nov 10 2022

Nov 10

It was nice to get back into the old routine of mail call except it now is going to start at 4:00 o'clock which does make sense especially if lynn's going to help because she has an hour commute...

 

a problem yesterday which hit mail call is that pockets,,, our mammoth donkey,, apparently bruised the I think it's called coronary band which is the line where her the hair of her leg hits their hoof... and I am told that's where the hoof is generated so if you bruise that line you get a deformed hoof... which may or may not be the explanation of why she's got a funny hoof.

 

at any rate I know two things on that topic and I could use some help from all you camera people to prove whether this is true or not..

number one ----my husband often did surgery and had to scrub his fingers with a funny little brush for a long time before he put on the rubber gloves and stuff like that.. he explained that it was scrubbing his fingers that made his fingernails grow at at an alarming rate.... it seemed like about 1 inch every hour... which in my scientific study I noticed his fingernails grew like that but not his toenails so it could be that the brushing of the nail beds with that surgical brush thing might be the cause... that's observation one

 observation 2 when I was 13, 14 years old I helped in a barn where the owner was into saddlebreds which of the really fancy horses that one rides only in a ring.   in a horse show for a blue ribbon which she did get in Madison Square Garden at least once..

she bought a horse "Pete" was his name who had four long white stockings---consequently his hoofs were white pink whatever and it was said and seemed to be true that the White Hoofs  we're more fragile... and often he would throw a shoe and a chunk of his hoof with. It... so to keep Pete’s hooves growing part of his daily maintenance was to get the can of I believe momentum... a gooey  Vaseline sort of mess with a toothbrush sticking out the top... and you would run around on your hands and knees and for just a few minutes scrub that hairline with the momentum to encourage his feet to grow.

 

 that's the extent of my knowledge on the topic -----however Fast forward. we now have "pockets " the donkey." ...with a deformity in the hairline and consequently the deformity of the hoof..  it has been seen by the veterinarian and the blacksmith and I forgot what they prescribed but I of course think I should go back to the toothbrush deal of scrubbing that hairline causing a slight irritation and consequently faster hoof growing..

 

so with the 1500 people who read this silly  DD thing every day it would be wonderful if you all would experiment to determine whether this is true----- I don't know whether anybody else has ever bothered to do this however if you took your old toothbrush and on a daily basis briefly scrubbed the nail bed on....  let's say your third finger just so we all do the same thing noticeably,  and let's say if in a couple of weeks anybody could comment on the speed with which that specific  fingernail grew... in the meantime I've got to try and find whatever that Vaseline goop was and I will be trying it on pockets feet..  I haven't actually put my hand on the irregularity but I can't tell whether pockets might not like it which case the whole treatment will just have to be whatever the veterinarian prescribed.. 

 

 that would not invalidate the experiment  of  Encouraging nail growth Which might be at some point an extremely valuable thing to know...  you just never know.

i would love to open a few envelopes containing a photo of your third fingers.... we could call that the. FBS------ flipping bird study.

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 one other slight change in the SDP operations along with starting mail call early---  will be Judy and I are out ----on the road again.----\with a program that has to be called. ” out of the frying pan”.  Because  yesterday my three dogs made 62 people by actual count---be entertained for 20 minutes and smile for several hours afterwards..  the expense of that visitation must have cost me  all of  about $1.19..  because I had to drive about two blocks out of the way of our  normal route.

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I think $1.19 is a pretty good bang for the buck.....(is an expression which I hope is politically correct. .).. Judy and I a couple of years ago had a list of of adult centers we went to--- before covid up set the routine.....  ---and it was over 130 places... without going too far out of our way..  seems to me with a little organization we ought to be able to spread a few smiles with our crazy frying pan routine.

 

that involves Judy with a pocketful of treats and our  purple 6 inch frying pan----goes to the other end of a room and lets  a client person whatever hold the frying pan while she drops one cookie noisily into the frying pan. that wakes up my three dogs who look at me and say “which one goes for it”. and if I say Jimmy,,, he pops to his feet and dashes to that frying pan and it's the cookie at which point Judy tells him to go back and he comes back to me and lays down again and we repeat the thing till everybody in the room has a chance to feed the dogs ... fortunately a great Danes we can service quite a crowd and not fill up the dogs.. I can't imagine ever filling up these dogs with cookies... it is a spectacular jolly tew minutes for people who are condemned to sitting inside 4 walls for one reason or another

so if we start keeping track of how many people we service every day... that number may become significant for someone who just likes to keep statistics... like accountants..  so far this week Monday was 32  at  Adult care--Tuesday was -18  at voting. and Wednesday 62 at ne consortium .

 

my other word of wisdom for this operation... my dogs are pretty well in tune to us..... however.... if they had on a harness  or collar, they might get it caught on a wheelchair, walker,  or be grabbed by someone not in complete control of their movements...  so I decided the  relative negatives and I take off all their “equipment”  - a dog who has something attached and dragging behind.... may panic and bolt in fear--- with any size dog it could be a terrible disaster... with a dane, an earth shattering UFO...