How in the hell does one "temporarily" fill in a wetland?

Ans: One doesn't. One permanently fills in a wetland, then when public sentiment and/or fines threaten the business model, one sends in bulldozers and water trucks to create a very large mudpuddle without the original wetland species.

Thank you for saying that.

I was reviewing all the potential options just because that's what I do, and trying to picture Koda going through all this... and... I just... don't see how it would make his QOL better. Even if we go him through it, he'd be a wreck.

Although I hate everything about this situation, the fact that some 19th century leader is looking askance at Hegseth from the painting in the background is the most awesome illustration ever.

Lawsuits filed before 12 PM are clearly a professional faux pas.

thank you

This is Koda now, and always.

He's either just on the edge of or fully into senior status, and he's had a good life with us. I don't know how long he has. But Nate has committed to ensuring that every day from here forward is a good day until the end comes. And for a dog who started where he did, that's a pretty good wrap up.

He came just after Nate was diagnosed with diabetes and they bonded immediately. A dog with trust issues, a teen dealing with COVID and diabetes and depression and all sorts of other uncertainties. We nurtured him back to the best health he was ever going to get and he has been enjoying life.

Koda is somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 to 9 years old. He had a really rough start—rescued from a chain in a backyard in AL, treated for a fairly serious case of heartworm, brought north for fostering. He landed with us because he was deemed unsuitable for therapy work. Too unpredictable.

Considering too that Koda is openly hostile to most veterinarians (except Dr. K, who has taken a lot of time to win Koda's trust with treats & skritches)—he requires a muzzle and many drugs to get any sort of care done safely—and it just seems like there's no real way forward except palliative care.

Surgery alone would be super expensive at a time when we're watching every nickel. Add chemo to that? And put a near-senior dog through not just the pain of surgery but also the discomfort of chemo? There's a point of diminishing returns with this and I think it's clear that we've reached it.

The cancer is also a rare one. Dr. K said he couldn't find much in the literature on it, except to note that dogs who got chemo post surgery did better than dogs who didn't. So even if we were to successfully remove it, he'd still have to have multiple rounds of chemo to assure its elimination.

The second mass is deeper, lower on his neck, and nebulous in its form — and it traces the line of Koda's main artery. We haven't imaged it but it likely abuts or even surrounds that and other key structures (nerves, muscles) that would make removal difficult—maybe even fatal.

So there's that.

Even if he were a younger dog, treating this cancer would be problematic. We found two salivary gland masses. The one we noticed first probably would be easily removed. You can feel its edges easily and it's close to the surface. If that were it, I think we'd go for it.

But that second mass?

Yes. Nobody should be punished without a trial that establishes guilt first.

"the combat decisions HE has made..."

And yes: the US is estranged from our allies. It’s government by domestic abusers and it’s following the classic pattern. Isolate the victim from sources of support, limit their access to financial and information resources, and belittle them. In this case… the “victim” is the American public.

I am relatively sure we’ll work our way through this either despite or because of those contradictions, but it would be GREAT if we could actually RESOLVE THEM for a change.

We have ideals. We have values. We regularly fail to live up to them, and always have. Our constitution is amazing departure from the prior societies yet we were also grounded in genocide and slavery.Some of our biggest and most shameful failures are written into our Constitution, for heaven’s sake.