Shelby the Beagle/ Husky Mix

About a year ago, I found a site online that professed to determine what breeds make up your mutt. The test was called the Canine Heritage Breed test. I paid $85 and received a kit in the mail. Sending a picture was optional, according to the site. No way was I sending a picture. That would make it far too easy for them to cheat. I took what looked to be a tiny bottle brush to the inside of Shelby's cheek, which she didn't take too kindly to. After a brief wrestling match, I had my cheek swab, and we promptly put it in the mail. Three to four weeks later, we recieved the results. Beagle and Husky.

Now I'm no veterinarian, but I always assumed that she was a German Shepherd mix, with a hint of West texas jackrabbit (the ear gene) and Oprah Winfrey (the appetite) thrown in. Now, the Husky I can see, but the only thing that even slightly resembles a Beagle is her insatiable lust for chasing squirrels. I was less than satisfied with the fruits of my hard-earned $85.

Fast forward to Monday of this week. One of the many drug reps who frequent my place of business in order to bribe me into buying their latest, greatest product shows me a brochure for the new Wisdom Panel MX. This is the new gold standard, he says, for determining what breeds make up a mixed breed dog. Now where have I heard that before? I told him that I had tried something similar last year, and was less than convinced it was anything more than a scam. He explained to me the differences and answered most of my questions to my satisfaction. this was a blood DNA test instead of a cheek swab. That supposedly results in 3x the amount of DNA being extracted from the sample, making the test 90% accurate instead of 30-40% like a cheek swab.

Still I wasn't convinced. Then he started speaking my language: this was a test sold through veterinarians. In other words, I can make some money off this deal. I know for a fact that many of my clients would be interested in shelling out $150 to me for a test that tells them what Sparky is made of, genetically speaking. And the test only costs me $75. For the non math majors out there, that's a 100% markup. Me likey.

However, being the ethical veterinarian that I am, I could not in good conscience recommend this test to my clients without being sure that it is legit. Luckily for the clients of Lakeside Animal Clinic, I happen to have the perfect mutt/ guinea pig. If this test can convince me that it knows what breeds my lovely sort-of-German Shepherd-looking-but-with-short-legs-and-huge-ears-dog is made of, then I can wholeheartedly recommend this test to my clients.

So last night, with my beautiful wife serving as the technician, I drew some blood from Miss Shelby's left front leg. Of course, that was after ten minutes of chasing her around the house, because she has been to work with me enough to know when I am about to poke or prod her. After the blood draw, you would have thought we had just sliced off her leg, as she gingerly walked on it and licked it for two hours.

Anyway, into the mail today went the blood. In 3-4 weeks, we will see if this test performs any better than the previous one. I guess if it comes back that she is a Beagle/Husky Mix, I owe the Canine Heritage Company an apology. And I will start training Shelby to be the sled-pulling squirrel hunter she was born to be.

I'll let you know what we find out.

The Fitz-lympics

It was a fun weekend. Scott came into town on Friday night and he, Nancy, and I went to dinner and our favorite sports bar. Derrick also came into town, but he stayed with his sister Friday night. Everyone met at our house on Saturday after I got home from work. By everyone, I mean Scott, Derrick, his girlfriend Tiffany, his sister Kara, her boyfriend Ryan, our neighbors Sarah and Brent, and their son John.

We broke in my new poker table, with the help of our neighbor Todd. I came out in the black in the inaugural poker game. A whole two bucks. Derrick and Scott were the big winners on the day, clearing about 40 bones each.

After the poker game, I grilled some venison sausage and burgers and Nancy made her signature sausage wontons. After dinner, we had planned to go out on the town, but everyone was so excited about our games (or old, lazy, and tired) that we decided to stay here and have a little Fitz-lympics. The Fitz-lympics involved separate tournament brackets for Air Hockey, Darts, 3-ball Pool, Blackjack and Foosball. It also involved everyone drinking copious amounts of beer and liquor...but that wasn't an "official" event. We actually drew names to pair people up and had actual brackets drawn up. Despite some early kinks, it actually worked out. There were 8 players in all. Nancy did not compete. Her actual job was referee, but she ended up just dealing blackjack. I should say she didn't officially compete, because she did take great pride in busting people out as the Blackjack dealer. Some of the participants might say a little too much pride.

Ryan was the overall winner, with two championships of the five. Brent eked out a win against me in our championship Air Hockey match (my best event). He went up big and held off a furious rally for the win 10-9. There will be a rematch (since he lives right next door).

It was a great time, and everyone seemed to have fun. It was a miracle no major damage was done to the house. Scott tracked in one of Shelby's land mines and Tiffany spilled a beer on the Blackjack table. Other than that, The Fitz survived. Shocking, I know, that with this bunch only one beer was spilled. I just knew someone would spill a beer on my poker table, despite my rad casino cup holders. Luckily, the poker was early enough in the day that everyone was still semi-coherent.

The major damage was to Nancy's (left, non-math problem working) hand. Shelby and Scott's dog Maya decided to have a squabble, and Nancy tried to intervene. Shelby caught a mouthful of flesh somehow. Shelby would never purposely bite anyone, especially her mama...but it was a pretty nasty bite. Nancy's hand is still pretty sore and swollen. Immediately after the bite, she asked me, as the resident veterinarian (and someone who has been bitten more times than I can count) what to do. My sage advice: Drink through it. I think she was hoping for a little more from me, frankly.

Everyone finally left about 1 am. Which is closer to Nancy's wake-up time than her bed time. But somehow she managed to hang. It was a lot of fun seeing my college buddies and having some immature fun. I may be married, with a house, have two degrees, and own my own business, but in reality I am still a 14 year old masquerading as a mature adult. My wife would say not masquerading very well at all.

Saturdays

I love everything about my job. Except the working on Saturdays part. I know it is only 4 hours, from 8 to noon...but you would be surprised how much shorter that makes the weekend seem. At my previous job, after I had worked there for about three years, we decided to close on Saturdays. None of the clients seemed to mind very much, and our revenue actually went up. I don't know if I will ever get up the nerve to try it at Lakeside. We are usually pretty busy on Saturdays. Maybe after I am a little more well-established. Or maybe I can get a part-timer or relief vet to work for me every other Saturday or something. The girls get one out of every three Saturdays off and either two half-days or one full day off during the week, and here I am working every day. My boss is such an ass.

Okay, enough whining.

The new hire is working out well so far. By working out so far I mean she actually showed up, was on time, and hasn't quit yet. Other than that, it is still too early to tell.

I haven't written much in this here blog lately because I have been either trying to learn Spanish or painting. Once I get on a painting kick, it usually lasts two or three weeks, and then I don't paint for a few months. This particular project has been the "over the fireplace" painting that Nancy made me do. I wasn't happy with the way the first one turned out, so I completely re-did it. maybe I will post a pic later.

I think we are going to hit up our favorite watering hole for the Super Bowl. I've got Arizona in an upset 21-17.

I paid our landscaper to do some Winter landscaping at the clinic, to try to spice up the joint a little. For your viewing pleasure (the last one is a Photoshop I did for the front page of our website, www.lakesidevets.com ):

Finally...A Keeper

After three weeks of trying, I finally found someone mentally stable enough to hire for my kennel position. She is a high school kid who seems smart and motivated. A lot of people seem smart and motivated. We'll see how I feel in a month.

I am just glad I can finally take my ad down, and I no longer have to sort out the seriously retarded from the only mildly retarded.

Poker Table and a visit from the Fam

I am not the most handy guy in the world...so my plans to build a poker table were met with more than a few chuckles from my lovely and supportive wife. Undeterred, I went forward with the planning and construction. In reality, it really wasn't that hard. The hardest part was convincing Nancy to park her car in the driveway while I commandeered the garage.

Anyway, check it out. I think it turned out pretty good. It is actually just a table topper (no legs) designed to fit on top of our dining room table.

Close up of the cool poker felt I ordered online.

Mom, Dad, Carrie, Logan, and Brynna came down to visit this weekend. We had a great time as always. We all had fun playing with all our new gameroom games. Logan even invented a game that was very complicated and involved the use of the ping pong net, two mini football goalposts, an air hockey puck, bowling pins, a rubber chicken, and a mini Abominable Snowman. He has quite the imagination.

Logan has also become quite imaginative when trying to get himself out of trouble. He was trying to "help" Pa win an air hockey game by throwing a bowling pin at the goal, scratching the table and nearly shattering our tv. But when his mom yelled at him, he insisted it was not his fault..."because if Randy wouldn't have bought the game table, it wouldn't have happened." I guess, technically, he does have a point.

Nancy also caught him using a lint-roller on the inside of our bathtub. He got mad when she walked in, because "it was supposed to be a surprise". I have no idea, so don't ask me.

Brynna is cute as always. She just LOVES her Aunt Nancy. Unless she hasn't had her nap, of course. Brynna, not Nancy.

We also took the kids to play at the neighborhood playground. They had a fun time. Brynna loved the slide and the swing...and Logan loved feeding the troll that lives in the storm sewer. Again, don't ask me.

I just realized that my Dad had quit smoking recently. We are really proud of him. He needs to be around after we have kids and need to drop them off for some babysitting for a month or three.

All in all it was a fun weekend. And the good thing about nieces and nephews is: once you're done playing with them, you just send them home with mom, M, and Pa. The house is strangely much more quiet tonight.

AAARRGGHH!!!!

Well, I finally, after all this suffering, found an applicant worth a damn. Interview- awesome. Extended interview- awesome. Called her references today...all of them go on and on about how good of a worker she is, how reliable, etc. Finally! I said.

I called her to give her the good news. She had just been in for the working interview on Saturday. When I told her she got the job, she started crying. Tears of joy, I thought. How cute.

Nope, she is crying because she is literally, as we speak, moving back to Louisiana.

At least the manager of the Cinnamonster in the mall in Lafayette, LA might get his wish. He told me that he wished she still worked for him.

Back to the drawing board.

Another Interesting Applicant

This round of employee hiring is the most interesting one yet, as you can imagine based on the previous two blogs.

A little more background on how the hiring process goes down:

The girls up front pre-screen all the applicants, and the select few that know how to fill out an application, can spell their own name, and don't smell or look like a barnyard animal get called back for a brief interview. During that initial interview, I explain in detail what their job will entail... salary, hours, duties, benefits, etc.

Those that I interview that seem like they might be a good candidate for the job get called back for a working interview, where they come in and spend an hour or so with us, meet everyone, and see how things operate. More than a few back out at this point, once we put them to work during the working interview, and they realize they are not up to cleaning up dog feces on their hands and knees. Those that appear reliable, hard-working, motivated and friendly get a background check, a few calls to their references, and then they are hired.

Well, last week we had Pete in for a working interview. He had made it through the vigorous pre-screening process and seemed like a good guy during our initial interview. I had explained the position to him, and he mentioned that he was considering going to vet school some day. he said he loved animals, grew up with tons of dogs, cats, horses, etc and was really excited about this opportunity. He was friendly enough, and seemed unlikely to be a gang member, drug user, or thief...so he made the cut.

When he arrived, I immediately put him with Jennifer, our current kennel assistant. I told her to put him to work. Well, she tried to do just that...but he would not get within 5 feet of any of the dogs. He was obviously deathly afraid of every dog in the kennel, from the 5 lb Yorkie to the 50 lb pit bull. He would not even go near the cage until Jennifer had already walked the dog outside. Then he was eager to jump in and clean. She asked Pete if he was afraid of dogs. He went on to explain to her how his mother had been killed by a pack of stray dogs, right in front of him, when he was a child. That, he said, was why he was "a little apprehensive" about dogs he didn't know.

If that story is true, I can't say I blame him. But why on God's Green Earth would you apply for a job in a vet clinic, where your entire job description involves handling dogs, when you are deathly afraid of dogs?

After an hour or so, I told him he was free to go, and asked him what he thought. He went on and on about how excited he was about the job and how it seemed like the perfect job for him. He would be anxiously awaiting my call, he said.

After he left, I asked Jennifer how he did, and she recounted everything to me. He had not gotten near one dog, let alone taken any of them outside. But on the upside, he was a hell of a cage cleaner. Of course he never mentioned his mother's gruesome death or his "apprehensiveness" to me. I guess he thought I would never find out that he had a severe case of dog-phobia.

That is why I do working interviews before I hire anyone. So, I still haven't found anyone worthy of this esteemed position. I will keep you updated. I can't wait to see what insane job-seekers tomorrow brings.