So how did you spend your Valentine’s Day?

Here’s how I spent Feb 14th, 2008

12amv – 1:45am
Emergency Room of Mount Pleasant Animal Hospital
Libby and Cherry Garcia got into a fight and Libby’s two upper canines were ripped from her gum. The one on the right is pointing horizontally out instead of down. Her upper lip couldn’t even close properly. After a shot of antibiotics, pain relief meds and some blood sample we were sent home.

2am
Home
Dead tired, but had to make sure the dogs are ok sleeping in the same room after a big fight. Libby ended up sleeping on my side of the bed with her E-collar on and Cherry slept at the foot of the bed between Jason and I.

9am – 10am
Mount Pleasant Animal Hospital
Dropped Libby off to get her teeth fixed. Since she had to go under general anesthesia anyway I asked the vet to scale her teeth. She looked so timid and helpless and her upper lip was still pushed up by the uprooted canine I almost bursted into tears in the exam room.

10:30am
CK Tang, 4th floor
Bought a set of jungle animal figurines as cupcake toppers for a friend’s daughter’s jungle themed cake order.

11am – 4:30pm
Home
Baking cupcakes, chocolate with chocolate butter cream and lemon with lemon butter cream, plus a small cutting cake for above mentioned jungle themed birthday party. I hate rushing things when I make desserts, but I had no choice. I actually wanted to make the cake toppers with fondant, but it was too last minute. Good thing I scouted out the plastic figurines as a backup. I am very glad I had this cake order to take my mind off Libby, otherwise I probably would’ve resort to retail therapy and bought things that I’d regret later.

5pm
Mount Pleasant Animal Hospital
Back to pick up Libby. I was hoping her left canine could be saved but she came out with both canines gone. The bill from both visits added up to be about $500, a lot lower than I expected, but I would’ve paid anything if they could’ve fixed her canines instead of pulling them out.

6-7pm
Camp Rd grassy area
Walking/training Cherry Garcia to heel off leash. Jeffrey the dog trainer thinks that if I train Cherry more vigorously with higher expectations, the dogs will stop fighting. At this stage I’m willing to try anything.

9pm
Home
After a quiet dinner, I Finished up my royal icing/pretzel stick coconut trees for the cake. The royal icing didn’t have enough time to dry thoroughly so a lot of them cracked. I tried my best to patch them up, hopefully they won’t crack after I put them on the cake.


When we were waiting at Mt. Pleasant Animal Hospital’s ER, I called The Animal Recovery Centre at Greendale Ave and Balestier Rd, to see if the vet there could see us sooner (the wait at Mt. Pleasant was more than an hour). After describing the situation to the technician I was informed that the vet did not think it was important enough for him/her to come in and see Libby, even though I was willing to pay the $260 night call rate. I told the technician again that Libby’s teeth were completely ripped out and that she was in pain, but the vet still didn’t think it was a big deal. In fact, they didn’t even think it was serious enough to book me the first appointment the next day. They wanted me to go in at 2pm! They also mentioned getting an ultrasound before determining what to do. This is the point where I hung up and decided to never go to the Animal Recovery Center again.

I had one bad experience with them when I took Cherry Garcia in for a very severe case of diarrhea. Libby had something similar in Tokyo. The vet there took a stool sample, determined the bacteria that was causing it and prescribed the right medicine. She was better the next day. At the Animal Recovery Center, they didn’t want to do any test but instead gave her a broad-spectrum antibiotics, which didn’t cover anaerobic bacteria because from experience, even I know the diarrhea was probably caused by something in some garbage that Cherry ate, which is perfect breeding ground for anaerobes (see, I haven’t completely forgotten my training in clinical pharmacy). They also gave her some vitamin shots, which were expensive and completely unnecessary. The bill came up to almost $300 and Cherry continued to have diarrhea for the next week. Needless to say, I was not impressed, and the only reason I called them that night was because I was willing to do anything to relieve Libby’s pain faster. I was prepared to pay through the nose but I never expected the vet to be so cold-hearted and uncaring. If his child had some teeth knocked out I would like to see his reaction if his dentist told him to wait for more than 14 hours for treatment. I know we couldn’t perform the surgery that night, but at least we could give her some pain relief and antibiotics. Hasn’t he ever heard of endocarditis? I just think that someone who has so little compassion has no business being a vet.

On a more positive note, the friend whose daughter is having the jungle themed birthday party runs a medical foster home called Blue Sky Healing Homes in Beijing. She temporarily houses and provides medical care to orphans who go to Beijing for medical treatments. Often times she ends up being the one to raise money or finds doctors to treat the kids. It’s a great cause and she does it with her own money plus generous donations from people like you and me. So instead of giving each other presents this Valentine’s day, we are donating to her organization. Take a look at her website and I hope the stories will inspire you too.

Meet Cherry Garcia!

We spent the last five or six years wanting a second dog to keep Princess Libby company. She indicated earlier on that she’s partial to golden retrievers and border collies. Since border collies usually require plenty of outdoor space for exercise we decided that a golden retriever is more suitable for our city lifestyle. The plan was to get a golden retriever puppy after we come back from France at the end of July. Her name was to start with the letter “J”, after Jason, since Libby has my initials. Well, so much for planning.

Last week, when I was browsing through photos on flickr, I saw a cute puppy in one of my contacts’ photo stream. It’s a four-month old mongrel puppy waiting to be adopted. I fell in love instantly, not only because she’s cute, but also because she reminds me of Libby when she was a pup. We drove out to meet her the very next day with Libby in tow. She seems to be a happy and healthy puppy so we decided to take her home for a one-week trial, mainly to see if Libby would accept her as a second dog.

One week later, things are looking good for the puppy. Libby has been, for the most part, tolerant of the new addition to her pack. Wrinkled lips and growling does occur every now and then, but it’s all in the necessary education of the new pup. For a pup that was paper-trained, she’s only had three accidents in the house in the past week.(update, she had two more accidents on the day I wrote this post, sigh) I’ve been taking her out every time she wakes up from a nap and every time she eats, which amounts to every 2-3 hours. The aim was to not give her any chance to do her business inside. Today, she came up with a way to tell me that she wants to go out by going to the hallway door and wait. What a smart little girl! We changed her name from Cherish to Cherry, short for Cherry Garcia. And she is here to stay!

On the non-toilet related fronts however, she’s not such a good girl. When she first arrived she had the bad habit of mouthing people when she plays. I am a firm believer that under no circumstances are a dog’s teeth ever to touch human flesh, except during teeth brushing so I have my work cut out for me. She still chews things that she shouldn’t (just today her sharp puppy teeth cut through the power cord to our cordless phone in 2 seconds) but she’s getting much better with people. She needs constant supervision and either doesn’t understand the meaning of “NO” or is too stubborn to listen. She tests her limits constantly and is not discouraged if her attempt fails the first time. We have to remind ourselves constantly that she’s only four months old and can’t be compared to Libby, who’s just about the most perfect dog one can hope for. It is frustrating training a puppy but I do know that if we are strict at the beginning our lives and hers will be much easier later on. We can always spoil her later, when she’s grown up to be a well-mannered adult, but for now I’m sounding like a broken record: “NO Cherry!” “Ouch Cherry!” “Off Cherry!” “BAD DOG, Cherry!”

See more of Cherry's photos here.