more doggy-time-share

met kim o at cosmos cafe and left maynard with her. she and her family will look after him for a few days. they are doggy-time-share-alternate-family2.

dog loaning

went to the “cafe cosmos” for a coffee with a mom i knew last year, and the new california moms. 2 of the cal moms wanted to introduce me to another cal mom who is an artist. i brought the dog, because in france, you can do that. they cooed over him and he is so good and calm. they all miss their dogs that they had to leave in california, so i told them they could borrow maynard. they leapt at the idea. the artist claimed him first. since i will be starting work next week, i was wondering what i would do with him. i am nearby, but i don’t know if i will be able to leave work to go home every day at lunch to walk him. so we have arranged to have maynard visit the family for 2 days. this is perfect.

maynard on late night tv

well, maynard, the dog, did make it onto late night tv afterall. a few months ago, we were on our morning run at the champs de mars by the eiffel tower. maynard was called onto screen by actress kristen bell who was a guest on “the late late show with craig ferguson” who was filming in paris. you can see his screen debut by going to this web address and fast forwarding to 3:40 mins almost at the end. i appear briefly in my not-ready-for prime-time jogging outfit. how embarrassing! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv5afjXgSLU&sns=em

pet passport

took maynard to the vet to have the last procedure done to get his pet passport stamped for his trip to england. the UK has always been very careful about preventing rabies from coming to the island. dogs used to have to be quarantined away from their owners for 1 year to enter. they have eased restrictions slightly so now, you need a microchip installed, a rabies shot given and a rabies test taken 6 months after. we had started doing this before we left for france, but the vet had made a typo on the chip number, writing a 5 instead of an S and a 1 instead of an I. or something like that. and the UK said “no” the process had to start over again. so in october we started again and by april he was ok to go. the grandparents in england love maynard and have volunteered to take him for the summer. they are hoping that he will chase the rabbits from their garden. little peter rabbits. so maynard is going to summer camp. he will be in heaven if gets to chase bunnies. when we were living in boston, jj also had a bunny called eddie. p had made a bunny house and jj and i had painted it to look like our house. there was a little fenced in bunny garden for him too. then maynard came to us and he was much too excited whenever he’d see eddie. we had to teach him to NOT pay attention to eddie. he was as obedient as one can expect a hunting dog to be in the sight of prey. when little wild bunnies would come into the garden we would also say “NO!”. he would just sit and watch them and tremble with his repressed energy. so this summer he will be encouraged to chase them and he will be very happy and fulfilled.

doggy procedure

i brought the dog to the vet to get a further test of lyme disease. the doctor said she needed to do a urine test. i asked if i had to “harvest” it. she said, no, she would take care of things. when we got to the office, there was an assistant and a 14 year old intern. she seems to have lots of 14 year old interns (same age as jj – who will do her internship next week). anyway, she needed to get urine and i was curious how she would do this. maynard got up on the table, obedient as always. the vet pulled out a long clear tube. “oh”, i said to myself. the assistant held maynard. i held maynard’s head, trying to keep him calm. the vet then raised the table and squatted down next to him. i couldn’t see much from my angle, but there was a lot of grunts and fiddling with both hands (no gloves!) and more grunts and groans (on her part). this didn’t seem to be going easily. maynard had one of those typical dog faces of minimal expression, who’s eyebrows seemed to indicate concern and confusion and “what’s going on?” with slightly widened eyes. he was VERY patient and tolerant. at one point, the vet’s long blond hair seemed to be getting in the way and she took her gloveless hands off maynard’s private member and carefully put her hair behind her ears (“ick!”, i thought). after more grunting (her tongue sticking out in intense focus), she stood up and went to the other room. she came back with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a new, thinner tube. more grunts and finally, she came away with a sample. she had the young intern hold the top of the tube (without gloves!) while she found various testers. she did a first test to see if there was a need to go further in testing. she determined that there was a need and another 80 euros later, we walked with our packaged sample to the drop it at the post office. (this is how many medical tests are done in france, the patient has to walk the sample to mail it themselves or deliver it to the lab – this was true of my amniotic fluids 15 years ago.)

later that day, my cousin’s daughter, libby who is 25 and living in parma, italy, arrived for a visit. she took a cheap flight with ryanair – 25 euros or so each way. she will stay with us for a week. on sunday, my other cousin, (libby’s aunt) will be arriving with family to visit paris.

we decided to go out to the brasserie near the champs de mars, for dinner. “le suffren” is a very reasonably priced brasserie with good seafood, a nice ambiance and fairly quick service. afterwards, we walked the block over to see the eiffel tower and watched it glitter (which it does every hour for a few minutes)

school meeting / doggy passport

went to school meeting. got to see who the principal was (the woman with whom jj had had the crisis) and various other teachers. the principal was a very proper french lady. the english teacher seemed to speak french fluently, but had the most amazing twangy american accent. i really enjoyed listening to her. it was entertaining.

later, i brought maynard to the vet to get his doggy passport, for traveling in europe.  plus he had to have a rabies test to get into england.  then, six months after the negative test results (ie. he DOESN'T have rabies), he is allowed in.  this is the second time we have done this.  we had had it done back in march '09, in boston, but the clinic messed up with some typos on his microchip number and it was invalidated.  we found this out only in july when we were coming over.  so now, he will be allowed into england in april.