Long awaited snow, the right kind –the sticking kind– came Friday. I was ecstatic at the prospect of 4 to 6 inches of snow because my poor deprived dogs hadn’t had decent snow for some time. It snowed all day starting around 10am. Then it changed to sleet and rain by the time I headed home. I was not happy. This was what happened the last time, the time before AND the time before – snow followed by rain. What good is snow when you have to freeze your fat ass while cleaning your car and waste twice as long a time in driving home if at the end all you got is just slush and mud?
Fortunately, when I finally reached home, I found that it hadn’t rained too much in this area. We had a few inches of snow and it wasn’t slushy at all, and the rain turned to snow again. Dogs loved it. They ran around with white snow around the muzzle. I threw snowballs for them. They chased them and got confused when the snowballs landed and disappeared. They pounced on a “snowball” and looked around and pounced on a phantom snowball again and searched for it with their nosed buried in the snow and sometimes dug the snow to see if the ball hid itself. And my laughter rang out quite out of tune with the snow shoveling noise in the otherwise quiet neighborhood.
It was pure joy and happiness I’ve had in a long time.
Last night, I talked on the phone with a dog behaviorist specializing in dog aggression for about an hour and a half. I described to her each of my dogs’ disposition, the living arrangement that had worked for more than 3 years until Georgia’s elbow dysplasia diagnosis, the change in living arrangement, and the behavior changes leading up to the fight between Brooklyn and Brandy and Brandy’s attack on Georgia. I found her to be very nice and personable.
The flood gate on my tear ducts opened when she asked “Who’s your favorite?” because I thought she was asking this question to see who I’d end up choosing to give up in case keeping all four of them is not doable. Oh no, I don’t have a favorite. I once tried to pick my favorite – I tried to reason if I had to choose just one in an emergency, who would I choose? I don’t know. I have no idea. They are my kids. How can you choose?
My goal now is to have a functional 2-way separation just as before, whichever combination that might be. Right now I’m doing 3-way without Foster. When he comes back after Georgia’s stitches come out, my plan is to pair him up with Georgia so that I don’t need to do 4-way separation. For me to be able to successfully accomplish this, I want her professional advice, and hopefully, she and I can figure out how to achieve 2-way separation again.
I would have to figure out a way to pay her fee first because she cannot take credit card. Wish me luck.
Georgia saw Dr. L on Friday when the drains came out. Dr. L said her leg looks surprisingly good. But Georgia managed to break the E-collar she was wearing for the second time last night, and took most of the stitches out. I quickly went out and bought some self-sticking bandages and wrapped it up, but she keeps scratching it with her hind leg so that the bandage can’t stay in place. So far the incision hasn’t burst, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Brooklyn’s wounds look to be all healed just like all of my wounds, which are just a little sensitive. She, so far, seems content most of the time and cries and howls whenever she thinks I’ve been away from her too long or if she hears me taking another dog outside. I’ve been sleeping with her in the bedroom (on the bed Foster marked all over) ever since her fight with Brandy and she seems to be happier to be in the bedroom than the livingroom.
I took Brandy to the vet yesterday to see if anything is wrong with her healthwise which is making her more aggressive. Other than her known health problems, that is. Dr. L found out that Brandy has two cracked teeth. When I say “cracked”, it doesn’t mean the teeth broke where we can see them. The teeth seem to have been pushed outward cracking them above the gum line and then put back to their original place. She said it’s already healing so there is nothing to be done. From the outside, the area near Brandy’s nose where the black nose ends on the right side looks slightly more bulbous than the other side. She couldn’t tell how old the wound is, it’s either from the fight with Brooklyn or when she jumped on Georgia. Dr. L also took three vials of Brandy’s blood to be tested for any diseases that make a dog cranky including 11 tick-borne diseases and thyroid, on top of a full chem panel.
This afternoon when I took Brandy outside, she had a sudden sneezing fit, after which I noticed some blood around her muzzle. Upon inspection, I could see there was blood in her left nostril. I will talk to Dr. L tomorrow.
Foster has been staying with Sam and Houston since the day after I picked up Georgia from the vet. I can’t trust Brandy with any other dog right now and with Georgia’s leg all stitched up and with her E-collar bumping into everything, I didn’t want Foster to play with Georgia either. So I had to separate them all, and Sam volunteered to look after Foster. According to Sam, Foster must miss home since he has never seen Foster so subdued. Poor guy…
Grizzley has been doing well. He’s still on prednisone and eating well and as feisty as ever.
I am exhausted and stressed and broke. And that’s all I have to say about myself.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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