A Whirlwind

On Friday, Nov. 11, my parents and I moved almost all of my stuff into my new apartment in Lancaster. That night, I drove back to Selinsgrove so I could work my final athletic event (football senior day – you know, nothing terribly complicated 😛 ) on Saturday. Then on Sunday, I  made the trip back to Lancaster in preparation for my first day of work at my new job on Monday.

Clearly I crammed quite a bit into a few short days. My parents were invaluable in getting me settled and last Sunday, I brought Lucy into her new home. It actually made me choke up a bit; she’s only ever known one home and I was ripping her away from that home (and Marty). A tad dramatic, I know, but I’m good at drama.

I really had no choice and made the right move; this job was an opportunity I could not pass up, even if it meant uprooting my life .

The view outside our new living room.

One week into the job and overwhelmed would be an understatement. New job in a new career field. New apartment. New routine. Living on my own for the first time in five years. Still balancing some work obligations at my previous job. As someone who hates change, it’s been a bit rough. But I did this exact same thing (minus the whole career change) six years ago and I survived. So I can do it again. And having actual weekends to myself is going to be like heaven.

Having Lucy with me has also helped tremendously. I feel a bit guilty – she’s alone longer during the day but the trade-off is that I am around all weekend, something that wasn’t the case before.

Unlike our old apartment, this one is one floor which means Lucy can actually go into the bedroom. The first night here, she decided she wanted to sleep in my bed. She’s never even had the opportunity before and I figured we were both lonely, so I let her stay.

“I’m ready for bed, Mom!”

Until 2 a.m., that is, after five hours of her snoring and doing laps on the bed. I’d had enough and planted her on the couch where she’s stayed ever since. But she does like coming to wake me up in the mornings.

And yesterday, Lucy decided she would force me to discover where the closest ER vet was as she stepped on something outside and got bit or stung. She wouldn’t put her paw down on the ground and wouldn’t let me look at it. I thought maybe she got something stuck in her paw but obviously she wasn’t going to let me look closely enough to figure out what the heck was going on, so off to the vet we went.

Pooped after spending a few hours at the ER vet.

She loves the vet so of course she acted totally normal once we got there but her paw was red and a bit puffy so she got a steroid shot. I probably overreacted but that’s another thing I’m really good at.

This weekend, I made only two missteps in assembling my new TV stand and book case and successfully set up my new router, cable and internet. Combined with an overflowing toilet, I’d say it’s been smooth sailing (that’s sarcasm).

But week one is in the books and we all survived. Here’s to week two and beyond.

The Old Lady Gets Surgery

It’s been a while between posts but that’s because things have been very routine, which is good! Blossom has settled right in. She gets along well with Lucy (although we call her the “fun police” because she barks at Lucy when Lucy tries to play), has our routine down pat and has been generally wonderful. No accidents and she sleeps through the night – in our bed, of course 🙂

This past Thursday, though, the time came to get her spayed. SNORT (and I ) went back and forth about whether it was worth it to spay a 14-year-old pug. We ultimately decided that spaying her could only help her odds of being adopted. Plus, we could get a dental done at the same time; since she wouldn’t let the vet examine her mouth during her initial exam, we really didn’t know what we were facing.

I was nervous because of her age but she did fine – better than fine.

“How do YOU know I’m doing fine?”

I picked her up Friday afternoon and she was very happy to see me – as I was to see her. She was not sorry, however, to say good-bye to the vet. To quote the vet tech, “she doesn’t like us very much.” I’m assuming she was not a happy camper and had several “fits” when they tried to pick her up, put her collar on, etc. Oh well. Everyone survived.

She did lose 10 teeth – teeth that were either broken off and/or decaying. But other than that, the surgeries were routine and she’s doing great. Eating well, moving around well and not at all happy with the cone of shame.

All cone, zero dog.

All in all, very glad to have this behind us. Surgery and recovery have, so far, been better than expected and now she has a healthy mouth and her spay is all taken care of. Next step – available for adoption?

PS – Lucy says hi.

Blossom Update

So we’ve had a few highs and a few lows since bringing Blossom home.

Let’s start with the highs:

She’s adorable. So freaking cute. She has an adorable gray muzzle, the biggest cow eyes and the best head tilt in the world.

She has settled into our routine relatively easily. She’s quick to join us (and Lucy) on the couch, knows she gets a treat after doing her business outside, knows our walking route and quickly got into the routine of sleeping in our bed 🙂

She and Lucy are still getting along very well. Again, I wouldn’t say they interact all that much – Blossom certainly doesn’t play with toys like Lucy does – but they are totally comfortable being in the same room and spend the days sleeping on the couch together.

Blossom’s relatively healthy (more on that in the “lows” section, though). She is perfectly house trained, eats with no issues and gets around wonderfully.

Now, the lows:
Despite appearing to be healthy, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Her levels came back low enough that treatment isn’t necessarily required but we’re still gathering the facts. Ultimately, she might have to undergo treatment for it, which would suck.

Her “Elvis lip”

She has a few big quirks which I mentioned in my previous post. I cannot touch her feet and when trying to put on her (adorable) new harness we had a not-so-minor freakout that left her “off” for the rest of the night. She was antsy and nervous. Poor thing. I can’t expect years of abuse to be erased in a few days, if ever, but it makes me sad she was scared when I simply tried to put a harness on her.

She is a barker. Fortunately, a 17-pound peanut of a dog doesn’t bark very loudly but it’s still in stark contrast to Lucy.

She’s a velcro dog. This isn’t really a low but I wouldn’t call it a high, either. It’s hard to call it a high when I can’t pee by myself. But she’s so darn cute it’s hard to get angry.

I cannot get angry at this face.

Anyway, it’s obvious I love her and she is fitting in very well after less than a week. We’re still learning her quirks and I’m very quickly remembering what it’s like having a pug around but so far it has been really good for all of us!

Introducing Blossom

After five long months, we are fostering again!

Meet Blossom:

That’s right, a pug! A 14-year-old pug, to be exact. I picked her up a few days ago and knock on wood, things have been really good.

Her background is a bit fuzzy. I can only assume she was with one family for nearly all of her 14 years but I honestly don’t know. I do know, however, that the children (and I really don’t know the ages – I’m guessing older kids) in her primary home horribly abused her. I won’t go into the specifics but it was bad enough that she is now terrified of children. She was surrendered to another home roughly a year ago but that home had children and it was quickly discovered that was not a good fit. She was then turned over to a shelter and that’s when SNORT was contacted.

Because she needed a kid-free home and because I was actively looking to foster again, we decided to take her on. She was with a temporary foster home for maybe a week and they were wonderful with her. Blossom learned to better trust people and was already much less skittish by the time I brought her home.

For an old girl, she moves!

The other reason I agreed to foster her was because she was reportedly good with other dogs and I can say that, as of now, that is true.

She is a true velcro dog and does NOT like to be separated from us. We had her gated in the kitchen for most of the first night and while it was ok, she was pretty vocal about her displeasure. The times she did get near Lucy were fine – she largely ignored her, which is fine by me!

Just a few mornings later, this was the scene on our couch:

It looks sweeter than it actually was – I think Blossom plopped herself down there and Lucy was too lazy to move but it’s still sweet. The two don’t interact much at all but I’ll take peacefully co-existing 🙂

So, what makes Blossom tick? Besides being a velcro dog, she is definitely on the nervous side. She has definite “no’s” in her book. I can pet her but I cannot grab her face which makes it difficult (ok, impossible) to give her the eye drops she came with. She is iffy about being picked up. Sometimes it’s ok, sometimes it’s not. She’s largely ok with it if I’m lifting her onto the couch to be with us but if I pick her up simply to move her, that is not ok. We did learn that she is perfectly capable of getting onto and off of the couch all by herself, though. And touching her paws is most definite a “no.”

She has arthritis and a bit of a goopy eye which she is on the aforementioned drops for but again, I haven’t gotten the eye dropper even remotely close to her eye, let alone actually get the drops in 🙂

Blossom is pretty spunky for a 14-year-old. Despite temperatures approaching 90 and humidity at approximately 200%, she’s taken some brief walks around our apartment complex and even though her joints are stiff, they don’t appear to be causing her a ton of pain.

Today she got a visit to the vet. Not an easy visit by any stretch but she was a trooper. First and foremost, she’s healthy. No heart problems, lymph nodes are good, etc. She got some senior bloodwork done but pending anything off in those results, she’s as healthy as she can be at this age. We opted not to get her spayed at this time – it honestly won’t benefit her health that much and surgery at her age should only be of the mandatory kind, not the optional kind.

What broke my heart, though, was Blossom’s fear. She was literally shaking like a leaf the whole time. Our vet was wonderful with her and went so, so slowly. She finally let him pet her after about 10-15 minutes but obviously he wasn’t able to do a super thorough superficial exam; luckily what he was able to see was pretty healthy/normal.

For now she’ll be loved and spoiled with us. Every day she gets a bit more comfortable and trusting; last night she slept curled up at my feet and didn’t make a peep all night. I am so thankful she and Lucy largely get along – it makes things so much less stressful.

Blossom is a super sweet girl who’s had a super rough life and while I wish it hadn’t taken her 14 years to find a good home, I’ll make up for lost time.

My favorite thing – spoiling my dogs.

Back to “Normal”

Since it’s been a month between updates, it’s obvious life has been pretty uneventful. Which is a good thing considering all that was going on as of my last post. Lucy has rebounded 100 percent from her surgery and is loving life as an only dog again.

“I love life!”

Minus Lucy’s puppy days, we’re entering our longest stretch without a foster. It’s semi-intentional, semi not. Lucy absolutely needed a break since our last two fosters were tough on her and Marty and I are both in our super busy seasons with long days and zero free weekends. If what appeared to be the “right” foster came along I know we’d consider fostering but none of the fosters that have entered SNORT since Novalee’s departure have been the right fit for us – some needed dog-free foster homes, some had extensive medical care we knew required more time than we have, etc.

I have to admit, I feel lost without a foster! So much of my identity the past two-plus years has been wrapped up in being a foster mom and but I’m almost positive we’ll foster again so for now we’re enjoying a one-dog household.

Lucy does go back to the vet in a month to get some vaccine booster shots. She lost about four pounds from the surgery and it was a much-needed four pounds. I’m hoping she’s kept the four pounds off but I’m not optimistic.

So for now, signing off until we embark on our next doggie adventure!

A Lucy Update

Frankly, it’s been a horrendous four days over here. Obviously Lucy’s surgery and the adoption of Novalee made for some not-so-great days. What’s made it worse is that Lucy is back in the ER vet for the night.

Since I brought Lucy home Friday evening, her appetite had continued to decrease. She’d eat maybe 75 percent of her food in the morning and then less and less as the day went on. And I was feeding her super small amounts every 4-5 hours so it’s not like she was getting a ton of food at once. I knew she felt like crud but the problem was she needed to take her six (yes, six) medications with food to feel better but she didn’t feel like eating.

The less she ate, the less medicine she got into her system and the crappier she felt and the more dehydrated she got. And the cycle continued until she felt so badly she puked – medicine and all – what she managed to choke down Sunday morning.

There was a list of warning signs which, if they happened, I was instructed to call the vet and of course vomiting was one of them. So Lucy and I spent almost four hours at the ER vet this morning/afternoon to figure out what exactly was going on.

The vet on call scared me to death when he said she might have a perforated intestine from her stitches stretching and causing tiny perforations which required, yes, more surgery. Fortunately it appears she just needs some stronger anti-nausea and pain meds to start feeling better. But, because she was dehydrated and hadn’t actually ingested all of her meds since her initial discharge Friday, she got herself another overnight visit.

I was so relieved I almost cried; the vet really had me thinking worse case scenarios. And then I forked over $1100…

Which brings me to what else is on my mind – money. I worked very hard for the past 18 months or so to put some amount, any amount, into my savings account each month. Of course I always tried to save money but the last 18 months were spent with precise budgeting. That work has been completely erased by Lucy’s surgeries and subsequent care. Don’t get me wrong – there was zero hesitation on my end to pay for whatever Lucy needs. That’s why I have a savings account, after all. It just hit me how easy it is to be back to “square one” so to speak after months of diligent budgeting.

Lucy is worth it 10 times over and there’s no way I would have ever not paid for what she needs, it just adds stress to what was already a stress-filled four days.

The good news is the vet assured me that Lucy should be like a new dog tomorrow morning and will only improve from here on out.

I want this happy face back.

Two Days I’d Rather Not Relive

Anyone who follows me on Facebook knows this has been a hell of a few days over here. For those who aren’t aware, hang on…

I have to rewind to maybe a month ago. One morning Lucy got sick – vomited and may have had some other intestinal distress, I can’t remember. It really wasn’t a big deal – we fed her a bland diet for a day and just a few hours after getting sick she was already back to normal.

Maybe a week or 10 days later, the same exact thing happened except this time she puked up some random round object. I looked at it for a while and really had no idea what it was. Still don’t have a clue. But I figured that may have been in her stomach the first time she got sick but now it was out of her system and I thought that was the end of it.

Then on Thursday morning – her fourth birthday! – she got sick yet again. I was planning to call the vet that day anyway to set up her yearly physical and when I mentioned she had gotten sick three times in 3-4 weeks, they suggested bringing her in that morning. Twenty minutes later we were waiting in the vet’s office.

Among other tests, they took some x-rays and found something somewhat concerning on two of the four images – a round object in her intestine. Because the round object disappeared on two of the four images, the vet wanted to send it off to an expert x-ray reader (didn’t know such a job existed…) for a second opinion. They sent me home with some probiotics and instructions to wait to hear back about the x-ray.

Well, five minutes after we got home, Lucy puked up the half a cup of bouillon she had drank that morning all over my couch. I called the vet and barely got the words out “Lucy puked” before they said to just bring her in and they would keep her until they figured out what was going on.

That afternoon the vet called back and said the x-ray expert recommended surgery – he felt strongly that something was blocking her intestine and making her sick.

At 5 p.m. Thursday evening, she went back for surgery and the vet found two objects. The first was something completely lodged in her intestine – as in, they could not get it to move at all. So it took a bit more cutting than they had anticipated to get it out. What was it? Still no freaking clue. They said it was a big hairball but I was able to look at it – and it doesn’t look like hair, exactly. It looks like a solid dust ball or something. I don’t know. We’ll never know.

And the second object? Even more random. There was a piece of something dangling into her stomach. They showed me that object, too. It’s not a foreign object – it looks like a small clot or tumor of some sort that was hanging on by…body tissue, maybe? Anyway, it was hanging off her stomach wall and into her stomach. Probably not making her sick but the vet recommended getting it biopsied. Crossing my fingers the biopsy shows nothing concerning.

Thursday night I was able to sneak into the vet to see her before they shipped her to the overnight ER clinic. So pathetic.

She arrived back at my vet Friday morning but they wanted to keep her for the majority of the day for observation. Because she has stitches not only on her tummy but also literally holding her intestines together, they needed to be sure that small amounts of food wouldn’t rupture the stitches before they felt comfortable sending her home with me.

I picked her up a little after 4:30 today and I could not have been happier.

Oh, and while all this was going on Novalee was adopted.

Yup, Miss Nova found herself a forever home.

Her adoption was finalized earlier this week and her new mom is from Central NJ. I had planned to drive home to my parents’ house in NJ on Friday to do the exchange; our university is on spring break and I thought taking Friday off for a road trip with Lucy and Nova to get Nova to her new mom while also visiting my family would be ideal.

And then Lucy decided she needed surgery the day before our planned roadtrip. Novalee’s new mom was kind enough to meet me about an hour from here and she was so happy to meet her new addition. Nova was just happy to get back in a car and sleep.

I actually held it together when they drove off. Nova is such a people dog and I know she’ll absolutely love any home she’s in. And she won’t have to share attention with another dog. Her new mom is very bulldog experienced and could not wait to bring Nova home. She even bought her a new martini glass collar – my kind of woman 🙂

But wait, there’s more. Marty has been gone since Wednesday morning and isn’t home until midnight on Sunday (Monday morning, technically) so I’ve been handling all this on my own. I’m stressed and tired but I managed everything just fine. Logistically things were a little tricky but all of us got through it. I know I’m capable of doing anything that needs to be done on my own but when you’re used to having someone else in the equation it’s easy to get used to relying on the other person for support of all kinds. I’m proud that I handled everything on my own without asking for or needing outside help (asking for help is not a strong suit of mine).

So, Nova (whose new name will be Holly) is settling into her new home, Lucy is snoring away next to me on the couch and I’m drinking a massive glass of wine.

I have to keep a close eye on Lucy for a few days to make sure her food seems to be moving through her without issues and we go back in 10 days to get her stitches out. Hopefully the biopsy is completely normal and we don’t have any lingering issues from that.

Right now I’m still in a fog; it’s been a really, really weird and stressful two days. In some ways it works out well that Nova was adopted today. Sure, it made for a long and emotional day but Lucy’s issues prevented me – and are still preventing me – from dwelling too much on the departure of Nova.

I hope the next time I blog it’s about something completely trivial.

Life with Novalee

It’s been just shy of two weeks since we brought this nugget home:

(I know, she’s a model)

It was super stressful for the first week or so. She just did not like Lucy and she displayed that dislike by growling, lunging and snapping at her. So we separated them. Which worked in regards to keeping both dogs safe, but Novalee is a very needy dog. She must be not just in the same room as her people but physically touching them. And they must pet her. At all times.

After the first couple of days we were able to keep them in the same room if we were home and Lucy stayed on the couch (a place she was used to being after Isaac the Hump Monster stayed with us for 17 months). Gradually Novalee began going over to the couch, sniffing Lucy and then walking away.

Progress.

Now they can even be on the floor (with supervision!) for several minutes at a time without incident. Novalee even tried to play with Lucy today – this is HUGE. I’m super, super cautious and nervous so I’m always prepared for the worst. It’s too early to say if they’ll ever be friends but I’ll take indifference on the part of Novalee toward Lucy.

Novalee went to the vet Monday to get her spay stitches out and to make sure everything else looked good. She was the hit of the office. Everyone loved her and she loved them! Her sutures look good, her ears are good and her dry eye is status quo.

Which means that she is officially listed for adoption!

I know, super fast. But there honestly isn’t anything we can medically do for her and behaviorally she’s house trained, knows basic obedience commands and is great with people. With time she might become better with dogs but I am positive there will be plenty of dog-free homes interested in her.

Trust me, I am not getting ahead of myself and thinking we only have a few weeks left with her; adoptions are totally unpredictable. And I absolutely will not rush this process. She needs the right home that understands her future is pretty uncertain when it comes to her spinal issues and the effects it might have on her health down the road.

Plus she’s so freaking cute it’s almost like she’s fake; I am not anxious for her to go anywhere any time soon!

Finally, I got an update from Isaac’s new dad. And it was a great update. His new dad adores him and Isaac is one lucky, spoiled dog.

I was happy but also largely relieved. We hadn’t heard from Isaac’s dad since the Wednesday before Christmas and I was nervous things weren’t going well. To get not only an update but an update as positive as this one is more than I could ask.

While Novalee is wonderful and I am ecstatic we have her, I really still miss Isaac. He was our most difficult foster but also one of the best. It was great to have a dog that so clearly loved us – and of course we loved him!

While bittersweet, this reminds me exactly why I foster.

Tis the Season

Lucy has always been an itchy dog. It’s why, for three of her three-and-a-half years of life, she’s been on a regimen of Zyrtec and fish oil, no matter the season.

Over the past week, though, her itching has gotten out of control – she was clearly miserable. She was constantly shaking her head, rubbing her ears and scratching her arm pits (do dogs have arm pits? I don’t know, that’s the general area she was itching). She itched so hard she was rubbing the skin behind her ears raw, so off we went to the vet.

Lucy LOVES the vet. No, really. It might be her favorite place.

Bad news #1: She’s still fat. Despite slightly smaller dinner portions and more outside play time (with a few walks thrown in!), she weighs exactly what she weighed the last time we were at the vet in March. Sigh.

Bad news #2: I came home $125 poorer and with several medications, the biggie being prednisone. Lucy will be on steroids and ear drops for roughly the next 2-3 weeks to get the itchies under control. From all the dog owners in the area I’ve spoken to, almost everyone’s dog is suffering a bit more than usual right now so we just have to ride it out.

Harley was in for a visit because she was suffering from worse allergies than Lucy.

At least it’s not preventing her from fun stuff like attending football practice with me!

A Long Three Days

It’s been quite a week so far. As previously mentioned, Isaac had a vet appointment on Monday afternoon for the purpose of getting some anti-anxiety medication. He happened to get sick that morning but had partially rebounded by our appointment. We were still sent home with some antibiotics for his stomach but he seemed to be on the mend.

Canned pumpkin helps settle dogs’ tummies. Isaac didn’t quite get it all in his mouth…

Tuesday was largely a normal day; Isaac ate a small mix of food, pumpkin, rice and bouillon along with his medication that morning and again in the evening. He didn’t have as much pep as usual but seemed just about back to normal. Then just three hours after his evening meal, he puked. And puked again. And again. And twice more at night while we were sleeping. When we woke up Wednesday, he was lethargic, slightly shaking and had zero appetite. I’m talking, he walked away from a spoonful of peanut butter (his favorite!) without so much as a sniff.

The vet opened at 7 a.m. and I called at 7:02 to make an appointment. I could tell he was losing weight and with no signs of wanting to eat or drink, I knew we had to get him to the vet. When they weighed him, he had lost three pounds in 36 hours. Yikes. They admitted him for IV fluids, IV medication (the same medication we had in pill form that he was no longer eating or keeping down), anti-nausea meds as well as bloodwork and x-rays to make sure nothing too serious was going on.

So pathetic.

Fortunately it looks like Isaac just had a stomach bug and needed some extra help kicking it since he wasn’t able to eat or drink or take oral medication on his own. He was understandably exhausted when he got home Wednesday night and Thursday morning while we took a little walk he was definitely not as peppy as usual. However, he’s eating the bland food we were sent home with and for now the food and his medicine are staying down.

Looking a little perkier the evening he came home.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I do not know how parents do it. I panic at a mere stomach bug in a dog; granted, Isaac had never once puked in the 12 months we’ve had him so this was super abnormal but still – he just had a stomach bug and I was a nervous wreck.