Organizing medications

Hannah is doing very well. We were very worried earlier this summer about her because she seemed to have started down that slippery slope. I had very real worries about whether or not she would make it to her 14th birthday (next Monday). Now I'm pretty confident that she'll make it ;-)

Hannah is on a lot of medications right now. Pretty quickly I realized that it would be quite a task to keep up with them all -- not so much of what to give when (we have a list on the fridge for that) -- but with when to reorder what.

That is where Remember the Milk comes in. Hannah gets seven Tramadol a day. Her refill is for 100 pills so she gets that refilled every 14.2something days from the pharmacy. The FortiFlora and Denamarin come from the vet. The melatonin comes from Whole Foods. You get the idea. I have all of these set up as reminders in Remember the Milk (RTM). When to call it in, what the prescription number is and the phone number to the pharmacy (or the vet, etc.) and then I allow time for them to order the Denamarin or count out the Tramadol before going to pick up the medications and supplements. Once I get the reminders in, RTM will e-mail me reminders each morning that I have something due. Remember the Milk has been a fantastic tool for organizing this.

Hannah's refrigerator list:

1 hour before breakfast
Denamarin

30 minutes before breakfast
Famotidine (generic Pepcid) (10 mg)
melatonin (3mg)
Tramadol - 2.5 pills

At breakfast time
Zubrin
FortiFlora
flax oil

After work / Late afternoon
Tramadol - 2.5 pills
Famotidine (generic Pepcid) (10 mg)

At Dinner
Amoxicillin
Actigall
flax oil

At bedtime
Tramadol - 2 pills
Famotidine (generic Pepcid) (10 mg)
melatonin (3mg)

Stuff for the new Mac in the house

DH's iMac arrived yesterday. That got me thinking about some of the programs that I really like on my Mac.

• Thunderbird and Firefox with the del.icio.us plugin. I've also been using TwitterFox but DH has not been converted to Twitter just yet. Greasemonkey plugins are good too.
  
• BusySync which I am now using to synchronize iCal with Google Calendar.
  
• Flip4Mac which allows Windows Media files to play on your Mac via QuickTime
  
• Lingon, basically a cron job scheduler. A GUI to launchd to be a bit more technical.
  
• AdiumX, an instant messaging client that integrates most IM protocols (yes, even Lotus Sametime).
• Parallels or VMWare Fusion, both allow you to run Windows on your Mac if you need to.
• MissingSync if you still love your Palm
  

Those are the big ones that come to mind. I'm sure that I've missed many utilities.

What Macintosh programs do you use?

The Fig Newton Remedy

A friend of mine asked for information about the Fig Newton Remedy for her dogs. I thought that I'd post the information here for all to see.

Background

Hannah has a very unsavory habit -- coprophagia. Yes, our lovely labrador eats poop, causing cess pool breath. Her sister picked up the habit as well and that causes toxic vomit. Lovely.

We think that it stems from her life before moving in with us. She was in a home kennel for the first 10 months of her life. It was a very nice kennel and she came into the house with her human family during the day but it was still a kennel. There is also some thought that girl dogs have some instinct to do this because dog moms clean up after their puppies that way. At any rate, over the years we have tried to solve this problem using several different recommendations: meat tenderizer on food, Tabasco sauce on poop to try to train avoidance, For-Bid, Dis-taste and other products sold for this behavior issue, etc. And yes, of course we pick up the yard on a regular basis!

Hannah and Emma have been receiving Fig Newtons with their meals since January and our results have been very good with two exceptions. After starting the Fig Newton Remedy, we have noticed a significant improvement in their yard cleaning activity.

The first time we noticed a problem was back in July. I noticed Emma was rooting around in the grass. I said to myself, "Uh oh! The treatment may have been rendered ineffective!" The next time I let her out, I followed her. She was digging and eating and digging. I thought, "Grubs?" It reminded me of when Penny had a grub eating binge. Nope, not grubs. Pellets of rabbit scat. I'm not sure about giving Fig Newtons to the neighborhood rabbits.

The second time, it was definitely my fault. Hannah and Emma normally eat Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and Rice. In September, I was asked to test a new food on the girls. We changed
foods and continued with the Fig Newton type addition. A few days latter I thought that I smelled "badness" on Hannah's breath. A day or two after that, Hannah had an upset stomach and vomited poop all over our bedroom in the middle of the night. The next morning, I put the girls back on their regular food.

Results so far.

Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and Rice + Fig Newton type cookies* = no poop eating

OtherBrand Lamb and Rice + Fig Newton type cookie = Badness


* We have used Kroger brand, Harris Teeter brand, Nabisco, 365 and Newman's Own . We have used regular and fat free and whole wheat. All yield similar results. I just get whatever is on sale or I have a good coupon for.

Dosage

One Fig Newton type cookie per 25 pounds of dog.

Why it works

It was clear that something in the Fig Newton types treats makes the poop less appetizing. I looked into this a bit and it turns out that fig plants produce ficin, a protease enzyme that aids digestion by breaking down animo acids and works similarly to the enzymes in papayas (papain) and pineapple (bromelin). And yes, all three enzymes can be used as meat tenderizers. As it turns out, the item in the Fig Newtons that is at work is the figs themselves.

Interestingly, there are urban legends out there about feeding dogs pineapple to resolve this problem as well.

Cheese holder for dog training

(imported from FB, used original posting date)

Friday, Sep 7

Instructions on creating a home made cheese holder for dog training. This helps to keep string cheese from becoming a gooey mess in your pocket.

• Go to a home center and get a small length of clear, flexible PVC tubing in a string cheese like diameter
• Cut off string cheese length piece at home, using scissors
• Cut tubing lengthwise to form slit the entire length of the tube
• Insert unwrapped string cheese into tubing, with small piece extending beyond end of tubing
• Break off small bits of cheese as needed.

Voila! Cheese holder created!