On the Right Path

I don't want to sleep there, I'm not particularly interested in peeing there, and I certainly don't want to cook there, but I do love the woods. I love the Black Mountains specifically, and I love streams.

I'm not sure why we don't do more hiking. We have the dogs for it. We have the kid for it. We have the love for it. We just don't get around to it.

My husband, Kevin is a doer. There is always a project either in full swing or in planning mode. It is one thing I love about him. He finishes what he starts, and he starts big things. His plans are not lightly made nor are they easy to finish. Right now, he is adding onto the house. Just he and the contractor. When he comes home from work , he works some more. On the weekends, he's building. I'm excited for the new spaces, but I think I am more excited for him to finish so that I have some of his time and attention back.

All this to say, I think this is why we don't hike. We do things together as much as possible, but this is a stage in our life where Kevin is determined to get things in order. I love him for that. I miss him, but I love him.

While we were in the mountains recently, staying in Catawba Falls Preserve, I had him back to myself one day. He wanted to know what I wanted to do, and I chose this hike. We packed a backpack full of snacks, water, and diapers. The dogs got to tag along and tap into their inner hunters. Gibson, our chocolate lab, ran out about 10 feet ahead with his tail pointed straight up. He even helped corral Little Bird when he got too far ahead of us. Our English Setter, Aja, stayed on leash and ignored her bird dogs instincts in favor of reading the mail on the ground.

We missed a turn along the way - rather, I missed a turn, and we ended up about 40 minutes off track. Luckily, we had also packed our Babyhawk, so tired Bird could ride on his daddy's back when he got tired. And after playing nekkid in the creek for awhile?

Bird was really really tired.

It was a great day with my boys, my dogs, and a trail in the mountains.

When she isn't dreaming of her own mountain getaway, Marty blogs at Don't Take the Repeats. When she has less to say, she resorts to quipping on Twitter.

Win Animal Planet's Emergency Vets for the DS

One of my favorite events in Raleigh happens every October. It's the Dog Olympics at the North Carolina State School of Veterinary Medicine. I used to take my little American Eskimo mix, Chelsea, and watch her whoop up on the Labrador retrievers in the retrieving competition. Imagine my pride when she tied for 2nd amongst a big group of dogs whose name alone implied they should have beaten her.

I love that we have the vet school right here in the Triangle. I have taken my dogs there multiple times and always received phenomenal care. Our chocolate lab even presented with a good learning opportunity because he had some weirdo eye condition from where he pulled too hard on the leash. I sound proud, but I was actually embarrassed that he was so rude on a leash. Of course, we had only had him about 2 weeks at that point, which would be a great excuse if he wasn't still rude on a leash 18 months later.

Anyway, without disguise of a smooth segue, we have a copy of Animal Planet's Emergency Vets, a new game for the Nintendo DS that lets children play as a veterinarian in 15 vet mini-games. They can care for 30 different animal species cleaning teeth, grooming them, and even examining x-rays to diagnose problems.

Standard giveaway procedures apply. Earn an entry for each of these:

1. Leave a comment telling us about your pets.
2. Post a link on your blog about our little giveaway; leave another comment with the link.
3. Tweet a link to the giveaway; leave a comment with a link.
4. Follow us on Facebook; leave a comment letting us know.

Entries remain open until 11:00 PM on Tuesday, June 16, 2009. A winner will be chosen at random after the contest closes. Please make sure we can contact you in case you are the winner.

Good luck!   

Looking for a pet sitter, Triangle dwellers?

I owe a huge shout-out to Love'm and Leave'm Pet Sitting, for saving my butt (well, technically, our cat Eliza's butt, I suppose) when my husband and I found out we had to leave town suddenly on Christmas, of all days.  Dan's grandmother Lucy passed away two days before Christmas, and we spent about twenty-four uncertain hours trying to figure out exactly when and how we would get to Massachusetts for her funeral.  It was such a sad, stressful time, I almost forgot about Eliza, and then when I remembered I was sure that it was too late to find a pet sitter for the holidays.

Fortunately, on Christmas Eve I got ahold of our stalwart pet sitters at Love'm and Leave'm, who said of course, last-minute pet sitting at Christmastime, that's no problem.  Not only did they find a sitter for me despite a skeleton holiday staff and short (one-day!) notice, they patiently put up with my four emails and three panicked phone calls when we had to change our flight plans, then change them again.  Each time I had to apologize profusely and ask them to revise our pet sitting schedule, they assured me it was easy to do and they were happy to help.

Thanks to their flexibility, patience, and compassion we were able to take off on Christmas morning to go and see Dan's family without worrying about Eliza, who we knew would be well-cared for in our absence.  If you're ever in the market for a caring, reliable pet sitter, give Love'm and Leave'm a call!

Nikki is a mother and calico cat owner who also blogs at A Small Song.

Complete Lack of Human Compassion

I debated on posting this here at Triangle Mamas. However, several people have told me that it needs to be said here. I want Triangle Mamas to be a positive place; a place to share. Sometimes though, sharing means passing along information that might be helpful to others. In that spirit, I'm sharing this story. Blogging gives us a voice, and offers us the chance to be heard. Maybe someone who needs to will hear this:

Chelsea and I were at peace with each other when she left this past
Friday. Although I miss her more than you possibly want to hear about,
I know that it was time for her to go, and it was my responsibility to
help her leave this life. I promised to be her guardian and caretaker,
and I was for 14 years. All the way up to the very end.

There
was a part of the story I didn't tell on Friday. I didn't want to mar
saying goodbye to my pup anymore than had been done for me that day.
The experience we had at the vet was unbelievable, and I wavered on
whether to share it at all. However, if anyone is searching for this
vet online, I think it is important that they hear how we were treated.

Quail Corners Animal Hospital,
where I had trusted the care of my dogs for close to eight years now,
will no longer be our vet. There was a girl who was supposed to be
scheduling it to be done at home for us. Two days went by without her
calling me back, only to find out that the vet who was supposed to do
it had gone into labor. While I certainly understood that labor and
birth took priority, I didn't understand why I hadn't been extended the
courtesy of a phone call to give me this information. Instead I had to
keep calling back, trying to find out what time I would say goodbye to
my pup. I needed to find someone to watch Bird and really wanted Kevin
to be off work to be with us. I needed to prepare myself mentally and
emotionally.

After two days of not letting me know anything
except how little she knew, I finally told her that I would just bring
Chelsea in to have it done. She told me the vets who were available,
and after I chose one, she asked me if I wanted morning or afternoon. I
told her afternoon. She offered me 1:30, and I said that would be fine.
I repeated back the time to her, and she said yes 1:30 was the time.

I
called Kevin and let him know. Then I called Boo who had offered to be
with me, and I asked her to watch Little Bird. I set the whole thing up
for 1:30. I did not get the time wrong of the death of my dog.

When
we arrived at the vet, we were told by the front desk that our
appointment wasn't until 4:30. The woman at the front told us there was
nothing she could do to change it.

Seriously?

I'm sitting
there in the waiting room, bawling already. Chelsea is just standing
there because she can't lay down without just falling over anymore.
Kevin is standing with his mouth agape. It was all I could do to get
there once. There was no way I could go home and bring her back again.

Seriously? Nothing she could do?

I
told her through my tears that she didn't need to change anything; that
our appointment was at 1:30, and we were there at the right time. I
wasn't going to even entertain this discussion.

She just repeated herself.

I
start sobbing. I can't help it. I tell her that I had been working with
Rachel for three days to get this taken care of, and that I had been
extremely patient with her. I told her that our appointment was at 1:30.

She went to get Rachel.

We
have to believe that something else was going on in the office because
Rachel approached us swinging. She came out and immediately told me we
were wrong. I was wrong. Our appointment was at 4:30 and that she had
confirmed it on the phone with me for 4:00. Um, okay. I'm not sure how
that made any sense, but whatever.

I have to admit. I lost it. I
actually yelled. In public. At that girl. I yelled at her and told her
she was incompetent. I yelled at her and told her that she was
completely unable to engage another adult in an intelligent
conversation that resulted in effective communication. I yelled at her
and told her to quit talking to me and just get me all of my dogs'
records so I could get out of there and never have to see her again.

The
whole time, she was yelling back at me, telling me that I was wrong.
Telling me that the circumstances were out of her control. I'm not sure
what circumstances kept her from inputting the correct time of my
appointment into the computer, but whatever.

Kevin stepped in
between us and told us both to stop. He looked at Rachel and asked her
what she was going to do to fix this. She said that she couldn't do
anything right then, that we could be worked in at 2:30.

I told
her to get our records and she yelled over Kevin's shoulder that she
would be glad to do that and then stormed out of the little office
cubby.

After she was gone, another office worker came out into
the waiting room and leaned over to me. She said that there was a vet
who could help us then. Kevin took my arm and nodded at me to get up
and go back. He knew that this was the one chance we had at my
strength. It was sapped, and if we took Chelsea back home again, I
would never let her go.

There were mumbled apologies at the "mix-up." I ignored them. There was no "mix-up." It was a major mistake on their part.

The
thing is, even if I had gotten the time wrong, which I didn't, they
should have ignored it. Obviously, I wasn't in some sort of hurry that
I deceptively came in with my dog and tried to get them to put her to
sleep 3 hours before my scheduled time. That's freaking absurd.

Any
ounce of compassion would have caused the very first woman in the
office to ignore the discrepancy between the time we arrived and the
time that Rachel the genius entered in the computer. She would have
quietly slipped into the back and found the vet who helped us in the
end, and made everything work out without subjecting us to the drama
that their incompetency created.

This isn't a rant, it is simply
what happened that day. In the event that someone Googles this vet, it
is the chance for them to see how they might be treated if they choose
to go there.

It was hard enough to make the decision. It was
hard enough to get in the car with my pup. It was hard enough to get
out of the car and take her inside for the very last time. To say
goodbye.

I will never understand how they could possibly treat someone in so much obvious pain as badly as they treated me.

Crossposted from Don't Take the Repeats. Marty, now doggie mama to just Aja and Gibson, also blogs at Don't Take the Repeats and Deep South Moms Blog.