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Cry Me a River
My wife and I have five kids. We started with three boys and then, once we'd officially learned the basics, went on to have twin girls. I thought I knew how to parent, but going from males to females was like going from basic math to trigonometry.
I …Read more.
Cat Craze
I have a confession to make. I am afraid of cats.
I'm not afraid that they'll attack me or sneak up in the middle of the night and suffocate me (as they have been known to do to babies for centuries — look it up on the Internet).
I'm afraid …Read more.
Money to Burn
Yesterday, over my morning coffee, I read in my paper that parents in New York City are all atwitter because tuitions at most private schools are just about to creep up past the $40,000 mark. I stared at the story for a full minute before it hit me: …Read more.
Tweenage Dream
Like almost every other American household this year, our home ended up after the holidays with a lot of new electronic items. I got an iPad. It was one of those gifts you don't know you want until you have it. Suddenly, I could check my email and …Read more.
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At Death's Door and Knocking HardLife with our stinky, decrepit West Highland Terrier, Harry, has always been a little bit of a challenge. His skin and ear conditions meant that he could only eat (on doctor's advice) special dog food made of salmon and rice. That dog food is very (very) expensive and smells like … kibbles made of leftover salmon heads and tails. But if we didn't opt for the special food, he'd develop a skin fungus that smelled, as if anything could, worse than spare salmon parts. Harry's always had food issues, though. When we got him from the shelter six years ago, the vet pointed to the weird folds of skin on his back and rear end and warned us that he was a "former fatty," a dog who had been so obese that his skin had stretched out and couldn't rebound when he lost the weight. His previous owner had let him eat everything in sight, and he now looked like a deflated balloon. But this fall, Harry suddenly stopped eating, ignoring his stinky food ball and just curling up in the corner. After weeks and weeks of no appetite, he was down to 17 pounds. Had he lost one more ounce, I thought, he'd officially be classified as a cat. He no longer had the energy to move much, and when he walked across the room, he staggered like he'd been drinking cheap whiskey. I watched one afternoon while he strolled right into the front door, banging his head. At some point around Thanksgiving, he began looking more like road kill than a family pet. We called the vet. The vet looked at us and informed us, in a very serious voice, that our dog was about as close to dead as an animal could get. We had to find a way to get some food in Harry, she said. We reminded her that Harry had been on a restricted diet for his skin condition, but she warned us that a smelly dog was better, in most cases, than a dead one. She'd do blood tests to find out what was causing this weight loss, but until then, we had to put some meat on him. Harry just sat on the stainless steel table, shivering.
When we got him home, I made up a big plate of Thanksgiving turkey with gravy. Harry watched from across the room through half-lidded eyes, wheezing out one of his last breaths. He came to life, though, when he saw me starting to scrape the mess into his bowl. I leaned down to put the bowl on the ground. Suddenly, Harry shot across the room like he'd been launched from a catapult, almost knocking me on my rear end. He jammed his face into his bowl — all I could make out was a whirling ball of fur and flying turkey. The sound was a disgusting mix of snorting, grunting and growling. Twenty seconds later, he looked up gasping for a breath with his snout covered in gravy, and he started (and this is the point where I started to get annoyed) dancing on his hind legs. A few hours later, he was running back and forth in circles in front of his food bowl, barking like it was on fire. I gave him more turkey. The next morning, when I came downstairs, he greeted me like a trained circus animal, doing tricks till he got more turkey. Every meal after that was the same thing. He begged to be fed five times a day and checked his food bowl every 20 minutes, crying when it was empty. If he hears the refrigerator open, he'll come barreling across the house, knocking over everything in his way. A week or so later, we got the blood tests back. Harry was fine — physically. I glared at him. The little creep had planned this all along. He wasn't dying at all. He'd gone on a hunger strike until the food improved. Even as I write this, he's walking in endless circles around my feet, whimpering to be fed again, after just 15 minutes. I'm not going to do it. I know if I do, he'll just want to eat again in another 15 minutes. I can't even look down at him because he'll start dancing again. I know it sounds mean, but I feel nostalgic for the days when my dog was (almost) dead. To find out more about Peter McKay, please visit www.creators.com COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
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