Jennifer Zalewski Studio

I have been a very lucky dog person. In all my life– having dogs since I was 8 years old — I have never had one get skunked. Never Ever.

Early this morning… DOUBLE WHAMMY. It’s about 2:30, 3 am. I’m sleeping wonderfully. The windows are open, a pre-storm wind is picking up, it’s black as hell out, I’m in la-la land. I do hear Lela bolt out of bed –and Jack follow on her tail– and the thwap-thwap of the dog door flaps as they fly outside. I didn’t think much of it, because they are always hearing things and investigating- free spirits lol.

5 seconds later, a…. OMGHOLYWHATTHEFRICKISTHAT?!?!?! smell… explodes in the air. In a wake-up call only comparable to the hurka-gurka of a canine pre-vomit, I shot awake and catapulted out of the bed wide-eyed and ready for action. Bolted through the house towards the living room. As I ran through the art studio, I saw Jack in his Injury Pen, but Lela was in The Big Yard and gone.

I got into the living room just as the dogs were piling back through the dog door. At first I thought they were okay, but then as I bent down to check I reeled backwards from the stench. Lela’s eyes were swollen shut and she was very confused. Jack seemed a bit confused too, but sullen and afraid. I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was 3 am? My dogs got skunk’d? Wait a minute, isn’t my yard fenced? Don’t I live in the city?? How the-?

Lela seemed to bear the brunt of the attack and stunk ALL OVER (not surprised since she had access to the yard) whereas Jack only got it in the face and -thankfully- not the eyes. Lela therefore hit the bath first. She’s had 2 baths since her adoption and has spazzed during both of them, but this time she was so upset she stood and let me scrub the crap out of her. I remember the de-skunking recipe had something to do with peroxide-?? Was it mixed with something though-?!?! You can’t really think clearly about these things at 3 am. Nor do you have time to do the research. I washed her with straight peroxide and then flea shampoo, the only thing on-hand. Her eyes rinsed out well but I felt sorry for her, it must have been so painful.

Jack was next. He was so upset that he had released his bladder all over the carpet. I quickly pulled out the steamer, cleaned that up, then tried to carefully get him in the tub without pressuring his groin too much. I was out of peroxide at this point, so Jack got flea shampoo only.

They still stunk, but it was a residual stink, not as powerful. Ugh. I have never smelled anything that… Well, I can’t say it was the worst thing I’ve smelled. A summertime garbage can on trash day is the worst, but this was pretty bad and probably ranks #2.

After their baths, I noticed I had left the windows open so the whole house reeked of Pissed Off Skunk. Why didn’t I shut them as soon as the attack happened?!?! Not thinking.

Both dogs were very upset and of course had to sleep on the bed very close with me the rest of the night lol. I woke up reaking of wet dog and skunk. I’m sure my coworkers LOVE me (I’m sooooo sorry if any of you read this!!!).

It was interesting to see how the dogs acted this morning. Lela was very cautious. She got up on the bookshelf before going outside and looked carefully out the window in all directions. Then she cautiously poked her head out the dog door flap before making her way slowly outside. Jack, on the other hand, plowed out the door guns blazing, chest puffed, ears perked high and nostrils flaring, all ready for another battle.  A friend of mine said he wasn’t very smart. I, however, prefer to think of him as “overly tenacious.”

I hope the skunk was just ‘passing through’ and wasn’t, um, making it’s home in my crawl space or garage. Just to be safe, the dog door will now be closing overnights because IN NO WAY am I going to deal with this again. NO WAY.

Apologies ahead of time to everyone in Lela’s obedience class tonight, ha ha…

Jen

I thought I’d do a post about a dog going through rehabilitation after an Iliopsois Muscle injury/strain. I wasn’t able to find much on the internet that wasn’t terribly technical “vet-speak” and with Jack in the thick of things… I grabbed the camera and decided to document.   Hope it helps someone/somedog down the line!

Jack’s symptoms:

Yelling when getting up after napping after heavy physical activity. Would limp a few feet, “walk it off,” and then be fine.  No visible limping otherwise, but instead was “hitching” his back legs a bit; seemed to do “baby steps” with them instead of full stride.

Simple bed-rest seemed to help a bit at first, but I wasn’t very strict with it and the symptoms came back. Eventually Jack began full-limping (much more pronounced than the ‘hitching’) after even short, easy activities like neighborhood walks. When he ran in the backyard, he would end up on 3 legs (it was pretty easy to see it was his right leg bothering him!). He would limp every time he got up from bed. NSAIDs (he used Deramaxx) didn’t help.

Vet Visits:

Jack visited 3 vets and 2 orthopedic specialists. Because he had cracked his hock during his racing career, 2 vets were pretty certain the calcification around the hock was causing the pain i.e. arthritis.  One of the specialists thought the pain was in his lower back- that the hock was fine. The other specialist thought the pain was coming from his hips but the hock might also be involved. Crazy, I know!!  X-rays of Jack’s legs, hips, and spine were done. Small boney areas were found on his spine (nothing abnormal for his age and breed) and of course the cracked hock was pretty large from calcification but nothing else.

Since Jack’s main vet was pretty certain the hock was causing the pain, he began Adequan injections, twice weekly. The Adequan simulates synovial fluid around the joints and is like a ‘super-glucosamine.’ After a “loading dose” of twice weekly shots for 4 weeks, there was still no progress in healing his limp so it was decided that perhaps he may have a muscle injury and it wasn’t arthritis after all. Sigh.

I then asked for a referral to the VMC’s Physical Rehabilitation department which had been a lifesaver with Cliff’s LS. I wish I would have done this first!!! Thankfully, the Certified Canine Rehabilitation Provider (CCRP, or Rehab Specialist) was able to do a thorough consultation, palpitating and checking his whole body before diagnosing an Iliopsois Injury/Strain. Well, I guess CCRP’s can’t “offically” diagnose like a DVM can, but after a thorough check it was pretty clear his groin was causing discomfort, specifically the right side. A CCRP can easily palpitate the area and identify the injury (my vets and the ortho specialists couldn’t) by … I’m not sure exactly what she did, but there’s a certain place where they can feel the Iliopsois and while Jack was fine on the left side palpitation, the right one caused him to yell. Bingo.

Rehab

First order of business was Laser Therapy, which increases blood flow and helps encourage the body to heal itself, especially the spasming which can develop down the spine as a result of trying to compensate for the pain in the groin. The Rehab doc can test for the spasming by touching special trigger points along the spine, very interesting (but a little gross I admit). I found out that when a dog injures himself/herself, they compensate for the injury by limping (naturally). However many times as the injury heals, a dog must be taught to walk normally again as they won’t do this on their own. There are  special exercises to do at home, which help with the healing and re-learning.

Jack’s Iliopsois strain will require Laser Therapy once a week until it heals (which depending on the grade of the injury, could take weeks or months). It costs about $20 per session in my region, not bad at all if you are worried about finances (and who isn’t, right?).

Our list of exercises to do at home every day:

Massage & Compressing- 2x or 3x per day. Using approx. 4 lbs. per pressure in my hands, I massage Jack’s front shoulders, back, hind, and a bit inside his groin (although I hate doing that because, as I mentioned before, Jack REALLY likes it lol ). I massage up & away from the lymph node areas  which are behind the front armpits and in the tuck-up area against the back legs. In the evenings, I also apply a warm compress to the area (rice in a pillow-case, warmed in the microwave) while massaging.

Passive Range of Motion- This exercise is done 2x a day too, and involves gently stretching Jack’s legs 5 times. At the 6th stretch, we hold the stretch for 8 seconds. As you can tell from the photo above, Jack does NOT have full-range of his back legs! This is the most I can stretch it backwards  without it being uncomfortable for him, poor guy. Hopefully as time goes on he will be able to stretch fully again.

Bowing- Sorry for the bad picture please ignore my awful hair (it’s been a humid summer! That’s my excuse and I’m stickin’ with it! ). Jack places his front feet on a staircase while I hold a cookie between his front paws. He has to stretch down to reach the cookie. This shifts his weight to his back legs, helping strengthen them. This is done 2x per day.

The Cookie Stretch (Lateral Flexion Stretch)-  2x per day. Jack stands in one place and must reach around, in both directions, for a cookie. This stretches him in both directions and again helps with back-leg weight shifting.

Limited Hard Exercise- From what I’ve read, most dogs with Iliopsois injuries are Agility competitors. In recovery, no running or jumping is allowed! I’m thankful that I have 2 fenced yards- a small picket-fence ‘paddock’ inside a half-acre stockade- so a bit of snowfencing has given Jack access to the paddock area to potty, but not get too zoomy in the big yard. I feel bad for him because he watches Lela -who just bulldozes under the snow-fence into the big yard- but he can’t join her. Hopefully soon!

Walking Allowed-  Short, gentle walks only! 1 or 2 times per day. Whew. Jack would go nuts without them.

Anyway, that’s what we’re going through so far. Our first 2 weeks of therapy was wonderful and I could see changes right away! This week… hmm. Jack found an exit in the snow fence and got out, zoomed the yard with Lela, and came up limping on the LEFT. So now he’s injured both sides, LOL! My fault, I didn’t secure the snow fencing good enough…. so anyway. That’s done. Onwards and upwards.

Anyone else out there have a dog that’s experienced a muscle injury-?

Jen

WE HAVE A DIAGNOSIS!!!!!!

Jack went to visit Clifford’s Physical Therapist last week and within 20 minutes, we had a definitive diagnosis–it is, indeed, a strained Iliopsois Muscle, in Jack’s right leg/groin area!! I can’t tell you how relieved I am to know what’s going on!

Prescription: Weekly laser therapy and about an hour of physical therapy exercises a day (stretching, compresses, massaging, bowing, reaching, etc). It’s a LOT of work but already we are seeing results! No more hopping on 3 legs, limping, etc. His stride –which was itty-bitty steps in back- has become more normal.

Jack, of course, is loving the attention- especially (I’m embarrassed to admit) the groin massage. Believe me there is NOTHING more humiliating than having to massage your dog’s, um, private area on a twice-daily basis. As well as apply warm compresses to ‘it’. It would be okay if he wasn’t so… happy… about this but he’s very happy about it.Why are male greyhounds such pervs?? I had an intact Malamute growing up (show dog) and I never remember him being anything other than a gentleman, lol.

Anyway, I’m just over-the-moon happy that all the therapy is working. I can deal with the massage if it will make Jackie well again!!

Jen

I think I’ve lamented this fact before, but I’ve been feeling not-so-great about my art the past few years. I’ve always been more of a drawing-media type girl. In high school and college, it was colored pencil, graphite, and gouache that rocked my boat. After graduating with my art degree I was a bit burned out and took a year hiatus, then discovered Oil Pastel. I loved them, and worked them for a few years before I fell in love with Printmaking. Then I switched almost exclusively to woodcuts, linocuts,and monotypes for the past 6 years as I tried to hone my skills and specialize.

It’s been burning me out. I’m not happy with my prints. But after 6 years of investing in Printmaking- the presses, the inks, the networking, all the books, workshops, dvds… I feel like I can’t stop or do anything else. I’ve invested so much.  I feel like trying another medium would be like… cheating. But every time I sit down with a block… my stomach curls. I just don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to do it anymore. It breaks my heart that I’d rather watch mindless TV or clean the house than do art nowadays.

I had a great discussion with some other folks on one of my favorite art forums- about my burnout, my disgust with my prints recently, etc etc. The other artists had some really great feedback. I discovered that my desire to be so utterly monogamous with my art–ONLY do printmaking, or ONLY do drawing, etc–was not healthy. I need to take a short break, take a deep breath, and not put such a huge burden on myself.

It seems so … duh. Of course.  But to have other people tell me that was a huge relief, because I could not seem to come to that conclusion myself. To work on different media at the same time, to attempt to specialize in more than one medium, seemed a bit like… dabbling. REAL artists don’t dabble, right? They specialize! But no, that’s not quite true. One artist told me this:

Some artists are by nature monogamous to their media, but many are not. Rembrandt, Goya, Da Vinci, Gauguin, Degas, Cassatt, Picasso and lots of others played the field. I’d suggest going out and committing a little (or more) adultery – every medium you have a fling with informs you in different ways how to work the medium you prefer, the same way learning different languages helps you understand your own native language. And to really spice things up, start venturing into m-a-trois via mixed media – for example, working prints over with pastel, or venture into more unseemly relationships – you have a press, try monoprinting (some really great artists, like Degas and Picasso, bordered on perversity when it came to things like that). When it comes to art, there is no such thing as a “love that dares not speak its name”, and Big Love is perfectly legal (and even encouraged)

Eureka! lol.

I put away my Jack/Starling linocut print (which was giving me ulcers the past few weeks) and dug out my Oil Pastels. I love(d) them. Just feeling their sticky wrappers and seeing all the colors laid out in their fishing tackle containers gave me a zip of excitement. I’ve worked exclusively in Sakura, but this weekend ordered a few Caran D’Ache and Senneliers which are even better quality. For the next few months I’m going to work with the OPs, work on my sketchbook and do simple, one-color linocuts (nothing complicated, since that seems to elude me…). Mix things up, de-stress, have fun. Good times.

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On the Craft side of the Creativity spectrum, my friend Renee had me over to teach me the basics of scrapbooking. It’s something I’ve always avoided (nothing screams “SOCCER MOM! SOCCER MOM!” like scrapbooking, lol) but I have sooo many photos, most on the computer, and nothing to do with them? So I told myself that as long as my scrapbooks are TASTEFUL and not OVERLY VOMITABLE GAG A MAGGOT CUTSEY then I will do some.

My first scrapbook will be for Lucy, my first Greyhound. She died last year (has it only been a year??? Ugh. Feels like forever) and going over her pictures has been difficult. The pictures above are on her adoption day. She was so scared!!!!

This is a letter I got from Lucy’s racing owner, Tom. It had to go in the album!

I have to say, Scrapbooking is a lot of fun and I can’t wait to get more photos off the computer, printed, and archived. It can get expensive though and there are a lot of stupid-ass stickers and junk out there, which I am going to try to avoid. The worst I’ve gotten so far are embossed paper hearts (above) which I didn’t really like once I got them home, but since I paid for them I was determined to use them.

Oh, another project is “refreshing” my website. Thankfully I use WordPress as my publishing platform so it will be easy, besides some new banners and photos. And I need to re-open my Etsy store too.

It’s going to be a busy month! Busy in a good way. I’m seeing some of my excitement over art coming back. It’s a relief to experience those feelings again.

-Jen

Yes, the beautiful red snake I bought in Gainesville this winter finally bit the dust. Oh his carcass is still around, but after a pretty rough tug session between Jack and Lela, his stomach opened up and he lost most of his ‘guts’. To be honest I’m surprised he lasted so long! He wasn’t made for dogs but held up pretty well to my tug sessions with each of the pups. Once they learned to tug between EACH OTHER though, it was just too much, lol.

Sadly after a month of twice weekly shots (which form the ‘loading dose’), Jack has not shown much response to the Adequan injections. This tells me and my vet(s) that his limping isn’t related to arthritis. They’re now thinking it might have to do with his Iliopsoas muscle, which is under the legs, in the groin area? The vet told me it’s hard to determine if this muscle truly is injured, though, because it’s so “deep”.  But then, when I contacted Clifford’s Physical Therapist (who is meeting with Jack this week), she told me that testing the Ilopsoas for injury is easy!! Honest to God, these vets have me running around like a chicken with its head cut off, with all their conflicting reports. His back! His hips! His hock! His old racing injury! His ilopsoas! His tendons! I’m wondering if it would be less hassle and money to just amputate his back legs and ass, and just strap his torso to a cart for the rest of his life lol (kidding of course).

Either way, Jack’s still on bed rest. Which is horribly, horribly hard. No hiking, no running, no nothing. I haven’t been that strict about it which makes me wonder if I’m part of the problem?

Last week I received a paper “prayer rug” in the mail from St. Matthews Church.  I get them about once a year, open them up, laugh at them, and then toss them into the recycling bin. I guess the church sends these target mailings to the poorest zip codes in the country (um, thanks?) –usually a strange paper prayer rug, or paper cross. They have VERY detailed instructions about how to pray over the item, put it in the Bible at a certain passage, put it under your bed for a certain number of hours, then send it back to the church for “all your prayers to come true” (a “seed gift” would be thoughtful too, of course!).  They even have a form to fill out your prayers, including how much money you’d like Jesus to bless you with LOL. I do believe in God but am not very religious anymore, but have to admit I actually followed the instructions for my prayer rug, even putting it on Jack’s back legs, put it in my Bible and under my bed for the night, and filled out the prayer request form “Healing for __Jack___” and “I would like to receive $__800__ ” (I was going to ask for $1,000 but didn’t want to be a glutton lol. $800 would at least cover xrays).  I came thissss close to mailing it back, lol. I’m embarrassed to admit it! But then I figured WTF, why would Jesus give a shit about Jack’s leg when there are starving people in China, civil wars in Africa, rampant political and social unrest across the world? I feel guilty for bothering God when s/he CLEARLY has bigger fish to fry. And if the Bible is correct (which I’m not sure it is, mind you) then God doesn’t really give too much of a rat’s ass about animals anyway.

So I threw it in the recycle bin.

Happily, Jack is in great spirits and enjoys going to the vet’s office. They use a “kitten needle” on him because he’s so sensitive, and I pack a cold Hot Dog for him to gnaw on while they do the prick. I don’t want him to become scared of the vet the way Clifford did at the end!! That just makes life too difficult.

Did I mention Lela is taking a kind of “Puppy Kindergarten” class for adult dogs? We loovvvvve it! I forgot how fun it is to go to class and work with your dog! Being so new from the shelter, Lela is a bit behind everyone else but we’re working hard with a few 3-minute training sessions each day. She’s still not very focused but is very smart and learning quickly. Jack loves our training sessions too and once he gets well I’d like to get him involved in Rally (which is an AKC sport, a low-key, non-competitive obedience/agility blend) and I think Lela would LOVE agility. The AKC now allows mixed breeds to compete via a “PAL” registration and as for Jack–I’m not sure if he needs an ILP number or if, because he is NGA, he can be “scooted” into the AKC and get a “real” number, not a PAL or ILP? Have to look into it more. Unfortunately all the vets I spoke with have agreed that whatever it is that’s wrong with him, he WILL be more prone to injury in the future so heavy “real” agility, jumping, running with me, etc are out.

Erg, have more but my laptop battery is dying. Hope everyone is having a nice Sunday… will post more later!
Jen