February 25th

IT APPEARS MY LUCKY STREAK HAS ENDED

I was doing so well at choosing shelter dogs that appeared to need expensive medical care and ended up not costing us anything. Willow-a young girl that the shelter thought had a torn ACL turned out to have Pano; basically "growing pains" that go away on their own. Missy-another young girl thought to have severe hip dysplasia turned out to have had a broken pelvis that is healing correctly.

Then there was Durango. Diarrhea? No problem, or so I thought. Poor guy, nothing is helping. We tried pancreatic enzymes, and his poop is the same. Some good poop days, some cow patty poop days. This is a good thing because the enzymes are expensive and very few people want to adopt a dog with a condition that is costly to manage, but bad because we still don't know what's wrong with him. Tomorrow he starts getting weekly B-12 shots to see if that will help him absorb nutrients and gain some weight.

And now Chester. The shelter called about a dog with a limp. (Bonus points if you figure out why I named him Chester.) Everyone thought it was either congenital (paw and lower leg are under developed) or an old injury. It's the latter-broken ulna 5-7 months ago, but he needs surgery (which might not even work) and still risks losing the leg.

Oh well. Batting .500 is not too bad.

THINGS THAT MAKE ME SAY "HUH?"

I have an escrow account with my mortgage-I pay 1/12th of my taxes and insurance every month and then the lender makes those payments. They have to review the account every year and make adjustments to make sure you aren't overpaying and that there isn't a shortage. This year I had a surplus, so they sent me a check for $66.14, and then raised my monthly payment amount by $1 to avoid a shortage for next year. Gotta love the logic!