A fork in the road

One of my friends, Sriram, once told me life is like a wave. When I heard it for the first time, I took it much more lightly than I should have – a simple nod of the head and an approving smile. Now I come to realize how appropriately this fits my life.

It appears I have to put all my pet plans on hold for at least four months longer I’ll be moving soon and life will change all too sooner than I expected it to. There was so much I hadn’t thought about, so many things I would think about differently if there was more time here…but there isn’t. Reality is, I have to deal with living alone for the next two months and then move to a new city, and start life all over again – new friends, new lifestyle, a newer and longer winter (unless global warming comes to my rescue!) and most of all living with not being able to see my friends again.

Hopefully I’ll have something to blog about sooner than later. Wish me luck!

Moving

Instead of writing up my presentation for a conference, I moved a lot of my stuff into the new apartment. It was fun when I did it – loading up my Eclipse (belive me, it has great trunk space!) and moving things one-by-one. I think I was on an adrenaline rush, because when it was all over, my muscles felt sore! Serves me right to have abandoned the gym for three weeks now.

This is a nice place. I enjoy the sunlight pouring in as I work on my laptop. I set up the TV stand and my playstation. Overnight, I should set up the kitchen. No point stocking stuff in yet, because I’m leaving for a short summer trip soon. Can’t wait to get back and make stuff more like home.

Not to forget, this sets me up just perfect to get a dog. One month, not more! I can’t wait any longer!

I meet the landlord in a few minutes, let’s hope he doesn’t have too many restrictions on what kind of dog he’s willing to accommodate in the apartment.

The Yorkshire Terrier

At first, I thought there is no point in looking through dog breeds because I can’t afford a puppy from a breeder. But there is an advantage – when I find the right mixed breed dog, I should be in a position to know about special needs and common issues about the dog. I started by going through the AKC (American Kennel Club) website. They have a nice breed categorization, which seems slightly overwhelming for a beginner, but I got surfing around their website in no time at all. The best part about their website is that they have a picture representative of each breed, so a lazy person like me doesn’t have to click through breed after breed to see what that type looks like.

For any breed that you’re interested in, it has good information in terms of judging criteria (for dog shows) and the breed standard, what to reject and what to be careful about. One complaint about their presentation would be the monotonous way in which they have laid out the information…the pages look like a reference book. Hardly any effort has gone into making it people-friendly, like small boxes with exerpts about pet-owners’ experiences or dog show pictures – that would be a great addition!

That said, there are many places to look for the dog breed information, for example, Wikipedia. Usually I trust the pages from Wikipedia that have references I can verify if need be.

Inspired by my colleague and the owner of the apartment I will be moving into, I decided to start with the Yorkshire Terrier. Most of my information is from AKC, Wikipedia and the excellent book “Paws to Consider” by Brian Killcommons and Sarah Wilson [Amazon, Alibris].

The Yorkshire Terrier

Don’t be fooled by how small this dog is. Terriers were originally bred to hunt vermin that attacked grain storage or farms, so they tend to be fearless, aggressive dogs.

K&W list this breed as an indoor dog. They are small, have a disposition to bark and weigh less than 8 pounds. Their long hair mandates professional grooming. You might notice some owners using a pet clip to hold the hair from falling down over their eyes (reminds me of the days I forget to gel my hair!)

The colors are usually gray-based and get darker as they age. Possible problems could be their disobedience, which suggests early and professional training. If provoked, they usually take charge, which means that if the Yorkie confronts a big dog, this big-dog-in-a-small-package will not hesitate to take up the challenge and will end up getting hurt.

In spite of their long hair, they don’t shed as much, so there isn’t too much of a worry getting lint on your clothes.

They are active dogs, but indoor activity suffices for keeping them healthy. However, I personally do not recommend keeping the puppy at home all the time!!

My personal opinion is that this is a nice dog and it will be a challenge for a person like me to train, given that I’m not endowed with the usual leadership qualities. That’s one important thing I will have to work on when I get my dog. Additionally, I don’t want to get a toy dog, especially one with long hair.

Day 5: The demise

When I woke up this morning, the cheerful fluttering of betta fins was missing. Bugle had lost his battle with a terminal disease overnight. I felt myself looking at his bowl from different angles, hoping for a small sign of movement. It was still and although the water was at room temperature (gotten warm now) I felt an eerie chill as I shook the bowl and saw his lifeless body float around, a white layered discharge peeling off from his exterior.

I sat myself down and wondered what this all meant. Was it a sign? My friend had given me this fish, with good intentions, to help me learn how to care for a pet (yes, fish are hard to maintain due to their sensitivity to a lot of conditions, including lighting, water temperature, ammonia and nitrates, pH etc.) and I failed. I failed miserably.

My immediate reaction was to think what went wrong, which actions or inactions of mine to blame this on, but nothing was going to change the fact that a pet, which had become a part of my daily life, had left me with a void I wouldn’t have imagined I’d have to deal with.

Oily Chinese food, progress with a journal paper, martial arts classes, talking to friends……all of these made me feel better in their own ways. But it’s that time of day when I lay down and reminisce and none of those things seem to be helping. I hope Bugle was better off not suffering beyond 5 days and that he is in a place where someone will actually take care of him.

Maybe I should reconsider getting a dog this summer. Let’s see what life throws at me next. Can’t be much worse….* knocks on wood *

White Spot: Day 3

Discovering a new feature in my digital camera hasn’t ever been so rewarding! I used the Macro-Closeup mode on my Nikon Coolpix S4 to grab a snapshot of my betta’s exterior, so that I can monitor his progress as he battles what seems like a strong case of Ich (white spot).

This was cause for worry, because it looks like the spots have become smaller, but increased in number! Maybe there was something in the tank that was promoting this parasite. I took a closer look and saw this white cotton-like growth enveloping small food particles (or fish excreta?) that had settled at the bottom of the tank near the gravel. Here’s what it looked like.

I moved my betta to a temporary bowl and he will be quarantined in his original bowl until he recovers from his illness.

I have to thank my friend Chelsea for all her help, considering that being a first time pet owner, she’s the one I go to with all my complaints. Here’s hoping Bugle is all well soon!

Bugle, my betta

This is Bugle in his very own 2.5 gallon tank.

Two days back, I noticed that Bugle was not swimming around as much, just lying around under the leaves of the plant or by the gravel at the bottom. His orientation was also not upright, like when people doze off and tilt to one side. When I walked home from work, it scared me because I thought the worst might have happened, but thankfully he responded to my tap on the side and I was happy to see his shimmering tail fin wave around the tank. One more day passed and he was getting more lethargic. I did some reading from websites and asked my reliable friend (who owns a lot of pets!) and she told me he might have the Ich, also known as White Spot. I looked closer to his body and shined a light overhead and bingo! White salt-like deposits had formed, distributed sparsely over his fins It was disheartening to see an active fish brought to a situation where he was lying around all day (like me).

My diagnosis was confirmed when I saw him occasionally darting around and rubbing his scales and fins against the side of the tank and the gravel, as if he was trying to scratch himself! I rushed to PetSmart and got special medication for fungal and parasitic infections for the betta. He’s now on a 14-day medication regime until he gets better (fingers-crossed!!!).

Fish and diseases

So I told a good friend I wanted to get a dog over summer (which is just two months away!) and she told me that I should be able to take care of a fish first, being that I’ve never lived with pets before. For some reason, it sounded like a mighty easy task then, so I accepted her gift and called my betta Bugle, after the cone-shaped snacks.

Be warned! Fish have a lot of diseases….and the sad part about it is that you can’t take him to a vet In fact, some reading reveals that there’s a lot they can succumb to. This chart I found very helpful.

For a complete list and cures, see the page from Aquatics-Warehouse (UK).

A Yorkie apartment

The first challenge with getting a dog, for a person that lives far from home, is to find a house with a landlord that doesn’t have a problem with dogs. Good news for me is, I found an affordable single bedroom apartment that’s suitable. It even has a nice backyard where my future pet can run around and play!

The current tenant is a student and colleague of mine. His friend lived there with a Yorkshire Terrier before she moved out.

Starting to believe that

when you really want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it.

I’m excited!!

Narrowing the group

After reading through a few sites on the Internet, I decided to drop by the closest Humane Society to talk to an actual Adoption Counselor. Not so surprisingly, he told me the same thing I had read in a lot of places – I was to do my research. I’m a Ph.D. student, so I expected it to be second nature, but I find it difficult to find out the characteristics of each breed. Not to mention that individual dogs from each breed have unique personalities depending on their upbringing!

The place I’m starting out at is the American Kennel Club, which offersa lot of information for the interested reader. My first step – to prune the search space by compiling a (short?) list of breeds that would suit my lifestyle.