Of holidays and stress
Wow. One month on since I’ve posted. The cause of this is that, after the seminar, I had two weeks in which to complete an eagle aviary. This was because I couldn’t go on holiday and leave the eagle on a perch in my house- which is where he was (due to fitting another bird in the existing aviaries). The holiday was 11 relaxing days with lots of snorkeling and fish spotting. Also lots of looking at the stunning views.
Meanwhile, Amika went to the recommended kennel, which I had a tour of prior to booking her in. She was able to be relatively calm when seeing and hearing other dogs, as long as the dog in front of her (on the other side of a fence) wasn’t running or getting excited. If they did that, she temporarily lost her mind.
On coming home from our holiday on Thursday we were refreshed, Amika was worn out and hoarse from barking, slightly fried I think. But she seemed pleased to be home where she could snooze undisturbed.
Then Max the dove died suddenly, and a falcon in rehab that had showed a sore leg after vet check (clear) when first put in an aviary before the holiday suddenly went lame again and turned out to have a dislocated hip (had to be euthanised). Then we noticed Amika wasn’t moving properly and I went into a panic about hip displasia etc. (The vet that gave her vaccination prior to kennels had commented on some stiff movement then, but I hadn’t had time to dwell on it, and it hadn’t surfaced again.) That all started on the Saturday. It was all too much on Sunday, what with the eagle getting caught up by his equipment and taking two of us to untangle (dangerous situation) and having to drop off a hawk at the vet. The vet appointment on Monday was “the usual” with Amika charging around making a scene.
So we have instructions to not let Amika do too much running around (HA!) because of the toe the vet found to be sore. We’re hoping ligament damage from some prior adventure is all that it is, and she is on a NSAID. After that is done, if the toe is no better it will get x-rayed along with her hips. I’m going to get them done anyway to see how her hips are, GSD’s being notorious for having trouble.
What really sunk my weekend was logging on to my good old CU yahoo group on Sunday night. Which has been discontinued / closed / finished. Archives and nothing more. I cried for a while. That forum was the single biggest factor in my recovering from my burnout state last year. It was the thing I ran to when life was getting me down, my inspiration to start the journey I have been chronicling here. I’ll miss it a lot.
On the plus side, none of the birds I am particularly attached to died, Amika’s limp is hopefully just the toe and I’ve resolved to remove the “unknown” in having the hips checked. Willaver the eagle in uninjured, and the hang-up happened when I was here so he didn’t hang to death- really lucky. That danger has now been removed (no jesses on while in the mew). The hawk is back from the vet with a fairly good prognosis for release (having had a broken wing originally). As for the CU forum, I’m doing so much better. I don’t need that support the way that I did, and I also have more contacts who can help me out. My CU DVD set also arrived while I was away, so I have some consolation.
This afternoon, a friend came around to pick up her frozen mice, which I’d picked up from the supplier when collecting my order earlier in the day. When she arrived at the screen door on the front porch, Amika barked in animated fashion, but went straight into her crate in the hall (in view of the front door through the doorway into the front room). I threw a handfull of treats in as I shut the door on her, let my friend in and she even stopped to look at something on top of the crate (an ornament). Amika made a bit of noise, but heaps less than usual. She got lots more treats.
So even with all the stress, we have our little training sessions and we make progress like that. And so whatever happens all I have to do is keep going.
