Please meet Flick, she is a Northern Flicker. Northern Flickers happen to be one of my favourite birds that frequent my part of the world. They are an absolutely beautiful bird and have the most stunning colours on the underside of their wings and a little red spot on their cheeks (neither of which are visible in this photo).
I found Flick in my backyard this morning (hence the delay into today’s normal posting schedule).
Flick was unable to fly as she appeared to have a broken wing. In fact, as I entered the back yard Flick was trying desperately to fly away with her one good wing. But Flick simply couldn’t fly.
So, Mr. MPB offered to help her out by putting her out of her misery. I’m pretty sure he was joking, but nope. Just no.
So, while fighting back tears over the state of poor little Flick, I googled bird rescues and got on the phone with a local wildlife rescue agency. Needless to say, they don’t pick up injured birds, but they accept them as drop-offs. To which I responded, great, how the heck am I going to catch a wild bird?! I was told, simply toss a blanket/towel over the bird and it’ll basically freeze, then pick the bird up within the towel and put it in a box. Sure, I’ll get right on it…
I took the role of finding a box/container and an old dog towel to transport Flick to the emergency vet that works with the wildlife rescue agency. Thankfully, Mr. MPB took the role of bird catcher.
We then loaded Flick into my car (the freshly de-puked car), and I begged her not to escape her box and make a mess. For almost the entire drive, Flick scratched at the box, making all the little hairs on my arms stand straight up on edge. It turns out a wild bird scratching a cardboard box is the creepiest sound ever! Then moments before we arrived at the vet, she went quiet, at which time I was petrified this entire experience gave her a heart attack and I’d be left with a dead little Flick.
Ultimately, she didn’t die under my watch and she’s now with the emergency vet. I’m told that they suspect Flick has a broken wing, and the vet will do an initial check and the wildlife rescue will come pick up Flick and care for her until she is able to be released to the wild. I’ll probably never hear about Flick’s recovery. But, I suspect every time I see a Northern Flicker, I’ll think about Flick and hope she’s flying freely with her birdy friends.
.
And now I’m off to our vet with our dog, again, as she’s not doing very well. I’m hoping the x-rays and blood work are just an expensive bill and nothing more. I’m also hoping the dog doesn’t puke in my car, again.
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
You know the kind of day where you wish you could just crawl back into bed, forget everything that’s happened and hide until tomorrow? Yesterday was one of those days.
It all started late the night beforr night. I stayed up way past my bed time (big mistake). Then the dog seemed to start having stomach issues, which of course started at 12:00am, just when I wanted to go to sleep. As I was still awake and Mr. MPB was asleep, I took the role of backdoor opener as she needed outdoor bathroom breaks every 20-30 minutes. We kept this up until about 2:00am when she seemed to be feeling better.
Of course she didn’t settle in for the night, just for a few hours. At 4:00am, she started the constant need for bathroom breaks over again. This time, Mr. MPB took the role of door opener while I attempted to sleep. But the dog’s MO changed at 4:30am she puked multiple times all over the carpeted floor just outside of Little MPB’s room. Evidently Little MPB, who can sleep through home renovation projects, cannot sleep through the dog puking.
So, our day started rather early. Neither of the Adult MPBs were happy at this point.
Eventually we got ourselves organized enough for Mr. MPB to drop Little MPB off at daycare. And I called the vet to book an appointment for that day – she actually had her yearly check-up scheduled for Thursday so we just moved up the appointment. After last night I was not waiting until thursday and decided she needed to see a vet ASAP – you see, she hasn’t been eating much lately which isn’t typical for our 90lbs dog. But, add in the puking and I know something is wrong.
Anyways, off to the vet the dog and I go. The dog is now on all kinds of things to help her stomach with a possible ulcer (irony of that is not lost on my and the vet assures me that dogs and people don’t transfer ulcers between them). And we are told to come back in 3 days if she’s not eating more and behaving more appropriately.
So the dog and I head home, a quick 5 minute drive. Well, evidently the dog needed to puke again. because why not puke in my car (which is always rather clean)? I absolutely could not safely stop my car and get her out before the vomit started. My car got covered in dog puke.
As my precious car was being puked on I called Mr. MPB (hands free of course) and he started the search for someone to de-puke (i.e. detail) my car immediately because I can assure you dog puke in a car on a hot day does not smell good. Then, while driving and talking to Mr. MPB I had to push the dogs head away from me as she started puking directly on me. At this point Mr. MPB just laughed, because I’m sure if I weren’t the one being puked on, it would have been a rather entertaining phone call.
I got home and dropped off the dog. Mr. MPB shoved some of her drugs into her and we began emptying out my car for the trip to the de-puking company – remove the car seat, the stroller, a spare sweater, 3 pairs of work shoes (who has 3 pairs of work shoes in their car?) and my winter emergency kit (I guess I’ve just been extra prepared for an unexpected snowstorm this summer).
Of course the only place that could take my car was on the other side of the city. So, I then crossed the city and spent hours sitting in the coldest coffee shop in the world (without a sweater) waiting for my car to be de-puked. While waiting I got horrible news for one of my clients, and I expect to be giving him advice to close his business and essentially go bankrupt. I like the guy, and it breaks my heart to be the barer of such news. And even more troubling is that while sitting in the freezing cold coffee shop, the vet’s other comment really started to settle in…if our dog needs to go back in 3 days they will be looking for cancer, probably liver cancer.
What are the chances yesterday was just some sort of comically bad dream?
If you like this post, please feel free to share and please click the follow button on the side or return to myperfectbreakdown.com to follow my journey.
My Perfect Breakdown 