June 1st, 2019
May 2019 for us was like a “vacation” month, in terms of managing the blog. It’s been a busy month in other areas of life for both of us, such that we’ve had to put progress on the blog on hold for a bit.
Indeed, looking back I’m pretty unhappy with how much we’ve slacked off here! We’ve only published one article in the month of May.
(It was, however, a bomb of an article! Check out How To Exercise Your Dog 22 Different Ways to get some pawesome ideas for your next dog adventure!)
Compare that to some of the output we had in the first few months–nearly two articles a week!
Sometimes other aspects of life just get in the way, and that was the case for us this May. However, we’re really looking to get back to our previous levels of production on the blog, and improving the user experience for all our visitors.
So as we move into June, we’ll be picking up the pace of our blog once again. This here article is to hold us accountable for that.
We’ll also share a bit of what we were up to in May that we weren’t really able to share here or on Yuna’s Instagram.
Real Vacation
I do not believe I have mentioned this publicly on the blog yet, but as of this post I work a day job as a software engineer at Amazon in Seattle.
It’s a great job, takes good care of me and Yuna, and, as those of you who closely follow my Instagram know, even allows me to bring her to work whenever I want (Amazon is amazingly dog friendly!).
That being said, it does require your full focus to perform, and occasionally requires additional hours spent outside the office on the job. Being a software engineer means you can technically work from wherever, and that seems to me both a gift and a curse.
It’s good to take a big break from all that every once in a while. From April 25th to May 5th, I took a personal vacation and traveled to Hong Kong. Yuna took her own vacation at a local boarding facility, Downtown Dog Lounge.
They did an amazing job with her, even sending nice little updates on the trip. Thank you, Downtown Dog Lounge for taking care of Yuna on her own dog vacation!
Post-Vacation Troubles
Oof, I knew something was going to happen right when vacation ended.
Since Yuna is on a special diet due to her pancreatitis, I had to pack her own food for her vacation. I put each portion in its own Ziploc bag, and because she’d be staying a whopping 10 nights, I noticed that my supply was running dry by the end.
In fact, I was forced to cut back the portion a bit on the latter few bags to make enough meals for the entire duration of Yuna’s stay.
But even worse, this was the night before my vacation. And this meant I’d be out of her special food when I came back. My return flight arrived late Sunday night, and the vet (where I get her special food) would not be open.
In addition, I didn’t take the next day (Monday) off work, so the only time I could rush to the vet and pick up another bag would be after work. This meant at least one meal (Monday’s breakfast) would have to come from elsewhere…
Great. Well, at the time, I was already locked into vacation-mode. I decided to procrastinate on this… *huge* problem and flew to Hong Kong. Not that I really had a way to fix the problem then; it was more just bad planning ahead on my part.
So the night I got back, the problem came back and slapped me in the face. In a frenzy I decided to rush to the local supermarket and pick up two cans of chicken and rice wet dog food.
I fed this to Yuna Monday for breakfast.
That night, she went ballistic. I had jetlag so I had trouble sleeping, but Yuna joined me by whimpering and whining all night long.
I thought she was just being difficult. I figured she was not used to me not sleeping through the night and was trying to make a statement out of it.
Little did I know she actually just *really* needed to use the restroom. I opened my bedroom door to let her into the living room. Next time I checked on her, I was greeted with a putrid smell.
Didn’t take long to discover huge pile of soggy, smelly poop lying conspicuously in the center of the living room.
Worse, there were a few traces of blood in there. Poor thing.
Another trip to the vet! Really does suck that one seemingly small mistake can cost you so much! The good news is that she’d be fine with some medicine and probiotics.
Wrapping Up May
Getting Yuna fully healthy again took about a week. We took it easy, not going for super crazy walks, religiously administering her medicine, and just making sure her poop goes back to normal.
The walks we did take, we kept close to our apartment. This meant exploring with some of the nearby sights and structures we haven’t taken pictures with yet.
Living close to Lake Union this past year has been awesome. We get instant access to the brilliant Lake Union itself.
And Seattle Center is also but a walk away.
Soon after that, I went into an oncall on my job, and I’m currently really busy dealing with that. Through all the ups and downs of the month we did get that one large article about exercise with your dog out.
Now we’re looking to put those tips to practice ourselves in June as the weather really brightens up here in Seattle!
You can expect more helpful articles coming in June. Also, don’t miss Yuna’s Instagram for daily updates and free dog tips every other day–we keep that up no matter what chaos comes our way!
