Months

Puppette, the most wonderful dog I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, had a very bad day yesterday.  She vomited and then did not want to eat her breakfast.  This is so unusual for her, I took her to the vet.  The initial work up and x-rays indicated she might have pleural effusion and kidney involvement.  These two things in combination are very bad.  after a rush trip to another vet clinic, and several hours of tests, it was determined it was not so bad, or was it?

Puppette has left lobe consolidated pneumonia, pancreatitis, and a growth in her bladder.  Well shit!
Today, my long conversation with Dr Perente clarified the situation.  Puppette has a transitional cell carcinoma in her bladder.  If treated aggressively, we could have many more months together.  If treated conservatively, she has a few months left.
Months.
I now have to define my relationship with my best girl in months.
This is a place I have dreaded and looked at side ways for thirteen years.  But now that it has shown up at my door, I really want to kick it in the nuts!
I have to decide so many things, now.  I am Puppette's guardian.  I have to make decisions she can't make.  I have to pay attention to her and read her more closely than ever before to make sure I do not miss some little sign or signal that the time is here.
Months.  Collections of 28, 29, 30 or 31 days.  I have had years.  But am I so greedy to want more?
I will write my thoughts here, for a time.  Maybe I will write this up until and just past saying good bye.
Months.
WTF?

Again...

Over one year. 
It has been over one whole year in my life that I did not post one thing.
Did I get selfish and close a voyeur window into my life?
Did I get too busy?
Did Life happen in large and disrupting ways?
Did I make too many excuses to sit down and write?
As my dear friend would say, "Yeah, pretty much."
We lost our dear little bird at the tender age of 13, he died two days before Thanksgiving.
Puppette turned 12 and is deaf to the low register but can still hear the high, like the crinkling of a bag being opened.
Bugsy went blind from a rare disorder called SARDS or sudden acquired retinal degeneration syndrome.  He manages quite well, but bumps into things from time to time causing bumps in our hearts.
Pixie is off her year long trial of anti-anxiety medication.  She still hides in her part of the closet and will not come out into the house when we are here.  We set up the web cam twice and know that she comes out to play during the day when we are not home.  We even have footage of her chasing her own tail!
We are still here.
K and I both changed our eating habits and started working out and have lost weight and gotten a little healthier.
So bring on 2013.
I am still here, are you?

Almost one year

September 19th last year, we brought home an over weight, very drugged little piebald dachshund and gave her a home.
It is almost one year later.
She remains so damaged from her previous life that our touch usually makes her recoil or tremble. If we try to pick her up, to take her to a vet appointment or to hold her to check her for ticks or just make sure she is healthy, she runs. When we catch her she pees or evacuated her little bowels in abject fear.
Her life is seen from behind a curtain in the bedroom closet were she hides if we are in the house.
But we know she has some joys.
We set up a video camera and recorded what happens when we have left the house. Within a few minutes, she leaves her closet and explores the house. She pesters the Puppette dog, lying down with her. This kinda annoys the retriever, but it is good. By 25 minutes past, she has jumped up on the bed and settles in to sleep. But she does not fully relax. She looks around every few minutes, might lower her head, but looks around again and again. Finally settling at 42 minutes but her breathing never becomes slow and even, like a sleep, but remains rapid, staccato at her ribs as she scents the air and expects threat where none lurk.
But then she is outside with Puppette. Her tail rides much higher now, not like a happy care free wiener, but a less nervous one. Never more than a few adorable trotting steps from Puppette. Hanging so close to the blonde back end that she gets peed on and pooped on from time to time and we can't get close enough to Pixie to clean her up.
She bowled into Bugsy one day when he tried to squeeze her out as they headed out the back door to the yard. a solid little chested bull knocked Bug aside with no malice, but decisively.
At her one year vet check, we will be exploring an anti-anxiety med for her. She exists but we wont more for her. Her existence is infinitely better than the hell she came from, but we wont her to be as happy as Puppette and The Bug.
Time passes.

6 days

In six days Pixie has gained some ground.
This very morning, I was standing in the doorway to the mud room. The little one walked passed me, behind my legs. She did not scurry, she did not drop her tail.
Tonight, she was glimpsed dragging her belly across the laundry room floor. She was pulling herself along the floor with her front legs, her little tail wiggling nicely.
She has become more bold in her explorations of the house. Tonight, she made it into the living room and was standing in front of Poppy's cage stand.
There is still so much ground to cover.
She will sniff my fingers, but will not let me pet her. I limit my rubs and scratches to her ears and the nose area between the eyes.
We leave the back door open a touch and she walks in and out on her own for over two hours. When she finally comes into the house, we sneak by her and close the door.
She has taken to sleeping in Bugsy's old bed at night, abandoning her nest area in the bed room.
At one point, she was lying in Bugsy's bed and Bug came over and laid down in the bed with her. She did not give ground by stepping out of the bed.
We are so happy with each small step, each gain. And we pay so much attention to avoid any set backs what so ever.

I'll keep ya all posted.

C

Thunder

As if the poor dear did not have enough challenges in her life, we got a thunder storm last night.
Fortunately, the storm passed near but did not roll over us. But there was a wonderful light and sound show going on in the heavens.
K got Pixie and sat on her love seat holding the little one while we watched TV. This way Pixie would not be alone through the storm. It really could have gone either way; she would be fine or she would be afraid. She started to tremble a bit and K said her breathing increased quite a bit.
After the storm passed and it got calm again, we prepared for bed. Pixie was allowed free roam of the house. She likes to wander in and out the back door when it is left open. But I was talking to my sister when K motioned for me to follow her. I waved her off because my sister had a REALLY bad day. I missed Pixie nosing her way under Puppette's lounging pillow and rolling on the blanket there. So she is under the pillow, on top of a blanket rolling around. She did this three times.
Every day I get home from work, I carry her out into the yard where Puppette and Bugsy are relieving themselves and sniffing the evening news. Puppette says hello to me with a WOOO WOOOOOOOO and then runs a few feet off and flops onto her back, paws up in the air and rolls contentedly with little grunts of pleasure. Did she see her do this and is now emulating? Did she do this in her cage/crate back in the hell she came from.
So many questions, but now, so many smiles.

Another day.

C

What does she think?

I watch an over weight white and red miniature dachshund waddle across the yard.
What is in her mind?
Did she ever have this type of freedom in her previous life? Was she allowed out to walk on grass, smell the smells left by the passing day?
She looks aver her shoulder every few steps to see if there is a human watching her. If there is no seen observer, she sniffs more, looks up and down, left and right to see the yard.
Walking up to the make shift fence we put up to keep her out of the poison ivy. She probes it, every inch, methodically and with nose as well as mistrustful eyes. Once she reaches the end, she doubles back and looks from the opposite angle. The one opening she finds, she sticks her nose through. I can only assume she sniffed the air on the other side of the fence, gathering information on the world outside her yard.
The backward glance over each shoulder scans for the observer. I am inside and back lit. She sees me looking at her and she immediately walks forward to hide against the house. When she reaches the house, she lies down with her back to the wall and tries to get as close to some other object as possible to insure anyone coming to pick her up can't come straight at her. I duck to the side and she spots me through the next window and speeds up to lie next to the house and the water spigot.
What does she think of this new freedom?
Did she live in a cage with a wire floor and spend her days with no solid ground beneath those soft foot pads.
They told us her nails were so overgrown they had curled into her toe pads. Her tiny toes are so soft, like a creature who has not had toes on hard rough surfaces, she has no calluses.
Today she rolled in the dirt, four soft pad feet to the sky and wild abandon. She stood up and rubbed herself against the wall on the left and then the right side.
K said she had run toward the house tonight.
With all the bad things she has experienced in her life, she has intelligence, spirit and a drive to stay alive.
I smiled at her rolling in the dirt.
Small slow steps.
Or maybe, a few fast ones, when no one is looking.

C

She is Home

We brought a nervous and doped up miniature dachshund home Friday. She has slept a great deal.
For the first 25 hours, she did not pee. We were getting worried, but stuck it out. She had been drinking water and did manage to eat some boiled chicken.
Last night, sometime, she peed on the incontinence pads in her pen area. Then she went outside and pooped.
Most people would not care, but this is all important to us that she thrive.
Tonight, she was more awake. She will not follow when we walk, mostly she walks away from us to avoid contact.
But tonight she was avoiding faster. Pixie walked along a section of brass pen fencing we had out, she looked it over closely and then found the one opening that would allow her to disappear into the underbrush, where the poison ivy lurks. One look over the shoulder, one look at the underbrush, one more look at me and the decision was made to walk away, into the yard and away form the poison ivy.
See ate well again tonight. After polishing off the chicken, she even managed a few kibble.
She shies away from me. If K pets her, she is good, no real problems. If I pet her, she shies away and her skin literally contracts away from my touch.
I wonder, so deeply, what has happened to this poor soul that she does not trust humans and physically reacts negatively to human touch? What horrors of neglect and mis handling did she find at that puppy mill.
She will take love and time and oh so much gentle handling to make any inroads.
It is early yet. We are ever hopeful.
Welcome, Pixie dog, time to heal.

C