Dogs
Our newest addition.
I would like you guys to meet Chewie. She is the newest addition to our household.
We adopted her on Saturday afternoon from the local SPCA.
We’ve been thinking about getting another dog for a while now. As you know dear reader, Pappy passed in November of last year. We wanted to wait a while for obvious reasons, but lately the time has just seemed right. I was involved in a play for quite a few months but it closed a couple of weeks ago and a castmate of mine from that play works at the SPCA so she kept sending me pictures. I would check out the website quite often. In fact, in a funny twist of fate we almost adopted a dog that a co-worker of mine ended up adopting. It was meant to be that we didn’t because those two are just like peas in a pod.
I’m not sure why, but this weekend just felt right. We perused the website and picked out three dogs we wanted to see. The first was a dog named princess. She was a terrier/chihuahua mix. We got there as soon as they opened on Saturday and while Rob walked the length of the dog kennels, I made a bee line for Princess and headed straight into her “condo”.
They board the dogs two to a “condo” so and as I walked in, an attendant was cuddling Princess’ roommate Pop Tart. She was a funny looking fuzzy little thing but I paid her no mind. I headed straight for Princess and scooped her up. She was very affectionate but a little high strung. I put her down and said hello to the attendant. He told me that Pop Tart was the most relaxed dog he had ever seen. I reached down and petted her and was shocked at how soft her fur was. She looked like she would be a wire haired, but she was smooth as silk.
Rob came in and joined us and we both became very focused on Pop Tart, petting her and asking questions. Eventually my castmate Leia showed up and by that time we had already decided. We wanted Pop Tart.
We took her outside and walked around with her a bit. Because we have another dog we are required to interact them together and see if it is a good fit, so Rob headed out to our car to get Shilo, while a dog behaviorist came at got me and Pop Tart.
We interacted them in a part of the facility that was very loud and Pop Tart was cowering and basically shutting down. The behaviorist asked us to go to more quiet location and when we got there the dog was much more at ease. We all talked for a while and watched the dogs, who were very indifferent to each other before deciding to proceed with the paperwork.
Long story short, we renamed her Chewie because of her resemblance to Chewbacca and took her home.
She was very timid the first day but seemed kind of okay. By the second day she wasn’t eating and didn’t move from the couch. The third day she still hadn’t eaten and by the fourth day I was frantic. I scoured the internet and everything pointed to her just being scared and stressed out. One website said to boil up some chicken and try that.
So last night I stopped at the market on the way home and bought one lonely chicken breast. I brought it home and boiled it. I put some calming essential oil in my diffuser and took the chicken off the stove to cool.
The smell of the chicken hit the air and I could tell Chewie was interested. I pulled off a little piece and made sure it was cool enough before bringing it over to her. She sniffed it, put it in her mouth and spit it back out. I placed it next to her mouth where she was laying on the couch and stepped away. She quickly scarfed it up.
My heart was dancing with joy as I pulled a couple more pinches of chicken off and brought them back over, sharing with Shilo as well. Chewie ate them with no hesitation and jumped off the couch to follow me back into the kitchen when I went to get more.
I put some shreds in her bowl and she ate them up with vigor. I put some more in her bowl and added a little kibble. She quickly ate around the kibble and looked at me for more chicken.
Oh well, you can’t win ’em all. 🙂
This morning my husband said she ate kibble with no issue and again tonight. She also has much more pep in her step and is much more social with us.
She is a very sweet girl and I’m so excited to have her in our family.
Another Pappy Update.
The last few days, Pappy’s tumor has increased in size. I’m not sure if he hit it on something or not, but it had definitely gotten large, discolored and very hard. I noticed just how large it was last night. I made a mental note to mention it to Rob the next day.
Rob has been deep in rehearsals for the play he is doing the last couple of weeks so we haven’t really seen each other much. The play opened last night so I knew I would get to see him a little bit this afternoon after his nap.
This morning, Rob was crawling back into bed for his nap, just as I was waking up around eleven. He mentioned that Pappy’s tumor was really big. I told him I realized it as well. He said we need to keep an eye on it and make another appointment with the vet to see how to proceed.
Just for reference sake, his tumor started the size of a small grape. It is now the size of a medium sized apple.
So rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, thanking the universe for 12 plus hours of much needed sleep and headed out to see Pappy who was chilling in a sunbeam on the living room carpet. He didn’t look comfortable and upon closer inspection, his tumor was bleeding. It was sort of weeping blood in a few spots on the seam of the scar where they last took the tumor off. Almost like it was just stretched to it’s limit and had no more give.
I grabbed the phone and called my vet. They were only open for another hour, but they said to bring him in as soon as possible. Thankfully, they are only a mile from my house, so I threw on yesterdays clothes, mangled my hair into a sad looking ponytail and put Paps in the car.
They took him in right away, and at this point I am a hot mess. Not just because I literally had just gotten out of bed, but because now that they had him and I could relax for a second I started my meltdown.
Long story short, they attempted to drain the tumor but the only thing coming out was more blood. So they wrapped it in soft cotton and wrapped that up very tightly with a double sticky ace type bandage.
The vet then gave me some antibiotics to prevent the skin from being infected, told me to keep it wrapped and check it on Monday to see if it had gone down or stopped bleeding.
Here comes the reality:
I asked the options going forward. She said that there were two issues. One, that we do nothing and the skin around the tumor possibly becomes ulcerated and starts to slough off, knowing it won’t grow back and then she used the U word.
The second is that we have the tumor removed for a third time, knowing that it will not stop it from coming back. Knowing that at this stage in the game and at his age, there are risks undergoing that surgery.
I asked her to bottom line it for me and she said that in all honesty, she never thought that Pappy would be here right now. Given the type of cancer that he has, she said that she never expected him to last this long and it is VERY rare for a dog TO live this long with an active grade 3 mast cell tumor. Also taking into consideration that he’s still relatively happy and eating and not throwing up or showing other signs of sickness, other than old age – she basically said that we were doing all the right things. He is still on his steroid, benadryl and pepcid. We added the Turkey Tail Mushroom about a month ago and I added some canine hepatic support from my work for his liver when his labs came back high.
While her words should be and kind of is reassuring, it doesn’t change the fact that my little man probably doesn’t have much time left. I’ve been really avoiding thinking about this. Like A LOT. The reason behind that should be obvious, but now it’s time to try and get myself prepared. I don’t want to because just typing this out has left me in wracking sobs for the last ten minutes, but I need to start mentally preparing.
It sucks out loud.
So there is the update on my baby boy. For better or for worse.
I'm not doing so well. Pappy Update
Pappy’s tumor has gotten quite large. What started as a little bump, slowly grew to the size of a plum and then rather rapidly to the size of a lemon. Even faster it reached the size of an avocado.
We decided to have him checked out again at that vets. We haven’t changed our minds as far as treatments go, but we wanted to get their opinion since it had gotten so large and he had been wanting to lick it lately.
They ran some blood work and the results weren’t great. His liver levels were off the charts. They were supposed to be in the 100 something range and they were at a shocking 4000 reading. I don’t understand medical mumbo jumbo, but the vet was pretty sure it has spread throughout his body.
The good news was that his heart and lungs look good. He’s still in good shape other than his arthritic butt and hind quarters – but that is just age. He still doesn’t act sick and thanks to the Prednisone, there is NO decrease in appetite. The end result is that either old age or cancer is going to get him. They don’t know which one will do it first. They told us to watch for lack of wanting to eat and rapid weight loss. They also said that we can leave the tumor alone, but if it gets bigger or starts bother him and he wants to itch it, they can do a drain on it and see if they can remove most of it. I’m not really interested in having him go under anesthesia again at his advanced age, but we’ll see. The other possibility is that it could rupture and we would need to have them do that anyway.
They also told us as a natural alternative we could look into something called Turkey Tail Mushroom. It’s supposed to help boost immune systems and has been showed to help fight cancer. We got some on Monday and started him on it. We will see how that goes.
So we are keeping him on the steroid, anti histamine and stomach pills. I have also added an all natural liver support supplement I got from work and now the Turkey Tail Mushroom.
While Pappy is doing relatively okay other than the whole cancer thing, I am not.
I have never had to deal with this sort of thing. Yes, we had to put Romie down at 16 years of age and that was the hardest decision I have EVER had to make in all of my life, but it came on suddenly. It all happened over the course of a couple of days. He just lost control of his back legs and eventually refused food and water until we had to bring him in and it was the only humane thing to do. I still hurt from that, but at least it was sudden.
The only other experience I have at losing a close loved one was when my grandparents died, and to deal with that I became bulimic. I don’t function well with grief.
I’m not good at knowing my dog is going to die soon but not knowing when. He could go on for a year and that would make me very happy, but the very real possibility is that it could happen much sooner. I am not handling the situation very well. I wake up in the middle of the night and put my hand on him just to make sure he’s still breathing.
I literally can’t even talk about this with my husband or friends because I can’t stop bawling long enough to get words out. Typing seems okay. I can cry and type at the same time. That is why I am blogging this. I need to get this out of my head.
I am not doing well. When I am not on the verge of tears, my mood can be described as salty at best. I’m lashing out at friends that don’t deserve it and inwardly seething all the time about things that shouldn’t be a big deal. Like traffic, or the fact that I can’t find a certain shirt. We’re talking FULL ON RAGE here people. I want to punch and kick and hurt things. This morning I realized I wanted to cut again. I haven’t cut in at least twenty years but this morning the urge was there just as plain as day. Cut the skin, let the blood flow, release the pain.
I didn’t and I won’t because I’ve come way to far to resort to that shit, nor will I stick my finger down my throat and throw up the feelings, but it’s a little unnerving to me that it came on like that. I just don’t know how to deal with this.
And you can tell me it’s just a fucking dog until you are blue in the face, (black and blue, because I will probably punch you if you said that to my face.) but it’s so much more than that. If you knew just one fraction of love that this dog has given me in the last ten years, you would be openly weeping right now. I know that every dog owner goes into the adoption process knowing it is only temporary. They are only with us for a little while, but the quality of that time is so amazing. If you are not an animal lover, you will never understand. This is my child.
So yeah…not doing well with this. I’m tempted to click on one of those online therapy ads I see pop up on facebook. I did a great deal of therapy in my early adult years and it did me a world of good. Maybe talking to a stranger about this would help. I don’t know.
I guess I should just be glad I realize that this is the reason I’ve been feeling so shitty, but no, that doesn’t really help.
There is no real point to this post. It’s not a cry for help. I will not cut. I will not start binging and purging. It is just a means to try and hash out these emotions and get them out of my head. I will probably write more of them as the weeks go on. Please feel free to skip over them. Life isn’t all sunshine and roses right now.
Update on the Papster
So a while back I wrote about Pappy’s cancer. It’s not something that I like to think about, let alone write about, but it is still there.
His tumor came back for a third time quite a few months ago. I didn’t publicize it, because…well, we aren’t going to do anything about it. I didn’t want to hear from all the people that think they know better than me, that we should do chemo or radiation or at least get this third tumor removed.
I recently had a lengthy conversation with our seasonal neighbors that came back into town. They had a very similar situation with their old dog Maggie. They opted for the chemo and they regretted it. They said it made her so sick and in the end, for the minimal life it can extend for an already old dog, it’s just not worth it. I was so glad to have had that talk, because it reaffirmed all our decisions on keeping Pappy comfortable in the time he has left.
This morning I had to bring Pappy in for his annual check up. I was dreading it, because I was sure they were going to tell me what a horrible dog mother I was for letting this cancer just fester in his body instead of taking some sort of action, other than the meds he is currently on. I was wrong.
I was very pleasantly surprised when the Dr. told me that she thought we were doing the right thing. She said that at almost 14 years old, he had lived a good life span and that the other vet they had there just put his dog on chemo and he doesn’t think he would do it again. She told me his dog was sick for days after every treatment and wouldn’t eat. I *knew* those doggie cancer specialist fuckers were lying to me when they said chemo doesn’t effect dogs at all like it does humans. Bastards.
The doc said that Pappy is doing AMAZING for having had this cancer as long as he has. She was shocked when I told her that he still doesn’t exhibit any signs of being sick. Just standard old slowdown. He can’t jump up into the car anymore because of his back legs so we lift him. She agreed that was a good idea, especially since his tumor gets aggravated if he bumps it. I told her he’s kind of gotten used to us babying him. She said: “He’s got the right idea! Hell, he’s gonna be 14. He needs a butler!” Heh.
So the vet visit I was dreading turned out to make me feel very good about what we are doing. He’s not hurting. He’s not suffering. He doesn’t even know he is sick! He just has a INSATIABLE hunger from the steroid and constantly things he is starving…which is good since a decline in appetite is a bad sign in this case.
She did say that she probably won’t update his rabies and the other 3 years shot that is due in January, because they don’t want to compromise his immune system with the cancer. I said that I was fine with that. If he is still with us at that point I will be so happy I won’t care about anything else.
As I write this with tears in my eyes, he is asleep in his bed on the other side of the couch. He is my love. My sweet, sweet baby boy. I am not ready to let him go, I never will be. But I’m happy that right now, he isn’t hurting and will be with us for a bit longer.
A Weekend To Myself.
So once a summer a couple that Rob and I are friendly with through the theater throw a great big party at their house in the country. They live even further out than we do. It’s only ten miles away from our house but it feels like way more.
Rob attended last year alone because I had theater commitments. He said it was HOT! Stifling hot, with no breeze. And while he enjoyed himself there was a long period of boredom on that Saturday for him because he hadn’t been prepared for the heat. He had been prepared to take a nap in the tent but the heat proved that not to be an option. So he read. My husband doesn’t read, so you KNEW he had to be bored. That night however there was much music jamming and he was a happy guy.
I had no theater commitments this year but given his account of the heat and boredom I opted to stay home with the dogs this time. It saved us from either having to burden his parents with watching the dogs or paying money to board them at the vets. I wasn’t that into the idea of camping in 100 degree weather and then watching a bunch of people play music.
So last night we stopped at the market and got sandwiches. One or Rob so he would have a good hearty dinner that night and one for me so I wouldn’t have to cook. We came home and Rob packed everything up for his camping trip.
In doing so he made a lot of noise. Loud banging and grunting and exclamations. None of this was bad but all of a sudden Pappy jumped up on the couch and clung to my side. He could not be consoled. The nearest I can figure is he thought Rob was mad and it made him nervous. He is a very sensitive little dog. As I’ve said before, we think he was abused at the hands of a man before we adopted him. We don’t know for sure of course, but when we first got him you couldn’t move your hands too fast around him or he would crouch in fear. You also couldn’t touch his tail, ears or feet without him snapping at you. He has come a long way over the years of us loving him but last night only validated our thoughts of abuse. He was so scared that Rob was mad that he wouldn’t leave my lap, constantly licking at any part of me that he could get(he licks when he’s nervous).
Finally I made mention to Rob of what was happening and he came over and sat with us on the couch. Pappy allowed him to pet him from where he was on my lap but wouldn’t go towards him at all. Poor little guy.
Rob eventually left and the dogs then kept vigil at the door waiting for him to return for about fifteen minutes. After that they got up on the couch and looked at me accusingly as if to ask what I had done to drive their father away. Finally they settled in and we watched Glee all night. It isn’t one of Rob’s favorite shows so it was nice to know I could watch it without bothering him.
This morning the dogs woke up to their internal alarm clocks as they always do at five thirty AM. Normally Rob gets up and feeds them and takes them out but with him not here I realized I had to haul my lazy ass out of bed. I took them out and then fed them and put myself back to bed. The dogs wrestled next to me for a while and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a bit until they settled down so I read until about seven and then fell back asleep.
Woke around nine thirty. I didn’t want to, but the dogs decided it was time to go back outside again.
I ate some of my leftover sandwich and then played Candy Crush Saga for like an hour and a half(SHUT UP! It’s addicting!). After eleven I knew the library was open so I hopped in the car and headed over there but even though their website said they had the book I wanted, they did not so I grabbed a copy of “Sh*t My Dad Says” for bathroom reading and came home.
The rest of the day has been pretty unexciting. I scooped the poop in the yard and then cut down all the grape leaves along our fence. A shower and redesigned the layout for this blog. The rest of the night should prove relaxing and uneventful. I plan on finishing Mockingjay and going to bed early. This sinus thing has come back with a vengeance and I’m not happy about that.
Sooooo, in review:
I totally take for granted the fact that Rob gets up with the dogs every morning -even weekends- and let’s me sleep in as late as I possibly can.
Also I find myself jumping at shadows and locking the door every single time I come back in. It’s worth noting that when I was outside picking dog poop the metal fence gate thingie that closes off our driveway opened about a foot and then slammed shut on it’s own. THERE WAS NO ONE THERE! That really kinda freaked me out. *shudder*
In general the time to myself is good, but I kinda miss having him to talk to. Even when I took weekends to myself in a hotel room I would call him or text him. Right now he has no phone coverage where he is. 🙁 Yeah, after almost 14 years together even less than two days apart and I miss him. <3
Random thoughts on dog ownership.
So we have these neighbors that live across the street from us. From what I understand they are related to the guy that died in that house years ago. They live in San Diego but they come up here for about two months at a time to stay and work on the house. Very nice middle aged couple with no kids and a really old dog named Maggie.
Whenever they are in town Pappy sneaks under the fence to go on their walks with them and Maggie. They really adore Pappy and he loves them too.
They just got back into town a couple of weeks ago and the only reason we knew was because we saw their car. We didn’t actually see them which was unusual but we didn’t think too much of it. One night when we were pulling into our driveway Rob commented that he hadn’t seen either of them and I agreed. That’s when it hit me. The reason we used to see and chat with them so much was when they were outside walking Maggie. They did it a lot because of her age and her inability to hold her bladder for long periods. I verbally wondered if Maggie had finally given up the ghost.
Long story short, Rob came home the other night and the wife was out working on the yard. She did confirm that they had finally had to put Maggie down. Liver problems and general old age. It brought back memories of Romie in his final days.
I know that to some people it is silly that I am so attached to my dogs. It has become a running joke among people that I am *that* dog owner that refers to her self as Mommy and so on and so forth but it’s true. I do not have kids. I’m not going to have kids. These dogs are my children. They are loved and cared for and I worry about them all the time.
They bring me countless hours of joy and love. If I am ever down, all I have to do is look at their sweet faces and all is right with the world.
Recently Shilo had a flu bug or got into something that upset her stomach. That alone was very worrisome for me. But the vet said she would be okay just feed her white rice and boiled chicken so we did. It was around that time that Pappy started not eating his food. He didn’t have a lack of appetite. He was still super excited when we said the magic word but when he got to his bowl he just kinda looked up at us like “Is this it?” For a while we thought he was just being a brat because Shilo was getting something different and he wanted it too so we appeased him and added some rice and chicken to his kibble to and he ate it down.
Even after Shilo got better he still didn’t seem to want to eat his kibble until he realized that it was all that he was getting and even then sometimes refused to eat. Again, no decrease in appetite. He still begged for human food but didn’t want what was in his dish.
It recently occurred to me that maybe his teeth are getting bad and it hurts to eat those hard pieces of kibble. It makes sense since he wants to eat, just not the hard crunchy pieces. And that brings about the fact that he’s getting up there in age.
When we got him in January of 2007 we were told he was about three years old. If that is the case he would currently be nine years old. I doubt that he was that young though. Having a two year old puppy right now tells me he was a lot older when we got him. Very mellow and calm. I think they rounded down on his age to get him adopted faster. If I had to guess I’d say is around ten or eleven right now. His face and paws and belly have all completely turned white. He’s still got a lot of pep in his step when he’s fighting with Shilo but he is just showing all the signs of old age.
Romie was sixteen when we had to put him down. He was also half blind, mostly deaf and out of his mind with doggie dementia that he had to take meds for.
Pappy is a long way from that. I think he’s got quite a few good years left. He can still hear the “cookie jar” being opened in the other room in a dead sleep. 🙂 But he is getting older and it makes me sad to think that he’ll be gone eventually.
When we put Romie down a friend commented that she wasn’t getting any more dogs after her current one because it wasn’t worth the heartbreak when they died. Even through my own tears, I disagreed with her. It is hard to lose a loved one, but it is soooooooo worth the time and love and joy that they brought you in the years they were in your life.
I could never NOT own a dog.
The Puppy Diaries — One week later.
So we’ve settled into a routine with the new pup. She comes to work with me in her crate and stays in the back of the PT. She has her pink snuggie blanket and toys and I go out periodically for pee breaks and walks. Everyone at work just adores her of course and with good reason. She gets a little overwhelmed meeting so many new people at once that want to love on her but she’s doing well.
We are learning all her traits and signals for when she has to go the bathroom. We’ve had surprisingly few accidents in the house. We know when that she has to be scooped up immediately upon exiting her crate in the morning because she will squat and pee anywhere at this stage in the game.
Also, any time she starts circling in her crate and clawing at the padding she has to poop. Learned that one the hard way but now we know. 🙂
She is gotten so much better at settling down in the crate at night and going to sleep instead of whining. Now if she whines we know it means she has to go potty but she’s also been really good at holding it overnight.
Pappy has been very standoffish with her since we brought her home. Which is unfortunate for Shilo because she wants to play with him SO BAD! She keeps running up and nipping at him and getting on her hind legs trying to bat him in the head. He’s pretty much just been growling at her and letting her chase him off. He usually runs to the top of the couch because he knows she can’t reach him up there, and then he barks out the window pretending to see a squirrel but really just voicing his displeasure at the little gal.
Last night Rob brought Pappy’s crate home from where he had it at work and he seemed to really like having a little place to go to get away from her.
This morning when we got up and everyone had been fed and done their business the dogs started to play. For real playing. No growls, just playful jumping and wrestling. It was like Pappy finally realized he wasn’t going to break her. He had to feel her out for a couple of days and now he’s cool with her since he has his crate to get in when he’s sick of her.
It was such a relief to see them getting along. What we have noticed this week is that whether he realizes it or not, Pappy is teaching her his mannerisms. He has taught her how to growl and how to stand on her hind legs. She also now follows him in the kitchen and stares up at whoever is in there just like Pappy does. She doesn’t know why she does this because people food has no effect on her yet, she’s never had it and has no interest in it. However she sees him do it and figures it must be the thing to do. So cute. She has a way to go with the training but she really is doing remarkably well.
The Puppy Diaries — Day Three
Having a new puppy that will scour the floor looking for any little particle to put in her mouth has vastly improved my house cleaning skills. I never used to be a vacuum the carpet every day kind a gal but I’m discovering running a quick cleaner over the carpet beats chasing a 3 pound speed demon around the living room trying to remove a leaf from her mouth.
She is quite the little explorer. She wants to see EVERYTHING and she wants to put said everything in her mouth. And chew.
“No!” is her favorite game. To her the rules mean that whatever I am doing when Mom screams NO means I need to stop for one second, look at her and then continue what I was doing with even more vigor than I was before.
Whining is another pastime she enjoys. Usually while she is in her crate in any state other than sleep. The louder the better.
Don’t get me wrong. She is a little love. When she is done trying to attack innocent toes and chew on computer wires she is perfectly content to curl up in your lap in a tiny little ball and sleep or just stare up at you with adoring green eyes.
She has had several successful outside pees. The secret is to catch her right as she is coming out of the crate. If you wait even a second, she will run off and pee as soon as she gets away from you. However, if you get her in time and put her outside she will sniff around a bit and squat.
She and Pappy have just started in the last two days to spar a little bit. She has been wanting to play with him from day one but he just keeps looking at me as if to say: “But Mom, she’s so small! Can I really jump around with her??” Now he’s trying to feel her out and is getting more comfortable with jumping back at her when she approaches her.
Much like having a newborn I have been getting up in the wee hours of the morning to let her outside and then lay with her a bit to get her back to sleep. She’s very small and her bladder isn’t very big. It would be unreasonable to expect her to hold her water for more than three or four hours and since we don’t want her going in her crate, that is the option.
Rob said he got her to give her first poop outside this morning so that is promising even if she did poop inside tonight when I got home. It was my fault for not noticing her sniffing around.
I gave her the first dose of her deworming meds right after that so I’ll be watching her closely so she doesn’t get near her poop in case there are worms.
Fascinating blog entry, no?
Alright, on to the cuteness!!
The Puppy Diaries — Day Two, The Cuteness Continues…
Woke up this morning to the double dose of doo doo in Shilo’s crate that I mentioned in the last entry. I cleaned off the blanket and popped it into the washer and took the pup into the bed with me while Rob got ready for work.
I got up around eight and wrote the last blog entry before getting ready and heading to the vets with little Shilo.
She really didn’t like riding in the car without being secure in someones lap but I wrapped her up in my sweatshirt and since it was only a mile to the vets office she did pretty good.
I LOVE our vets office. Mostly because they all love Pappy so much and well, who wouldn’t. But they were also really great when we made the decision to put Romie down. They know us by face even when I don’t recognize them and always make us feel like they really care about our pets.
They got us right in and did what they needed to do. The start of three series of vaccinations, a nail trim and also some deworming meds for her that I am supposed to administer tomorrow.
She weighs three and a half pounds and seems to be in good health. She had a little scabby sore on her side when we picked her up yesterday but the vet just picked it off and declared it was healed underneath. The vet said Shilo should be about 12 to 15 pounds at her target weight.
Since I brought her home, I have fed her twice with no problems and had two successful outside pees. No poops yet but I’m sure that is coming. She napped a lot as she had a very hard day, but she and Pappy have had a couple of runs around the living room. No wrestling yet, mostly her chasing him and him not knowing quite what to do but run. I’m pretty sure he’s scared because she is so little and he doesn’t want to hurt her. She has backed down every time he turned on her with a bark. This is just so much like when we introduced Romie and Pappy, it’s comical.
She has been really good at not getting into too much trouble while I was cooking dinner.
I came in from running upstairs really quickly and caught her playing by herself with a small leaf. She would take the leaf in her mouth and throw it to the side before immediately jumping on it and starting the process all over again. Playing catch with herself. So CUTE! Romie used to do this in Arizona with a tennis ball.
So far so good. She is tucked in again by my side for a nap. She seems to have a span of a half an hour of playing or running around followed by a two hour nap. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
The Puppy Diaries — Day One
So we adopted another dog. Okay, not just a dog…a puppy. A VERY young puppy.
Neither of us have ever raised a puppy before so this is going to be interesting…or something.
It all started on Thanksgiving. We were invited to the house of the director of the play we were in for Thanksgiving dinner. Koly(the director) had been fostering a dog for a friend and the dog had recently had puppies. The first one I picked up, I fell in love with. They called her SheShe and she just melted my heart.
There was no way we could have taken her home that day since we had nothing and no stores were open, not to mention the fact that she was only six weeks old and I wasn’t comfortable with her being away from her mother yet. It was a lot of responsibility and we had to really think it over. Plus we had the whole trip to Vegas thing planned so it wouldn’t be fair to bring her home only to board her for a week.
The more we thought about it the more the timing seemed right. We had thought about getting another dog right after Romie died but decided we should just hold off for a while. Well two years have passed and we had been thinking maybe it was time. Especially since I had been trying to socialize Pappy a bit more lately and I could tell he kinda missed having someone to play with.
That brings us to yesterday when we brought our little Shilo home. We decided on the name Shilo after much debate on other names. I had originally wanted Pebbles or Willow(Buffy reference–natch!) but neither was really significant to us. Rob joked that we should name her Repo(The name of the play we were in) since that is how we met Koly and thus the dog. We sort of joked back in forth over various character names in the play and decided that Shilo(the lead in the play) actually worked really well. It was age and gender appropriate. It didn’t sound like Pappy or any commands so it wouldn’t confuse things.
We brought Pappy to the theater at noon to introduce them. Pappy reacted very similar to how Romie did when we first introduced them. Very indifferent. Curious as to what this little thing was, but not all THAT eager to find out right away.
Since neither one had run barking in the other direction we decided it was okay to take her home.
We stopped at a pet store on the way there and got a crate for Shilo. No sense in putting off crate training, and since we were going to have to housebreak the dog as well, the sooner the better.
When we got home we marveled over just how much the role of Pappy had reverted to the role of Romie all those years ago when we first introduced them. Now it was Pappy that sort of skulked around looking at the little thing with a mixture of excitement and disgust. What is this little thing and just how long is it staying anyway? It better not get any of my food or toys!
Last night was spent trying to get the dogs to play mostly unsuccessfully. Pappy is just not sure about it and I know from the experience with Romie it’s going to take a little while for him to get used to it. Shilo is all for it and really wants him to play with her but she seems to understand that she shouldn’t bug him too much until he warms up to her.
So far she has yet to pee or poop outside. She doesn’t seem to get it but that will come with time.
I’m also pretty sure I overfed her last night and the results were three big poops. One on the carpet as she got away from me and two in her crate when we woke up this morning. Lesson learned.
She has quite a little personality. Very playful and active but also very cuddly and cute. She will curl up on you and fall asleep once she realizes that playtime is over. She is a chewer though. Understandably because she is just getting used to her teeth and all but we need to get some chew toys stat if we want to keep our furniture and clothing intact. 🙂
Also very whiny in her crate for the first ten minutes or so before she settles down. I’m thinking that will diminish over time as she gets used to it.
Today she goes to the vets to get all her shots and tests and such done. I will update later about that.
Oh, and did I mention that I finished my first half marathon? Heh, yeah so there’s that. 🙂