Plus One: Mr. Griffey

It's official - we have adopted Mr. Griffey.  In other words, we flunked fostering, where the point is to give the dog a temporary home and help him adapt to new surroundings.  Griffey got along so well with Oscar that we decided to adopt him ourselves.

Mr. Griffey (aka, G-man, Griffino, The Little Guy) is doing better around me, but he's still bipolar. He could be sitting at my feet one minute, and the next minute he'll be barking at me and pacing back and forth gruffling to himself.  He loves Mrs. Dynamite, Oscar, and grazing around our yard and garden though, and I'm pretty certain that he's happy to be here.

Oscar is recovering from an ear and eye issue.   He was acting bizarre on Saturday morning, and after I cleaned his ears (just for the heck of it, because he's had ear infections in the past, and because we were cleaning Griffey's ears) he was acting even worse - totally not himself.  Sunday we decided to bring him to the emergency vet, where we got 4 prescriptions (oral pain med, ear cleaner, ear treatment, and eye treatment) and a $265 bill.  The vet was more concerned with Oscar's intensely irritated eye, which had been bothering him off and on for 2 weeks, but I kept trying to explain that Oscar was acting funny because of his ears.  That didn't stop us from getting O-dog a glaucoma test, and a tear production test.   I joked to Mrs. Dynamite, "How do you think they do the tear production test - do they twist his tail until he cries?"  She moped, "No, they probably yell at him "YOUR MOMMY DOESN'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE" until he cries."  When they brought Oscar back to us after the tests, he was fine - no glaucoma, and tear production at the low end of normal.  He's doing better after a few days of meds, but he hates the ear cleaner - shaking his head obsessively for a long time after you put it in - like a swimmer with water stuck in his ear.

Side note home pet care advice:  once back in NYC our vet had cleaned Oscar's ear with a very long q-tip, and dug out a disgusting amount of black funk.  I said "will I hurt him if I try to do that myself?"  Expecting the answer to be "yes, don't try this at home," but my vet told me that dogs' ear canals are L-shaped, so you're not at risk of hitting the ear drum.  The emergency vet we saw on Sunday strongly disagreed with that suggestion - and said that he won't even stick things in dogs' ears unless they are sedated, as a dog turning their head quickly can have serious consequences if you're probing their ear when it happens.  So, we won't be using a q-tip anymore if and when we clean the dogs' ears.

-KD