Sunday afternoon, I happened to notice Foster suddenly lifting his right hind leg trying to lick his paw while he was walking around in the backyard. I started towards him to take a look, but then seeing me coming, he ran right up to me and gave ma a paw with a big smile on his face. So I concluded that he might have stepped on a rock or something and didn’t think much about it.
But by Monday evening, I decided something was definitely wrong with his rear right paw and possibly also the left paw because he kept lifting his paws off the ground, mostly the right one but sometimes the left one as well. I tried to take a look, but he almost ripped my face off when I touched his paw. So without a second set of hands to hold him, all I could see was a little bit of his paw getting a little raw from him licking. I decided to take him to the vet on Wednesday if he didn’t get better.
Yesterday I dropped Foster off at the vet in the morning, and let me not digress and talk about the receptionist again this time cause it will just frustrate the shit out of me even more. Foster’s paws had been getting worse, not being able to play with Georgia and having trouble pooping since he has a hard time getting into the position to push since he keeps trying to lift his rear right paw off the ground. But I wasn’t worried too much because I thought it was some superficial wound like a little cut on his paw pad made worse by him licking.
The vet found out not only his rear paws, but all four of his paws have skin legions or ulcers that look as if he scraped them on a rough concrete surface. The rear left paw was in the worst condition. The vet thinks Foster has Lupus because not only there was no such occasion for Foster to have hurt his paws like that but it’s very uncommon for a dog to hurt ALL of his paws like that. He’s pretty sure it is lupus since he has seen enough cases like this even though the only way to make sure is to do a biopsy.
I am angry. I am tired. I am frustrated. I am afraid I’m about to crack.
For now, I came home with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory for the wounds. If his paws don’t get better after this round of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory, then we’ll go from there and treat it with steroids. In the mean time, I’m looking into natural remedies that would help with canine lupus, but it looks even the most holistically minded people seem to say the steroid is the way to go (from what I’ve found out in a very short period of time). If you have dealt with canine lupus or know anybody who has, please let me know. I would like to hear about the experience.
Maybe, just maybe those squirrels would come down here if I stand on two legs and wish it long enough and stare at them hard enough…
There has been much could’ve, should’ve and would’ve on my part for the past week or so. I should have seen it coming. I should have been more careful…
Ever since Georgia and Brooklyn were moved downstairs, I have felt that Brooklyn has been giving Georgia cold shoulders. Georgia is jumpier and more easily scared now that she can hear outside noises a lot more clearly and I thought maybe that had to do with it because Brooklyn gets a little annoyed by Georgia running around not knowing what to do with herself. Then when I started dog-sitting Houston, I started getting a weird vibe from Brooklyn whenever I brought Georgia back into the livingroom after the meal.
Before the new living arrangement, because Georgia and Brooklyn stayed in the master bedroom, Georgia used to eat inside the master bathroom and I only had to open the bathroom door after both Georgia and Brooklyn were done eating. Everybody has to be fed separately in this house because otherwise one would try to steal another’s food and fight would break out.
After Georgia and Brooklyn moved to downstairs living room, Georgia had to be fed outside the living room. Monday night, I brought Georgia back into the living room after their meal, and that was when Brooklyn attacked Georgia. Georgia doesn’t bite back and she tried to hide behind me and in my poor attempt to take Georgia back out of the room, I opened the door and that’s when Brandy charged in. Brooklyn and Brandy were going at each other for what seemed to me like forever. I was desperately trying to separate them and both of them bit anything and everything near their mouths including me.
After I finally separated them, my right hand had blood clot coming out of a hole, the right side of my shirt and pants blood-soaked, my blood smeared and splattered everywhere. I was hyperventilating and feeling extremely cold and felt like I would pass out soon. But I was somehow abnormally calm. I looked for the number to call a cab, packed a new shirt and a pair of pants, cell phone and the charger, pager, and the organizer while waiting for the cab.
Fortunately, nothing was broken, so after about 5 hours, I was released after given pain killer and antibiotic with the instruction to see a doctor next day. I came home at about 2am, and let the dogs out for a quick potty break, and took Brooklyn to the emergency vet clinic where she was hospitalized over night. Then I came home and took Brandy to the same emergency vet clinic, and she was released with an antibiotic after confirming all her wounds were superficial. I made a stop at a 24-hour Walgreen’s for a case of Ginger Ale since even drinking water was making me puke. I came home at around 4am and started to make another arrangement to separate Brooklyn from Georgia and others.
Brooklyn was pretty banged up. She had to have drains inserted in two places and got stitches as well. She’s been on antibiotic and pain killer. She looks quite pathetic and must feel that way as well because she screams and howls as if she’s getting slaughtered whenever I leave her by herself. But she’s getting better.
Some people were assuming that I’m weighing the possibility of putting Brooklyn down because of the bites or her dog aggression. No, that’s not it. I know she’s dog aggressive and I have known it ever since I got her. I know I get bitten when I try to stop a dog fight. Note to self: go get the fucking break stick and the citronella spray already!
No, that’s not why. It’s because Brooklyn gets so miserable when she has to be in a room by herself when clearly I’m in the same house. She cries her heart out whenever I take the other dogs outside. Sometimes she hears me addressing other dogs and starts crying and tries to get out of the room by destroying it – fortunately she’s wearing a cone and it’s preventing her to do any damage right now. I know her look when she’s unhappy. I lived with unhappy Brooklyn for more than a year when I first got her. I remember how miserable she was…
Brooklyn is a good dog. She’s a very very good dog. She’s the most trouble-free dog I’ve ever seen if there is no other animal around. She doesn’t steal my food. She doesn’t chew anything. She never touches anything that belongs to me. She NEVER EVER has an accident even if she has to hold for 2 days and even when she has the diarrhea. She doesn’t bark incessantly. She walks very nicely on leash. She loves people. She loves me oh so very much.
Right now, I’m just trying to get her better. I can’t handle thinking about it when I have to tend to her wounds and mine. I’ll see how she does living in the room without Georgia to keep her company when I can’t be there with her. I have to see how she handles it… and go from there…
Five years ago today, I brought Brooklyn home.
After seeing Georgia coming to life and even willing to come right next to me to get closer to another dog when I was dog-sitting, I decided I’d adopt another dog at a local rescue facility. I didn’t want a puppy, so I asked them if they had dogs over 2 years old, good with dogs and cats, and already housebroken. Somebody led me to Brooklyn’s kennel. She was sleeping with an E-collar on, and I could see all of her bones sticking out. I also noticed 3 servings of her meal untouched in her kennel. They told me they thought she was hit by a car before coming to the rescue. When the lady woke her up and took her out of the kennel, she seemed to come alive. They said she’s good with other animals and perfectly housebroken. I couldn’t take my Georgia to see Brooklyn because Georgia was deathly terrified of everything and anything including going outside. So I trusted them, signed the adoption contract saying I could return her in 3 days if she doesn’t work out with the other animals, and brought her home.
As soon as she laid her eyes on Georgia and 2 cats, I knew she was most definitely not good with other animals. But she kept having the most severe unscoopable diarrhea that would be absorbed by the earth leaving just stains. I had to treat her diarrhea first, and since the rescue has its own veterinary clinic which is free for the pets adopted within 10 days, I took Brooklyn there. They hospitalized her because she hadn’t been eating. Then discharged her saying she ate some puppy chow wet food some flavor!!! No tests run, nothing at all, and she still had diarrhea.
The adoption contract, as it should be, forbade the adopter to give the dog away or adopt her out, and I had to take her back to the rescue if I were not to keep her. I decided I would not take her back to that rescue because she was so thin, having this horrible diarrhea, and obviously not eating, but these people just kept shoving food inside her kennel! Not to mention the fact that they lied about her being good with other animals. I couldn’t return her back there! I contacted a Shiba Inu rescue and told all this, whose lawyer went over the contract to see if there is any loophole. There was none. I had to keep her or return her, OR find another home for her knowingly breaking the contract. I chose the third option.
Brooklyn managed to almost kill Grizzley and attacked Georgia a few times when I felt sorry for her cooped up in the bedroom and tried to leave her out in the livingroom with the leash attached to me. I got bitten by her 6 times in the first 5 months I had her, all 6 times were when I was in her way of getting to another animal. Now I could not find another home for her knowing that she bit. I’d rather want it to be me that she bites than having her bite another person or another animal and possible be killed in a shelter. I had to keep her.
So Brooklyn lived in my bedroom, separated from other dogs and the cat. I consulted behaviorists, trainers, vets, even a pet psychic, which I don’t believe. Nothing worked. Brooklyn loses all senses once she sees another animal. About half of those I consulted told me to put her down. The other half wished me good luck. Not only that, other dogs seem to resent her presence even before she sees them. For instance, Houston never met any dog he didn’t like, until he laid his eyes on her, who didn’t see him yet, and he started growling and trying to get to her with his hackles up and snarling.
In the mean time, I was struggling with the decision. Brooklyn seemed so unhappy. She’s the kind of dog who’d just follow you around and is just happy being in the same room with you or she’s a so-called velcro dog. But having to be separated from the others inside the bedroom, she was plain miserable. I cried almost every night trying to decide if I should put her down or not. I held her and looked into her eyes and wished her to somehow tell me either she’d want to live or die. I just couldn’t put her down. Some people might label it as selfish, but I just couldn’t.
But the help came from the most unlikely source. Georgia. She would run from one end of the livingroom to the other end and jump around with such happiness to see Brooklyn whenever I took Brooklyn out of the room on the leash to taker her outside. Brooklyn would show her aggression, and Georgia would completely freeze, not even making her breathing heard. Then Brooklyn would lose interest. This continued day after day 3 or 4 times a day, and Brooklyn’s reaction went from aggression to being upset to being annoyed to cold shoulder to acknowledgment to err…. happiness! Of course I stuffed her face with something yummy whenever Georgia sprinted towards us, but finally she seemed happy to see Georgia.
When I moved into the house, I finally let them be together, and they loved each other. Brooklyn couldn’t stand to be by herself, and I was frequently heard saying Get a room, will ya? when mutual licking sessions went on and on and on. Brooklyn was finally happy. She groomed Georgia endlessly and she played with Georgia when outside. Brooklyn tore the room apart if Georgia was in the house but not in the same room with her. Brooklyn loved Georgia. Until this last Monday night…, which I’ll blog about in a few days.
Brooklyn is a very sweet girl who just wants to be in the presence of people. Her cinnamon roll looking tail wags like crazy when I come home from work and she screams in joy while her entire butt is moving from side to side. She’s very concerned about how she looks, so she grooms herself just like a cat, and lies down with her front legs crossed. And I know she will protect me when I’m nervous about certain people while walking her at night – more than once, she kept a crackhead and drunks away from us. She loves me so dearly and I love her to death.
Happy gotchaday, Brooklyn!!!!! Love you so much.
I’m dogsitting Houston. He has been here since Thursday night, or more precisely, 1am Friday morning. You might remember that Houston belongs to Samuel, whom I had a falling out with? Yes, that Houston.
Since the beginning of this year, Samuel has been planning on a 2-week vacation in Dominica, not to be confused with Dominican Republic, to visit his father. Last week, he was talking about his vacation and mentioned his sister was also coming. Because I had assumed his sister had been taking care of Houston when he went away for business trips – the exact business trips I can’t go because he refused to take care of my dogs and hence he has to go in my stead, I asked, and who’s taking care of Houston? He answered, oh, yeah. Can you take care of him? If you were me, wouldn’t YOU drop your jaws?
The first time Samuel made the business trip instead of me was last year a few weeks after one of the biggest arguments between Samuel and me. Because he had been taking care of my dogs every time I had been on a trip, and also I thought, most stupidly of course, that Samuel and I had some unwritten contract that we would take care of each other’s pets, I had assumed he would be pet-sitting for me without even talking about it when I was scheduled to go. A week or so before the business trip, when we were talking, he mentioned he had to do something for his father on precisely those days during my trip. I didn’t like the way he said it, and upon probing further, a very unpleasant exchange ensued, to put it mildly. Basically, he had been planning this to screw me over at the last minute if you ask me. Me, having to go and nobody to take care of my kids. Well, his plan backfired of course, because I went straight to my boss and told him that I couldn’t go to any more business trips because Samuel would not take care of my dogs and owing to my dogs’ special needs, I couldn’t hire or trust anybody to take care of them either. My boss who already knew all the special needs my dogs have, simply said, OK, I understand, and told Samuel he had to go from now on.
So you see, I don’t think anybody would expect me to agree to dog-sit Houston after that, and my answer to him was a loud and clear no accompanied by I can’t believe you are even asking and You can’t possibly be expecting me to say yes, and etc ad nauseam. Samuel meekly said OK and that was the end of it.
Come Wednesday, I found out Samuel was planning to leave Houston with a family of his father’s friend. Now I was shocked. I would never EVER leave my pets with somebody who I don’t really know, especially a dog like Houston, who, if ever got loose, you would never be able to get him back unless you are Samuel. And if caught by, say, an animal control officer, Houston would be sentenced to death so fast because he would fight strangers tooth and nail, who try to handle him without Samuel standing by. Alarmed, I started talking about all the bad things that could happen to Houston. For TWO DAYS. So at the end of Thursday, I made Samuel worried enough for him to consider canceling his trip forfeiting his plane ticket for a 6am flight on Friday. My job was done.
I was pure evil in views of some. I was most righteous in view of others. But it turned out that the family who were supposed to take care of Houston told him they couldn’t dog-sit Houston. At the last minute! Serves him right, eh?
So at the end of Thursday, I agreed to take care of Houston. As much as I don’t like to help out Samuel in this regard, I really did feel bad he would have to forfeit his plane ticket and cancel the vacation he’d been planning the entire fucking year. Yeah, I can be nice sometimes even though it totally goes against my principle.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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