What kind of face is that, anyway?

SUMMARY: Makeup

Backfill: Typed this May 20, 2019...:oops, why didn't I post it?  --- MARCH 25: Added first-grade class photo.

True story about me: When I was about 35, I went to a stylist who suggested that I try false eyelashes or at least mascara. I said no. But she talked me into finding a very pale mascara (light brown, I guess), which was hard to find, and it was OK, i suppose. Never used it much. But that's me--because my lashes are so short and straight, they needed a tiny bit of curling to show up even then. All too much of a pain for such tiny lashes. My newest cousin infant is lucky to have naturally long, curled-up eyelashes.

Me, at eighteen. What I think is interesting about this is that my eyes have always been listed as blue. When I got my first license, I asked the clerk something about the color, and she agreed blue. They sure don't look blue here!

Class photo, 1st grade -- they do look a bit blueish; I'll have to go find any photos at all from my youngest youth to see how blue they really looked.

My eyes today. About the color they've always been, I think.  Sort of bluish greenish. The Colors person I went to (different from Stylist) suggests bright teal or BLUE as my most flattering colors ("Dramatic", as in, if I walk into a room and I want people to notice ME and I'd look great in them--based some on eye color but also on skin tone). But see what she  put for Eye Tones? Not blue!

Me at 50. Depends on the light, too, I suppose.

Me at 47.

Added Oct 20, 2019:

Me, now. (Cell phone selfie, hence not so sharp, but colors are ok.) Not really blue...?

The Dog Project

SUMMARY: Lovin' my dogs through photography

Note: I first posted about this on Facebook on October 9:

When my Merle Girls departed abruptly, together, last spring, it tore me apart. I have been aware that, since then, I have given my two Boy Beasties far less than their due, and it has much to do with them being here and the others not. One of my recent and ongoing steps towards aligning my spirit with what my brain knows, that these, too, are wonderful dogs, is to take lots of lots of lots of photos of them, doing all the things that dogs do, and more--their bodies, their expressions, their emotions, their activities. I want to really focus (no pun) on *seeing* them.

Not sure where I'm going to have an official project page--maybe on my photo site, maybe just occasional posts here when I get around to it. Not sure whether I'll get all the previous ones posted here or there or just leave them on Facebook. Too many decisions all at once.

But here are recent ones, taken in the week since I came back from vacation (which I'll likely post about someday, you know, like I always do, meaning maybe never).

Chip has his eye on thangs.

Zorro loves his Flat Ball. Up close and snuggy wuggy with the handle.

Nose. Whiskers. The essential dog elements.

Zorro loves his Flat Ball. Oh--did I mention that he has several, in different doggie designer colors?

Iz hard life be me.

Renter got a new quilt while Human Mom was on vacation. Chip was delighted to let Human Mom know that he had inherited theRenter's old one. He's a happy quilt camper, particularly since Zorro has preempted all the other binkies in the house.

Myopia in Agility Dogs

SUMMARY: Guess who's nearsighted?

I do not have detailed data nor even much in the way of data at all.  But I can give you a very quick overview of measurements that identify myopia (near-sightedness). Bear with me--I'll get to the point.

Myopia is measured in diopters--OK, you don't need to know the technical details, just get the idea that 0 is normal and -5.0, for example, is very very nearsighted. From Wikipedia's article citing numbers for humans:

Myopia, which is measured in diopters by the strength or optical power of a corrective lens that focuses distant images on the retina, has also been classified by degree or severity:

• Low myopia usually describes myopia of −3.00 diopters or less (i.e. closer to 0.00).
• Medium myopia usually describes myopia between −3.00 and −6.00 diopters.
• High myopia usually describes myopia of −6.00 or more. Roughly 30% of myopes have high myopia.^[27]

I can also point you to a study of myopia that shows it's more common in all breeds as they age (just like in humans)  (and incidentally indicates that it's less common in guide dogs, which makes sense really--dogs who don't see optimally are unlikely to make excellent guide dogs): Myopia and Refractive Error in Dogs.

That study includes this graph--if you follow the line across, you'll see that younger dogs tend to be somewhat far-sighted (somewhere between 0 and 2) but tend to get more near-sighted with age (see that the line dips below 0):

Note also that, even with age, there are very few dogs with worse than -2 diopters.

I have had myopia since I was in about 5th grade. Wow, the world looked so much different when everything became sharp and clear as I donned my first pair of glasses!  Now, after all these many years of aging and becoming more myopic, my left eye is -2.0 and my right is -4.5 (which, if my glasses were actually made of glass, would be very very very thick).

So.  Some folks in the agility community and at UC Davis are doing studies on myopia in agility dogs. This apparently came out of one of many discussions about why some dogs have trouble jumping or who take off early when jumping.  Or, for example, knocking bars when they jump or refusing jumps.  (For anyone who has followed along here for 7 years or so, might recognize my frequent agonizing about Boost.)

They had an event at the end of August where we drove out to Davis and put our dogs over a straight line of jumps. We did this three times with and three times without some kind of contact lens in the eye (Yes! they make contacts for dogs!), sometimes to make the vision worse, sometimes to make it better) They took several people's evaluations of whether the dog did better in the first set of three or the 2nd set of three, before anyone other than the eye doc knew the state of the eyes.

I took Boost.

I have no recollection any more of whether she did better with or without the correction. However, her measurements are -3.5 in one eye and -3.25 in the other.

To understand how extreme that was, the largest adjustment in contacts that they brought with them were 3.0.

So. No wonder she knocks bars and bars and bars, and I get refusals so often, and she looks at me more and more for what to do next.  Poor girlie, if it's been like this her whole life, she's done amazingly well. Seems like it can't have been--she always seemed superfast and confident on course to begin with.

Anyway. Now, what with my back issues and all, she's retired from jumping 22" in USDAA. I'm trying not to let it break my heart that we haven't gotten the 3rd Super-Q and completed her championship. But she has really done amazingly well, with or without consideration for her eyesight.

We'll probably just play at agility from now on, assuming that I can actually run and feel safe doing so.

Eyes

SUMMARY: Chip, Boost.

Tika wasn't in the mood.

Things That Tika Has Mistaken For Something Alive While Out On A Walk

SUMMARY: Dogs see shapes.

Tika goes nuts when she sees another dog while we're out on a leash. She makes a ruckus, but in fact she really does just want to go check it out and then she's happy. She just doesn't often *get* to go check it out, dang Human Mom.

Photos from the web--things that Tika has actually mistaken from a distance for a person walking a dog on a leash (motion vs blurry vision)--suitcase with long handle, person pulling wagon, man using string trimmer:

Tika also is ready to take off like a rocket--from 0 to 60 in a nanosecond--if she thinks some critter is running. Image of something that almost got my arm ripped off--shoulder hurt for days-- because I was thinking, "innocuous inanimate thing blowing in the wind that dogs would have no interest in" and Tika was thinking, "Thing run! Me chase!"

Now she has cataracts, which the vet noticed yesterday are getting a bit thicker, so who knows what she's going to mistake for something else.

Vet Visit Eye Say

SUMMARY: Both dogs get a checkup and Tika's eye is red.

I took no photos at the vet's office at all. What was I thinking?

Both dogs' schedules have synched up for shots and annual checkups, so we all went in yesterday morning. Best part, both MUTT MVR and the vet's office are air conditioned, and with temps in my yard exceeding 100 F (37.8C) and in the house over 85 F (29.4C) for the last 4 days, the a/c made a welcome respite.

Gave Tika half a sedative tablet an hour before going in. She was still wired when we got there and while we waited a bit, and while the vet did Boost's entire checkup--pacing pacing pacing and rearing up against the door to get out-- and then--boom, just as we finished with Boost, she sank to the floor just lay there panting. Guess the sedative finally won out over 20 minutes of adrenaline. She was fine through the rest of the visit and not too dopey the rest of the day. Hard to figure out what dose exactly to give her. One pill makes her zombie-like for hours, which I don't like. Half a pill might not be enough if we don't have a whole Boost checkup beforehand during which Tika can expend all her angst.

Tika just lives life at a whole different speed. Here's an example: Peanut butter on the tips of my fingers. Tika gets in two licks for every one of Boost's, she's just that much more intense.

But, back to the vet visit.

Boost's heart is like a racehorse at a calm standstill, vet says, nice low even beat.

Tika's heart murmur still sounds minor and otherwise she looks and sounds good, except let's get to the eyes:

• There's that lump in the inner corner of her right eye. Its appearance changed after it seemed to bleed for those couple of days last week, not quite so bloody looking, but still about the same size.
• That same eye now has a red inner eyelid-- "red-eye" or "cherry eye" in color--possibly related to some irritation from the lump or who knows. Now starting an ointment 3x/day.
•  Tika's *left* eye has a dark area on her iris. Something to watch, the vet said, in case it gets larger or looks like it's protruding into the pupil or anything else about it. Great.
• Tika has cataracts in both eyes--I knew that--but vet says that at this stage they should hardly be affecting her vision at all. I still think that might be one of the reasons that we have some issues with tunnels nowadays.

Getting older sucks, eh, Teek?

Over all, dogs seem healthy and things seem to be going swimmingly with Tika. And ka-ching!, another vet bill on the books. Guess I'm grateful that good vet services are available!

See you all later.

Of Dog Eyes and Human Feet

SUMMARY: Eye tested Boost; Tika bloody.

The other day, got this email from Nancy Gyes:

I am involved in a Vision Study with Optometrist Gina Day and her research partner Maureen. Vision testing is being done on dogs suspected of having ETS (early take-off syndrome), or some kind of vision problem that might affect their jumping. We also need to test a large number of non-affected dogs who jump well as a control group. As we are getting into the testing we realize that there is really not nearly enough knowledge about how dogs test that are normal good jumpers. The retinoscopy is used to discover if there is a refraction error in the dogs eyes, since dogs can’t read eye charts, just like babies or young children. We would like to test a lot of shelties and border collies since there are so many of them in agility, but we also want to test lots of other breeds. And we would especially love to test your dog if they are a nice jumper, or if you think your dog may have a vision deficit.

I took Boost up with the theory that there's nothing wrong with her vision--she runs fast, knocks bars but no sign of early or late takeoffs or hesitations. My assumption has been that she knocks bars because she doesn't try hard enough not to.

That might still be the case, but now the waters are a little muddied: Turns out that she and I share something besides a birthday, and that is myopia (near-sightedness) and astigmatism. Of the 30-ish dogs they've tested so far, Boost rates the worst of any in the near-sighted department. On the OTHER paw--she also rates the highest for the quality of her binocular vision (use of two eyes together), so maybe the near-sightedness is less a player since the binocular vision is what gives good depth perception.

They're just starting to collect information, so it could be a long time before they have enough information to actually publish something. Can hardly wait.

Meanwhile, about Tika's odd eye problem (description and photo in this post). This red bloody-looking lump on her inner eyelid(?) showed up around the beginning of April. Don't think it has changed really since then. However, yesterday morning she had bloody crust next to that eye. Same thing when I got home last night. Same thing when I got up this morning. Don't know what it means; still looks about the same to me, she's still not rubbing it or anything.

Anyhoo, off to the vet again to see whether he has any better ideas on what's going on, and if not, maybe to the doggie eye doctor. It's always something involving the wallet, isn't it.

And since we're all going to ail together, I guess, I went ahead and got a cortisone shot in my sore foot today (as mentioned in these posts). As I was afraid of, it's hurting more now, ow ow ow, hope I can get to sleep. Had this same reaction many years ago to a cortisone shot in the thumb, but then it got much better more quickly than w/out the shot. Meanwhile, icing icing icing. And maybe in a few days I'll be pain-free. One can only hope.

Checking In On Tika

SUMMARY: She's doing fine, but what about that eye?

Can you believe that it has already been just about six months since Tika's heart problem surfaced?

We visited our vet today for these reasons:

• Time for a check-up on how she's doing from the vet's perspective.
• Why is she now eating her meals very slowly?--used to finish in half the time that Boost did, now takes twice as long.
• What's the deal with the red lump on her 3rd eyelid?

You can hardly notice the lump at a quick glance, but up close it looks yucky.

I first noticed it sometime the week before the Haute Dawgs trial--so about 3 weeks ago. I don't think it has changed any since then. First question every vet tech asked was, has she had any trauma to the eye? Same from the vet. None that I know of. So, we're going to watch again for a few weeks. Doc says looks like a benign hemangioma (means it's a bloody lump, basically).

Eating--her teeth look great, no sign of pain in her gums. No loss of appetite--still eats everything and is interested in food. Could be any number of things, but without other signs or portents, yet another thing to keep an eye on. Could be her meds, but vet doesn't think that any one of them is more likely than the others.

How's she doing over all? Vet says GREAT! Heart doesn't sound any worse, heartbeat is still strong and slow (despite her frantic terror of being at the vet's) like an athlete's. He said, considering her diagnosis, she's doing very well indeed 6 months later. We'll do a follow-up blood test on general principles in a couple of months.

After that, we bipped across the freeway to Los Gatos Creek Park for a tiny stroll in the sunlight among the Canada Geese and their omnipresent poop. Not too long a walk because Tika was on a sedative, although I gave her only half a tablet this time 90 minutes before the vet.

What a lovely day and what a lucky Human Mom I am.

So many good smells before we even get around the fence to the percolation ponds.

The water fountain has a height just for dogs. Although both Merle Girls thought it was fascinating that water ran into it while they watched, they didn't drink from it.

The gorgeous day called many other people out with their dogs. The one nice thing about a little sedative on the Craussie is no on-leash frenzy about other dogs.

Plus--we have THE best poop bags in the universe. How could the day be any better?

Final Word on Tika's Eyes and Body

SUMMARY: She's getting older. Sigh.

My regular vet also found nothing out of the ordinary with Tika--for older dogs, that is. She has a slight heart murmur, typical of older dogs and probably wouldn't cause problems. (Another vet a couple of months ago mentioned the murmur but I forgot all about it until yesterday.) Her hips have some arthritis, which is completely normal but might not explain the things I noticed.

(Of course, arthritis/weakness/pain in her hips could cause some of the same issues--caution in curved tunnels, on dogwalk... but you'd think jumping would be equally affected. Dunno.)

He said he agrees that the nuclear sclerosis could very well get the results I'm seeing. Combining both vets' descriptions: Dogs tend to be far-sighted to begin with, so never see things up close as well as we do. This hardening of the lens makes them even more far-sighted. In other words, close-up things are probably a bit blurry to begin with, and get blurrier as the lenses harden. From the opth's generic text: "[In extreme age, it] can become so dense that it makes it difficult to judge distances, or the patient might want more light to navigate."

So a weave pole right in front of them or the inside of a dark tunnel or the narrow width of a dogwalk might be harder for them to comfortably view. But jumping, out in broad daylight--jumps are far enough away as they approach them rapidly that a dog who's already very familiar with jumping might have no problem at all. At the moment, she seems fine in everyday low-light situations, but I'm really wondering about those dark tunnels. She still blasts through my lighter-colored tunnels at home.

And, oh, BTW, it makes her eyes look someone blue and cloudy, similar to what one might see in glaucoma or cataracts, which is why (when I started thinking about it) Tika's eyes looked cloudy to me. But it's not nearly as bad as those other things.

This is all good news compared to what it might have been, but maybe bad news for agility. Certainly bad news for my silly human fantasies of blue ribbons or continued top ten work.

My comments about her being so much slower than normal last weekend? For example, her clean Grand Prix was the 6th slowest, at 4.05 yps, out of 65 for which I have data for her. Of the 14 slowest runs, the others either have runouts (ran past an obstacle and had to go back for it) or say "holding on contacts." From there on up, they range from 4.20 to 5.1 yps (with a sprinkling of recent ones in the upper ranges and a sprinkling of younger runs in the lower ranges). So, yeah, she has been slowing down gradually, but that was a big drop last weekend.

Tika also has a melanocytoma in her right iris. It's a benign pigmented growth--basically like a mole, the opth. said. It's not impinging on her vision at this time and doesn't pose a danger. Just something else to keep an eye on (so to speak) if it starts getting larger.

Tika Eyes and Photos

SUMMARY: No major vision issues.

We visited a veterinary ophthalmologist today. No glaucoma, no cataracts (dogaracts?). She's got nuclear sclerosis (thickening of the lens), which affects middle-aged people as well as middle-aged dogs. Apparently it's worse in some dogs than in others. It makes people more farsighted (hence need for reading glasses) and in theory affects dogs the same way.

It could explain some of Tika's behavior in agility, said the doc, but it wasn't an obvious or definitive cause. He did note that agility people notice things like this much sooner than people with just pet dogs, because you'd never notice the subtleties in everyday life. Here's a decent article on the subject--this quote is telling: "Difficulty determining distances and range as the dog ages".

Still, we have an appointment tomorrow with our regular vet for a general checkup as well.

Meanwhile, here I am last weekend experimenting with, gasp, my shirt not tucked in--does it make me look like a champion handler?

And still more photos from Bamfoto: