The
Squamidian Report – June 9 / 12
Issue #524
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Ok boys and girls, this week’s topic is poop. Not the good kind that should be where it is but the kind that’s not supposed to be where it is. The kind that wouldn’t be there if the lazy, inconsiderate rude and uptight dog owners would pick up but won’t because they are too good to pick it up or they think that their dog’s droppings have a right to be anywhere and everywhere, or they think their dog’s dump is somehow better than any other dogs dump. The kind of dog owner that should receive a good swift kick in the gonads. A backward little town like Squamish doesn’t do many things very well, but it does make addressing the issue of pooping dogs easy, clean and efficient. You would think that the out-door oriented, athletic residents of a town that goes out of it’s way to make it easy to pick up after Fido would have the self respect and pride to pick up after Fido. But they don’t. The walking trails have a poop bag dispenser at the entrances, as well as a collection bin specifically for the disposing of the picked up poop inside the freely supplied bag.
There is a fenced dog park along the route we walk while walking our morning walk. It has a poop bag dispenser and a collection bin right at the entrance gate. And yet, the grass in the park is covered with dog shit, its all over the place. The lazy morons that bring their dogs there let them do their dump and then ignore it, pretend it never happened. It makes me furious. Our dog likes to run free in there but we have to watch where we step. We carry several poop bags with us at all times, again, they are free, there is no excuse not to be prepared. If Willow decides to have a dump somewhere along our walk, we pick it up and deposit it in the next dog poop collection bin we come to. Same with the walking trails. We see countless people heading onto the trails with their dogs, but not with pickup bags. Blows my mind. I guess the bag dispensers and collection bins are for decoration purposes.
Aside from being ticked at people not picking up after their dogs, there really hasn’t been much going on around here. Mostly because it has been too cold and wet to do anything. This past week has been down right miserable. More fresh snow in the mountains again, heavy, none stop rain pretty well everywhere right over to the Alberta border. The section of the Trans Canada highway through Roger’s Pass was closed for 2 days because of mud slides. The alternative route is #3 over the Kootenay Pass, but it was being blasted by more winter conditions making it snowy and slippery. The heavy rains have been washing some of the snow down from the mountains and swelling the rivers throughout the province causing roads to wash out and trailer parks to float away. So, we’ve all just been sitting around inside looking out the window and wishing it would warm up and dry up a bit.
Oh, I guess there was a pretty weird bear attack near Kamloops… some moron had driven up some back road and then overdosed on drugs. His body sat there in his car until it got ripe enough to attract a big bear who couldn’t resist the smell of carrion. The bear smashed its way into the car, dragged the rather putrid body out and devoured some of it and then buried the rest. Needless to say, the poor bear was tracked down and destroyed. Not really the bear’s fault for doing what bears do which is follow their noses to the rankest stuff they can find, but I guess Kamloops doesn’t want to solve their drug problem quite that way.
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This is late breaking, as in it is happening as I write this. There are not very many people on the street we live on who have still hold the Squamish fire department in very high regards. Perhaps there are things about their job or how they do it that we don’t understand, and perhaps Greg might have some insight as to what they do or more importantly what they don’t do.
The neighbours 2 doors up from us called the fire department about mid afternoon because they thought they could smell smoke. The fire department sent out a small truck with some guy in charge, and a big truck, both of which came racing up the street. They went in and the home owner showed them where she was smelling the smoke, the second level living room. They poked around and declared that there was not a problem but did call BC hydro to check the hydro service as the lights were flickering. The home owner didn’t want them to leave as she could still smell smoke but they left anyway. BC Hydro came and suggested they call an electrician. Then, less than an hour after the fire department left, the whole end of the upper floor erupted into flame which burst through the front wall and roof in seconds. In only minutes the whole upper floor was engaged. All any of the neighbours could do was play a garden hose on the house next to ours which has wood siding and pray that the fire department would get their sorry asses back in time to save the neighboring houses because it was now too late for the first house. They did get back and kept the house beside ours from going up but pretty well everyone on the street is a bit shook up.
The poor home owners of the house that is now in ruins can’t understand why the fire department didn’t stay and check out the smoke she could smell.
All our houses now smell smoky inside. It didn’t have to happen like it did. Had they found the fire in the ceiling or where ever it was, there would have been a lot of damage to the roof and a room or two but the house would have been saved. Now, it is a total loss and the house next to us has a lot of smoke damage. Ok everyone, check your extension cords, check your electrical and electronic equipment, and most of all, check your smoke detectors. NOW!
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
What a crazy week it’s been around here. First the thunder storms mixed with incredibly humid heat, then some sunshine, then hail the size of peas but tons of it that covered our lawns and pounded on the patio metal roof so hard that we literally had to cover our ears to shield from the irritating noise. It’s been a mixed bag for sure but now we’re in for a sunnier week ahead if all goes as the weatherman projects. I thought all that inaccuracy went out the window when Dave MacDonald retired! LOL! Poor Dave, everybody blamed him for the screwy weather and now look, he’s out of the picture and nothings changed! I guess it wasn’t his fault after all! Oh well, the odd rainy day doesn’t really bother me, I just don’t like it when I’m either out on the bike or out in the MGB with the top down and the sky decides to open up! I guess it’s up to me to try to plan my rides and drives around the rainy days! I’ve found that checking the weather on the Internet is much more reliable than depending on the CTV Television reports!
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Speaking of pets, we all have and love our pets and our preference happens to be dogs. We’ve had two miniature Poodles now and they’ve both been very different from each other. The first was a female that weighed in at 5 lbs max all her life and had no health issues for most of her life. She lived from 1980 when we bought her as a pup until 1996½. That made her 16½ years of age when she just laid down and was finished with her life. She was the most gentle and loving pet anyone could have asked for and when she passed, we decided it was too heart breaking to have gone through that last visit to the vet and that we would never want to go through that trauma again.
Six years passed and Carole asked for another poodle puppy for Christmas one year and we all talked about it and decided we’d really missed having that puppy presence around the house. So, Adam and I surprised Carole with a little male poodle for Christmas and his name is Bailey because he’s the colour of “Bailey’s Irish Cream”. He’s totally different in personality and actions than our first one “Fluffy” was. He’s also weighed in at 17.8 lbs for most of his adult life. He’s going to be 10 years old this fall. When we brought him home, the vet found a problem with his bowel and we had to spend almost $500.00 in the first two weeks of owning him to clear up his problem. I phoned the kennel where we bought him up in Hanover area and the lady who owned the kennel reimbursed us for the money to fix his health. He’s been a wonderful pet and we still think of him as a puppy because he looks like he did the first day we brought him home but he’s bigger now of course. It’s easy to forget that he’s an “old dog” now. About two months ago, he started refusing to eat his food and developed a cyst on the left side of his neck. We took him to the vet and they put him on antibiotics for a total of 17 days and the cyst burst and cleared up. While on the drugs, he seemed to get weaker and weaker and was losing weight. He dropped from 17.8 lbs to 10.8 lbs in just a few weeks. We took him to the vet once again and they did some blood work and tests at considerable cost I might add. The results of the blood work showed that he is diabetic! Now there’s no “Type I” or “Type II” in animals. Dogs just get “Type I” which means he either responds to insulin shots or he doesn’t! If he doesn’t, he just wastes away until he’s gone! If he does respond positively to the needles, he’s got any where from two to five more years before he succumbs to the disease!
We started Bailey on the needle the following Monday after the results came in and he made an immediate and amazing turn around! He almost instantly regained his appetite and got his energy back within a day or so, it was amazing indeed! He’s been on insulin now for four weeks and is like his old “puppy like” self once again! He has to go in for another round of blood work this week to make sure his insulin is at the correct level to match his diabetes. He’s had no incidents of insulin shock either pro or con the sugar content in his system. He’s been eating four small meals a day and has gained about a pound so he’s at the weight that he’s supposed to be at for his breed and age! We’re so happy to have our fourth family member back to normal that we can’t believe the difference in him in such a short time span. We can’t help wondering if the strong dose of antibiotics for what the internet says is too long a period (17 days as opposed to the recommended maximum of 10 days) had something to do with the onset of his diabetic condition! It seemed to happen so suddenly when the original reason for the vet visit was a simple cyst! Maybe the antibiotics triggered the onset and maybe not. Of course the vet would never admit to OD’ing our pet and instigating the diabetes so I guess we’ll never know. All be know at this point is that we now have a pretty healthy dog back and we have to give him a needle in the back of his neck every day at 6pm or he’s a goner! Oh well, I guess this is the price we pay for having a pet! There are those who would dig a hole in the back 40 and put a bullet in their dog’s head rather than spend the time and money to treat him for such a disease for a few years but we don’t happen to be of that nature! We treat Bailey as one of the family and don’t resent having to do whatever it takes to keep him with us and healthy for as long as possible. He’s a joy to have around and we’re only to relieved to have him back and in good health once again!
IF you don’t treat your pets with the respect they deserve, you don’t deserve to be a pet owner in my book!
Welcome back Bailey and good health for a few more years at least little fellow!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now… Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
Two fish swam into a concrete wall. One turned to the other and said, “Dam!”
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Have a good one..
the doug
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