Am I Ready?

Puppies are hard yall. By NO means am I complaining, but lil' Tangie is consuming 95% of my time when I am at home. I can only imagine the kind of time a child would consume. I long for a family of my own but I often wonder if I am ready. It might sound cliché, but I really think this puppy is helping me prepare (by adjusting my sleep schedule and day shedule, etc). On a side note, Todd and Lucy are really warming up to her. They are playing and being civil. Lucy is instigating chases around the breakfast table and Todd isn't snapping at her anymore. Also amazingly, Tangie has not had an accident in the house yet. She is going outside like a pro. I know, babies can't go out in the yard and poop, and I do truely know that comparing a puppy to a baby is hog wash, but it's all I know so far.

Tangie

We are plus one today. Plus one more Pomeranian. Her name is Tangie and she is just shy of 2 lbs. and is 8 weeks old today. Todd and Lucy are getting used to her. Todd is acclimating a little better than I thought and Lucy is actually not. Todd did snap at her, it scared her and made her cry. But that is all he has done, much better than when we brought Lucy home 3 years ago. Lucy has wanted nothing to do with her and has barked at her a lot. She bonded with us really quick, especially with Frank.

We've Been Elfed!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Nobody Knows...Tha Trouble I Seen

OK, Frank took the funniest picture this morning of Todd after he put him in his crate. Poor little thing looks like he is in prison hanging onto the bars of the cell. If he only had a tin mug to drag against the bars. LOL!

Lucy's Recovery

Lucy is still recovering from her back surgery 2 weeks ago, but she is doing GREAT! We still have to crate her, but when we do let her out to go potty, she tries to play. She has a lot of energy and I stopped her pain meds a few days ago. She is still wobbly and she has a hard time with her back footing. Last night, we let her go into the kitchen to "vacuum" up some cheese Frank dropped on the floor and she nearly flipped right over! It looked like she was flipping over her handle bars. I caught her before she finished the flip thank goodness. The Vet says it was probably because of her back legs not being 100%. She goes for her surgery follow up visit on the 23rd, so hopefully after that, we can stop crating her when we are home.

Home Sweet Home

I returned from Shannon's this afternoon and was very happy to see my little Lucy Pie (and Toddler and Frank too!). Lucy is doing really well. She will stay in her crate for the next 3 to 4 weeks, but gets to go outside to potty with us having to carry her to the yard. We have her crate out in the living room so she can be with the rest of the family. She doesn't mind being in there as long as she can see us. She is getting a lot of much needed rest also.

Here is a picture of our little Frankenlucy (it's hard to see the staples down the middle of her back. She looks like a little football.)

Lucy Comes Home Tomorrow!

Lucy gets to come home from the doggy hospital tomorrow. Frank will pick her up in the morning because I will be en route to see Shannon in Wichita, KS. I feel bad I won't get to see her until Monday. But with everything going on, I really do need to get away. Todd started his Thyroid medication today so hopefully with that, and Lucy coming home, things can start (slowly) getting back to normal.

Todd Update with a Side of Lucy Pie

I got Todd's blood work back today and it looks like he has a Thyroid problem. I only spoke to the vet tech, but I will get more detailed info from the Vet tomorrow(she wasn't in today). The good news is that it is easily controlled with medication. But geeze...this is insane. It can only get better from here. I am stess eating and I am exhausted over all that's going on with my babies.

Lucy is doing well after her surgery. She is urinating on her own and ate some chicken today in doggy ICU. She will be taken off the pain IV tonight (which will stop her drooling hopefully). They told me she has a little landing strip shaved down the middle of her back. I can only imagine it looks sad and cute at the same time.

Lucy Pie Update

Today I took the day off work and took little Lucy pie to the Veterinary Neurologist in Dallas for her exam and evaluation. Just as we thought, they wound up needing to do a myelogram which is an x-ray where they inject a dye into the spinal column to see what's going on. They were able to see that something was wrong, but needed to do a cat scan to see further. It turns out she had 2 herniated discs in her middle back and some spinal bleeding. They had to put her under for the x-ray, so they called me with the results and after my ok, they went directly into surgery. About an hour and half later, the Vet called and said the surgery went well and she was recovering as expected in doggy ICU. She will spend the night in the doggy ICU and they will call me tomorrow to let me know how she is doing. They said she will be there for about 3-5 days. They will not let her come home until she is going potty on her own and eating on her own. It's been a hard day with lots of tears early on, but I am very happy she is going to be better. It will take some time, but I am glad she will not be in pain anymore. Her problem is congenital and has probably been bothering her for a long time, which explains why she has been so standoff-ish and anti-social for a while. Frank and I thought she was just socially deficient. I will post again tomorrow when I hear from the vet. Oh, and the Vet is some French dude who I can barely understand. He went to school in Switzerland, did his residency in the States, went back to Switzerland to teach, and then moved back here to work. He also has several publications and does lectures. So...I feel like she is in good hands. :)

And not to leave Todd Monster out of this, he had blood taken at the vet the other day to see what's going on with his "beyond shedding" hair loss so we should have the results back tomorrow to see what's going on. The Vet thinks it could be a Thyroid problem or he's just getting old. She said when dogs get old their hair thins and they shed even more. He is 6 years old, so that could be it. We will know for sure tomorrow.

When It Rains It Pours

I took Lucy in for her follow up visit and the Vet thinks she has neurological damage. She recommends that we take her to a neurologist for dogs in Dallas where they can do more extensive testing. The Vet also did a blood panel on her to see if there isn't anything else going on or contributing to her problem. We will have the results back on Monday for that. I will also be contacting the Neurologist in Dallas to schedule a consultation. Lucy does seem to be doing better, but that is definitely due to the medication she is on. The Vet did say to keep an eye on her and to keep her confined and calm. She could still potentially take a turn for the worse.

To make matters worse, Todd seems to be losing weight and A LOT of hair. I asked the Vet about this and she said based on what I said, she definitely wants to see him and do some blood work. She said it could be anything from a skin disease, thyroid problem, to diabetes.

Sigh...when it rains it pours. I just pray that my babies are ok. This is breaking my heart.

Little Pie Update

Lucy Pie is doing a little better. The Vet said she doesn't have a ruptured disc, but most likely has an inflamed disc. She took her first dose of anti-inflammatory medication today at lunch and will take another dose at bedtime. The Vet said she should start feeling better within 48 hours. She could still be getting better from the enema and pain killers too.
I am to keep her mostly confined for the next 21 days to keep her from jumping on and off the couches and to keep her from playing with Todd so I have erected the Kirk Puppy Triage Center. This way she can still be out here with the family and not shut away in her crate all day and night. I had bought this pin when Todd had a ligament problem in his knee several months back and had to be confined as well. Lucy will stay in here with her food and bed and toys when we are at home and she will stay in her crate as usual when we are at work and at night. She is already starting to show signs she is feeling better.
I told Frank I am going to look into pet insurance (can you believe there is such a thing?!) because these dogs seem pretty breakable and they are our babies. They are all we have and we want them to be as healthy and happy as possible.

Little Pie

My baby pop Lucy has had a rough night. When I got home from work she got out of her crate and immediately went for a treat she had left on the rug in the living room this morning. That is normal for her because she is obsessive pie. I was trying to get her to go outside, but of course she wanted that treat. All of a sudden she lets out this horrible painful yelp and she just kept yelping. It sounded like she had been hit by a car or something. At the same time it looked like her little back legs gave out on her so I picked her up and she had her back legs all tensed and crossed and brought up towards her stomach. She was shaking like a leaf. It scared the ba-jesus out of me so I took her to the vet. She had some problems with her left back leg popping out of place a while ago and she would limp around, but she never cried out like this or at all, so this was definitely cause for concern.

When we got to the vet, the vet looked at her and said she most likely has a disc out of place in her back or blown out or something (I can't remember exactly what she said). She did a few tests where she turned her paw in to see how fast she corrected it which I think that was to test her reflexes and she also pinched her foot to test her response to that. Both tests are done to check neurological response or something. The vet recommended that I take her to an emergency vet in Burleson because she might require immediate surgery. By this time I am doing all I can to keep it together.

Anyway, we leave the vet by the house and start driving to the Burleson vet. I called them on my way and they said they couldn't do surgery, but they could check her out and keep her overnight then have me take her to another vet who could perform the surgery if necessary. I am not thinking clearly at this point, but I did turn the car around to head back to the house. I called Frank and said maybe I was being hasty and needed to go home and watch her for a bit to see how she does. He said to not do that and to go ahead and take her so I went home and put Todd back up and got Lucy in her crate to take her to the emergency vet. I ended up taking her to the I-20 vet because it was much closer and they could do the same thing the Burleson vet was going to do.

The vet there checked her out and did and x-ray and didn't think it was a disc or back problem because all her vertebrae had spaces between them (it made sense with what he was telling me and what I was looking at). She was walking ok too, not perfect, but ok. He said he did those other tests on her to check her reflexes and she passed them fine. It's possible that she was just too tensed up and scared when the first vet did the tests. Who knows? Anyway, the x-ray did show that her bowels were very impacted and could have very well been the problem. He gave her an enema and she did go for the vet.

The first vet gave her a steroid shot, the 2nd vet gave her some pain medication and an enema, so when we got home, she was drooling excessively so I called the vet and they said it was probably from the enema and sedating effects of the painkiller.

Now she is a sleepy pie and the drooling has stopped. I am going to watch her throughout the night and take her to our local vet in the morning so they can watch her during the day tomorrow. I am sure she will be ok, but it’s just precautionary. These dogs are my babies so I would rather be safe than sorry.

Anyhoo...I am going to be one tired lady tomorrow. I will post again about her progress tomorrow.

(Oh, and Todd has been a very sweet older brudder by checking on her all the time.)

Where's Daddy?

Our little Lucy Pie sure loves her Daddy. All I have to say is "Where's Daddy?" and she gets all kinds of excited. It's really too cute.