Thread Drift

[chickwhorips]

i see many of you have pets. well i have two puppies and one i have a slight problem with.

she's a mastiff/rottie/great dane/ridgeback (aka BIG DOG) mix. i keep trimming her nails as far as i can but they are black and don't want to trim them to far. had a bad experience once with that. so now she has broken two nails half way down so the soft part of the inside is exposed. the first one is healed just fine, but now the second one is still half way hanging on. its going to break off any second i'm sure.

any clue to why this keeps happening? are they dry? anything i can do about them? she has really thick nails to begin with and they are longer, but i keep them as short as i feel comfortable cutting. thought about getting one of those drills, but not sure. she's good about trimming nails and stuff like that. she just lays down and looks at you like 'are you done yet?'

any ideas?

[DrBee]

Giant red velvet ants- (like red velvet cake???) that are solitary, don't hurt anything, and are really cool.

I think I've seen these. There was a ginormous ant walking around the gas pump one day. It was HUGE - over 1cm. It was very red. It looked like it could do some damage. I figured that it came in on a farmer's truck.

I really dislike fire ants. We're lucky to only have a few in our yard and only in the flower beds. That's good, because the kids aren't walking through them. When we lived in Lafayette (Louisiana) after a rain storm we would have big mountains of fireant mounds all over the yard. Some would be over 1ft tall. Yick! And if they get you (for those of you that haven't had the pleasure), they crawl up your leg and then all gazillion of them bite at once. It's no fun.

So Nanci - were fireants in your well or something else?

Lise - I promise you - he's out there somewhere! Now all we have to do is figure out how to find him

[DrBee]

i see many of you have pets. well i have two puppies and one i have a slight problem with.

she's a mastiff/rottie/great dane/ridgeback (aka BIG DOG) mix. i keep trimming her nails as far as i can but they are black and don't want to trim them to far. had a bad experience once with that. so now she has broken two nails half way down so the soft part of the inside is exposed. the first one is healed just fine, but now the second one is still half way hanging on. its going to break off any second i'm sure.

any clue to why this keeps happening? are they dry? anything i can do about them? she has really thick nails to begin with and they are longer, but i keep them as short as i feel comfortable cutting. thought about getting one of those drills, but not sure. she's good about trimming nails and stuff like that. she just lays down and looks at you like 'are you done yet?'

any ideas?

You could take her to the vet and have them give her a good trim to get the nails back to where they should be. Then you will know how far to clip them in the future. I had a golden retriever once (miss her greatly) whose nails went straight out. They were black - looked like they had been painted. I was always battling to keep them trimmed.

[chickwhorips]

You could take her to the vet and have them give her a good trim to get the nails back to where they should be.

other problem. no vets here or place to take her to have her nails trimmed.

[DrBee]

I wondered about that. Hmmmm... do you know anyone that is in the know and has the desire to trim the toenails of a giant dog? Gee, I bet there aren't too many groomers around either, eh?

[Lise]

When we lived in Lafayette (Louisiana) after a rain storm we would have big mountains of fireant mounds all over the yard. Some would be over 1ft tall. Yick!

GROSS!!!

(Please post this again in February when I cannot stand living in the frozen north one more day )

I just talked to one of my guy friends who went on his first internet date last night. He's all discouraged...I'm like, WEENIE! One date and you want to quit? No way! Keep going! Really, though, talking to him about don't take it personally, it's not about you helped me feel better.

CWR, sorry about the dog/nail dilemma. Are there any large animal vets up there? Like...horses, polar bears...kidding about the polar bears, but serious otherwise. Bless your pup for being so cooperative. My ex and I had a SharPei (solid muscle), who fought with every ounce of her being when we tried to clip her nails. The cats have gotten more cooperative with old age.

[chickwhorips]

fish - no one that i know of most just let their dogs run around free and nope no groomer.

lise - the closest vet is in town (anchorage, a 2.5 hr flight away) dog or other. though i wouldn't want to attempt to trim a bear's nails. though some of them need them done, don't want to get that close to one! sorry that your friend is having a hard time with the internet dating thing. its hard to find a date no matter what. phew! glad i'm not in that boat anymore.

[Lise]

the closest vet is in town (anchorage, a 2.5 hr flight away) dog or other.

This made me think of ukeliphant's avatar, where she's got her cat in a carrier, strapped to her back, and she's getting on her bike! Hmmm...one of those BOB trailers that Veronica uses...a lot of dog treats...a 2.5 hour flight across the Alaskan bush, that translates to, what, a two week bike trek? Oh, the things we do for the beasts we love.

Seriously, though, I wonder if you could call or email a vet "in town" for their advice. L.

[Lise]

Hang with me, we'll get to the funny part--

In 1995, Chicago had a horrific 5 day heat wave, in which 739 people died. Since then, we've got a lot of safety measures in place for "heat emergencies".

Yesterday a police officer knocked on my friend's door. He told her they were checking on the old lady on the first floor. She wasn't answering her phone, and didn't come to the door. My friend replied, "Of course not! She's dead!" What she meant was, "She died two years ago, and her nephew just won't rent out the apartment." She said the officer clearly thought she meant, "Oh, heck, she succumbed yesterday!"

I do find it comforting to know that they really are going door to door to check on old people.

[Nanci]

I used a dremel tool nail trimmer on all my dogs- it's great. You can get them _so_ short. (Cut that broken one off before she rips it off and causes worse trouble!!) Ok, so get a jar of Qwik Stop powder for when you go too short, then get the dremel tool, and take them down till you can barely see the quick- you should be able to stop before you actually hit it, but if you do, no real damage done, and you can stop the bleeding with the Qwik Stop. You want to be trimming about once a week, but with the tool, it goes fast! Ideally, the nails won't even come _close_ to touching the floor. (I did my dogs twice a week.) Round off the edges. That size dog, you should be able to get the nails down to 1/4" easily. In gradual steps. The quick of the nail will recede the shorter you go.

[DrBee]

Seriously - there's a dremel nail trimmer???? Like a metal nail trimmer? Uhhhh, I'm thinking my dogs would run the other way - real fast! That's just scary.

[DrBee]

Hang with me, we'll get to the funny part--

In 1995, Chicago had a horrific 5 day heat wave, in which 739 people died. Since then, we've got a lot of safety measures in place for "heat emergencies".

Yesterday a police officer knocked on my friend's door. He told her they were checking on the old lady on the first floor. She wasn't answering her phone, and didn't come to the door. My friend replied, "Of course not! She's dead!" What she meant was, "She died two years ago, and her nephew just won't rent out the apartment." She said the officer clearly thought she meant, "Oh, heck, she succumbed yesterday!"

I do find it comforting to know that they really are going door to door to check on old people.

I'd have loved to see the look on the PO's face! Whaaaa? She died?

[Nanci]

Fish, of _course_ the ants on the well were fireants- so I could be bit a bazillion times while trying to erradicate them/fix the pump.

Man those things hurt! I get a reaction to them, but BF swells up in huge pustules where they bite him! Ow!!! Little bastards. I wonder if that word will get bleeped.

[maillotpois]

Chick - I have no helpful information on the dog nail thing (and I think Nanci's already helped) but I have to weigh in on this - OMG what an AMAZING dog combo!!!! That sounds like my DREAM dog!! I had a rottie for 10 years (my soulmate) and always wanted a mastiff.

Have you got a picture???

[DrBee]

Fish, of _course_ the ants on the well were fireants- so I could be bit a bazillion times while trying to erradicate them/fix the pump.

Man those things hurt! I get a reaction to them, but BF swells up in huge pustules where they bite him! Ow!!! Little bastards. I wonder if that word will get bleeped.

I get the more typical reaction - little zit-like things. I wonder if the Allegra would stop that reaction like the mosquito bites? I have managed to avoid fireants for quite a while. Of course - I'll probably get nailed by them tomorrow!


I'm registering FishJr for school tomorrow! Eek! Is she really that old already?

AC's working great - 58F coming out of the vent! Oh my! I might have to make gumbo!