Jasmine's Disc Injury: The Parole Hearing

Monday morning was Jasmine's parole hearing with her primary vet.

Please, may I get out on parole.
Please, may my Monday hearing goes well.

She was looking quite good and we felt she might be able to resume some moderate, controlled walks in her favorite trails. We have also finished her new ramp, so getting in and out of the bus should be now safer.



There were couple things I observed which I was concerned about. 

One of them was the level of sadness and resignation, as you can see it in the video. Jasmine looks OK but this is not NORMAL Jasmine.

We also didn't want to risk messing up her healing process.

At this time she was on half a prednisone every other day and one Tramadol at night. She really seems happier on the prednisone-free days. Her drinking and urination are almost normal on the off days, increased on the days she gets the medication. Her hunger is crazy, though, she constantly acts as if nobody has fed her for a week.

She tells me that daddy didn't give her any breakfast, then she tells hubby that mommy didn't giver her any lunch ... She consistently denies having had any dinner. Her entire life she was very gentle taking food but now we have to watch our fingers. I feel bad for her and hope that this settles down once she's off the meds.

On Sunday evening we decided to take her to the trails for a little walk.

She hasn't been anywhere since the fateful Friday and it's been making her sad. We did take her at least around the block, but that was not what she wanted and craved.

The more rational reasons behind that were a) that we wanted to experiment BEFORE the vet visit, so any negative fall out could be caught, and b) we wanted to make sure she takes to the ramp well enough BEFORE we actually have to make the trip to the vet.

We didn't really anticipate major issues but didn't want to take any chances.

It didn't make sense to find out she doesn't want to use the ramp the morning of the appointment and having to come up with a different solution or take risks.

We made the ramp as wide as possible (around 20 inches) and as long as possible (around 8 feet). Still, the incline is steeper than she's ever used. Also, now she has to get into the bus through the back, which she isn't used to either.

Jasmine isn't completely comfortable with this yet, but uses it well enough.

She was much more keen on using it to get out of the bus, which is technically odd, as one would think it must feel safer going up than going down. The rewards, of going down, however, are greater!

The little walk went well. Jasmine didn't tire and nothing else went wrong either. I was so scared! First real outing since her disc injury, bunch of new things in the mix. I worried as if she was made of crystal and was going to break to pieces with just a wrong look. Fortunately, she did not.

The long morning trip to the vet went well also.

Jasmine was excited out of her mind. As we walked into the reception, very quickly she also discovered a mitten glove somebody lost and they had on the counter. Jasmine has an obsession with gloves. When she sees one, she has to snatch it and bury it. She tried snatching this one too.

It didn't matter that it got put away, she kept trying to get to it, jumping up on the tall reception desk. *sigh I'm convinced she feels she needs to take care of them, since they're abandoned and lonely.

The vet checked her out thoroughly, even though it was rather difficult with her level of excitement.

He did an overall exam, checked for signs of pain, muscle tone, myofascial trigger points, and proprioceptive reflexes (awareness of foot in space) and some other tests for nerve responses.

The good news is that pain appears managed. We can lower her prednisone to 1/4 every other day and stop the Tramadol and give it only on as needed basis.

The not so good news is that the reflexes in her left hind leg are not where they should be.

She gets around well, the function is quite good but not at full function. That was one of the things I noticed about a week ago, that on a sharper left turn her left hind leg appeared out of sync with the rest of the body, as if it got stuck behind the rest of the body. I've seen this happen only twice and not in the past week.

But I was watching him doing the exam and that leg is somewhat slower in response.

This particularly poses risk if Jasmine got too exuberant. If she stumbled or fell, and compensated for the fall with violent neck movement, things could get messed up pretty bad.

Jasmine will have to ease back to her activities gradually, starting at low level. We are hoping that the function might still get to normal with time.

***

Jasmine also had her acupuncture session later that day.

If she was excited during her morning vet visit, she was totally out of her mind for her acupuncture vet's visit. Even jumped on her couple times as she was greeting her.

The acupuncture vet was very pleased to see Jasmine like that.

However, it posed some challenges, particularly with keeping the needles in her. Jasmine was trying to play and roll around, needles came out and new ones had to be inserted. Jasmine shook and needles went flying and new ones had to be inserted.

Then we did try Dr. Marty Becker's trick of holding the nose to prevent a shake, it really does work (when you manage to grab the nose on time)

Finally Jasmine resigned to the fact that nobody's going to play with her while trying to keep the needles in place, and settled down.

The vet took advantage of the calm time and left the needles in. The whole session lasted almost an hour longer than normally.

Then, as the vet was getting ready to leave, Jasmine decided she really liked her pom-pom hat and wanted to mother and bury that. Even when the vet put the hat on, Jasmine kept negotiating, "Come on, you don't know how to take care of it, I'll take care of it for you. Just let me have it."

I don't blame Jasmine for being all crazy.

She's been feeling so badly, then cooped up for so long ... now she's feeling pretty good and wants to do things. She has all this energy she needs to put somewhere. Jasmine is used to daily walks and activity. Not getting that ought to show somewhere.

The upside is that the acupuncture vet feels very positive about the progress Jasmine made since her session two weeks ago, and feels positive about restoration of full function. She felt than next treatment could be after three weeks, unless something changes.

Now we have to ease Jasmine back into a moderated version of her normal life and do our best to prevent any mishaps. Meanwhile, Jasmine is seeing her chiro on the 8th as well.

Hopefully, soon we'll have some new happy outdoor photos again.

Right now we feel we should give full attention to Jasmine in order to keep her safe. Taking photos could be a distraction that we might not need at the time.

***

Related articles:

A Time Bomb Ought To Go Off At Some Point, I Guess: Jasmine's Neck 
Jasmine's Disc Injury(?) Day Two 
Jasmine's Disc Injury(?) Day Three 
Jasmine's Disc Injury: Mom, Why Can't I Go For A Walk? 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year 2013




Jimi Hendrix - Auld Lang Syne

New Year's Greetings

A special wish for a happy New Year

to all who visit this blog,

who are among its "followers", and

especially those who have donated to

Warning Signs in 2012

and who will hopefully continue
to support the work it requires.

Even a labor of love has to pay the bills!

 



The 2013 Anxiety Meter

 

By Alan Caruba

All through 2012 I kept telling myself that, if I could just wait it out until the elections, a majority of Americans would surely set things right by electing Mitt Romney, but we have since learned that he was a reluctant candidate who, if we are to believe his son—and I think we can—really didn’t want to get in the race, but thought the others in the primaries had little chance of winning.

I won’t blame Romney for the loss. Running against an incumbent President has rarely yielded victory. He had all the right qualifications, but he always struck me as just “too nice” and, as we know, Republicans were reluctant to tear into Obama’s appalling record on the economy and other issues. Like Romney, they are “too nice” despite being up against political thugs.

I think 2013 is going to be a very unlucky year for the United States and it has a lot to do with the fact that Barack Hussein Obama is now free to finish off his destruction of America because he does not have to run again for office.

Anyone who has seen Obama in action over the past four years has reason to fear 2013 and beyond. Any man who wants to be President has to have a lot of confidence in himself and a very thick skin. Obama, however, turns every occasion, including the recent funeral service of Sen. Denial Inouye, into an opportunity to talk about himself. A National Standard article noted that during the recent funeral for Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye, Obama “in the short 1,600 word speech…used the word "my" 21 times, "me" 12 times, and "I" 30 times.”

Obama is the center of his own Marxist universe.

In his first term, we had an opportunity to see how he judges leadership. His cabinet choices and his unconstitutional layer of unaccountable “czars” who really determine policy were the kind of people willing to say anything and do anything to advance some very dubious policies. Billions lost on “green” corporations that could not compete and the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler left the taxpayer for a loss of more billions. His energy policy has diminished the use of coal despite the fact that the U.S. sits atop hundreds of years of this energy source that was the source of 50% of all the electricity Americans use when he took office and is now in decline.

His famed “apology” tour to the Middle East included a speech in Cairo, a city that exploded in rebellion against Egypt’s president reflecting similar events in Tunisia and in Libya. Whoever was advising the President clearly did not see any of this coming and were unprepared with a cogent policy when they did. The on-going slaughter in Syria has left America weakened on the international scene where the President’s preference to “lead from behind” has rendered our Middle Eastern foreign policy a joke.

When our ambassador to Libya was killed along with three others on his staff, it was obvious that the State Department had failed to respond to his many requests for increased security. This was then compounded by the most outrageous lies about the actual attack which was witnessed in real time in the White House via satellite. Only a President with contempt for the intelligence of Americans would attempt to pass off the attack as being unrelated to al Qaeda and the result of a video no one had seen. This is a scandal that rivals Watergate, an earlier government cover-up in which no one died.

Here again, 2013 will not bode well if Obama’s choice for the next Secretary of State, John Kerry, is confirmed as is expected. America first became aware of Kerry when, as a young veteran of Vietnam, he accused his fellow soldiers of offenses that were later proven to have no basis in fact. He threw away his combat medals. In the 1980s, Kerry campaigned for a nuclear freeze and the Obama administration has been reducing our nuclear arms arsenal at the worst possible time. Iran is just months away from having its own nuclear arms and, after that, no one can predict what they will do with them, but you can be sure they will use them. Obama’s promises to ensure they do not are worthless.

Obama’s reported choice for the next Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, is already running into strong resistance for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the perception that he is an anti-Semite. He has a record of favoring the downsizing of the military and regarded as a defeatist during the conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan. If the sequestration cuts kick in, the Pentagon will lose nine percent of its budget, affecting the nation’s defense industries, affecting thousands of jobs. It is preparing to furlough 800,000 civilian employees.

If she stays on, the Secretary of Health, Kathleen Sebelius, will continue her relentless attack on the nation’s health system, once widely regarded as one of the best in the world, but now a model of socialized medicine that will end up killing people judged too old or too sick to receive care. At the last count, at least twenty states are in open rebellion, refusing to set up “exchanges” to purchase insurance whose rates will rise exponentially. One can be fined for not buying it.

His Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geithner, has urged that Congress forego its constitutional duty to set the “ceiling” on borrowing despite the fact that no nation has ever been able to spend its way out of debt.

We arrive at 2013 with a Congress that has not passed a budget in three years, despite comparable bills to address spending put forth by the House and rejected by the Senate. Obama has refused to negotiate or compromise with the House, a process that has been going on since his failure to act on the recommendations of his own Simpson-Bowes Commission to reduce government spending. The debt has swelled by $6 trillion dollars in his first term to an unsustainable $16 trillion.

A Congress in political gridlock is the worst possible way to begin a new year. A U.S. population, half of which is dependent through various “entitlement” and government giveaway programs, is being purposely impoverished by policies that have thwarted job creation and economic growth. Too many Americans not only do not grasp this, but do not care.

Only the most feckless and indifferent President ever elected would have put the nation in this vice, but as I have written over the years, the choice of Obama, a virtually unknown first term Senator, was made by a cabal of those who have waited years to destroy the nation, once the only real beacon of freedom in the world.

Meanwhile, Americans are rushing to arm themselves and may well regard the government as the real threat; one that regards the Constitution as a pliable document it may interpret any way it wants.

2013 is likely to be remembered as the year that everything began to come unglued around the world. Islamic fanaticism is raging throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa. The Chinese are asserting increased control over their part of the world, challenging our allies, Japan, the Phillippines, and others. North Korea is making and selling missiles and nuclear arms as fast as they can. Russia senses opportunities to flex its muscles.

Only the military and diplomatic power of the United States has held the world together since the end of World War II when the U.S. became the world’s policeman for lack of any other power to protect the global sea lanes and deter despots. Those days are over.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

Adoption Monday: Bear, Labrador Retriever Mix: Deerfield, NH

Check out this wonderful boy at Mary's Dogs Rescue & Adoption!

If you're thinking little lap dog, forget it. Bear is going to be a pretty good sized boy when he's full grown. Right now he's a tike, and 30 lb or so, at 4 mo. But he's all puppy!

Playful and silly...and loving life! 

One thing I know about Bear? He's going to love the snow! 

If you were thinking of taking a dog snowshoeing or winter hiking? He'd be the one.

Bear is house trained, neutered and up to date with routine shots.

Want more info on Bear? Call Mary's Dogs: 603.370.7750 or send along an email: marysdogsrescue@gmail.com

Ready to bring Brad home? Tell us about yourself and your interest in Brad in the adoption questionnaire. Check out all the wonderful dogs on Mary's Dogs Facebook Fan Page.

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Mary’s Dogs rescues and re-homes dogs and puppies from Aiken County Animal Shelter, a high-kill shelter in South Carolina, USA. They also serve as a resource to communities in Southern New Hampshire and pet owners nationwide by providing education and information on responsible pet ownership, including the importance of spay/neuter, positive behavior training, and good nutrition.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Ulysses read by Jolyon Aires Forsythe

Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Ulysses read by Jolyon Aires Forsythe

Ulysses

By: Alfred, Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king1,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an agèd wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades2
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy3.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought
with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles4,
And see the great Achilles5, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.


**************

Notes:

1 In this poem, Ulysses (the Roman for Odysseus and the hero of Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey), now an old man, having returned to Ithaca after twenty years absence and much adventure, has grown restless, and is now contemplating setting out with his crew again; 2 a constellation of stars associated with rain; 3 site of the Trojan wars of which Ulysses was a hero; 4 the Elysian Fields, believed by some to be the resting place of heroes after death; 5 Greek hero of the Trojan wars who suffered an early death

Understanding Seizures

***

Dr. Becker is the resident proactive and integrative wellness veterinarian of HealthyPets.Mercola.com. 

You can learn holistic ways of preventing illness in your pets by subscribing to MercolaHealthyPets.com, an online resource for animal lovers. For more pet care tips, subscribe for FREE to Mercola Healthy Pet Newsletter.

Just How Awful will 2013 Be?

By Alan Caruba

Pundits and experts of every description love to predict and pontificate. That they are often famously wrong doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

The Great Depression began on October 29, 1929 with the stock market crash. On October 17^th, Irving Fisher, a professor of economics at Yale University, said, “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”  A month later Fisher said, “The end of the decline of the stock market will probably not be long, only a few more days at best.” The Great Depression stretched for ten years, in good part due to the “progressive” policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was elected and reelected to four terms!

Not to be outdone, the Harvard Economic Society issued a number of predictions that were equally idiotic. “Since our monetary and credit structure is not only sound, but unusually strong…there is every prospect that the recovery which we have been expecting will not be long delayed.”  It took the advent of World War II to energize the manufacturing sector and increase employment. By the time the war was over the U.S. had, for its time, a huge national debt, but it was far better positioned for recovery than Europe or other war damaged nations.

Every recession since then has had experts predicting upturns just around the corner, but as Obamacare and its hidden taxes kicks in this year and next, when the Bush tax cuts have been allowed to expire, at a time when the nation is $16 trillion dollars in debt (and growing), and when its credit rating—for the first time in its history—was downgraded, a new recession is not going to go away any time soon. And this time Obama will not be able to blame it on George Bush.

Matthew 26:11 says, “The poor you will always have with you”, but there is a strong possibility that most progressives have not read either the Old or New Testaments or, if they did, dismissed them as fairy tales. 

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson said, “So here is the Great Society. It’s the time—and it’s going to be soon—when nobody in this country is poor.” How did that government program work out? Johnson would be been better served if he had listened to Thomas Jefferson who said, “The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” And “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Like Europe before it, America has succumbed to the siren call of Communism because (a) no one seems to learn anything from history and (b) most people would rather have the government tell them what to do and how to spend what little money they are permitted to keep. When Karl Marx died, most of his obituaries were wrong. The Neue Freie Press in Vienna, Austria wrote “Marx’s scholarship was an imaginative lie, his doctrine despair. The damage he created will pass like a corpse.”

Published in 1997, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression documented a history of repressions by Communist states that included genocides, extrajudicial executions, deportations, and artificial famines. At the time of its publication, the total stood at 97 million.

Former Soviet premier, Nikita Krushchev, addressing Western diplomats in 1956, said “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.” It helps that Americans elected—twice—a dedicated Communist. The history of Communist infiltration goes back to the Russian revolution that took power in 1917. By the 1950s, the U.S. government was shot through with Communists and “fellow travelers”, sympathizers. In the 1960s the subversion of the nation’s schools began in earnest and it should come as no surprise that former domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers, a longtime ally of Obama, transitioned to academia where he became an “expert” on education in America.

Just as liberals would wish away war, there hasn’t been a day since the end of World War II when war has not been occurring somewhere on the planet and the U.S. engaged in them in Korea, in Vietnam, and in the Middle East, not counting peace-keeping efforts and minor engagements. War is the natural condition of mankind, occasioned by the lust for power in the hearts of despots of every description.

In the run-up to World War Two, Frank Knox, the publisher of the Chicago Daily News and a former Republican Vice President nominee said “It is simply unthinkable that we will ever again send overseas a great expeditionary force of armed men.” The year was 1940. So, yes, Republicans can be wrong, too. That same year, Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans, “I give you one more assurance. I have said this before, but I say it again and again and again; your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” That changed on December 7, 1941.

You could fill a book about how wrong those making predictions and promises have been, so it behooves us all to view what is being said in the White House, in Congress, and elsewhere as to the direction the nation is taking. Extreme skepticism is the only way to approach the politicians and the “chatterati” on the airwaves.

The nation’s media has already hidden the scandals of ‘Fast and Furious’ and of Benghazi from public view. They make no mention of how an unread, 2,000-plus “Obamacare” was foisted on the nation by a Democrat party-line vote in the Senate on December 24, 2009, Christmas Eve! Obama signed it into law in March 2010.

There’s a reason thousands of Americans have been purchasing guns of all description and laying up stores of ammunition and it may go beyond concerns of gun bans. A lot of patriots think that 2013 could turn very ugly, very fast, with fears of martial law, Homeland Security goons, mass arrests, secret incarcerations, and worse. I have doubts about these scenarios, but they have long been a part of the arsenal of oppressive governments.

The trigger, however, for such scenarios would be the collapse of the U.S. dollar and there are signs—the massive national debt, the continued government borrowing and spending—that suggest this is a very real possibility. If and when that occurs, all bets are off.

What stands between most Americans and those who might wish to engineer the end to the Constitution is the fact that America is home to hundreds of thousands of hunters who comprise, by virtue of being armed, the largest army in the world. A goodly portion of our law enforcement community and our military are going to refuse orders to turn their guns on their fellow Americans and doing so would prove to be unhealthy.

Revolution is never pretty, but Americans did it once and can do it again to protect the Constitution and our rights. In a sharply divided nation, however, the level of resistance is unknown when so many now depend on the government for support. Many will prefer their chains.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Going Social by Jeremy Goldman - Book review

Going Social

Excite Customers, Generate Buzz, and Energize Your Brand with the Power of Social Media

By: Jeremy Goldman

Published: November 1, 2012
Format: Paperback, 294 pages
ISBN-10: 0814432557
ISBN-13: 978-0814432556
Publisher: AMACOM









"True social marketing is about developing ongoing relationships with your customers, rather than optimizing around a small specific campaign> writes social media marketer, communications manager, and AVP of Interactive and Social Media for iluminage inc., Jeremy Goldman, in his holistic and idea filled book Going Social: Excite Customers, Generate Buzz, and Energize Your Brand with the Power of Social Media. The author describes the importance of engaging with customers, who now live online, and building long term relationships to ensure customer loyalty.

Jeremy Goldman understands the necessity to establish a strong social presence on the social media platforms frequented by the customers of your company. The author presents a strong case for business people, regardless of the size of their company, to take advantage of the competitive advantage provided by establishing and nurturing long term customer relationships. Jeremy Goldman shares how social media presence is now one of the basic requirements for any business, and in any industry. The author offers the ideas and strategies for developing and growing customer relationships through social media, that connect with those customers, and on the platforms where they prefer to engage.

Jeremy Goldman (photo left) recognizes that people are, by nature, very social. As a result, they seek out other people with whom to engage, talk, and share ideas. For companies, this social aspect of humans is an important source of connections, to engage in conversation, and to build lasting relationships. The author provides the ideas for engaging with customers in an online, social media based world. At the same time, Jeremy Goldman also understands very well that social media is still in its infancy, and continues to evolve, create new platforms for connections, and that strategies must change as well to maintain the customer relationship.

Jeremy Goldman offers ideas for developing a social media strategy by considering the following areas of engagement:

* Developing engagement building content
* Focusing on the customer
* Staffing your company social media team
* Identifying and engaging influencers
* Establishing relationships with bloggers
* Transforming employees into marketers
* Engaging with results and return on investment in mind

For me, the power of the book is how Jeremy Goldman develops a comprehensive social media engagement framework, and shares the real world tested ideas that turn that framework into an effective strategy. The author, to his credit, doesn't promote a single set of rules and laws to follow, but instead offers a set of general guidelines and suggestions for engaging customers. These guidelines recognize the fluid and rapidly evolving nature of the internet in general and social media in particular. To his credit, Jeremy Goldman describes his concepts as simply being suggestions, as change is so rapid in social media that hard and fast rules will be outdated very quickly.

The author presents examples of tactics that have worked for his company, and for other businesses, in the real world. This experience is utilized well in the holistic approach to social media, and to developing long term customer loyalty, as presented by the author. The emphasis is placed on customer focus, and that message is timeless.

I highly recommend the very comprehensive and customer oriented book Going Social: Excite Customers, Generate Buzz, and Energize Your Brand with the Power of Social Media by Jeremy Goldman, to any business leaders, brand managers, or entrepreneurs seeking a clear and all encompassing guide to building long term customer loyalty through social media engagement. This book will help you establish those all important customer relationships that provide that much sought after competitive advantage.

Another Cooling Bed Bites The Dust

So, this is how long the latest cooling bed lasted ...

The first one we got lasted about three years. Which was very impressive. The second one about half a year, and this one about the same.

There was one year in between we tried other things.

Those other things did not leak, that's true. But they didn't do much of a job in the cooling and comfort department either. In fact, they ended up source of frustration and wasted money.

That's why, in the early summer, we decided to bite to bullet and get back to the cooling bed we knew that worked and Jasmine loved.

Because this one was a third generation, with some improvements, including outer material which seemed sturdier, we did hope it might take a while before it leaks. But we didn't hold our breath. I mean, it is a water bed after all, it's bound to leak sooner or later, right?

That's also why we bought two, just to have a backup.

We didn't think we were going to need the backup that soon but it is what it is.

I was a little worried this one might leak a little faster, because it felt more sloshy after filling. Fortunately, the leak was very tiny and slow, just as before. In the seam, just as before.

The beds come with a two year warranty, so I guess it's kind of good that it leaked BEFORE the warranty ran out. You know how it is, things are typically programmed to break a day AFTER the warranty expires.

Dealing with the K&H customer service was hustle free, they were very polite and forthcoming.

We didn't even have to return the whole thing (I was wondering whether the shipping might cost more that buying a new bed). All they asked for was the filling cap with a bit of material around it. So we sent that to them, awaiting our replacement.

Yes, we want a replacement, not our money back.

We made our peace with the fact that these things are destined to spring a leak at some point.

The bottom line is that these beds work and Jasmine loves them.

So we'll keep getting them. Now we just hope we get the replacement before the one we're using now starts leaking. I'm kind of joking. We'll see.

It's not that they get much abuse. None of the dogs tried chewing them or have at them in any other way. Besides, they're supposed to be resistant to that. So far it's always been the seam that was the weak point. Nature of the beast, I guess.

In spite of this flaw, the K&H Cool Bed III still has our vote.

It would be nice, though, if the one now in use lasted a little bit longer. But if it doesn't, c'est la vie, we'll get another one.

Update
January 13, 2013

Our replacement bed has arrived, thank you, K&H. Truly wonderful customer service!

Related articles:
K&H Cool Bed III: Ooh, It's Cool!

Cartoon Round Up -- Last One in 2012

Matthew Arnold - Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold - Dover Beach

Dover Beach

By: Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.


Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Veterinary Highlights: Less Invasive Treatment For Aural Hematomas?

A hematoma is a localized swelling that is filled with blood caused by a break in the wall of a blood vessel.

A dog can develop an aural (ear) hematoma when they shake their head, particularly if the ear is irritated, such as from an ear infection.

The vigorous shaking causes the tiny blood vessels in the ear flat to rupture, causing bleeding and accumulation of blood under the skin.

The typical sure-fire treatment is surgery, as simply draining the fluid usually ends up with recurrence and/or a deformed ear, which can then be even more prone to infections.



But perhaps there is a better way?

With this method, the hematoma is drained, the pocked is flushed out to remove any debris, and then area is then injected with corticosteroid methylprednisolone acetate. It is not fool-proof but showing promise.

If a hematoma doesn't resolve with this treatment within 15 days, then the surgery is performed.

Source article:
Easier Treatment for Aural Hematomas

Is Every Single Animal and Reptile Endangered?

Prairie Chicken

By Alan Caruba

If it sometimes seems to you that every single animal and reptile is endangered, you can thank that element of the environmental and animal rights movements that has spent millions to foster this absurd belief. Animals and reptiles, fish and birds, lizards and turtles, all are born in the wild and all are food for other species. Nature doesn’t pick favorites, but thanks to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), humans do.

I say “the wild”, but the wild is not some far off place, but rather, for example, it is the vast forested area along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Virginia and beyond. The “wild” has become our backyards as suburbs have become the home of choice for most Americans.

As often as not, those creatures are simply pawns in the environmental movement’s effort to close off vast portions of the nation’s landmass to access from the energy industries, the timber industry, agricultural interests, and any form of development from new housing to hospitals.

Enacted in 1973, the ESA has become the most pernicious piece of legislation foisted on a public that loves animals, but usually only in the abstract except for those who are pet owners who enjoy the companionship, mostly of dogs and cats. Other species may co-exist in beneficial ways, but they don’t adopt one another, nor do they intervene in the way the ESA does.

A couple of recent news stories illustrate how a noble human emotion, empathy, results in some outcomes that don’t reflect good judgment. Take, for instance, the Tampa Bay, Florida woman who ignored signs prohibiting contact with manatees. Videotaped climbing on several of them, she faces a stiff fine against touching them. Florida wants to protect these gentle vegetarians and to ensure they can continue their lives while avoiding dangers from boats whose propellers can cut or kill them. That just makes sense.

Contrast that with an article in New Jersey’s largest daily newspaper about Clinton Township residents who believe coyotes killed a deer. One family reported that is common to hear coyotes howling at night. Ah, Nature! But New Jersey?

Yes, New Jersey where its huge deer population thrives, often becoming road kill when a car crashes into them, endangering the drivers and passengers. A year ago the county in which I live had to authorize a deer kill in a reservation area, a watershed I have lived nearby my whole life. The deer were destroying it by eating the ground cover and any new trees. Where you find deer, you are likely to find clusters of Lyme disease since the ticks that are their parasites spread it to humans.

A large bear population requires New Jersey to have a hunting season for them. In recent years, this has been regularly challenged by those who have appointed themselves their guardians, but ask any Garden State resident that finds one in their back yard or on their porch and you will learn of the fear they generate. The state, like others, is home to Canada geese. Huge flocks of these birds befoul parks, golf courses, and other open areas they favor with their droppings. It was a geese collision that forced US Airways Flight 1549 to ditch in the Hudson River in 2009.

As a lifelong resident of New Jersey, I can assure you that there is no lack of raccoons, opossums, rabbits, and other wildlife. We have been told for decades that the growth of the suburbs is adversely affecting wildlife, but you would not know that if you lived here. They adapt! The bears break into garbage cans, eat the seeds in bird feeders. The coyotes will make off with a family pet for a tasty dinner. The deer eat expensive foliage and the crops that our farmers raise. It’s not called the Garden State for nothing.

This phenomenon is so widespread that Jim Sterba has authored “Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds.”  The woods that Dorothy passed through to get to Oz was filled with “lions and tigers and bears, oh my”, but throughout suburban America, they also include cougars, coyotes, deer, and bears.

In general, the ESA has been a huge failure. Only a handful of species of the hundreds deemed “endangered” have been restored to a larger population. The real purpose of the ESA is not about protecting creatures. It is about thwarting all manner of development, but most especially, access to areas where vast amounts of oil, natural gas, and coal exist, waiting to be extracted. The most endangered species in America today are the hundreds of jobs (and revenue) that this represents.

An example of this was described by David Porter in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary, “Playing Chicken in Oil-Patch Politics.”

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that it will formally consider listing the Lesser Prairie Chicken—whose habitat includes some of the nation’s major energy fields—as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.” Porter identified this as “a desperate ploy by the Obama administration to further its campaign against oil and gas drilling.” The chicken is a ground-nesting bird native to portions of Texas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.

The effort to list the prairie chicken is similar to an earlier effort to list the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, overlapping the same area as the chicken. Fortunately it failed, but it drains revenue and time from those states that must invest both to resist such listings in the effort to protect access to the energy reserves beneath their ground.

By September 2011, the Associated Press reported that there were more than 700 pending cases to declare “endangered” everything from the golden-winged warbler, the American eel, and the tiny Texas kangaroo rat. Yes, a rat!

The U.S. Forest and Wildlife Service had “issued decisions advancing more than 500 species toward potential new protections under the Endangered Species Act.”

It is time to end the Endangered Species Act as a very bad piece of legislation whose intent has nothing to do with protecting these creatures whose populations are exploding everywhere and everything to do with harming the economy of the nation. They don’t need protecting. They are surviving in spades!

© Alan Caruba, 2012

Vicky Oliver: The Millionaire's Handbook - Blog Business Success Radio

Listen to Wayne Hurlbert on Blog Talk Radio

Award winning writer, success coach, and author of transformational and very practical book The Millionaire's Handbook: How to Look and Act like a Millionaire, Even if You're Not, Vicky Oliver, describes how to look and behave like a millionaire even if your bank account says otherwise. Vicky Oliver shares the strategies and techniques for looking, thinking, and acting as a person of wealth regardless of your current income. Vicky Oliver demonstrates how adopting a millionaire attitude, and the look and behaviors associated with wealth will give a person a step up on the road to riches and success. From clothing to personal grooming to hobbies, Vicky presents the concepts that mark an individual as a member of the social elites regardless of their economic background. Vicky shows people how to overcome the accident of birth, and become the successful person you were born to be, and how to utilize the best real you to achieve it. Learn how to look and act successfully, and the wealth and position will soon follow.

Vicky Oliver is my internet radio show guest on Blog Business Success; hosted live on BlogTalkRadio.

The show airs live on Thursday, December 27, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time; 5:00 pm Pacific Time.

Award winning writer, success coach, and author of transformational and very practical book The Millionaire's Handbook: How to Look and Act like a Millionaire, Even if You're Not, Vicky Oliver, describes how to look and behave like a millionaire even if your bank account says otherwise. You will learn:

* Why clothing, personal grooming, and speech are critical to success

* How to look like part of the country club any time

* How to avoid the pitfalls that will mark you as an outsider

* How to always look your best at any time or anywhere

Vicky Oliver (photo left) writes books that give people the confidence they need to succeed on the job hunt as well as on the vital quest for prospects. She also gives seminars on job-hunting, networking, and the art of branding yourself. Today her first book, 301 Smart Answers to Tough Interview Questions, is available in the U.S., England, France, Australia, Canada, Japan, and Turkey. Her second book is called Power Sales Words, How to Write It, Say It, And Sell It with Sizzle.

Vicky has been featured on the front page of the New York Times 'Job Market' section and on over 100 local and national radio programs. She was designated in-house job-hunting expert at the Shomex Diversity Fair at Madison Square Garden. Her articles have appeared in Adweek magazine and on Crain's New York Business website; and she was interviewed for Esquire magazine's 'Answer Fella' column.

In 2007, Vicky hosted a Business Etiquette Dinner for 142 graduating seniors of Brown University. She also presented an Effective Interviewing seminar to 200 sophomores, juniors, and seniors up at the Brown campus during Career Week.

Vicky was recently elected President of the Brown University Club in New York. Vicky is also a newly minted Vice President of her class at Brown and a member of the Brown Alumni Association Board of Governors.

Vicky believes that job-hunting can be a lonely endeavor and encourages job seekers to contact her via email for advice on their searches. She is in constant touch with over 5,000 recent candidates in all different professions and in all different walks of life: the employed, the unemployed, entrepreneurs, freelancers, retirees, college graduates, and people returning to the job market.

A Brown University graduate with a degree in English Honors and a double major in Political Science, Vicky lives in Manhattan, where she has dedicated herself to helping others turn around their careers and their lives.

My book review of The Millionaire's Handbook: How to Look and Act like a Millionaire, Even if You're Not by Vicky Oliver.

My book review of Bad Bosses, Crazy Coworkers & Other Office Idiots: 201 Smart Ways to Handle the Toughest People Issues by Vicky Oliver.

Listen live on Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Pacific time.



If you miss this very informative show, it will be available for free download as a podcast for iPod, iTunes, and MP3 players; or play it right on your computer. To download this, or any other of my guest interviews, go to the Blog Business Success host page and click on Archived Segments. Once there, click on the podcast icon at the end of the episode description, to download the show free of charge for your listening enjoyment. You can also subscribe to the show feed.



To call in questions for my guest, the number is: (347) 996-5832

Let's talk with award winning writer, success coach, and author of transformational and very practical book The Millionaire's Handbook: How to Look and Act like a Millionaire, Even if You're Not, Vicky Oliver, as she on Blog Business Success Radio. describes how to look and behave like a millionaire even if your bank account says otherwise. Vicky Oliver shares the strategies and techniques for looking, thinking, and acting as a person of wealth regardless of your current income. Vicky Oliver demonstrates how adopting a millionaire attitude, and the look and behaviors associated with wealth will give a person a step up on the road to riches and success. From clothing to personal grooming to hobbies, Vicky presents the concepts that mark an individual as a member of the social elites regardless of their economic background. Vicky shows people how to overcome the accident of birth, and become the successful person you were born to be, and how to utilize the best real you to achieve it. Learn how to look and act successfully, and the wealth and position will soon follow on Blog Business Success Radio.

Treatment And Prevention Of Canine Intervertebral Disc Disease (Part I)

 by Susan E. Davis, PT  

Injuries and diseases that affect the spine are quite dramatic and disabling. This supportive column of bone which encases the nerve centers of communication to and from the brain provides a vital role in daily function for all animals.

Dogs can be affected by spinal conditions from the neck to the mid and lower sections of the spine.  

The dog breeds which are most prone to mid and lower spine problems are the dwarf, or "chondrodystrophic" body types, having short, bowed limbs. Examples are the Dachshund, Pekingese, Lhasa Apso, Corgi and Basset Hound. Their spinal columns are proportionally longer in length, due to the disparate limb size, causing stress and strain.

Discs are spacers and shock absorbers, placed between each of the bony vertebrae.  

 

They are round structures with outer walls that consist of cartilage rings, similar to those of a tree trunk, with a soft jelly-like interior. The outer wall is called the “annulus fibrosus” and the inner substance is the “nucleus pulposus”. The spinal column needs the discs as “spacers” to provide room for the nerves which branch off of the spinal cord to exit. It also needs the discs as “shock absorbers” to protect and shield these nerves from jolts and stress.

Discs become injured when they are weakened and result in a buldge or rupture, causing irritation to the nerve.  

The weakening is caused by external pressures from tumors, poor posture, weight gain, loss of muscle tone and support, bone spurs etc. It can also occur from trauma or twisting/turning injuries, which crack the outer walls of the disc and cause the inner “pulp” to break through to the outside.

If the damage is minor, the discs will simply buldge, but not break open.  

Herniated disc. Image Burlington Sports Therapy

If this is treated promptly, the bulge usually resolves and the disc returns to its normal shape.

When the damage is more significant, the disc will rupture and cause significant pain and irritation to the spinal nerves. 

The canine spine, like the human, consists of 3 sections: cervical (neck), thoracic (ribs and middle section) and lumber (lower back).  Both dog and human have 7 cervical vertebrae, but the dog has more 1 more thoracic and 2 more lumbar vertebrae, compared to people.  Thus a dog has 7 cervical, 13 thoracic and 7 lumber vertebrae.  Eighty percent of intervertebral disc injuries occur between the first thoracic and the third lumbar vertebrae. 

Here is how most veterinarians classify disc disease:

Type 1: a total rupture of the outer wall, or annulus fibrosis, with massive break-through herniation of the inner nucleus pulposus. 

Type 2: a partial rupture, with gradual onset of symptoms. Disc buldges also fall into this category.  

Type 2 disc diseases can be successfully treated conservatively with rest and medications.  

This can include cage rest or reduced activity. Physical therapy can begin after the acute phase is over, in about 5 days.

More serious cases such as Type 1 may need surgery such as: hemilaminectomy (thoracic-lumbar region) or dorsal decompression laminectomy (lumbar and sacral region).  

Expect further testing such as MRI or myelogram before surgery is recommended so that the extent and level of disc injury can be determined.   

Cervical disc disease, occurring in the dog’s neck, is the second most common form of intervertebral disc problems.  

They can be caused by trauma, rough neck movements from hard play or sports activity, or from degenerative conditions. Larger breeds, especially those at middle to senior ages, can develop degenerative discs which “settle”, like an old house into the ground, which causes vertical pressure on the disc and irritation to the nerves.

These cases are usually treated conservatively at first, with corticosteroids, muscle relaxers, pain and anti-inflammatory medications.  If surgery is needed the method used is ventral slot technique and is approached from the front or “underside “of the vertebrae to remove bone and disc material for decompression of the nerve root.

***
Susan E. Davis (Sue) is a licensed Physical Therapist with over 30 years of practice in the human field, who transitioned into the animal world after taking courses at the UT Canine Rehabilitation program.  She is located in Red Bank, New Jersey.

She has been providing PT services to dogs and other animals through her entity Joycare Onsite, LLC in pet’s homes and in vet clinics since 2008.

She also provides pro bono services each week to a shelter and sanctuary for neglected and abused animals.  Sue is the proud “dog mommy” to Penelope, a miniature Dachshund with “attitude”.  For more information see her website www.joycareonsite.com , or follow on Twitter @animalPTsue.

Articles by Susan E. Davis:
Functional Strengthening Exercises: the What, Why and How
One Thing Leads To Another: Why The Second ACL Often Goes Too
Compensation: An Attempt To Restore Harmony
Paring Down to the Canine Core
Canine Massage: Every Dog ‘Kneads’ It”
Photon Power: Can Laser Therapy Help Your Dog?  
Physical Therapy in the Veterinary World  
Reiki: Is it real? 
Dog Lessons: Cooper  
The Essentials Of Canine Injury Prevention: 7 Tips For Keeping Your Dog Safer 

The Challenge Of Degenerative Myelopathy (DM): Knowledge Is Power (Part I)
Degenerative Myelopathy (DM): Top 10 Management Suggestions (Part II) 
Great (Or Not So Great) Expectations with Femoral Head Osteotomy (FHO) Part (I) 
Great (Or Not So Great) Expectations with Femoral Head Osteotomy (FHO) Part (II)

It's Not Just Walking, It's Therapy! 

Further reading:
Intervertebral Disk Disease

End the Wind Power Tax Credit

By Alan Caruba

Like so much else that involves the absurd “renewable energy” scam—wind, solar power and ethanol—the public remains largely in the dark about its actual costs. They come straight out of their pockets in the form of higher costs for electricity and, in the cast of ethanol, lost mileage and engine damage.

At the end of this year, unless Congress does something spectacularly stupid—always a possibility—the Wind Production Tax Credit (PTC) will expire. If extended for just one more year, it will cost $12 billion. If wind energy was (1) reliable and (2) economical, one could make a case for it, but it is the very opposite.

Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, says “The wind industry claims a PTC extension will create 37,000 jobs. At a $12 billion price tag, that’s $327,000 taxpayer dollars for every job. But even with the PTC, the industry lost 10,000 jobs between 2009 and 2010, a 12% drop.” 

Another way the wind industry has stayed in business, but not in the competitive sense of other industries, has been renewable energy mandates that require state utilities to purchase wind powered electricity generation. Many states have opted out of such mandates as they realized the cost to consumers.

The wind industry in America, according to Pyle, has cost taxpayers $20 billion over the past two decades “and, today, the PTC is so lavish that wind producers are actually paying the electricity grid to take their power, just so they can collect more taxpayer money.”

All the economic advances America has made have been the result of the discovery and utilization of energy generation from oil, natural gas, and coal. If you want to harm America in the most fundamental way, you would attack these sources of energy and that is exactly what the Obama administration has been doing since it took power. For decades coal represented fifty percent of all the electricity used, but incessant attacks by the Environmental Protection Agency, using clean air regulations, has reduced this significantly.

The reality is that 94% of all electricity generated in America comes from traditional sources, coal, natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric power. America is home to century’s worth of inexpensive coal, is the largest producer of natural gas, and invented nuclear power.

The absolute least sensible way to generate electricity is wind power, followed closely by solar power. Since the wind does not blow all the time or with sufficient ability to turn the blades of the huge turbines, it would seem obvious that wind is a moronic way to produce electricity, but that has not kept those reaping taxpayer tax credits and benefitting from mandates for its use from lining their pockets.

It is a curiosity of the debate over wind power that its impact on bird and bat species is rarely, if ever, discussed or reported. In a recent article, Paul Driessennoted that “The impact of mandated, subsidized and ‘production tax credited’ industrial wind facilities on eagles, whooping cranes, bads, and other value species is horrendous, ecologically devastating, intolerable—and growing. In fact, it is infinitely worse than the widely quoted figure of 440,000 birds per year…the actual USA death toll is 13,000,000 to 39,000,000 birds and bats every year!”

The expert I turn to for information about wind power is John Droz, Jr., a physicist and a leading activist against its use whose website is worth visiting.

Wind power doesn’t meet any of the major criteria for the generation of electricity. Droz points out that it only produces about 30% of the power it allegedly can or should produce. This is because “it takes over one thousand times the amount of land for wind power” that a single nuclear power plant produces. Moreover, that land has to be located far from the cities and suburbs that need to access its power.

Is wind power reliable or even predictable? Compared to traditional power generators, it doesn’t come close compared to the standards set for them. Indeed, “when power is really needed,” notes Droz, such as hot summer afternoons, “wind is usually on vacation.” It most certainly cannot be depended upon to dispatch power to the grid on demand, nor can it supply power reliably to meet a 24/7 demand.

Along with the Wind Protection Tax Credit, the industry is subsidized far more than any conventional power source, Cost per megawatt-hour, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, is subsidized to the tune of $23 per megawatt-hour. Compare that with coal that receives 44 cents! Natural gas at 25 cents! Hydroelectric at 67 cents, and nuclear power at $1.59.

The advocates of wind power are the same charlatans who keep shouting about carbon dioxide (CO2) as the cause of global warming—and now “climate change—when CO2 plays no role whatever in causing or changing the climate. It is also touted as being environmentally beneficial, but tell that to the thousands of bird and bat species the wind turbines kill every year.

Allowing the PTC to expire at the end of the year will not mark the end of wind power, but it will surely make it even less competitive in the years ahead and, like other nations that bought into this fairy tale, those dependent on it are going to suffer some dire consequences, particularly as the current cooling cycle the Earth has been in for the last sixteen years deepens.

© Alan Caruba, 2012