Tuna, predictably, was lovely to the vet, let his blood be taken, sat like a rock for vaccines, and has normal bloodwork.

I would take a pic of Oliver for you but I have no clue where he is. He is hiding. Oliver is allergic to life. He is allergic to cedar, he is allergic to Texas, he is allergic to food additives commonly found in cat food. He has constant nasal discharge, which means he sneezes a lot, he rips his hair out, which I clean daily, and he can only eat Royal Canin Sensitive Stomach food, because everything else he throws up.

Oliver will not eat special cat treats, tuna out of the can, or vet cat bribe treats. Only Royal Canin. That’s it. Also, he loves Meow Mix kibble, which he cannot have, because he regurgitates it right back out.

Oliver is also the reason why I have furniture covers on everything. Not only that, I have doubles, so I can swap them when company is coming. I cannot stand pet hair on furniture. It drives me up the wall so I religiously clean it with a special tool.

Oliver hid in the carrier at the vet, had to be forcibly removed, and they could not draw blood even after putting him into the kitty bag. We had to leave him at the vet so they could sedate him with gabapentin. Finally, blood was drawn and the results have come back. He has IBD, Inflammatory Bowel Disorder, which we already suspected. He also has a UTI. We picked up an antibiotic for him, which we have to squirt into his mouth twice a day.

Oliver fights for his life every time we wrap him in a blanket to give him medicine. Every time that happens, he truly believes that we will murder him. Given a chance, he will claw you bloody and bite, and I just wish there was some way to make it less alarming for him, but there is not. So now, when he sees either of us, he runs and hides.

::exhales:: Oliver is a lot. He is now classified as elderly and he doesn’t react well to change. He is a sweet, clingy kitty, and I was the one who took him out of a cage in PetSmart, so he will have a home with us for the rest of his days.

Also a lizard got inside two days ago. Charlie killed it – we know this because he brought us the still twitching tail – which we confiscated. We looked for it at the time but couldn’t find it.

We found it this morning, safely tucked under a large dog pillow. It had begun to rot and it stank. I’m washing the pillow cover and contemplating if I should give up and throw the whole pillow out.

I’m supposed to be writing today, and I’m not feeling it. But I really want to get this novella done before the end of the month.

::pretends to gird loins::

Don’t write, don’t eat. Onward! To cleaning cat hair, putting pillow cover in the dryer, and then writing like the wind.

The post The Struggle Is Real first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Sookie, the old bulldog, has to have canned dog food in the wake of her surgery so her mouth can recover. She absolutely loves it. She gobbles it up, and then we suffer.

Yesterday, as I was trying to catch up on a novella we are working on, because we need another release this year, Sookie was in a rare form even for her. It went somewhat like this:

The cave passage stretched in front of me, a narrow tunnel painted with bioluminescent swirls of strange vegetation. It split about twenty yards ahead, with one end of it curving to the right and the other cutting straight into the gloom. 

Fart,

The pale green and pink radiance of the foreign fungi and lichens didn’t illuminate the darkness, but made it seem even deeper.

A cold draft flowed from the tunnel, bringing with it an odd acrid stench.

Fart.

Bear whined softly by my side. Whining seemed entirely appropriate. I didn’t want to go into that darkness either.

Fart.

“We don’t have a choice,” I told the dog.

Something rustled in the darkness, a strange whispering sound.

Faaaaaart!

Bear hid behind me.

“Some attack dog you are.”

Fart, fart, faaaart.

I posted about my woes on Facebook, because I wanted to share the glamor. This morning, Facebook delivered this gem to me.

We knew she was a special dog, but we had no idea that her gas troubles were high quality content. We feel so privileged to share it with you.

The post Quality Content first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Before I tell you this story, I will say that everything ends happily.

Sookie is our elderly Ye Olde English Bulldogge, otherwise knows as the orc dog. She is beauty, she is grace, how can you not love that face?

She is going on 13 years old. Her hips and her knees have arthritis. She moves around solely because of the steady regimen of fivovet, gabapentin, and osti, a joint supplement, which Gordon administers to her every morning via a hot dog. We started her on smoked sausage at first, because Sookie, despite eating rocks and random crap, is a master of spitting the pills out. Hiding them first in her favorite sausage and then in hot dogs is the only way we can get her to take it without shoving a hand down her throat. The morning pill ritual became known as sausage time. Occasionally Sookie will drag herself into the kitchen and sit because it’s sausage time and she would like her treat, please.

Several days ago, I woke up at 4:30 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. After rolling around for a while, I checked my phone and it was a good thing I did, because Kid 2’s house had sprung a leak and she was in a panic. That’s a fun story for another time, but to summarize, it turned out that a 2×4 fell because of a faulty nail and dented her AC pan. It ended happily, but threw me into a sleep deficit for a few days.

A couple of days later, I wake up in the middle of the night again. I check the clock. 4:30 am. What is it about the 4:30? I hear a choking sound, which, as any dog owner will tell you, is code for get up and let your dog outside. I open the primary bedroom’s door, let Sookie out, and flick on the lights, resigning myself to cleaning up some dog vomit.

Blood. It’s like a crime scene from a gory police procedural. There is blood on the floor, blood on her pillow, blood, blood, everywhere is blood.

OMG, our old dog is dying.

The other two dogs are like, “Hey, there is blood. How cool.”

I check on Sookie. She is standing in the yard in the dark. I grab peroxide, drown the worst of the blood on the floor – yay, tile, mop it up with paper towels, so no cats or dogs decide to taste it. Then I wake up Gordon, tell him there is blood, and then we both go to get Sookie in.

Sookie walks very slowly because of her arthritis, so it takes awhile. Finally we bring her in and she takes two steps inside the house and collapses. Her paws are bloody, her chin is bloody, everywhere is bloody. I’m sitting on the floor, with peroxide and paper, my hands in latex gloves, and frantically trying to clean her up to see if it’s a wound of some kind.

There is no wound. The blood is coming from her mouth. It must be internal bleeding.

By now it’s past 5:00 am. The only emergency vet in range is on the other side of New Braunfels. It will take almost an hour to get there, and when we do get there, we will have a long wait. She is 80 lbs of dead weight and Gordon, who normally would pick her up and carry her, can’t do it because of his shoulder.

I’m crying because the dog is dying. Cleaning and crying and cleaning and…

Sookie sighs, gets up, and goes to the kitchen to drink water.

We watch her drink and then she sits by the island.

Sookie: Sausage time?

Us: WTF.

Gordon gets a chunk of chicken and tosses it to her. She snaps it out of the air and eats it.

Clearly the news of her demise was greatly exaggerated.

We decide to wait for our regular vet to open. There is no point in going to the New Braunfels vet, because not only will it take forever to get down there with traffic, but she took food and water which means she will be triaged to the middle of the line, so dogs hit by cars and bitten by rattlesnakes can get life-saving care.

Our vet opens at 7:00 am, I call them, they get us in first thing in the morning.

Sookie has infected teeth. There must’ve been an abscess. It ruptured. How did a cup and a half of blood come out of it, I have no idea, but that was the answer.

Sookie was scheduled for the dental surgery. This was very stressful all around. We weren’t sure if she would come through the surgery okay because of her age, but her quality of life was a factor and unchecked tooth decay can lead to gum disease and jaw infections. Cue a week of tense waiting.

She had the surgery yesterday. 13 extractions and almost $3,000 later, here she is back to living her best life on her pillow.

She is very mad at us. She occasionally groans, and right now she is not in the study with us because she chose to lay in the living room by her lonesome. However, she took soft food and water today so we are on the road to recovery.

In other good news, the final edit of This Kingdom was accepted and we are off to the copyedit. Much rejoicing all around.

Here is hoping for a few days of not waking up at 4:30 am because of some crisis.

The post The Story of Orc Dog first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

Having finished the final pass at Maggie on Thursday, I took the weekend off to play Satisfactory, an old favorite game. I had my phone on silent while playing. I walked away to get some evening decaff and when I came back, I saw Kid 2 called. I checked the family group chat.

Kid 2 is in grey and Kid 1 is in green.

Something Bad happened.

How it started:

How it was going:

How it ended up:

Jeaniene, if you are reading this, no, we did not keep the puppy. Stop laughing.

The backstory: Kid 2 went to a gas station. It was very cold by Texas standards and as she exited the car, a young dog ran up to her. He was very thin and very friendly. Given that she has two giant German Shepherds, she wasn’t sure what to do, so she went to buy some dog food at the gas station.

She bought the food, then realized that she didn’t have a can opener. She went to her car to get her knife with a can opener out, and the puppy, who by that point figured her out, jumped into the car.

The puppy was taken home, fed, watered, and his portrait was posted on every local Lost and Found Dog page and group. He is actually a puppy – he still has milk teeth. Kid 2 quickly found out that this guy is a part of a larger litter, that was had by a feral mama dog at the junkyard. During New Year fireworks, some puppies got scared and scattered, and not all of them were able to find their way back.

Notice how interesting he looks? Seems a little odd. No forehead ridge – an eyebrow muscle seems to be missing. This one is still a puppy, but you can see how his head is about as wide as his chest. And his ears are trying to stand up.

That is an American Dingo.

Dingos are typically associated with Australia, but US has them too, specifically in the South. They are often called Carolina Dogs, and they are genetically distinct from the common domestic dog breeds. American kennel clubs recognize them as a rare ancient breed. They are typically found feral in the wild. One of this guy’s siblings had been caught and taken to the vet, where his origin was confirmed.

Some fun facts about American Dingos:

• Excellent diggers
• Webbed feet
• Very pack-oriented
• Very good hunters
• Incredibly sweet
• Cute eyeliner of black skin around the eyes
• Fish-hook tail

I’ve never seen one caught running wild that was so on point for the breed. They are not common to our area, so his mother might have been someone’s pet. When this little guy grows into his big paws, he will look like this.

This guy was adorable, but because of the two shepherds, Kid 2 had to find a home ASAP, and one of her neighbors, a very nice lady named Debby about my age, took him home. He is out of the cold, fed, watered, and I have a feeling he will be very loved. Many thanks to Debby.

Kid 2 has notified animal control of the junkyard location, so if you are in Austin area and are looking to add a dingo to your household, keep an eye on San Marcos Animal Shelter.

To learn more about Carolina Dogs, click here.

If Kid 2 finds another one, I am taking it. I need that much canine love in my life. That’s all there is to it.

The post Call Mom first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.