October 15

The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals runs the Angell Animal Medical Center in Jamaica Plain.

I drive by this sign almost every day. The iconography is great on it, and was what originally caught my eye. I found it surprising that an animal hospital rates the "hospital" sign (H in square), but when I thought about it, realized it made sense. It's easily the largest animal hospital in Massachusetts, as well as the best emergency medical option for a sick pet.

At work, I've referred residents with sick pets here often. When Pogo, our dog, became very ill at the end of his life, we brought him here, where the vet on call was thoughtful and treated us with great sensitivity, helping us to make the difficult choice to have him put to sleep.

Dealing with a sick pet is very difficult. They can't tell you what hurts or what's wrong, yet you want to help them and make them better. The folks at Angell are wonderful at guiding pet owners through very difficult procedures and options, and helping you to make the right decision. That is invaluable.

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July 02

My dog died late last night. It seems most appropriate that it's raining cats and dogs today.

Pogo was unique. Dog lovers knows that every dog has a distinct personality, and Pogo was no exception. He was wickedly intelligent and had a strong will. Part border collie, part husky, genetics played a joke on him. He had the broad chest, thick fur with undercoat, and curly tail of a husky, but a tiny rear end, short legs, and face of a border collie. That didn't stop him from trying to herd Boyfriend and me to where he thought we should be. He was the runt of the litter when Boyfriend's parents picked him as a puppy, but in his youth he could leap snowbanks and, when excited, would simply jump up and down, over and over. My sister-in-law told me that was one of her first memories of Pogo, jumping continuously like that.

Pogo's health had been in decline for the past year. He had a tumor taken off of his belly last July. Last October, he became diabetic. Cataracts took most of his sight in February. Still, he ate heartily and was still adept at climbing the stairs and getting up onto the king-size bed with us to sleep. When he got very sick last night and couldn't keep his food down, Boyfriend took him to the animal hospital, where he declined quickly. I left work early to go there with him. We talked about it and agreed that it was time to let Pogo go.

He went quickly -- within 10 seconds -- after the injection.

The folks at Parkway Veterinary Hospital -- Dr. Segal, Dr. Higgins, Dr. Mekler, Sandie, Heather, Nancy, all of them -- are phenomenal caregivers, both for Pogo and Pretty Boy, our cat, and for Boyfriend and me, their two overanxious owners. And the emergency staff at the MSPCA's Angell Memorial -- especially Dr. Clark -- were kind, comforting, and thoroughly professional.

It seems absurd to eulogize a dog, but I've never been one to shy away from absurdity. I know that we made the right decision for Pogo, and we made it at the right time.

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Today's Photo of the Day was taken on Christmas Day 2007.

June 14

I thought it was funny how Pogo acts when I found him wrapped up in the bedsheets early this morning. We give him clothes to wear to bed and he starts acting more human. Or, more specifically, more like me. I'm a blanket hog myself.

Pogo has been having accidents at night, so we've had to start putting him in a diaper at night. We call the diaper his "pajamas," though, so we won't embarrass him when we put it on him. It's working; he's wearing it without complaint. So now I'm not having to wash sheets every other day.

Diaper = win-win.

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May 22

For most of the six or so years that Pogo (my dog) and Pretty Boy (my cat) have lived together, they've pretty much ignored each other. Occasionally, the cat would hit the dog, and the dog would snarl at the cat, but once done, they went right back to the status quo: pretending the other animal just doesn't exist.

Boyfriend and I have caught them not ignoring each other more and more lately, as Pogo becomes more infirm. Today was the best; I got out of the shower to find them not only sharing our perpetually-unmade bed, but touching each other.

Once Pretty Boy realized I'd seen him, he took off for another room in the house. Pogo, going blind and nearly deaf, simply slept on.

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March 31

Here's a photo that sort of turns my stomach.

My poor puppy dog is diabetic, and I'm overcoming what to me is a perfectly rational case of needle phobia. That means that, twice a day, Pogo gets seven units of insulin at mealtimes. Boyfriend is awesome about giving the injections, but sometimes he's just not home when the injections are due, and it falls to me to give them.

Five months ago, I fainted when I saw a needle. Then Pogo started needing shots, and I had to work to overcome that perfectly rational reaction. Just trying to talk about it made me stammer. With time, patience, and necessity, I managed to reduce my reaction from fainting (not helpful) to throwing up, and then to nausea and only occasional lightheadedness.

That I can keep the presence of mind to actually take a photograph of myself handling a needle is nothing short of remarkable. I don't believe I'll ever really get used to giving shots, but I'm able to do it when I have to. And I'm pretty proud of that.

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March 19

One of the symptoms of Pogo's diabetes is occasional incontinence. Most of the time he's fine, but we've had to adjust his insulin dose again, with the result that he sometimes has accidents at night. It also bears mentioning that he sleeps in the bed with us.

I have to give Boyfriend credit for taking the situation with good grace and a sense of humor. As he put it the other day, with a resigned sigh, "I never thought I'd be so blasé about somebody peeing in my bed."

Neither Boyfriend nor I have the heart to banish him from the bed, since it's where he's slept since he came to live with us years ago. He wouldn't understand why he couldn't get on the bed, and it would feel like he was being punished. So instead, we're doing a lot of laundry. Since our dryer at home is broken, we've been making more than a few trips to the laundromat. That's where today's pic of our pretty green bedsheets in the dryer was taken.

It's tough watching Pogo grow old, but we do our best to keep him healthy and comfortable. We owe the little guy that much.

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March 14

I don't know if it's art, but that's what I was aiming for when I created this piece I call "Guard Dog."

We live on the second floor of a two-family house, and in our entryway we have what I can only describe as the ugliest wallpaper ever. There's not a lot we can do about the wallpaper -- the space is awkwardly-shaped, so stripping the wallpaper and painting it is out of the question. It did, however, give me a large wall space to try this art experiment.

I took an old black-and-white photo of Pogo, my dog, and did some work on it. Each of the tiles you see is a plain piece of copier paper. I blew up the photo, ran it through a halftone filter, then divided the image up into separate images. These were printed on a laser printer, and I assembled them into one honkin' big piece of art (42.5 inches wide, 66 inches deep). It wasn't made specifically for the entryway, but it was the only swath of wall large enough to put it up.

It's pretty cool what you can do with copier paper, scotch tape, and a little imagination.

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February 28

Pogo had a lazy day today, but he kept Boyfriend company at his desk most of the evening. That's where I got this shot. I nearly didn't have a photo of the day today. I didn't even make it out of the house, except to walk Pogo, until after 8 pm this evening.

Taking care of Pogo has gotten a lot easier now that both his humans are home. He especially enjoys it when Boyfriend cooks for him -- apparently he's not the only one who finds my cooking lacking. It's also nice not to have to rush home to walk him after work, and not having to change the housebreaking pads Pogo had to use because he had to be at home alone ten hours or more a day.

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February 15

Caring for a diabetic dog is a very complex undertaking (as I've talked about here, here, here, and here). Between giving shots, managing diet, and carefully watching your dog's behavior for signs of blood sugar that's too high or too low, you make the transition from pet care to health care.

I love Pogo, and I'm glad to do everything I can to keep him healthy and improve his quality of life for the time that we have remaining with him. It can be a little overwhelming, though, keeping track of everything you have to do for him. Shots twice a day are bad enough, but we cook for Pogo now, having discovered his appetite is much better than when he was getting kibble twice a day. Additionally, since taking him off processed dry dog food, the insulin dose he's required has gone down from 26 units a day to 18 units a day -- a substantial reduction.

So, in my usual manner of coping, I've been making notes about Pogo's health care needs. The list above is the latest printout; it is clipped on my refrigerator door, where Boyfriend and I can both reference it while caring for Pogo. It keeps us on the same page and helps ensure we're consistent in caring for our puppy dog.

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January 29

I've used a couple of my recent posts to complain about the surfeit of snowfall Boston's received over the past month. There's likely to be more complaints -- many more complaints -- in the weeks ahead.

Not everybody in my household shares the same aversion to snow, however. While I'm pretty sure my cat, Pretty Boy, is on my side, Pogo (my dog, a Border Collie - Husky mix) just loves playing in the snow. I let him out into the backyard this morning and grabbed my camera to snap some photos. He didn't disappoint; as soon as he was done with more pressing matters, he headed right for the soft snow and proceeded to roll merrily in the stuff.

Pogo is 13 years old now. He's diabetic, going deaf, has a ventricular arrhythmia (heart murmur), and in the past year had a small tumor removed from his belly. He spends a lot of time napping. So when I get to see him frolicking in the snow, having pure, unadulterated fun, it brings me a lot of joy.

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January 25

True confession time: I cook for my dog.

Since we found out that Pogo is diabetic, we've had to make a lot of adjustments to our life. Giving him a two insulin injections a day, for instance. Cooking is another change. Pogo got a stomach bug, so we put him on a bland diet of brown rice and oatmeal. Well, he loved his new food, so we decided to keep him on the diet, figuring that it was worth it to keep him healthy and happy. The vet instructed us to add protein to this new diet, and gave us some other recommendations to make this a better-balanced diet.

Pictured above is an assortment some of Pogo's favorite foods. I base each meal on oatmeal (in the canister) or brown rice (in the small glass). To that I add protein, usually cooked hamburger or chicken, usually with some carrots or apples cut into very small pieces. To all this, I add a couple tablespoons of wheat germ (which I forgot to squeeze into the group above). Rounding it all out is a children's chewable vitamin, to give Pogo the vitamins and minerals he needs to remain healthy.

Since changing his diet, the amount of insulin Pogo needs to regulate his blood sugar has gone down substantially. While doing all this cooking is a lot of work -- especially on the weekends, when I do a lot of prep work for the rest of the week -- it's worth it to keep my puppy dog healthy.

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January 15

Makeshift sharps containers on the windowsill. What do you do with a used hypodermic needle? It's not the kind of think I'd had to consider before Pogo was diagnosed as diabetic, and on the list of things to worry about when you have a diabetic dog, it's not terribly high on the list. Nonetheless, you have to do something with the things.

Of course, disposing of used needles has to be done properly. You don't want to just put them in the garbage, where trash collectors can get needlesticks, or drug users could come upon them and start rifling through your garbage looking for more. You need to have the sharps in a reasonably robust container, and you need to make sure you can dispose of them properly.

Our solution was to use soda bottles (which we have on hand in ample numbers). We periodically take them to the veterinarian's office when Pogo has appointments, and the vet disposes of the needles properly. It's really an excellent system.

In an ideal world, I wouldn't have to worry about this problem. But then I wouldn't have a wonderful canine companion like my Pogo. And that would definitely be less than ideal.

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January 08

Tico is my downstairs neighbor cat, and a fearless scourge of small birds in our neighborhood. I was doing the latest performance of the Backyard Ballet today, letting Pogo out and bringing Jasper in, when I spied Tico on the other side of the backyard, casually sauntering back toward the house with his prey. This is a common enough occurrence, but when it happened before, I hadn't been trying to complete a Photo of the Day project.

One of the problems of having an injured foot is that your world begins to shrink. I haven't been out doing much or going places, so I'm left with the house, the job, and the commute to document things about my life. I'm working on the whole healing thing, but it's simply going to take time.

Meanwhile, I chose this photo because Tico and his bird fascinated Pogo. Below are some smaller pics of Pogo trying to approach Tico. It was like watching a chase in slow motion; both Pogo and Tico were walking, Pogo with what I can only describe as a "hey whatcha got there?" expression on his face, while Tico was all "Mr. Cool Kitty," about the whole thing.

In the end, Pogo didn't get to see the dead bird -- much to his disappointment. Isn't it always the case that puppy dogs have to give up so much just to keep their humans happy?

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January 06

This photo feels like it should have some kind of artsy-fartsy name attached to it. "Pogo in the Backyard," though, doesn't quite do it for me. (I'll entertain suggestions. Really. Proof that somebody reads this thing would be wonderful.)

Since I hurt my foot, my landladies and downstairs neighbors have kindly let Pogo go into their backyard for his walks. Getting around sidewalks that are salty and irritate his paws is bad enough, but with an injured foot, I have trouble navigating slippery sidewalks myself.

Getting Pogo into the backyard is kind of a production. The landladies' dog, Jasper, is rather territorial about his backyard, so I have to bring him in through the basement dog flap while letting Pogo out onto the porch through the back door. It's a masterpiece of timing, really, and I'm getting much better at it.

While I was doing the backyard ballet today, I happened to look down from a second-floor window and thought to myself what a great photo it would be to get my black-and-white dog on a stark white background. Thus, today's photo of the day.

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January 03

Pogo's Insulin. Writing 100 words on this is simple; the hard part is going to be keeping it to less than 1,000 words.

My dog, Pogo, is diabetic. We found out last October, and since then, he's required two shots of insulin twice a day in order to maintain his blood sugar level at a healthier level. This presented several conflicts. I love my dog and will do almost anything reasonable to keep him healthy. However, I have a moderate form of trypanophobia (fear of needles), one that manifests by my fainting when I see one.

Normally, my partner could take care of giving Pogo his injections -- and usually, he does -- but the diagnosis came a few weeks before he was to go away for 12 days to Europe for work, and a couple of months before he began a monthlong visit to India. So I had to desensitize myself to needles, and rapidly.

And I did it. I overcame my trypanophobia.

I will never be comfortable giving Pogo an injection, handling a needle, or even seeing one. Thinking about it still makes me vaguely nauseous. But I have become competent at handling and giving injections, and I've been able to keep Pogo healthy by myself during my partner's absences. And I'm kind of proud of that.

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