Tashi's Web Photo and Storybook

March 2 -- Well after several months with not a lot to tell you about, I have lots to catch you up on. The picture above is me snuggling with Stan. Stan says, I'm being a "laprador" in this picture. As for as news, Stan built a new thing that makes sounds. He calls it my fire alarm trainer. Here are some pictures of it, and unlike the other pictures I usually put up here, I am going to leave these at full size so you can see them more easily.

This is the trainer viewed from the front where Stan plugs it in. You can see the main on/off switch and the fuses.

This is the trainer viewed from the top. You can see the switches that control the sound and the strobe light that flashes. Either one can be turned on or off by itself.

This is the trainer viewed from the bottom. The paper taped to one part tells how to set the switches to make it do different sounds. Stan says these eight different sounds should be all of the ones that fire or other emergency alarm systems would most commonly make. The other part of the trainer has a hole in it where Stan puts his finger to move the switches which you can see through the hole. Stan says he could have remotely wired these switches, but for just him using it decided not to. I'll have more to say about this trainer later, but I want to tell you things in the order they have happened in the last two or three weeks. So after Stan built this he started teaching me the sounds that it makes, and since it is an alarm instead of me taking Stan to the sound like I do for other stuff, I lay down and look up at Stan when he gives me the "what" command. The first sounds Stan started teaching me were sound #1 and also sounds #4 and #5. Stan chose 4 and 5 since from reading information about fire alarms he thought these would be the most common ones used. Just a guess on his part, though. He says he will eventually teach me all eight of them.

Since I said I was going to tell you things in the order they have happened, Stan took me in for my annual vet exam. The vet said I was in excellent health overall and that I am at an ideal weight. However, when the vet looked in my ears she found that deep inside I had quite a bit of earwax and some infection in both of my ears. The part of my ears closer to the outside is clean because Stan cleans them every night. The vet wasn't sure why I would have infections in both ears, but decided to treat the infections first and look again in a couple of weeks.

Next thing that Stan and I did was to get on a train and travel to New Orleans where Becky came and picked us up. Becky had been in Gulfport, MS for the past five months for training for her job with the NM Air National Guard. We spent a week living with Becky in her temporary quarters, which was sort of like a hotel room. One night while we were there, at about 2:00 in the morning, I heard a sound I recognized. It was the same sound as the one that is labeled as sound #4 on the alarm trainer that Stan built and started teaching me. Stan was sound asleep and happened to be laying on his left side. Stan's left ear is his better ear. But, since he was laying on that side it meant that ear was pressed into the pillow and all the sound it can hear gets muffled out that way. Stan's right ear was facing up and not in the pillow, but Stan can't hear the alarm sounds with that ear. So, I want to make sure you understand this situation completely. It's 2:00 in the morning, Stan is sound asleep, there is this sound that he has started to teach me that people call a "fire alarm" and Stan is sleeping in a position that completely prevents him from hearing it. There are no strobe lights in the room that would help to wake Stan. Does this mean I have a job to do? Is this the real deal? I think you all know how bad this could be if I don't do what my training tells me I need to do. But, I've never heard this sound in this place before. Does it mean the same thing? Am I supposed to alert Stan or not? I haven't heard this sound very often, Stan just barely started teaching it to me. Does Stan mean for me to alert him to this sound anytime and anyplace I hear it? I really wasn't sure if I should do anything or not. Stan wasn't giving me any clues, he was just laying there. I jumped up on the bed and started alerting Stan, which woke him up. Stan, still half asleep, gave me the "what" command. I jumped off the bed onto the floor and laid down and looked at Stan. Stan was so happy, and gave me a big ol jackpot of a reward. He then got dressed quickly and we went outside. While we were outside, a big truck with red flashing lights parked on the other side of the building. Some guys wearing funny clothes and masks got out of the truck and started walking around the building. After quite a while, they decided that the building wasn't on fire, but that one of the alarm sensors wasn't working right and caused the alarm to go off. The guys told us we could go back inside. So we went back inside and went back to sleep. Then about an hour later, the same sound happened again. I woke Stan up again, and the guys with the funny clothes and masks came back and walked around the building again. This time it didn't take them as long to decide there wasn't a fire. A couple of days after the alarms Becky graduated from her training as the top person in her class.

Stan, Becky, and I took an extra day to travel back home. We got home yesterday, and today I had another appointment with the vet for them to look at my ears again. No more infection, but the vet wasn't very happy with how much earwax I was getting and still have built up deep inside my ears. She gave Stan some ear cleaner to use when he does my ears everyday. She also told Stan she thought it would be good to do some blood tests to test how well my thyroid is working. The vet said the wax I'm getting in my ears could be a symptom of a problem. There are two tests they can do, one is done right there in the vet's office, which is kind of a screening to see if there is anything they need to check into more deeply. The other test they will do if the first one comes back showing a possible problem. Stan told her to go ahead and do the first test. That test came back and showed that my thyroid was a bit low, so they are sending the rest of the blood sample to another labratory for a more in depth analysis. It will take 3 or 4 days to get the results of that one. If that lab confirms the results of the first test, then I will have to start taking medication for my thyroid.