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Thirteen's weight has dropped again, down to 37.3 pounds. She has lost interest in food to some degree over the past few weeks. She'll sniff at the dish, maybe eat a bit, then wander away and lie down awhile, wander back and nibble a little more, etc. This from a dog who used to gobble down every bite and then start in on the other dog's food. At every meal we have to check her dish for her pills (they are wrapped in cheese to seem like a treat), and put the ones she missed right under her nose.

Finally it's not just me being a worry-wart, the vet is concerned too. They drew blood yesterday and we should find out in the next day or two what's up. Or at least, we'll find out the results of the bloodwork. We've run tests on Thirteen that didn't lead to answers so many times, that I'll honestly be kind of surprised if this round does tell us what's going on.

In the meantime I'm going to stop at the pet store on the way home and get her some NutriCal. We gave it to her before and she really liked it, during another period of weight loss. Nellorat asked how I feed it to Thirteen in a comment on her own LJ, and I don't think I ever got around to answering. So: NutriCal is a tube full of goo that tastes good to dogs. (Rats too, from what I hear.) Feeding it to Thirteen is easy: I just put a blob of it on her food. I like to put the goo on top of a tall pile of kibble, so it won't goosh down into the bottom of the dish where Thirteen might miss it. She really likes it and tends to eat it first, so this isn't a major problem. At least, that's how it was before when her appetite was higher. I hope she still likes it now.

In brighter news, my new bag arrived. I've been carrying my laptop to work three days a week, and I've gotten tired of lugging around my junky old laptop bag and my regular bag for everything else. Too much stuff to carry! So I splurged and got a nice messenger bag from Timbuk2.

It has a padded sleeve for my computer, and a big storage pocket where I could carry my camera. (Though I wouldn't carry both at the same time, due to the weight.) Plus lots of pockets in the front for my wallet, phone, keys, etc etc. Which was where my old laptop bag really failed. It didn't have convenient pockets for small stuff, and so I always had to carry another bag as well. I tried to take a photo of the small pockets, but I couldn't figure out how to show them all without turning the bag inside out. So you'll have to take my word for it.

Timbuk2 also has a different style called "commuter" that had more little pockets -- even a water bottle pocket on the outside! -- but there wasn't room for my camera inside. These bags aren't cheap and I need one that can do double duty as a laptop bag and a camera bag.