It's time.

You all know that I love my pets. Our two dogs and our bird bring lots of love and happiness and fun to our home, and I wouldn't want to live without them. However....

They're driving me crazy this summer. If I don't go back to work soon I'm going to lose my damn mind.

First there's been keeping the dogs in the house this summer. It's too hot for them outside, so we've allowed them indoors since I'm here to keep an eye on things. With Ginger, that's no problem. She's good as gold and would never think of peeing in the house or chewing something up. George, on the other hand....well, he's been mostly good, except when he's not. We've caught him chewing up two paperback novels and the cover of a heating pad I'd left on the side of my bed. One night I fell asleep with both the dogs still in the house, and I woke up at 3am to find that George had peed and pooped in the hallway. I was not a happy camper cleaning that mess up in the middle of the night! Since then we've had to make sure they go outside at night to sleep. Ginger has gotten spoiled, though, and now she has to be forced out at night, which makes me feel terrible. And of course, Marco deserves time out of his cage and that has to be when the dogs are out of the house. It's been a constant struggle accommodating all three of them this summer.

The other night Ginger was having a terrible attack of seasonal allergies. Once or twice a year we have to take her to the vet for an allergy shot to make her feel better. On Thursday night we had made a vet's appointment for the next day, because she was miserable. Her eyes were red and swollen and she was rubbing the fur off her nose. Well, George did something to piss her off (we didn't see what) and she snarled and jumped on him and bit him on the side of his mouth. Poor George was bleeding and cowering in a corner, Ginger was sulking, and the whole house was in an uproar. George is always pestering Ginger to play, and sometimes when she's not feeling well she lashes out at him. I imagine that's what happened. I took her to the vet yesterday and got her a shot, and today she feels much better....

but now something is wrong with George's skin. We noticed the other day he had a couple of swollen red spots on his legs that looked like mosquito bites. All of a sudden there are several of them and they're turning into small sores. I freaked out this morning when I saw that and called the vet to see if they could see him. Well, they're only open a half day on Saturdays and they said they're booked solid this morning, and also that they have an emergency surgery. The receptionist said that unless something life threatening was going on, they couldn't see him until Monday morning. They advised me to give him Benadryl in the meantime. My friend Martina  who's a vet tech (and also happens to be out of town this weekend, of course) also advised me to pick up some antibiotic spray to put on the sores to get him through until Monday.

I swear, if it's not one thing, it's another.

I told Marla the other day that I can't wait to go back to work. These pets are driving me nuts!! It's definitely time.