ALMOST SPRING

It is one of those busy times when you take one step forward and two back. It seemed like spring had arrived so I thought it was a good time to clean up my desk -– wrong! One should only do that when they don'’t try to do other tasks at the same time. Wrapping up odds and ends from the holidays turned out to be complicated. Nothing is simple anymore. While juggling those two jobs, I decided to check out heartworm costs for this year since Dakota now is my only canine companion. He was having some leg problems this past weekend, so I decided it was time to check with the vet and see if additional exams were called for or if I could wait until heartworm testing time. I have been giving heartworm protection to my dogs ever since it began. I cannot believe the increase in costs. One has to consider a second mortgage if you have a large dog or more than one. It is no longer just a matter of heartworm; you have to consider fleas and ticks too. More than likely this means two products. The catch is that the drug companies package most of these preventatives in 6-packs. In our neck of the woods we only need to worry about our short summer when the temperatures stay above the no freeze zone. The rest of the country goes for a full 12-month coverage because they are more civilized and wouldn'’t be caught dead in three layers of clothing and six feet of snow. However, it now seems our vets’ feel that we should appear civilized and use preventatives for seven months. I remember when it was just a six-month ordeal. But somehow they got sold a bill of goods - perhaps about global warming. That means you can no longer buy a 6-month supply, you must buy two 6-month application packs to cover seven months. That packs a wallop to one'’s wallet. And, heaven help you if your faithful canine companion[s] has all of their vaccinations due at the same time. So spring brings me a vet medical bill larger than my own medical costs for two years. That is when I think about contacting NASA to see if they could construct a bubble for my darling Dakota to wear for those seven months. I just thank my lucky stars that he is such a healthy dog for his age. I wouldn'’t deprive him of anything. He knows when it is pill time and stands and waits, patiently, for me to fork over his medication. Then he wags his tail, gives me a smile, and trots off to pounce on his teddy bear. That is worth every penny. After all, he keeps me happy and healthy too. Now, it is back to the desk cleaning. I can multi-task here. Dakota and I are guinea pigs for a new system I stumbled on to desensitize him of his storm fears. I play the segments on my computer while he sleeps in my office. This keeps my mind busy so I don'’t think about the thunder that is going on in the background. I discovered I was torpedoing the system by paying attention to the disc thereby giving Dakota a "“key"” to storm sounds on the CD and sabotaging all efforts to cure him. Darn, the dog is smarter than I am. He'’s making progress and I am a bit optimistic. However, I think it may all fall apart because, while the thunder doesn'’t bother me one bit, the lightening is quite the opposite. The thought of going through all of this effort only to fail because of me is quite disheartening. So far there don'’t seem to be any solutions to this perplexing problem. The sun is out and it is lunchtime. No point in worrying about things I cannot do anything about. Tomorrow is another day. For now, Dakota and I need to go play.