Rodeo, or, Now I will tell you about my puppy.
Saturday, August 16th. I have a gig working security at a rodeo in New Lenox, near Joliet. It's just over a hundred dollars for eight or nine hours of work, though for me it's fourteen because I have to set out early driving everywhere. It's an alright gig if you like drinking beer and carrying a night stick and being surrounded by Hispanic cowboys and their families and being out in the sun all day and listening to blaring mariachi music. That's three out of five for me so I'm happy. (ps I don't drink and didn't carry a nightstick)
Our team starts with four people: Me, Chris R., Kristic (?sp) his polish friend who goes by 'Chris', and another friend named Chris. Kristic's girlfriend Adida, also polish, is along for the ride. Jesse and Sergio, off duty sheriff's police, show up later. Starting at 1:30 most of our time is spent parking cars and checking to make sure no glass bottles are brought in. Things run along smoothly. Around six I see Adida walking from the front to the back of the farm (we're on a farm) carrying a small dog. As a farm there are lots of dogs running around and I don't think on it. A few minutes later I go up front where my car is parked, our 'command center', and Chris R. says he apologizes if there's a mess but tells me that he has to bring a puppy home in the car.
What had happened was that a group of cowboys' children had been running around in the barn and they found a litter of puppies. Lab retrievers, mostly black, some gold. Presumably these are barn dogs. There's no mother around. So the kids scoop up all these puppies and run back to their parents and say, 'can we keep them?' and most of the parents say, 'no.' Now we have an insight into the minds of kids seven to nine years old. If they can't keep these dogs, their next thought is 'maybe we can sell them?' Adida is with these kids by now and has collected a golden female puppy (to be named Roman). So they go around trying to sell these puppies, Chris obtains one (a black male, to be named Vorenus-he likes HBO's Rome series).
So Chris tells me that he's got this puppy stowed in the backseat foot well of my car. So I go in there and pick up this puppy, look it over. They're small, about three weeks give or take. They are fully endowed with puppy cuteness. They're underfed; puppy bellies are supposed to be pleasantly fat, these seem shallow and thin. Most of the puppies have traces of a skin infection on one paw or tail. I went around to the trunk and got a towel (I always carry not one but two) to lay down because I don't know how clean my floor is. At first look I think, 'ok I've got two cats and that's all I can handle.'
Ten minutes later: 'Ok little girl, I'll pay you one dollar for that female black lab puppy.' SOLD. The puppy in question has got this skin problem, what might've been scarring or something, on its tail and its rear left foot.
So we wrap things up at the rodeo and Adida puts the towel and puppies on her lap and I drive the team back to north Chicago, then drive myself back home. Along the way I'm texting back and forth with my friend Mike, who once nursed two abandoned kittens to health, about puppy care. He tells me that cow's milk is not the thing and that I should be using baby formula, so I stop at the Jewel by my house and hurriedly by premixed similac soy food and a can of 'good start' powder and baby bottle to feed this stuff... and some miniature crullers. It's about midnight when I get home and Mike meets me there and I have my first experience nursing this puppy with the bottle. Oh, there was cuteness.
I should mention the name. I thought about Niobe, because that was Lucius Vorenus's wife's name on HBO's Rome, and it would dovetail with the other dogs' names. Then I thought, no, I should name this puppy H.W. and ever after refer to it as my daughter and partner. I could get some pictures of the puppy in a basket, and feed it goats' milk spiked with whiskey. For a time I consider options like 'Un Chien Andalou', Ladybird, or Ike the data dog. Then eventually I stole the suggestion of one of the Chris's and named the puppy 'Rodeo'.
The puppy spent the first night in a laundry hamper with an adult incontinence bed pad laid out in it, and then things got underway that morning. I have these because my mother uses them. Five feedings, meticulously watching and training to quickly let Rodeo know that it should be peeing on the incontinence pads laid out (like paper training) and not on the carpet. Even as I'm writing this I keep looking for and sometimes finding little wet patches on the floor. One suggestion I found from the internet is to feed Rodeo where it's not allowed to pee, because dogs naturally don't want to pee or poop where they eat. Halfway through the day I decide that the baby bottle I'm using isn't feeding readily enough so I give the plastic nipple a little cut with a razor and things seem to be working better.
I start putting dressings on the puppy's tail. Whatever's happening down there I don't want Rodeo to exacerbate things by licking or biting it. I happen to have a lot of medical gauze lying around again because of my mother. I wrap the gauze around the exposed parts of tail, tape it over, and attach one end of the tap to the top of Rodeo's tail and back to keep it in place. The first one Rodeo licks and chews at and in the evening I can see it's bleeding through a little bit and it made a stain on the incontinence pad so it gets replaced, that one falls off so another one goes on. Later on that day I figure out that I should put the puppy in the animal carrier I have to begin the first steps of cage training, and then I can get my laundry basket back.
The next day it's the trip to the vet. To elide the details, the skin condition on the tail and foot is not ringworm. Got that? It's Not Ringworm. But it's some other kind of barnyard skin infection, and the prescription for that is twice weekly medicated shampoos using a toothbrush to brush the infected areas. It's possible that a horse stepped on the tail but we can't tell. Also there are daily antibiotics, and I have to start collecting poop samples. If the tail doesn't clear up it'll have to be cropped (docked? Cut off, whatever the word is for that). This tail had better heal the hell up if I'm going to be shampooing this doggy twice a week for I don't know how long. There's another appointment for Friday.
So I get home and Rode has breakfast and her morning dose of the antibiotics. I retire to watch Deathproof and eat something and then it's time for the bath. When I get back in puppy has had a milestone for living here: her first poop, on the carpet. I get a zip-loc baggy and seal it up, though now that I write about it I'd better refrigerate it or just have a fresher sample. Despite reports about Labradors being naturally water-loving dogs, Rodeo would not stop whining throughout the whole ordeal. Maybe it was my fault and it was too cold while I was working in the shampoo. But there's shampooing, careful scrubbing of the foot and tail, drying out, affixing a new dressing on the tail, and already Rodeo is having her afternoon meal, and peeing on the carpet.
I have a frickin' puppy.
Protect that bitch with your drunken life, General Ulysses S. Grant!
Saturday, August 16th. I have a gig working security at a rodeo in New Lenox, near Joliet. It's just over a hundred dollars for eight or nine hours of work, though for me it's fourteen because I have to set out early driving everywhere. It's an alright gig if you like drinking beer and carrying a night stick and being surrounded by Hispanic cowboys and their families and being out in the sun all day and listening to blaring mariachi music. That's three out of five for me so I'm happy. (ps I don't drink and didn't carry a nightstick)
Our team starts with four people: Me, Chris R., Kristic (?sp) his polish friend who goes by 'Chris', and another friend named Chris. Kristic's girlfriend Adida, also polish, is along for the ride. Jesse and Sergio, off duty sheriff's police, show up later. Starting at 1:30 most of our time is spent parking cars and checking to make sure no glass bottles are brought in. Things run along smoothly. Around six I see Adida walking from the front to the back of the farm (we're on a farm) carrying a small dog. As a farm there are lots of dogs running around and I don't think on it. A few minutes later I go up front where my car is parked, our 'command center', and Chris R. says he apologizes if there's a mess but tells me that he has to bring a puppy home in the car.
What had happened was that a group of cowboys' children had been running around in the barn and they found a litter of puppies. Lab retrievers, mostly black, some gold. Presumably these are barn dogs. There's no mother around. So the kids scoop up all these puppies and run back to their parents and say, 'can we keep them?' and most of the parents say, 'no.' Now we have an insight into the minds of kids seven to nine years old. If they can't keep these dogs, their next thought is 'maybe we can sell them?' Adida is with these kids by now and has collected a golden female puppy (to be named Roman). So they go around trying to sell these puppies, Chris obtains one (a black male, to be named Vorenus-he likes HBO's Rome series).
So Chris tells me that he's got this puppy stowed in the backseat foot well of my car. So I go in there and pick up this puppy, look it over. They're small, about three weeks give or take. They are fully endowed with puppy cuteness. They're underfed; puppy bellies are supposed to be pleasantly fat, these seem shallow and thin. Most of the puppies have traces of a skin infection on one paw or tail. I went around to the trunk and got a towel (I always carry not one but two) to lay down because I don't know how clean my floor is. At first look I think, 'ok I've got two cats and that's all I can handle.'
Ten minutes later: 'Ok little girl, I'll pay you one dollar for that female black lab puppy.' SOLD. The puppy in question has got this skin problem, what might've been scarring or something, on its tail and its rear left foot.
So we wrap things up at the rodeo and Adida puts the towel and puppies on her lap and I drive the team back to north Chicago, then drive myself back home. Along the way I'm texting back and forth with my friend Mike, who once nursed two abandoned kittens to health, about puppy care. He tells me that cow's milk is not the thing and that I should be using baby formula, so I stop at the Jewel by my house and hurriedly by premixed similac soy food and a can of 'good start' powder and baby bottle to feed this stuff... and some miniature crullers. It's about midnight when I get home and Mike meets me there and I have my first experience nursing this puppy with the bottle. Oh, there was cuteness.
I should mention the name. I thought about Niobe, because that was Lucius Vorenus's wife's name on HBO's Rome, and it would dovetail with the other dogs' names. Then I thought, no, I should name this puppy H.W. and ever after refer to it as my daughter and partner. I could get some pictures of the puppy in a basket, and feed it goats' milk spiked with whiskey. For a time I consider options like 'Un Chien Andalou', Ladybird, or Ike the data dog. Then eventually I stole the suggestion of one of the Chris's and named the puppy 'Rodeo'.
The puppy spent the first night in a laundry hamper with an adult incontinence bed pad laid out in it, and then things got underway that morning. I have these because my mother uses them. Five feedings, meticulously watching and training to quickly let Rodeo know that it should be peeing on the incontinence pads laid out (like paper training) and not on the carpet. Even as I'm writing this I keep looking for and sometimes finding little wet patches on the floor. One suggestion I found from the internet is to feed Rodeo where it's not allowed to pee, because dogs naturally don't want to pee or poop where they eat. Halfway through the day I decide that the baby bottle I'm using isn't feeding readily enough so I give the plastic nipple a little cut with a razor and things seem to be working better.
I start putting dressings on the puppy's tail. Whatever's happening down there I don't want Rodeo to exacerbate things by licking or biting it. I happen to have a lot of medical gauze lying around again because of my mother. I wrap the gauze around the exposed parts of tail, tape it over, and attach one end of the tap to the top of Rodeo's tail and back to keep it in place. The first one Rodeo licks and chews at and in the evening I can see it's bleeding through a little bit and it made a stain on the incontinence pad so it gets replaced, that one falls off so another one goes on. Later on that day I figure out that I should put the puppy in the animal carrier I have to begin the first steps of cage training, and then I can get my laundry basket back.
The next day it's the trip to the vet. To elide the details, the skin condition on the tail and foot is not ringworm. Got that? It's Not Ringworm. But it's some other kind of barnyard skin infection, and the prescription for that is twice weekly medicated shampoos using a toothbrush to brush the infected areas. It's possible that a horse stepped on the tail but we can't tell. Also there are daily antibiotics, and I have to start collecting poop samples. If the tail doesn't clear up it'll have to be cropped (docked? Cut off, whatever the word is for that). This tail had better heal the hell up if I'm going to be shampooing this doggy twice a week for I don't know how long. There's another appointment for Friday.
So I get home and Rode has breakfast and her morning dose of the antibiotics. I retire to watch Deathproof and eat something and then it's time for the bath. When I get back in puppy has had a milestone for living here: her first poop, on the carpet. I get a zip-loc baggy and seal it up, though now that I write about it I'd better refrigerate it or just have a fresher sample. Despite reports about Labradors being naturally water-loving dogs, Rodeo would not stop whining throughout the whole ordeal. Maybe it was my fault and it was too cold while I was working in the shampoo. But there's shampooing, careful scrubbing of the foot and tail, drying out, affixing a new dressing on the tail, and already Rodeo is having her afternoon meal, and peeing on the carpet.
I have a frickin' puppy.
Protect that bitch with your drunken life, General Ulysses S. Grant!
tallboy66:
Weird working conditions and thanks for coming out.