My Saturday night was an exercise in contrasts.
It started out great. I’d had a really nice day, filled with family time. Hanging out with my niece, working on a jigsaw puzzle from my childhood. Video games with my nephew, including introducing him to World of Warcraft. Running errands with my brother. The farmer’s market, where I bought fresh kombucha and spicy radishes.
We even watched some bike racing at the Velodrome. (I mostly felt sorry for the bicyclists — it was a hot day to be dressed like they were, even without the biking really fast in circles in the sun part. 
. )
After dinner, the whole family watched Guardians of the Galaxy. And at 10:30, my niece, sister-in-law, and I headed to Barnes & Noble for the big Harry Potter release. My niece, M, was probably one of the youngest kids there, but stayed resolutely awake. I got to sit and color with her at the Ravenclaw table while her mom waited in line.
Such a nice day.
But when I went to bed, Serenity… well, smelled. Bad. Like something had gone wrong with the black tank, where the sewage accumulates. I tossed and turned, worrying and sleepless, making plans. I’d get up, take her to a dump station. Or no, maybe a full hook-up campground would be better. I hadn’t dumped the tanks before, so I wouldn’t want to be figuring it out and maybe messing it up if I had to hurry. Still, how could it have gotten so bad, so fast? Maybe a week in the heat of summer was too much to let accumulate? But (if you’ll excuse the TMI), there wasn’t a lot in the tanks to cause a problem — I’d mostly been using the bathrooms at rest stops and campgrounds and my brother’s house. However, clearly it was enough to get bad because it was bad.
But it shouldn’t be. But it was. So was something wrong? Toss, turn, toss, turn, worry, hold my breath, try to sleep, toss, turn, worry, repeat endlessly. At 4AM, B wanted to go out. Sometime after that, maybe 5ish?, Z wanted the same. I think I finally fell asleep for a while after the sun came up, which meant I missed my chance to go to a coin show with my brother, much to my annoyance when I finally got up around 9.
And, of course, when I did get up, I discovered that the black tank was fine. One of the dogs — or maybe both of them? — had had diarrhea under the bed while I was out. Ugh. So not nice to wake up to. And made even worse by worrying about them, of course. B has been scratching himself into a scabby hairless mess and Z has been refusing to eat her kibble. I honestly think that both of them are going to love this lifestyle eventually, but at the moment, they’re both really stressed out by the change and uncertainty.
My big plan for tomorrow — one week after the house closing, the first of August, the day I had determined was going to involve lots and lots and lots of writing words — is to find a Banfield and take B to the vet. I would take Z, too, but based on my past experience with Z having digestive troubles, they’d want to keep her for observation and right now, I feel like that would be a truly terrible idea. If she’s stressed, the cure is not going to be to make her more stressed. (The first time I took her to the vet for digestive stuff — years ago, now — the vet wanted to keep her until she was eating and going normally again. After two days, they finally said, “We don’t think she’s going to eat while she’s away from you.”) So as long as she’s still enthusiastic about walking (she is!) and giving me happy smiles, I’m going to give her a few days to mellow out. The long car days weren’t good for her but the campground days are.
So yes, campground days! I stuck to my campground plan, in part to empty the tanks and in part because the house electricity in my brother’s driveway was just about enough to run the AC consistently, but not if I did anything else that took power. And it only worked if I was parked in his driveway, close enough to the house for a single cord to reach Serenity, but on a fairly steep slope. The extension cords weren’t capable of handling the load if Serenity was in the street. (I’m learning more about electricity than I ever needed to know before, including that long extension cords are not good.)
Anyway, I’m now parked in a KOA campground about twenty minutes from his house. It’s expensive, but very nice. Lots of families here — there’s mini golf and a swimming pool and a nice playground, plenty of grass and trees. The spot I’m in is huge for Serenity, with a picnic table and fire pit and big tree. We’ve gone for a couple walks, chatted with some of our neighbors, and I ate my dinner — an antipasto plate, basically, with olives, dates, prosciutto, cheese, crackers — outside at the picnic table. The best part, I think, is that Serenity is backed up to a stream. Zelda saw the stream and immediately waded right in. B saw the stream and immediately sat down and refused to move any further. So typical!
Stress can set dogs off. Something you might look into (in, of course, your copious quantities of spare time!) is a raw, grain-free diet for them. My Shadow (longhaired Dachshund) lived to be 17.5 on such a diet. His successors, a rescued Beagle and a b&t longhaired Dachshund, are also on a raw diet. Homemade yogurt which has been fermented for 24-28 hours is virtually lactose-free, and can be really helpful for dogs with gut issues. (Going grain-free can also help.) Your new location sounds lovely — hope the peace and quiet calms EVERYONE!
The dogs are grain-free, but I’m definitely thinking about a raw diet for them. I think it would be easier while traveling than trying to find their food consistently. (They eat a mix of Wellness kibble now and the refrigerated roll of fresh stuff. Z is still eating the fridge food, just not her kibble or I would be more worried about her.) Do you have a recipe you use or links you like for a raw diet?
My krewe (N’Awlins term) get veggie slop (made with a small food processor) made of zucchini, green beans, carrots, broccoli, wheat grass, and spring mix greens. I add a little water to let it mix, or homemade broth, and a little yogurt, and let it sit out for a few hours for the probiotics in the yogurt to help ferment the veggies a little. Throwing in a small amount of green leaf cabbage will do the same. I then freeze the stuff in ice cube trays so I can pop one or two cubes per meal. You will now begin to understand why, with my own food limitations, I own an ARB auto-freezer for freezing room while traveling. The freezer in a small RV or motel room does not have enough space for either dog or people gear. Breakfast for a 20 pound (well, she’s supposed to be 20 pounds) Beagle is 1 beef cube (ice cube sized) and two veggie cubes. My 28 pound Dachshund gets 2 beef cubes and 2 veggie cubes. We add some kelp and some spirulina to it.
Dinner is chicken wings, or turkey necks, or pork rib bones, the latter trimmed down to 50% meat and 50% bone. The rest of the pork meat gets ground and seasoned for sausage for us.
To calculate how much your fur kids will need, multiply each dog’s weight by 16 to get the number of ounces he weighs.
Multiply that by .02, which gives you 2% of his/her body weight.
Multiply that by .6 to give you the weight of RMB (raw meaty bones) you should feed. That is chicken necks, wings, backs etc.
Go back to the 2% of his/her body weight again and multiply that number by .4 to get the weight in ounces of vegetable mix you should feed. Note: my holistic vet told me to replace some of the veggies with a cube of red meat / heart / liver for carnitine and taurine,
My krewe also get a beef cube in the evening with assorted supplements tucked into it.
Mister Shadow, my beloved senior Dachs, was 17.5 when he left us. Miss Beagle is 7 and going strong like a puppy. The Boy is now 4 and a Master Barn Hunter.
Thanks for the info! No food processor and not much of a freezer, so that might be a challenge to pull off, but I’ll do some research as I can. My dogs are smallish — Z is 18 pounds, B 13, so I wouldn’t need a lot but getting the bones safe might be challenging without a food processor.
Oh, I don’t grind the bones! I cut the wings in half and feed them intact. When Miss Beagle found us, I suspect she was strictly kibble fed. I refused to buy kibble. (My vet later said she was about 7 months old; she weighed about 10 pounds.) I handed a wing to my Big Guy. One to Lady Dachs. Miss Beagle watched very intently as they crunched away. I offered her a wing. Snatch. Crunch. Crunch. Munch. Swallow…. and she has never looked back.
Master Dachshund was 3 months when he came to us. He did have a little trouble with whole bones because his mouth was so small. So I used my meat hammer to smash them (hey, it’s great for taking out a day’s frustrations. “Take that! And that, and THAT!” Whack, whack, whack, as you think about the idiot drivers you encountered that day…) for a couple weeks while he grew and developed the jaw muscles for crunching them himself. As for the veggies — I’ve used a Cuisinart DLC-2ABC to make small batches when traveling. I’d hit a store with loose greens and grab 2-3 handfuls, plus a small zucchini, plus leftovers from whatever veggies I was fixing for us, whirl it up, and I’d have 2 to 3 days of veggies which fit in a single ice cube tray, which in turn fit in the freezer of most small fridges. Sorry if I made it sound like you HAD to have more freezer space! I’m used to traveling with an engineer who takes three boxes full of tools in case he needs them!
I always thought you weren’t supposed to give dogs bones! I’m definitely going to have to do some reading up on this. I bet Z would be thrilled to get real chicken wings.
About dem chicken bones… best way is to explain how I came to feed raw…..
I was looking for healthier food for the Dachshund Duo, the red, longhaired litter sibs who adopted us in 1998. Part of my research was through the now-sadly-deceased Natural Medicine Forum on CompuServe, which is also where I learned about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, which saved my life. There was one Englishwoman who fed a large number of BIG dogs for less than I was paying for a bag of premium kibble for my two. More research led me to a local holistic veterinarian. Her recommendation was to feed raw.
When she told me to start with chicken wings or chicken drumsticks, I boggled. I mean, really, EVERYONE KNOWS you don’t feed poultry bones to dogs! They’ll splinter.. they’ll kill them…. they’ll….
No, said the vet, they won’t. It’s COOKED bones which are dangerous and splinter. Test a raw wing or drumstick — the bone is actually fairly soft and flexible.
OK, says I, but what about e.coli and salmonella — EVERYONE KNOWS raw chicken has plenty of that! And same with raw turkey, while as for raw pork…!
Dogs’ stomachs are more acid, says the veterinarian, explaining that this does in the bad bacteria.
But what about a properly balanced diet? asks Me the Paranoid Furkid Mom.
I got a lecture in how to balance the diet with mixed crushed vegetables, and if I really wanted to, I could add various supplements. Note that although my vet does sell prepared raw diets and various items, she encourages the owners of her patients to prepare their own from the same human grade food they might purchase for themselves (if they aren’t vegan).
So, I stopped at the store on the way home and bought a package of raw chicken drumsticks. I brought it home. I took out two drumsticks and offered them to the Duo, who snatched them instantly.
When Sunny wasn’t sure of something, she would run in circles, a precisely paced circle like she once used in the show ring, click, click, click, the train is running. The train was running — I think she was afraid I would take the prize away from her. She didn’t know what to do with it, but she knew she didn’t want to surrender it in case I changed my mind.
Shadow, on the other hand, was “mouth-feeling” the drumstick. He couldn’t get a good grip on it, so he brought it over and shoved it at my hand, wanting me to hold it for him while he figured this out. (Who says animals can’t communicate?!)
I held it. Mouth, mouth, mouth….kay-runch! He got in one solid, bone cracking bite, and you could see the stereotypical light bulb go off over his Dachshund head. NOW he knew what to do with this new item on the menu! He snatched it away, crunch, crunch, crunch, munch, swallow, and down the hatch went the first drumstick. Sunny hadn’t stopped watching her brother even while the train was running, and in a few more moments, crunch, crunch, munch, her drumstick was also down the hatch.
OK, the dogs have eaten them.
Now we wait. I (after washing my hands to make sure I didn’t get chicken germs) proceeded to gnaw my fingernails down to the elbow, and on to the shoulder blades.
Am I going to be making a run to the emergency vet? Have I murdered my beloved fur kids? What if…? What if….?
I didn’t sleep at all that night, not until I saw them poop with no issues the next morning. The DOGS were fine. The DOGS were quite ready to repeat the experiment for breakfast. Their Missy was collapsing with nervous exhaustion.
But since that day, when they were about six months old, Shadow and Sunny ate raw. Sunny left us at age 14 years, 7 months, victim of a throat cancer, Shadow left us last October, age 17 years and 6 months. Harper, whom Shadow trained to take care of his humans, is the raw-fed son of raw-fed parents. While Babette said, “I found the good stuff!”
Their breakfast is ground red meat, heart or liver if I get some organic, mixed with crushed vegetables that I run through my juicer and then mix juice and pulp back together. Or I use a small food processor. Or a blender. Or a meat grinder… in short, I use whatever tool is available. The reason for crushing the veggies is because dogs don’t have the flat grinding teeth of the vegetarian to break them up properly. Usually the veggies include green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, zucchini, cucumber, carrots, stems of broccoli, cauliflower and ends of asparagus from our meals, and green beans. There may be other stuff as is seasonally available. We toss in some salmon oil caps, the occasional vitamin E, some kelp tablets. Dinner is Raw Meaty Bones (50% bone and 50% meat). An evening snack of a beef cube is used to wrap up a low potency B vitamin, plus a couple supplements tailored for each dog’s needs.
Those dogs eat a better balanced diet than most humans!
And that is the story of the Nervous Dachshund (and Beagle!) Mom, whose furkids are now advising her that it’s time for their beef cube. Oh, and a lick or two of my goat yogurt snack. After all, if it’s people food….
Thank you so much for sharing your story! I’ll be as anxious as you were if I try this out (not to mention as grossed out by the chicken germs!) but it sounds like you’ve got it mastered. When you say “beef cube”, do you mean an ice cube of frozen ground beef?
Glad your black water tank is o.k. and so sorry about your dog’s digestive problems. Poor thing… KOA’s are a bit more expensive, but usually have amenities that make up for the extra cost. And it’s good to treat yourself to a nicer place now and then. Glad things are working out for you.
Thanks! Yes, the KOA would be a great price if I was a family of four with kids who wanted to take advantage of all the amenities. It’s definitely a great deal for real vacationers. And it’s a very nice place. We had a beautiful walk this morning.
Campgrounds, yay! I’m encouraged, and excited, for you all.
Stress…did you explain the plan to B and Z? That the pack now lives in a mobile den? For the upset tummies, I got these probiotic packets from the vet, which I sprinkle on their food as needed. I find that helps when their systems get out of whack.
But to be 100-percent California hippy here, a visualization with the dogs about the mobile den might help–especially Z as she is so very keyed into you.
<3
We’re at the vet now, so I’ll ask about probiotics if I get a chance! And Z so loves the campgrounds. This morning’s walk was incredible.
I think your sense that the dogs will eventually settle in and love it is right on. The saying ‘dogs travel in packs’ includes the word travel for a reason.
Sorry you had a restless uneasy period there. Glad it turned out to be nothing major wrong.