Evil, Evil vet, just ask the dogs

Well, yesterday was time for my 2 remaining dogs to get their booster shots, heart worm tests, and general exam. We have a new vet. She's very nice. Helped us with our 3 most difficult situations in recent time. But I was not sure she had enough charm to win the problem children over.

T.S., the border collie, has been a wreck at the vet since he was a puppy and had to spend 2 weeks in isolation with pneumonia. Since then he trusts no one through those doors. He whines, shivers, paces. He tries to climb in to my lap. He looks like he'd like to bite them, but he's even too afraid for that.

Ekko, my deaf cattle dog, loves people. But she absolutely senses when your intentions change. You can play with her ears, until you want to look in them. You can touch her feet, until you want to examine them. And don't even THINK about the teeth. Just try to sneak a look as she pants. If you restrain her it's like trying to hold a wild fawn.

But, the good doctor came in and sat right down on the floor, at dog level. T.S. stuck his nose to her outstretched hand and looked at me like "can I bite it?". Then backed up into my lap. My brave boy. Ekko was a bit more curious. She approached the good doctor, and even climbed in to her lap. She let her play with her ears, and sneak in a quick look. But then all trust was shattered when she went to look at her teeth. The good doctor didn't give in though. She held on, got knocked in the jaw, hit her elbow on the door, and got sprayed by Ekko's anal sacs (Which is VERY stinky if you don't know. My friend Mar calls it butt juice. It smells like dead fish.) when all other efforts at escape failed. She didn't look at the teeth, but she did hold on until she calmed down. But I still think Ekko won that one. Especially since she would now have to go home and do laundry.

So then it was time to examine T.S. Truthfully, he is better if I am not around. He is still a puss, but less inclined to bite and more inclined to shrink up. So I suggested they go ahead and take him int he back to give him his blood test, etc. There was a lot of commotion from the back, which left us in the room wondering exactly what was going on. The good doctor came back and told us he did fine, just pooped on his leash when they were working with him. That's my boy.

Clearly, this was no better experience than any of the others if you are the dogs. Forget about the fact that the vet is nice, or that she may become a family friend, or that she may come visit the house. I hope they don't carry a grudge if she stops by sometime.

Poptart

poptart_dogs,
originally uploaded by DogDebt.

This is my sweet foster dog Poptart. She looks very much like Fudge, but they were not related. Poptart is a very sweet girl who just wants to be included. She is very submissive with other dogs, likes cats (she was play bowing and belly crawling with my friends cat) and kids. She is a very soft girl, she can be trained with a buckle collar, praise and a harsh tone - anything stronger breaks her heart. I called her for bed the other night, didn't even think I'd raised my voice, and when she didn't come I went back around the corner to find her laying flat on the deck as small as she could get - which isn't very small because she's 55lbs.

Sad turn of events

I had to put Jodie, my 14 yr old corgi, to sleep on July 14th. She had been fighting kidney failure as you may know, and it had become too much for her.

Now Taylor, my 10 yr old lab, is having seizures which started this last Sunday. She is on meds to control them but it is likely a brain tumor. We are looking in to options for treatment/prognosis/etc right now. My feelings are that she will not be with me much longer either. We are going to see the neurologist in Santa Cruz tomorrow and maybe get a CT scan.

Hard to believe it is happening so close together. I'll send out an update when I know more.

Well, it was confirmed yesterday that my lab, Taylor, does have a brain tumor and it is not operable/treatable. We will just medicate to control the seizures and when they return make the hard decision then.

Then, to make things worse:

I came home Friday after work and as I was getting ready to lock my dogs in the house so I could Amanda's dog Angel, Angel broke through 2 gates and started a fight with Ekko. As I got Taylor in the house to safety and went back to rescue Ekko, TS was now in it with Angel and Ekko was on the border. I got Angel on the side yard and closed the gate but before I could get TS back in the house she body slammed the gate open and they were at it again. I tried to pick Angel up to get her out of reach but it didn't work so I steered them back towards the back fence. TS gave her a chance a few times to just let it go but she wouldn't and he would be back on her neck in an instant. I finally got them back by the fence/gate Angel had come through but I had to pick her up over my head to get over the fence. She tried to come right back through but I had my leg holding it. But since it has open bars TS stuck his nose through to snap at Angel and when he did that she clapped down on is upper jaw/nose. He was stuck in the bars and she would NOT release her grip so I had no choice but to try to pry her bite open. Once I got TS free her mouth shut on my left fingers. I finally found something I could wedge against the fence to keep her in long enough to get TS in the house.

Then I sat on the steps and had an asthma attack for a few minutes and went to check on my dogs and my hand. Right then Amanda came home and checked the dogs while I ran cold water on my hand. Ekko was fine, TS has a scraped up nose and a gash on his lip...and Angel is a MESS. She has a drain tube in her chest, stitches on her back right leg and possibly a damaged knee. And she STILL tried to get to them again yesterday!

We ran Angel to the vet Friday. I didn't want to go to emergency cause I didn't want a bite report filed. Amanda's EMT friend looked at it and said I could wait i I wanted to. So I did. Saturday I felt like I needed to make sure it was really OK so we went to urgent care and I told them I dropped a jack hammer on it. Nothing broken, infected though that quick.


Amanda broke her foot last night in softball. spent 2.5 hrs at Kaiser ER.

We have an appt today at 1pm with Trish King at the Marin Humane Society. She is evidently very successful with dog/dog aggression. So I'll be driving Angel hopping on three legs and Amanda hopping on 2 legs up to Marin today.

Thought I'd fill you in on how the meeting went with Trish King.

She said unfortunately her advice is to put her down. She said she is the quintessential fighting pit and a person of low moral character would be happy to have her. After hearing of how the fight played out, and that Angel still wants to return to it, she was convinced that she is a disaster waiting to happen.

She said a few things that drove it home for her were the fact that she was as injured as she was and kept fighting, that she let me reach in and pick her up repeatedly without turning on me, and the fact that she is one of the few dogs that noticed the dogs Trish had in her office on a large crate with a big blanket in front of it. Angel caught the sent right away and though she didn't lunge she kept her focus on that crate.

I just wanted everyone to know that we had to put Amanda's dog, Angel, down last night. I will be at the pet fair tomorrow but Amanda will not.

And then:
My little lab Taylor has gone off to play with her corgi buddy, Jodie as of this past Saturday. I hope we are done with this trend for a while...