Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Dogs

The Battle of the Fungus

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Yes, I’ve been busy drafting the new Solstice Dragon book, redrafting said book, editing said book, approving covers for the new series, but my biggest endeavor for the last four months has involved FUNGUS. Yes, I know, all caps is screaming.

Cagney before the fungal attack.

Fungus, I say!

It has taken over my sweet companion Cagney since just before Christmas. I could mention how it has kept us from all family visits, but though terribly important and frustratingly heartbreaking, that is a separate issue. (We haven’t see our daughter in six months!)

This is about the Battle of the Fungus.

It started a week before Christmas. That is, we realized there was a problem about a week before Christmas. In retrospect, it had made its advance into our lives at least two weeks prior.

Feral kittens and a curious dog. Need I say more?

Cagney was following the kittens under the house (pier and beam foundation).

I couldn’t find her in the backyard, and she was in such a hurry to get out from under the house and out of trouble with me, that she banged her back against the foundation beam and left a couple scrapes.

I cleaned the cuts with soap and water and thought nothing more of it.

Jump ahead two weeks with a plan to head south to visit the family for Christmas only a couple days in the future. Cagney’s hair is falling out in clumps where the scrapes were.

What the heck!?

It’s Friday evening, of course. We plan to leave Sunday for the trip. The vet is not open until Monday. I leave a message.

We get a return call early Monday, and they squeeze us in for a quick examination.

“Fungus. Your dog has fungus.”

Instructions: shampoo at least twice to three times a week. Keep her area clean, use bleach if possible. Wrap her bed in a sheet and change the sheet regularly. Give her these pills twice a day for 23 days. She should be good in three weeks, though some cases take longer.

Oh, don’t expose her to any animals or people until she is cured. Cured is when little hairs are growing where the skin is bare.

She’s highly contagious — To People and Pets!

No trip south.

Regimen #1

  • Pill morning and night
  • shampoo three times a week (approx. every third day)
  • change sheet same day shampoo
  • vacuum area every other day
  • wipe down area with borax same day as shampoo
  • no petting
  • She’s not allowed to leave her designated area except to go outside
  • escorted outside (no visits under the house allowed)
  • lots of hand washing up to the elbows and wearing gloves when I bathe her

3 weeks: This fails miserably. The fungus is moving from her spine to her shoulders and ribs. She has completed the pills and is nearly out of shampoo.

Back to the vet. They shave her thick coat to about a quarter inch length, which by the way was called “a grooming” and looked like it was done with a hatchet and cost more than any haircut my husband and I have had combined.

I purchased another bottle of vet-recommended shampoo.

Regimen #2 (after the second vet visit and some internet research)

  • shampoo three times a week (approx. every third day)
  • change sheet same day shampoo
  • vacuum area every other day
  • wipe down area with borax same day as shampoo
  • no petting
  • she’s moved to a back hall 5×9.
  • I wipe down walls, floors with borax
  • escort outside
  • I purchase more shampoo (brand I found at Walmart) along with a spray anticeptic/antifungal for between baths
  • Purchase and install child gate for hall
  • spray her spots with anticeptic/anti-fungal spray on days between shampoos
  • hand washing like a crazy woman

She gets worse. Shoulders, neck, flanks, rear, belly and armpits are now infected.

Colors here are slightly intensified so you can see where the fungus is. It isn’t black looking like it shows here.

I do further internet research, more thorough and highly motivated. We have now gone three months since the initial outbreak.

I learn the following:

  • This can take up to six months to eradicate
  • shampoos must contain Ketoconazole (1%) & Chlorhexidine (2%) (the brand we’re using has lower percentages of the medicine)
  • area must be cleaned daily (bleach recommended)
  • start with shampooing every day first week
  • medicine (pills) should be taken for at least six weeks (not 23 days!)
  • dogs with longer hair should be shaved at once
  • change bedding every day
  • fungus is carried in the fallen hair shaft
  • pets often reinfect by rubbing furniture, food bowls, etc.)

Regimen #3

  • shampoo every other day
  • change sheet every day (wash and dry on allergy mode)
  • vacuum every other day (she’s barely losing hair)
  • wipe down area (floor, walls and gate) with Clorox bleach wipes
  • spray with antiseptic/anti-fungal on day not shampooing
  • vacuum on bath day: walls, floor, and bed beneath sheet
  • purchase dog trimmer and shave her down to a quarter inch, maintain as needed. Clean shaver with soap and water (Can’t use stronger disinfectants on the working parts.)
  • disinfect bowl and cone of shame (she has other issues) with bleach wipes every other day
  • escort for outside breaks
  • I’m a hand-washing maniac

She’s no better, but she’s no worse after two weeks. Maybe I see improvement in some areas. But there’s two spots which just won’t improve.

What am I doing wrong?!

I have this friend at school with whom I chat once a week about our dogs. She’s been in on this debacle since the beginning. We rehash everything that has happened since day one. We’re both feeling a bit frosty about my vet.

I mention how we had to wait an extra hour to pick Cagney up after her shaving because she had to be blow dried.

We both scream at the same time. BLOW DRIED!

That night I blow dry Cagney after her Monday bath.

It takes an hour and a half! I have grading up the yin yang to do, and I’m about to cry. But I blow dry her with my pink Conair on warm, high speed. Neither of us are enjoying the process.

By the way, I can crouch now for at least an hour without my legs cramping. Just sayin’.

Add blow drying to regimen #3.

By Friday she looks less raw.

By the next week (last week) she has baby hairs growing.

I shave her again. So much easier to shampoo and blow dry.

This picture was taken today. The spots are visible, though blurred. That’s the hair that is coming in making them look less defined. This picture is an accurate match to her colors.

Pink skin is showing in most areas, though there is some dark pigmentation. It will hopefully fade. Her ears have always been that color. 🙂 The fungus never traveled beyond the bend in her neck.

Today is bath day. It will take about two hours from start to finish. Maybe three weeks from now she’ll get to roam the house again and wait at the sliding glass door to greet us when we come home.

I really miss seeing her there perked up and pleased as all getout to have us home.

We threw out all her beds except the rectangular flat one because its easy to wrap in a sheet and was cleanable. I can’t wait to buy her a new comfy bed for the kitchen and another one for my office.

I’ll post an update when she’s cured. I hope this is useful for anyone else dealing with a pet with fungus.

UPDATE: She is still dealing with fungus. We did have one three-week period fungus free, but then her feet became infected. May 2020

UPDATE: Feet recovering, inner ears now involved. Aug. 2020

UPDATE: Feet had a relapse. Bleach water bathing of each foot, ear drops, pills, more baths, deep sanitation of the back hall, and…..drumroll……….She is fungus free! Sept. 2020.

Thousands of baths, clean sheets, and ten months.

UPDATE: Belly, right side of face and flanks now spotted with fungus. October 1, 2020. We went four weeks fungus free. That is our current record since December 2019.

She left, and I’m left behind.

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I hadn’t thought I would write about this, but I have written about my dogs in posts before as metaphors for writing and life in general. So this is about Lacey who left us recently.

She was strong, energetic, cheerful, loving, and we thought she was going to be around for years yet. A perpetual puppy.

She left us last week. It was sudden.

Lacey

Those words don’t cover the loss. Lacey ceased to be in our house. She doesn’t greet me each morning at the bottom of the stares. She doesn’t watch me from her bed look ridiculous going up and down the same two steps for five minutes. (Part of my exercise routine, separate from my walk in the backyard several times a day to keep the two girls out of trouble which she considered a perfectly normal and appropriate activity for me.)

We have a back hall in our old house. A narrow, nine feet of hallway to the back door. We make our girls wait on the rug there a few minutes when their feet are wet before they can come into the main house.

Sometimes we forget they’re waiting. Or they think we do.

Lacey has (sorry had) this crazy rumble in her throat, like she’s gargling, when she wanted to be released from the back hall, when she thought we might have forgotten after the first twenty seconds of her wait. She’d peek around the corner of the doorway and rumble/gargle, gurgle, what have you.

It always made me laugh and was far from getting me to release her because it was such a soft, grumbly sound, too enjoyable to listen to.

She didn’t like to bark. Strange, I know. A dog that is embarrassed to bark. But she didn’t like it. So when she wanted to go outside for, you know, the necessary stuff, she’d sort of dance and hop around in the back hall. My office is just past that hallway. I would hear her prancing and hopping.

She’s a Labrador, seriously. Cagney barks. Lacey would prance.

Of course, I would ask as if it was all a mystery to me, “Whatcha doing there?” She’d jump and prance some more.

So I’d head for the hall, stand there at the end and ask again. “Whatcha doing there?” And she’d do that chest to the floor thing and leap into the air. I’d ask, “Do you want to go out?” And she’d leap even higher.

She’s not here to do that anymore.

I don’t like that.

I miss her.

Lacey wasn’t the most confident dog. She tended to skate on linoleum floors like she was on ice, her toes curled so her nails were the only thing in contact with the smooth floor. Veterinary offices always have linoleum. Have you ever seen a Labrador sprawl, all four legs sliding out from under her, repeatedly, with no sense of why it is happening to her?

Cagney would look at her like she was too embarrassing to acknowledge they lived in the same house and trotted the same backyard.

Lacey had all the gumption she needed to take on a stranger or another big dog, but otherwise, she was always in need of attention. She would fall in love with a perfect stranger if they would just rub her ears. She once looked like she was going to take out the kennel lady. (We had to leave town, and the girls couldn’t join us.) I told the woman to rub her ears. They’d be fine.

I just had to say that I miss Lacey. I can’t hear her grumble/gurgle anymore.

I wish I could.

Non-writing life: Includes dogs

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Photo by Mitchell Orr on Unsplash

I mentioned in a previous post that my dogs have been keeping me rather busy. I thought I would post about that now because when I learn something new that brings about positive results in my life and those I care about I want to share it with others.

I have two Labradors, great girls who add joy to my life. One of my girls, Cagney has always suffered from skin allergies. We’ve managed to keep the allergies at a low itch and she’s been very positive about the whole experience. Each night I say, “Time for medicine,” and she trots over and sits down knowing I’m going to put a nasty tasting Claritin tablet in her mouth. Yuck! She takes it then runs for the water bowl to get the taste out of her mouth.

Some years ago (25+) I had another Labrador that used to suffer from colds on a regular basis. I started giving her a nightly chewable vitamin C. She thought it was a treat and loved them. But the best part was she stopped getting colds. Jump forward again and earlier this year I think, okay why not give Cagney Vitamin C as well. So I started that regimen (follows the Claritin tablet and much tastier). Result: less ear infections and less need to respond to indications of an ear infection starting. Allergies in low itch mode. (For those wondering about eliminating the allergy altogether: non-allergy food provided and out-door activity limited to no more than ten minutes as needed is already in the mix.)

Months pass, and suddenly Cagney is overwhelmed with allergies. She can’t walk two steps without one leg or the other trying to scratch and itch. Her belly is a mass of pink dots and redness. We can barely touch her without causing legs to go into itch mode. Her hair is falling out and she has black crusty stuff oozing out her flanks. I add Benadryl to the mix (used to work well as a morning allergy pill before the vitamin C was added). No results. She is miserable. We take both girls in to the vet for yearly shots and discuss this new development.

Result: allergy shot, allergy pills to control the issue until more long-term means take affect. Long-term means: a chewable gelcap of Omega-3 fatty acid, and apple cider vinegar. It’s been three weeks: hair is nearly all grown back, pink spots are gone, redness is gone, itching is gone, most of the crusty sebum (black ooze) is gone, and Cagney is comfortable again.

You might wonder what the apple cider vinegar was for. I put it in a spray bottle and I spray all the little skin irritations and such. This includes spaying her feet which have had a purple cast to them since she licks them due to the inching which causes a yeast infection which turns the fur around the feet purple. The color of her feet is now nearly normal, no more licking. The only downside to this is my house smells like I’m pickling something. I am. I pickle my dogs regularly.

Bonus: Lacey’s dandruff is nearly gone. She’s had dandruff all her life. Otherwise, she never has an issue, and both dogs are shedding far less.

Final allergy regimen for Cagney: one gel cap Omega-3 fatty acid, one Claritin, one chewable 500MG vitamin C, daily sprays of apple cider vinegar where needed and lots of love.

#dogs
#canineallergies

Why My Yellow Dog Winks

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Sorry, she doesn’t wink on command.

First off, she’s not really yellow. She is a yellow lab who is real-butter pale. But she does wink, and it appears to be deliberate.

Reasons she winks

  1. Cagney is the reincarnation of my dad who was a winker. Sure, I have proof. When she is very happy, she sways side to side when she does her hurried, happy walk. So did my dad. Over time, I came to grow on her. Same with my dad. By the time I was an adult, he was pretty pleased he was my father. Cagney decided I belonged to her when she turned five. She does not take instruction well. He was a died-in-the-wool dedicated self-teacher. She looks at me like she knows everything, and I’m just catching up. Yeah, she’s my dad.
  2. First day she came home, she was nine weeks old. We were teaching her to wait on the rug by the door while her feet dried. I said, “Stay. I’ll let you off when your feet are dry.” She winked (“I got this”). She was house trained in three weeks.
  3. Today, I let her in. “All you have to do is sit there for one minute (I raised my index finger). Just one minute.” She winked.
  4. I tell a joke to my daughter, turn to Cagney and she winks. She got the joke. 
  5. There is a tiny puddle of clear water on the floor. I ask Cagney and Lacey (chocolate lab),”Who drank too much water out of the water bowl?” Cagney winks. Yeah, she’s so funny. She’s not cleaning it up.
  6. It’s late, I’ve been furiously writing. Cagney is half on her bed and half off. She looks like she’s so tired she couldn’t get on the bed all the way. I say, “So who’s ready for bed?” She winks. She thinks I’m so funny.
  7. She sneaks off the backdoor rug leaving four muddy prints before I catch her. “Now I have to wash the floor.” She winks. I look around. The whole floor could use a mopping.
  8. She’s been out recently but is giving me the squint eye. “You want to go out?” She winks. “Aw, not a necessity, a desire.” She plays tennis-ball keep-away with Lacey until they are both so overheated they can barely walk three steps without laying down. “You ready to come in?” She has just enough energy to wink.
  9. Our two dogs are laying in their usual yin yang formation. They’re facing each other. Lacey is intently staring at Cagney, both sets of ears are perked forward. Cagney winks. Lacey leaps into the air and attacks Cagney’s pale white throat. Lacey’s lips are drawn tightly over her teeth. My pale yellow dog rolls over while being mauled and looks at me. Yup, then she winks.

Writing metaphor: two dogs, shedding a little of the dark and the light

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Two sides to writing

It is Wednesday evening and for two days running I have not been writing on my #wip. Arggg! I even am a bit late on my blog. Not good.

So what is the status on Book 4 of Students of Jump you ask. Well, so far it is the longest book I’ve written, coming in at just a bit under 100,000 words.  Besides watching out for typos and diction errors, I’ve been adding a scene here and a scene there. My fabulous beta readers, friends and fellow writers Marcy Peska and L. A. Hilden have pointed out some issues and areas for expansion and those have been keeping me quite busy this month. (By the way, all my books are available at Smashwords, Amazon, Kobo and other fine ebook retailers.)

I have been busily writing and content editing. Until yesterday. Family stuff, a bit of Trivia Crack and dog maintenance. Let’s deviate off the path of wherever I was going and focus on dog maintenance a moment. I have two Labradors, lovely ladies. We call them the bookends because they tend to take positions right next to each other and either mirror each other or lay identically. Of course, one is a chocolate and the other a yellow so they are always opposites in one way. The yellow sheds year round, while the chocolate sheds twice a year.

Consider this: they are both Labrador retrievers, not quite a year apart in age and they live in the same air conditioned residence. Yet, when I brush Cagney, the yellow, I am left with enough hair to cover a whole other dog. Lacey, however, produces about half a tennis ball size of hair fluff, unless it is the start of spring or early fall when she drops considerably more. After an hour of brushing Cagney, I simply give out. If I keep brushing, she just keeps letting go of hair. I look her over, and other than looking sleeker, she’s still well favored in soft yellow hair.  Do you remember those dolls that had hair that you could pull out of the top of their heads or roll it back in by pressing a button at the center of her back? I had one of those, still do in a cedar trunk. Cagney is like that. No, no buttons, but it sure seems like there is an unlimited supply sprouting from her skin, perhaps brush activated.

Where am I going with this? Well, I will admit, I had no idea at first. But something came to mind, just now as a matter of fact. Here it is. Sometimes writing is like this. There are days when I am a Cagney and the keys just keep activating my word production and other days I wonder if I am trying to write in the wrong season. See Cagney is the lots of words day and Lacey is the drought day. And if you think about it, they are the same but opposite too. At the end of the day, something was written. Good/bad, a lot/a little, brutal/effortless, willingly/forced, ears back/ears forward, mouth open and panting/mouth clamped shut.  Writing is like having two dogs, same breed, but different.

It was a struggle, I know, but I found a connection. I challenge you to write about something that enters your mind and show how it is an metaphor for an activity you love. It need not be writing. But if you got to the bottom of this twisted doggy run, you are probably a writer, or at least a reader. Thank heaven you exist.

#writing
#creativity
#dogs

When a light colored dog in the dark is much like an idea and a plan

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writing metaphor: moving through the living room at night

Ever walked through your house in the dark, nothing but shadows and memory to go on? I did this last night and though I know where everything lies, I also know that furniture shifts about through use, and occasional gnawed Nylabones will be just where I want to place a bare foot.

So last night, fully aware of the obstacles, I negotiated the stairs in the dark and perceived my yellow Lab Cagney at the bottom step quite pleased to see me. I was happy to see her because even in the dark she is pretty visible. I told her to go on ahead of me, and I just followed her yellow smudge through the living room, around two chairs, a freestanding table, a footstool, a vacuum and any dog bones she or our other Lab had left behind. From there I entered the back hall, then into the kitchen. She received a bowl of water and her allergy medicine, and I confirmed my daughter did in fact lock the back door.

So back to bed feeling secure and no bruised shins or jambed toes.

The point: writing is like this especially if you have done some planning or know the plot points you want to cover. 

  • down the stairs: initial planning steps to the writing process
  • Cagney, my guide: the overall idea
  • bones: interference, slow downs, painful backing up and cutting
  • moved furniture: characters with something to say or do and the unexpected changes in the process of getting from A to B that seemed so simple until the writing actually begins.
  • water bowl and allergy medicine: additional actions that get you to the writing goal, such as  beta readers, redrafting, cover design, formatting
  • returning to the living room, past its obstacles and back up the stairs: publication, advertising, blurbs, tweeting
  • crawling back into bed: done and ready to dream up another idea

So climbing out of a warm bed on a very cold night to check the back door was locked and give my dog her Claritin is a metaphor for the writing process. I could have gotten to my goal without Cagney, but I would have stumbled a lot, cursed over a biting bone or two poking into my arch with my full weight pressing it in before I could pull back, and with three doorways to get though, I would likely have banged at least one shoulder against a doorjamb. And that too is much like writing without a plan or intention to my writing.

Of course, there are many times when like my story (as is currently the case), Cagney has other plans then to get me to the back door. She’d rather hangout by the gas stove or on her bed staying warm, just as my hoped for scenes to close out a story keep generating new issues that need to be covered before the end I thought was in sight actually channels out my fingers.

If you liked this post, tweet it, and follow me. I’m bound to find another metaphor about writing and dogs. They are a large part of my life.

#writing
#metaphors