well, we are almost to the max posts, so i wanted to update on my mature syngonium progress. i have 2 new leaves of 'mature form' AND also some variegation near veins - that's totally unexpected! so i have 5 leaves and 2 little 'horns' at the ends, just like other mature leaves. when i took the cutting, the last very young leaf got mangled in xfer , so i cut it off, but left the stalk (where the new leaf develops) - so the 1st leaf was def formed BEFORE i took the cutting. now the 2nd? i am not sure - may be it was already formed inside there too? so i'll have to wait for a few more to be sure. but so far i am happy - i fed it well, so new leaves are dark green, the older leaves are slowly decaying one by one. but that's normal. now the big question is - when do i trim the vine? i think i'll grow may be 10 leaves , so i can trim it and root again and then see what will come out. and then of course i am afraid that after the trim the young immature leaves start popping. but that will be end of summer, not sooner. so, the leaves on the left are new. they have a little hard time unfurling, so they some spots and tears. they are folded in a very interesting 'origami' fashion. next time i'll take pics as they unfold to show you.

The deer probably has a fawn stashed nearby. Anything that happens near is likely to be chased off. I saw one outright attack a coyote a few years back, obviously preventing it from getting to where it wanted to go. It was intent on one particular spot. Broad daylight, went on for at least 10 minutes. I have one doe who, for the past two previous years, appears to have dropped a fawn in the same location near my apple trees. Once while working out there I looked up to see her looking at me from about 100 feet away, and actually approach me slowly before turning and bounding off, albeit rather slowly. 15 minutes later, I looked up to see that she'd silently returned, and was much, much closer to me this time. I actually approached to see how clos ethat I could get,and was amazed to get to within almost 30 feet. She, or rather a single doe, was seen many times in the next week or so in the same general area, always with much reduced fear compared to their normal behavior here at any other time of year. Presumably, this week or so is giving the fawn enough time to get some growth on it, to be able to move quickly enough to keep up, and then she's gone, with the normal frequency of sightings, and their immediate flight returning. We have seen a single doe lately, but not yet with the reduced fear. Maybe any day now. It's very strange to see that behavior in this area, where they are normally so reserved. Mule dear often habituate to humans, and maybe even white tails in other parts of the county, but it's very unusual for them to behave so tamely in this area, in my experience.

Even if the food isn't the problem, please for his long term health, switch the food to something that is not mostly fillers and artificial color. Think about this- dogs are color blind! There is no need to potentially poison a dog to make his food look more colorful. Some of the artificial colors used in dog foods are banned from human foods because of risk of cancer. Even if they don't cause cancer, you have to ask yourself, why should your dog eat something that does not have a taste, smell, or any nutritional value? As a vet tech, I could tell a Bil Jac-fed dog just by the soft consistency and odd reddish color of its poop, even if the owner wasn't complaining of soft stools or other GI problems. Once you start asking, they say "oh yeah, he's always been a bit gassy" or "oh yeah, he's always had soft stool or poops 4-6 times a day and it seems like a lot for such a little dog" or something similar. That's because the fillers, or what Bil Jac calls main ingredients, are not easily digested by dogs (or at all). Sorry, I have soapbox issues with nutrition. Now that I got that out of my system... If after switching diet (gradually over the course of a week or 2) nothing improves within 4-6 weeks, then you're looking at another problem. I'd still not go back to Bil Jac- stick to a quality diet. Could easily be GI parasites. Have to do a fecal exam and/or a fecal direct smear with FRESH stool (for coccidia, giardia) to find them, but GI parasites are easily treatable. Most heartworm preventatives include a dewormer that helps control many GI parasites, but not coccidia. Plus dog parks are parasite paradise, and the parasite load can overwhelm HWP. So if your dog isn't on HWP for the winter, he could have easily picked up a load of parasites at the park. To me, that's the most obvious differential and it's cheap and easy to find out and cheap and easy to both cure and prevent in the future. Personally I like to start with cheap and easy :) If the parasite theory doesn't pan out, it could be any number of other things, but since a routine panel was normal you're looking at more extensive (expensive) testing. Cross that bridge if and when you get to it. My Aleksander was like that as a pup. He had similar symptoms. First thing we did was stool exam and he had roundworms, so we dewormed him. Still had intermittent diarrhea. Did a fecal direct exam and he had coccidia, so we treated that. Still had diarrhea so we did a cbc, chem, UA and nothing showed up on that. Thought he had food allergies and switched him to every Hills prescription diet they had at the time. Still had diarrhea. Vet decided it was stress colitis. At that point I decided that a dog can have diarrhea on any food not just Hill's so I started feeding him Nature's Recipe chicken and rice. Diarrhea cleared up. Nature's Recipe had the exact same ingredients as Hills ID (for intestinal issues) except one major thing- the Hills dry foods were preserved with BHA and BHT. The Nature's Recipe food was preserved with vitamin E. I concluded that Aleksander was sensitive to BHA and BHT and avoided foods with those preservatives, and he never had a problem like that again. I'm sure his parasite problem was not helping his diarrhea, but clearing the parasites didn't clear the diarrhea. So you just have to keep re-evaluating the response to treatment and take things step-wise. There's no need to break the bank for more bloodwork and do invasive testing such as intestinal biopsies if you haven't covered the basics yet. Good luck to you and your little dog. Oh, and what's his name?

Could have been hand raised. Lots of raccoons that are hand raised don't make it in the wild. For one thing, they are usually released where there are already plenty of raccoons living, and they are chased away. No place for them to go, and always on the run. Some people start to raise a baby raccoon and find out how much trouble it is, or it bites them, and they take it out in the woods and let it go. They think because it is a wild animal, it will do okay, but they don't. It is like dumping out a puppy. They have no idea where to go or where to find food. Some rehabbers will release them where they can leave food out for them....that's called a "soft release". They need that while they try to make an adjustment. Raccoons stay with their siblings or sometimes close to their mothers for the first year of their life, so it is always best that they be released with another one that they have a bond with. I have a short tailed raccoon here too. I call him "Puff". I have been trying to get a picture of him, but can't tell him from the others unless he has his backside turned to me. All I know about him is that he is a member of the "gang" that arrive every evening about 6 and commandeers the cat food bowls...before moving on to the other food that I leave out for them. There was also a big armadillo here that was missing part of his tail, but I haven't seen him for quite awhile. One of the armadillos that I raised last year is still here every night tho. I don't know if it is Henry or Edsel, but it's one of them. He is working on re-landscaping my yard. I finally got the soil improved here by adding lots of mulch, and it is full of earthworms. It was rock hard clay when I started. It seems to be to his liking. I raised him on nightcrawlers that I had to buy by the dozen.