This Dog

a haiku for my Siena

rebellious red dog

stolen pacis need rinsing

Moscow is still cold

Siena sunbathing in our Moscow kitchen.

Does this look like a dog who feverishly gobbles up a pile of cat poop during her morning potty break?

Does this look like a dog who leaps up onto the guest bed in order to reach into her human baby brother's crib and snatch his favorite pacifier?

Does this look like a dog who howls at her mama in defiance and frustration when she's not getting enough attention?

Sigh.

Still the Pill

Siena strikes again

Earlier this week we had a bang-up day for Siena and stealing food. She is SO darn fast and SO quiet!

She gobbled up the following:
1) a partially eaten sliced pear right off the kitchen table. To be fair, I had left the room;
2) the top slice of bread from my uneaten sandwich. This one, I was nearby but apparently not close enough!

All within a couple hours time. Afterwards, she didn't even look remotely repentant. Cute, yes; remorse, no!

Later the same day, after she'd already been served HER dinner, she proceeded to make a grab for our dinner while Scott was feeding Beau a bottle and I was washing my hands.

You'd think we never feed the animal!

Another Siena Update

Our girl is back in fighting shape! Siena got a clean bill of health from her last urine analysis, hooray!! The vet said she still has to stay on the special expensive food for 4 months. But that's ok; she's worth it. :)

Such a spoiled puppy...

Resting comfortably in an "illegal parking space" on the couch. Totally busted!!

Pee on a plate part 3

The things I do for my sweet Siena. Collected her urine again this morning. I'm getting pretty good at the ahem, maneuver, at this point. Not something to put on the resume, unfortunately.

Crossing fingers for a clean report this time. 

"Veterinaria Clinic 'Movet'"

Pee on a plate part 2

This has really been a busy week for Siena. I used to think she was low maintenance!

Yesterday I brought another urine sample to the lab using my patented "plate collection" method (see previous post on this topic). Prior to the holidays they said we needed to retest for crystals to see if the medicine and new food are working.

My only observation this time around is that the vet clinic / lab where I went looks exactly how I envisioned a Russian [people] hospitals would look: cold, crumbling and not necessarily all that sterile. The people clinic that I go to is not at all like this, thankfully! And this vet was quite busy; I even saw two Goldens in the waiting room so they must be legit. The building is just kind of sad and worn out looking.  

This is the door to the lab: "laboratoria" is what the sign under the 7 says. 

Clearly they're not spending rubles on decor. The good news is it's only $10 for a urine culture. Unheard of in the States!

Cross your fingers that the results come back clean and that we don't need to continue the special, expensive urinary tract food and more importantly, that we don't need another ultrasound or more medication!

Snowy walk

We got about 4 inches of snow today. Siena LOVES it and actually it's much easier to clean her up after a walk in the snow vs rain or even just normal dirty Moscow. 

The bad part is I don't feel comfortable walking with her AND Beau together in Moscow -- too slippery right now and even without the ice/snow, it's too hard to navigate the big curbs and rough sidewalks. 

Makes me sad if I think about it too much because in my mind, once I finally had my baby and my dog together, I'd pictured myself as this hip, urban mom, getting my exercise and fresh air through my daily dog+baby walks. I saw myself striding along in my yoga pants with the dog on one side and the baby all snug and tucked away in his stroller.

Never mind all that. It is really more  about survival and just making sure Siena doesn't go stir crazy. I should be grateful I have a babysitter so I can leave Beau with her and still take Siena out. Period, end of story. 

P.S. Here's what happens in Moscow when there's a little space between cars but not enough to fit a full car. Just park on the sidewalk!

Siena's tail

Siena has started using it again! Very, very selectively, but the curve and perk are there. Such a relief to see even a few flaps of that happy-girl wag!!

Yeah!!

I'm so so relieved. 

In the belly of the whale

Chewed up by a whale and waiting to be spit out. That's how my friend M (a former expat herself, who knows about the trailing spouse life overseas) described it. And it's exactly how I feel right now, from the travel, the jet lag and new unwelcome stress.

Siena came back from the "farm" as we call it (where she boards when we're away) with a weird kink in her tail and now it won't go UP at all. She can still wag it, but it just hangs straight down, limp, and sways side to side. Not vigorous and perky like she usually is. It's so sad to see, my poor sweet dog!

I made Scott leave work and come with me, Siena and Beau to the emergency vet -- for crying out loud, a BROKEN TAIL IS an emergency if you ask me!

At the vet they weren't very definitive but said it wasn't very painful (though I disagree because she won't let me near it) and that it is either clogged anal glands (soo gross) or "trauma to the region" (and then they had me hold her still while they did a rectal exam to see if the poor girl had been "ruptured," which she hadn't, thank god). The whole thing was rather barbaric and Siena looked so uncomfortable and sad during the exam. :-(

We left the vet and Scott later tells me that we "wasted" his afternoon. 

But really. would your beautiful animal come back from boarding with a broken tail in the USA? I think not. And if anything did happen, wouldn't they call you right away and tell you they noticed it and had already taken her to the vet to get it checked?? Yes. When we called the farm they had no idea what we were talking about. Of course. 

Anyway, now we have to wait a few days and if it's still limp, we go back to the vet for more tests or pills or something. I know it could have been much, much worse, but honestly, we are still dealing with the urine crystals from before xmas and we have baby jetlag and our own jetlag going on in this household. Enough already!! Can we please get a break???

Poor Siena. She doesn't look like my same puppy dog without her trademark tail wag! I feel so guilty for leaving her. I know it could have happened anywhere but it feels so much worse here. 

Went to bed around 8:30 pm last night, an all time EARLY for me after such a traumatizing day. Thankfully Scott got up with B from 10-12ish? I think...now I've been up with him for feeding etc since 2:30 am but it's actually more tolerable if you go to bed super early. That assumes you have someone else to get up at the half way mark and your child already sleeps 4 hours at some point in the night.  

Ha, only took me 5.5 months and a dog with a malfunctioning tail to figure that out. Way to be a slow learner, CB. Belly of the whale, belly of the whale.

Siena update

We had the ultrasound today and there were no polyps, yay! So no surgery needed. They saw "crystals" in her bladder so she is going to take a week of antibiotics and some other anti-spasm medicines AND they want us to change her food for 2 months. 

But no surgery is huge! I was so worried. Now we can leave the country with more peace of mind. I also think she will be feeling some relief from the infection / crystals soon so that is good too. Hooray!

My fur baby is sick. :(

My poor Siena-girl. She has a bladder infection. No idea where she picked it up, but Moscow is very dirty and they are putting chemicals down now all over the street to force the ice and snow to melt. She also had a couple accidents in the apartment on Sunday (which is VERY rare for her) and yesterday there was some blood in her pee. :(  

So yesterday I had to collect her pee to get analyzed at a lab. How do you collect pee from a dog, you're wondering?

Basically you scoot a salad plate underneath her rear right when she squats to go. Then pour whatever you capture on the plate into a plastic container and hope you got enough and that it's not contaminated. I did get some on my hand during the process, which was gross, but not horrible...and as Scott said, "urine is sterile!" Haha. Says the guy who doesn't have to do the collecting!

The analysis came back and the numbers indicated that she has stones and crystals in(?) her bladder, which cause irritation and inflammation, resulting in much more frequent need to go, uncomfortableness and some blood coming out whenever she goes. Poor thing, I wish I could make her feel better! When I take her out now, she pees like 4 times during the walk and still doesn't seem to get any relief.

So today the vet said we need to get an ultrasound to check that there aren't any polyps in there too. Not sure what they do if there are polyps, but we'll cross that bridge if we need to. So instead of packing tomorrow afternoon I'll be going to a dog ultrasound appointment. In Moscow. The only upside of having this problem here is that it's probably cheaper here than in the US because the "pet industry" isn't regulated here. :-/

We are leaving on Saturday for the US, so I really hope we can sort this out and have her on the mend before we go!

Good news and bad news

I'll start with the bad and just get it out of the way. 

Yesterday I made a stir fry for dinner, which is one of my go-to dinners. Fail-safe most of the time.

The plan was to get chicken, but at the last minute I saw a package of beef all cut up and perfect-like for a stir fry, so I went for it. Mind you, I had no idea what the label said (of course it was in Russian, and I didn't recognize any of the words), but I knew it was definitely beef because it was in the section with the little cow. :) So how bad could it be?

So here's what my stir fry looked like. Not bad.

And my sauce smelled great: fresh garlic, ginger, onions.

That's where things went downhill. The meat was SO tough. Scott and I were chew-chew-chewing each bite and the whole thing was very unsatisfying!! All that chopping and marinating for nothing. Should have gone with the chicken. Boo. :(

Score, to date...
Moscow: 25,001 CB: 0

Okay, now on to the good! This one was a HUGE SCORE for Miss Siena!

There's a school behind our apartment building and they have this sport court (rectangular and self-contained, a little smaller than a tennis court). It's got 4 walls and seems very secure (ie no openings for someone to squeeze her little body through) and looks absolutely perfect for, yep, you guessed it, ball-throwing and running and general dog romping fun stuff. Whenever I'd considered it before, it appeared to be all locked up. Well yesterday I took a closer look at the gate and while there was in fact a padlock, it wasn't actually locked! Woohoo!

Here's her majesty's first freedom run (video) in our new "dog park." Such joy, this little dog has for living. 

And here's another fun video (longer). This sweet girl always cheers me right up.

Updated score, to date...
Moscow: 25,001 CB (and Siena): 2

Siena, the Pill of Apartment 44

I had no idea what a smart and opportunistic dog we had until my mom came to stay with us! In the past 10 days Siena has managed to steal the following from the kitchen table and counters:

-- half a small loaf of bread

-- 2 large pieces of cheese

-- 1 big rugalach cookie from Zabar's that was hand-carried to Moscow all the way from NYC

-- 2 small Russian meat pies (partially eaten)

-- 3 semi-cooked pork sausages
-- countless socks and several shoes from the floor and laundry bin in mom's room

This fantastic pill of a dog figured out that mom was making all sorts of delicious things in the kitchen and stuck real close by, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. And because mom was multi-tasking between taking care of Beau and cooking (giving me a break because of Beau's horrible jetlag) there were lots of opportunities.

This would all be marginally funny except that:

• we wanted to eat those things ourselves;
• it's enough of a hassle to get good food in Moscow without having to worry about your dog stealing it;
• the fact that it hasn't happened to us before now embarrassingly highlights how little cooking I've been doing (sigh. oh well.)...and;
• we live on the 8th floor, so the, ahem, 'side effects' of eating all that people food are kind of a pain in the neck for those of us who have to take Ms. S outside to do her business!!

Needless to say, Siena has lost all her kitchen privileges and her food / water dishes have been moved to the living room so she has no excuse for hanging out in the kitchen.

Done and done.

We did it!

Well, we officially made it back to Moscow! Our beautiful baby Beau was born July 25, 2013 at 4:41 am and Scott and I feel so very proud and lucky to be his parents. 

WELCOME BEAU!

So I just can't stop thinking to myself and smiling: "We did it!" 

What exactly did we do? A LOT.

1. I had an easy and uneventful pregnancy, despite dividing the trimesters between California, South Africa and Russia. Phew!

~35 weeks pregnant in Palo Alto

 
2. Scott made it to the States in time to witness the entire 22.5 hours of labor (ugh!) and cesarean delivery. Love that man so much!!

First family portraits.

3. 11 weeks postpartum, my heroic mom and I packed and checked 4 giant suitcases + car seat + jumbo stroller bag and boarded a plane from SFO --> NYC for Matt and Beth's wedding (yay, Matt and Beth are getting married!!!);

4. Spent a fun week exploring NYC, visiting with old friends and attended Matt & Beth's gorgeous wedding;

  

   

5.  Successfully RE-packed aforementioned suitcases (actually 6 when you count Scott's!) and all the baby gear AND flew 10 hours from NYC --> Moscow;

Mom, Scott & B and The Bags

Beau at the airport in line.

  



6. On the flight, we were able to get a bulkhead row and Beau got tucked in to one of those hook-on bassinets. He slept like a pro.

Little baby in his Aeroflot bassinet.

  

7. All the bags arrived in one piece and everyone lived happily ever after.  In Moscow. :) Lookout Moscow, here we come. We really did it!

Sunset and window view from our Moscow apartment

Now Siena has her parents back together, with the addition of a 1 new baby brother.

Cutest dog ever!

Cutest boy in Moscow:

 Best and most generous Mimi (I feel so lucky to have her here with us!):

A Room of Her Own

Finding just the right place for Siena-girl while we're away

It was a big deal getting Siena over to Moscow, and it continues to be an equally big deal finding the right care facilities and people to look after her when we're not home. Since I'm leaving Moscow imminently to deliver our baby in the U.S. (!!!!), it has been a serious priority to find someone who can:

1. Walk Siena twice a day on weekdays;
2. Stay overnight at our apartment when Scott travels for work. 

As is probably obvious, I am very protective of our "baby" dog Siena. She really is like my first born child. :) Here are some photos of our Siena as a tiny pup (<10 lbs!!):

For a while I thought I had it all worked out because I'd gotten a personal referral from a woman in the AWO whose cleaning lady, J, also used to dog sit and walk her dogs. And those dogs were Goldens! Score!  I made arrangements for J to stay at our place when we went to NC and OR in April.

In the end, J turned out to be just okay...when we returned Siena seemed pretty wound up and not all that well-exercised but she and the apartment were in one piece so I didn't think too much of it. However, after sitting down with J to review the week she confessed that the dogs she's primarily worked with have all been very calm and OLD or SMALL (ie  >10 years old and <40 lbs). :( So my search continued and time marched on.

I posted an ad online and got a load of responses from Filipinos looking for extra work. 

Have I mentioned that there is a huge contingency of Filipino domestic help (nannies, housekeepers, babysitters, etc) in Moscow? I mean, HUGE. Our cleaning lady is Filipina and she often brings her niece and/or her cousin to help her at our place. She has also said that her brother and brother-in-law are here too. So the whole family has emigrated to Russia!!? And this is not unique; many, many other expats have mentioned that their housekeepers and nannies are Filipino  and that those folks have relatives who've joined them. Apparently the pay and the opportunities are much, much better in Moscow (even though the weather is not!). Go figure.

But honestly, nannies and cleaning ladies looking for extra work are not what I want. I want a true dog person, and preferably someone who already has experience walking dogs for money. I didn't rule the Filipinos out; I just kept talking to other friends etc and hoping something else would turn up.

Here are some current photos of our sweet 4-year old dogalini:

 

One response to my online ad was from a Malaysian student studying medicine at Moscow State University, T. He had his own dog in Moscow and was truly a dog-lover. Not only that, he was free and flexible in the afternoons everyday after class. Good potential!!

And T did indeed turn out to be great! He stayed at our apartment when we went to Amsterdam for the weekend, he started taking Siena on walks regularly and for a few weeks everything was going swimmingly. :) Until I asked T to start doing 2 walks / day for the rest of the summer and to stay at our place for some future overnight dogsitting. He couldn't help us at all because his classes end late this month and he is LEAVING Moscow for the entire summer for vacation! So back to the drawing board AGAIN.


Next I interviewed and test-walked with a Filipino (this time a young man) who responded to my ad. He seemed okay, but my instincts told me to keep looking; something about him just didn't sit right with me. However, the clock was ticking and my stress level was rising...

About 5 days before my departure, I was referred to another Filipino guy, M, who is the Dogwalker for the neighbor of a good friend. Cautiously optimistic (yet again!), I contacted M and went through my usual battery of questions and test walks, and he passed! Unfortunately M was only available for one walk per day but at this point, I was feeling desperate so made arrangements for him to walk Siena once/day until his other job ended late June, and then he would start coming twice a day. And he could do overnights too. Fan-freaking-tastic.

During our myriad discussions with our friends about the sad state of the Moscow Petsitting Industry, we received a recommendation for a dog boarding facility that was about 2 hours outside the city. This friend has an 11-year old Golden on whom he dotes (much like us with Siena, we think!), and since HE felt comfortable taking his dog to this place, we thought it would be worth considering. 

So 4 days before my flight back to the US, Siena and I took a ride out to the country to check the place out. The "facility" was really just a large house and yard owned by a very nice, animal-loving, married couple. They have a guest cottage that's been turned into little rooms for overnight stays and there is a big, fun securely fenced space outside for running and exploring (critical for our little escape artist). I felt great about the couple within minutes of meeting them, so now the plan is for Siena to go there during Scott's business trips etc. 

Last but not least, the DAY BEFORE I left, a friend mentioned that she'd heard about a family who's 19-year old daughter S would be spending the month of June in Moscow and that she was looking to earn a little extra pocket money. This family had a Standard Poodle and lived about 4 blocks from us. Stop the presses: an American college student was available to walk our dog twice per day AND she lived within walking distance?! Another score!! We quickly arranged for S to come and meet Siena and do a test walk, which went totally smoothly and now instead of M walking Siena only once/day in June, we'll have S do it twice per day, as we originally wanted. Then when S leaves Moscow, M will be free to do twice per day, just like we wanted. And for overnights, she'll stay with the couple out in the country. Done and done.

Hallelujah! What a weight off my shoulders. But man, what a huge ordeal.

Good Times at the Dog Park Again

Another day, another good trip to the dog park.

Things started out on thin ice because there was a big, burly, rough-looking dog already inside when we arrived. I followed protocol and approached slowly, asking, "можно?" ("Possible?"). The owner was decent and gestured for me to give him 10 more minutes.

So we took a walk around the 'hood, which, as I've said before, is very nice. When we returned about 6 minutes later, they were leaving. And for the record, the dog had a muzzle on when he left. Yikes.

Then we had the place to ourselves!

So I threw the ball a few times and worked with Siena on some agility tricks - climbing stairs, balancing on a thin balance-beam-type structure - which she mastered without issue.

Fun!! Note that there's NOT a drop of snow on the ground anymore!

Then, just when I thought maybe it was time to go, someone else showed up! And both the owner and the dog were friendly! YAY!!

Typical Siena, saying hello to the Person first. :)

New friends racing around the park.

These new friends only stayed about 10 minutes, but luckily...ANOTHER dog arrived. This time it was the same big fluffy white dog with whom Siena has already played twice. DOUBLE YAY!

The two dogs had a lot of fun racing around and reconnecting (I think it'd been about 12 days since they've seen each other). The only photo I was able to capture was when Siena finally pooped out and lay down. :) Fluffy kept dancing around her, as if to say, "What, that's it?! Come on, we need to run some more; we were just getting started!"

The only slightly negative thing about this trip to the dog park was the discovery of a dead bird (seemed too big to be a pigeon) lying on the other side of the fence. Gross.

Of course Siena noticed it immediately and kept trying to squeeze her head through the bars to get a better whiff / taste of this delectable creature. Thank goodness it was on the OUTSIDE of the fence. But, with TWO dog friends in the park to distract her, it wasn't too bad. I just hope it's not still there the next time we go!

Springtime at the Dog Park - hooray!

Finally, finally, the snow has melted to reveal the true face of the dog park.

Siena and I went today and she had a nice time exploring all the newly exposed nooks and crannies of dirt. I threw the ball, she chased it and then ran in the other direction without "retrieving," all the usual fun dog park stuff.

After about 20 minutes it started to rain (as predicted - I just knew Siena really needed some exercise so we risked it) so we left to find the driver. Unfortunately he was no where to be found, but fortunately the rain never got to be more than a strong drizzle so we meandered for about 10 minutes in the neighborhood by the park (which is pretty quiet and nice). By the time we circled back to the park, the drizzle had subsided and there were two dogs inside! Yippee!

other dogs at the dog park = happy girl

This time the dogs were reddish brown like Siena. One was huge and a little scary and the other was a daschund. Since I learned my lesson from last time, I knew we needed to proceed with caution. We slowly and loudly approached the dog park fence and I waved to the owner. He came over and asked in fast Russian if Siena was a "devatchka" (девочка) or girl [dog]. I said "da" (до - yes) and the big dog came over to sniff hello through the fence.

Then the owner said something else that I missed, came closer to the gate, clipped his leash back onto the big dog's collar and very graciously opened the gate to the park for us. Yay! Proper Russia dog park etiquette had been achieved!

Then everything went fine. Once inside, the three dogs made their initial sniffy greetings in which Siena rolled over on her back, her usual wimpy submission to the other dogs. The little dog, as is often the case, was a lot feistier than the big one. He wanted nothing to do with Siena and really just stuck close to his dad with a continuous low growl in his little throat. Not ideal but his owner was very aware of it so I felt we were safe. The big dog wasn't all that much friendlier but he was okay with sharing the park.

After about 10-12 minutes it started to rain again so I decided to leave before anyone got too soaked. I also didn't want to press my luck with the little dog since he seemed to have less patience than the big one.

Once we left I still couldn't find the driver, so we waited under a doorway for a while. Everyone who came and went was very happy to see Siena and give her a pat. All in all a very nice outing.

my sweet mushy-ball tired girl :)

Dog Park, Russia-Style REDUX!

So Siena and I went back to the infamous scary dog park for a 2nd round and...woohoo! We had the place to ourselves!

Perhaps it was because the temperature had risen enough to make the place a big soupy mess, but we didn't care! Wet, slushy snow....bring it! My girl loves to run, and wet snow makes it all the more invigorating!

Even M the Driver got in on the action and threw the ball a few times for Ms. S in between smokes (below).

The only thing that would have made this outing better would have been if that cute, white, fluffy dog friend from our first trip had shown up to hang out and play too. His owner probably wised up about the melting snow and took a pass. But Siena loved it just the same and I was happy for her.

Sopping wet, happy girl.