.  

Strangely, Tux is eating well for the first time in over six months. The (much less expensive) probiotics I got at the health food store may be helping her stomach. Maybe. I can't even think right now. 

Road Trip To Sequim

We've been house hunting in Sequim again. Made an offer on a very nice house but the sellers would not negotiate and even ended up raising their price after we rescinded our offer. Tux refused to eat during most of the trip and lost even more weight. I think travel is too stressful for her. She did start eating again soon as we got back to the desert. It's nice to be home but the heat is awful. We are now considering buying property in the Sequim area to build our own house. Everything we like is much too big and the smaller homes don't offer the quality we want. If we could find a good fixer or remodeler on a good lot we'd go that way, but haven't found that either. I think we've gone through most everything on the market at his point. Pretty discouraging. A few pictures...

Ward Mountain campsite in Nevada

Had the place all to ourselves

Overkill on the campsite setups

Dog life in the RV park 

Gigantic cow in Sequim

My Hooper girl

Tag chowing down

Tux gazing into the wild

With bacon - and she never ate it