Turtle Pudding!!!

So I attempted to make "Turtle Pudding" which is sort of like meat and veggie jello shots. I had tried every other way of trying to get Ichigo to eat her vegetables and pellets but nothing was working so I made a fish based "pudding" last night and gave her a few cubes today and it worked! Hallelujah! I made it with more fish than I would have liked to have but I wanted to make it smell yucky enough to entice her and I figure I will lessen the amount over time and up the amount of vegetables. Hooray!
Next time I will make it with chicken so it doesn't smell so bad! And I will remember to take pictures.

Turtle Pudding!!!

Back outside for a walk

Ichigo is doing very well. Her swollen eye looks to be healed and she has been eating on her own consistently. She still wont eat vegetables or pellets on her own and still is getting medication and veggies through her tube though. I am calling the vet tomorrow to see when her tube can come out. Today she went outside for a stroll in the backyard. She likes moving from one hiding spot to the next and although I would like her to do what she wants, she gets herself into places that she can't get out of on her own and also dangerous places for her tube so I have to watch her and take her out of the bushes and places she tries to climb into.

Back outside for a walk

Eating on her own again

Ichigo started to eat on her own again today. She had some perch.
I could swear she was smiling at me........

Eating on her own again

Flying

When Ichigo is asleep and totally relaxed she looks like she is flying. (Note poo poo smear to the right of the photo. YES!)

So I spoke to our vet today and we are to decrease her feeding through the tube and try to get her to eat by mouth. As soon as she is doing that normally, we can take the tube out. I will go to Whole Foods tomorrow and maybe get salmon. I hope she won't be able to resist.

Flying

More hair coming out

More hair is coming out of Ichigo. It's so crazy. I wonder where the heck it came from.

Thanks to Amanda Taylor for her donation today!

More hair coming out

More new thanks!

Thanks to Carl Mondello and Meredith Weiss for their donations!

Today Ichigo got some fresh air and was running like the wind! (Well, very fast for a turtle at least) I can't wait till she can have a bigger tank to swim in properly.

More new thanks!

Hooray for poop!

Ichigo is pooping lots and everywhere! So happy.

Hooray for poop!

Resistance is futile

We've decided that Ichigo's new look is very Borg. Hugh was my favorite Borg (above left) but Dave has been calling her Locutus.... No poo today which is slightly disconcerting. If there is no poo in the water by tomorrow I'll call the vet to see if we should still be pumping food in.

A very big Thank You! to Melissa Chan for her large donation. I have a feeling she understood how much money was going in to Ichigo's vet care because she works at the Houston SPCA as the Behavior and Training Coordinator. When she worked as the Behaviorist at Animal Care and Control here in Manhattan, I spent a year assisting her doing dog evaluations. Very valuable experience for me. Thank you Thank you Thank you!

We are still down hundreds of dollars so if any of you would like to spread the word about Ichigo's blog feel free to. When I have more time in July I am definitely going to implement some sort of fundraiser.

In non-Ichigo but somewhat related news, Friday is National Pigeon Day of which I am a committee member of. I am baking vegan cookies in the shape of doves/pigeons to give away at the event in Central Park. You can read about all the speakers and performers etc at
http://nymag.com/family/kids/47515/
http://www.nationalpigeonday.blogspot.com/

I love underdogs..........

Resistance is futile

The tube is in

Sorry the picture isn't so great. I couldn't get the flash to go off for some reason. Anyway, Ichigo went to the vet today to get the tube placed in her throat/stomach. It is much less awful than I imagined and it was pretty easy to give her meds and food. She is getting a stronger muscle contracting medication for her intestines, still getting the laxative and gas-x, and eye drops. (but not in the tube of course) We pureed romaine lettuce from the back yard, cooked yams, a little banana, chicken, fish, and soaked turtle pellets which was also injected. We do this for five days and then check in with the doctor again.
She is very alert and not breathing as heavily from the mouth so things are looking good. Keep your fingers crossed.

Thanks to Debra Ziss for her donation today!

PS - While we were waiting at the vet's office today one of the staff members was telling me about a 45 pound snapping turtle that came in last week. She said that it belonged to the NY Turtle & Tortoise society and that they had rescued it years ago from the docks where it was by-catch caught in a fishing net. It lives in Brooklyn now but I guess it came in because it stopped eating. The vets told the Turtle Society people about Ichigo too, about how she was the biggest Red Ear Slider they've had in the clinic ever.

The tube is in

Surgery

Ichigo is scheduled to go back to the vet on Monday to have a feeding tube surgically implanted. We were hoping it wouldn't have to get to this but she spits out a lot of the oral meds we give her and she hasn't eaten properly in two weeks. I found a website that shows and explains how the feeding tube works if you want to check it out.

tube-syringe-feeding

She still has enough energy to walk around when we let her out of the bathroom, either in the backyard or in the kitchen. The doctor said it might help stimulate her digestive system.

Surgery

Oh no, not again

Ichigo now has a swollen eye on top of having digestive problems. It looks like maybe she bumped her eye when she was sliding off her basking dock. We put in more rocks to fill up the narrower area that she was diving off into but Dave left part of the one side open and now she likes to nest in there all smushed but tomorrow we will try to move all the rocks that way so she doesn't dive in that way either because she'll hit herself again.
I'm going to pick up some eye medicine in the morning.

And so far not too much improvement on the digestive front although maybe she is foaming at the mouth less than the other day..... This is turning out to be a very difficult rehab.

Thanks to Eric Ulrich for his donation today.

Oh no, not again