A Little Wild Trip

Today we went to the Animal hospital, a mountain drive of about half an hour, for our Zeyno. We discovered some large lumps and as we have had these kind of shocks a lot lately we did not waste any time and went straight away for her to be operated. It looks like she has the same cancer as Simon ( who is doing well) but we'll know more when the pathology test results are back. She is a big 12 year old dog, but we love all our doggies and like to keep them around healthy and happy :)

While waiting for the operation we discovered a fox pup in one of the recovery cages, oh so very adorable and pretty and very small. She will go to a wild life park once she has been vaccinated and has stayed there for quarantine for a while. I never have seen a fox so close, let alone a pup so I took some pictures for this beauty.

The operation went well, 4 lumps are removed and we'll know what is going on in a few days.
On our way back we stopped by an abandoned greenhouse, literally exploding with greenness, so magical.

I often love pictures of abandoned places, the way nature takes back the place and slowly makes it green and pretty has something satisfying, the ability of nature to heal is amazing (of course it can heal to a certain extent).

We must have passed it dozens of times, in a fast going car you do not see everything, but this time I realized that the greenhouse was a little too green and we made a mental note to stop on our way back for pictures.

Girmek Yasaktır - Forbidden to Enter, not that you can actually enter, I did break that rule by poking my head and camera inside :)

Funny enough just when I was about to write this blog post I came across this image on BoredPanda, it seemed to meant to be featured here considering the combo of the fox and the greenness that she could have been in that greenhouse :)

Here some 'forbidden' peeks inside.

Zeyno is doing well, lying on her favorite couch with a comfort blanket and her appetite already back to normal, and her tail waggling like nothing has happened, animals are so strong!

Doggies update

Last week we were again in Aydin, at the Veterinary Faculty with our two girls, Lily and Daisy.
Again there were dromedaries there to be treated. They had artfully hand knotted muzzles on.

These two were not as lucky as the one we saw before. That one was well loved and used just to tour tourists around.
These two were fighting dromedaries. Dromedaries fights and cock fights are popular here. You can see pictures here.

It is not pretty, but it is of course nothing compared to the Spanish bull fights, which is in my opinion the worse, most sadistic and barbarian form of animal abuse there is.

Our girls had both an operation to remove mammary tumors a month ago. The pathology results of both of them are bad, both girls have cancer and we are pretty devastated.

Lily here was limping last week and has something under her arm that may be a metastasis or an aftermath of last months operation, after a 5 day antibiotic treatment she is doing much better but only time will tell if she'll be alright for the long run.
Daisy had a second operation to remove all tits and lymph's at the right side, last month  those at the left side were removed.
The vet wants them on chemotherapy, but this we refused. We have ordered some herbal medicine from the USA that is supposed to boost the immune system by dogs with cancer, and for the rest, we will pamper them with lots of love and yummy treats and keep them comfortable, but we don't want them to go through the rigors of chemo.

Poor Daisy is being a trooper, wearing the collar for weeks now.
We have made her very nifty onesies to keep her wound from contact with the floor. In this heat we have to do everything to avoid infection.

The Adventure with a Dromedary

Yesterday we were in Aydin again to the veterinarian faculty to have two of our doggies checked.
You can see here that it is quite a strange place, mostly with cows and goats but also dogs. This time there was a dromedary. The faculty is like a labyrinth, oddly shaped all corridors look the same and it has a round center so you can go round and round and round and you can go crazy there.

Our two girls have both bumps under their skin, afraid that it might be bad tumors we went straight to the faculty instead of a vet in our own town. We went through the maze a few dozen times for blood tests and X-rays and I kept seeing the dromedary in different kind of states, first totally knocked out as it had a wound and needed to be treated. Later a bit awake looking around.

Here is Lily waiting for X-rays, it was all mighty interesting for her, and both the girls behaved very brave and sweet :)

While Daisy was recovering and Lily was being operated I saw that the Dromedary was now completely awake and what a sweety he is.

The owner and the dromedary had clearly a very good relationship as they kept kissing each other which I found very endearing especially when it is in a macho country :)

The mouth was so silky soft, and he had very sweet eyes, I didn't know that they were so endearing, never been close to any of them before.

In the mean time we were waiting for hours as both girls needed to be operated separately. We got up before 6 in the morning as Aydın is a two and a half hour drive and we needed to be there by 9, we were back home at 7 and after 12 hours we all four needed recovery!

While waiting mum discovered that one of the bird species have gorgeous black and white feathers.

I got hold of the ground-keeper and asked if I could get inside to collect the fallen feathers which he kindly agreed to and opened the locked door for me.

They were very curious and extremely noisy making noise constantly.

Back home our two girls are recovering very well (knock on wood), I learned how to give them the antibiotic injections so it all goes calmly without taking them to the vet. They are treated with yummy food and lovingly made soups.

And although they do not know why they had to be cut and suffer they still love us so I think they do know that we would never do anything to harm them :)

And here are the treasures I collected from my curious friends, totally cruelty free feathers, so beautiful!

Zeyno Update

So yesterday morning we go up before sunrise and went to Aydın again for Zeyno's operation.
We were welcomed by a calf and a herd of students.

We waited till Zeyno fell asleep before we left to the centrum of Aydın to kill some time while she was operated.

When we came back Zeyno was already starting to wake up. The operation went well and to our relief it was not a tumor but as suspected her spaying operation wasn't done correctly and part of her uterus was left behind. This part had grown through the years and now got badly infected. The vet told us that it was a miracle that Zeyno was still alive and so healthy as it was badly infected.

This was the terrible piece of meat full of bacteria which was removed from her, sorry for the ugly detail but we couldn't believe our eyes when we saw it. It is the size of an adult man's fist and if we would cut it open terrible stuff would spill out of it. If it had bursted while it was in Zeyno, she wouldn't have made it.

Zeyno didn't want to see or hear about this ugly piece of meat, but is doing well. She is on a fluids diet but is in good spirit and still waggles her tail when she sees us. She is getting an antibiotic injection every morning and evening to prevent infections. Thank you all for the good vibes, I'm sure it helped her a lot!

Close to the faculty was an old abandoned cemetery. At first glance it looks like a dirt pile with some wonky stones, I think even the relatives of these souls are long gone by now.

Doggy Emergency

 About 6 months ago our 9 year old big girl Zeyno started to bleed, she can't be in heat as she has been spayed when she was 6 months old. So we took her to the vet and after blood and urine tests and an ultrasound nothing came up. With an expensive 10 day treatment of Vitamine K injections the bleedings stopped. Now it started all over again and before spending another fortune at the local vet we decided to take her to the Veterinarian Faculty in Aydın, a city that is about 180 km (112 miles) from our town. Here there are specialists and also more tests available which makes the long mountain drive worth it.

 The Faculty is outside the city and has a very village like feeling. Mainly farm animals are brought in as there are a lot of farms in the surroundings. As it is a Faculty all vets are also teachers and some professors but there are also vets-in-the-making, clueless students watching the procedures.

 The building is old, although there was now also a very new building for classrooms the examinations are still done in the old building. With ceilings so high that even a giraffe could be examined.

Here we are waiting in front of the xray room.

Ultrasounds showed that she has an unidentified cluster which isn't supposed to be there. The first guess is that a part of her womb was left behind during her operation more than 8 years ago, apparently even a fraction as small as 1cm ( 3/8'') can later on grow and cause for bleeding. It can also be a tumor, we will be sure once she has been operated as the ultrasound and tests can not tell everything.

So now after all those tests we came home with fearful hearts and empty wallets, Friday morning we will rise early and hit the road again so that she can be operated, hopefully this will heal her and no bad 'surprises' will come out of it.

Here some weird looking instruments at the faculty, the one above was a huge table with clasps, this is most likely used to keep a large animal like a cow firm and unmoving during an operation, I wonder what kind of lift they have to lift such a large animal on that table in the first place.

And this looks like it goes around the large animal and you can clim on the metal to examine the back etc without beeing kicked.

We'll let you know how everything goes, keep your fingers crossed and send some good vibes our way please!

All kinds of critters

Our vet is a good soul and feeds the stray cats by his front door.
Of course, cats being cats, have taken over his clinic. You can find them under his desk, on his desk, on the shelves, on the computer, and so on.

They look extremely satisfied.

 

Less satisfied is our Mimi, being 'peeled' by the vet. Bye winter coat!