Memory Monday

I LOVE this dog. She is awesome.  Everyone who meets her agrees-she rocks.  She is SUPER protective, I really do think she'd bite if someone was a threat to the kids or I.  She has scared the hell out of several grown men.  She is a watch dog in every way.

We were supposed to get a different pup, I am SO glad we didn't.  Toby-girl was meant to be ours.  She is the best.  Okay the fact that Alorah is allergic to her kind of sucks however Toby-G is family.  She's not going anywhere.

How was she ever so small?  How was HE ever so small?!  We got her the day I had my d&c for retained tissue after my last miscarriage.  It was a sad time for me, getting Toby that day made it ever so slightly easier.  I was never as sad about that loss as I was about Reese, if I'm honest I was relieved...it was not a good time to be pregnant or have another child.  I would have loved that child, but I wasn't sad or shocked when I miscarried.  I am still kind of numb....  Losing a baby that never developed did not phase me after losing a baby that was alive, thriving, growing, and fought to live.

She is the biggest sweetheart.  She loves children.  She does not like men, I have some theories about that.  She loves all of us and she is the biggest Pack Dog.  If one of us is not near her (esp if we are in public, like if one of us walks away out of her sight at a park) she goes NUTS.  She whines and cries until they come back.  She LOVES chew toys.  She has finally stopped chewing up toys, plastic of any kind, and even bread on the counter!  Nope I don't miss that puppy stage!  HA!

That is one of my favorite pics of her.  She is such a beauty.

Those EARS.  She has fantastic ears.  I LOVE them.  They crack me up. Daily.  She is awesome.  Pure awesomesauce!

She has always loved to cuddle.  She sleeps with me.  She will always sleep with me.  I am A-Okay with that!

This dog.  I freaking LOVE her. (click on the Toby tag to read about the first Toby...hee!)

loosing Molly

We all had to learn an absolutely wretched lesson this past week. We had to give Molly up to the veterinarian that fell in love with her when I brought her in after a long weekend of literally keeping her alive. She fell ill on Friday. She did not wake us to potty Thursday night so at 6am on Friday I gave her some peanut butter, she ate it and I found comfort in her appetite. She was lethargic, and sad so I called my mom and we agreed that she probably had worms. Levi picked up 2 de-worming kits and sure enough she started to throw up 6-8" worms within a few hours. She was sick all day with worms from both ends. On Saturday she perked up quite a bit. Played a little with Toby and we thought she was going to be fine. Sunday she took a huge turn for the worse. She wouldn't eat or drink and she was vomiting clear fluid constantly. She only had 2 bouts of diarrhea, one in the house that I have had to use bleach on. The other outside. I kept her alive with gatorade/water syringing every hour, I was up all night from Sunday into Monday. I kept her in my bed so I wouldn't have to be up and down (I had back surgery 2 weeks ago; that is another post). I knew she was in bad shape so I took her to a low-cost vet at 9am Monday. He was sure she had an intestinal obstruction and I went to another vet to see if they did emergency surgery, our only option ended up being having to go to the most expensive vet in the state. They took her back and talked to me about her history. I had been forcing liquid and rubbing her gums w/ pure maple syrup to keep her glucose up. Finally the tech came and got me, but could not look at me. I knew it had to be bad. Molly has parvo. Her snap test was navy blue, the most positive her vet had ever seen. She gave us options. Take her home and nurse her but it would be a bloody process (NO WAY, my poor kids...uh-uh). Put her down. Pay for treatment ($2k at least). Release her to be adopted and hope someone would volunteer to pay for her treatment. I chose the last option. It was the best given the circumstances. It was hard. I bawled all day. I was a mess. The vet that evaluated her fell in love with her and told me that she was the one who adopted her (even though she wasn't supposed to tell me anything) and she may call with an update and let me know how Molly did. I don't really want to know if she died so I take no news as good news unless I hear otherwise.

Now Toby girl. Unfortunately she had not been vaccinated for Parvo since she was in the pound before we got her. I took her for shots in April but they only gave her Rabies. I did not know, honest to goodness, about puppy and older dog vaccinations. I have had to learn a VERY hard lesson. Toby isn't allowed in the back yard unless she is peeing and she has to come right back in. Molly only used one part of the yard to poop and pee and it is the opposite of what Toby uses so I watch her carefully and call her right back inside. I am watching her like a hawk to make sure she does not get sick, if she does she will go straight to the animal hospital. She hasn't been drinking much but that is the only thing different with her and it is consistent with the changes around her: no Molly, me being a nervous wreck, and her not having the exercise and free time in the backyard that she has had her whole life. I am adding more water to her food and Levi is picking up some chicken broth. I got her to drink this morning and gave her wet food mixed with a LOT of water and she ate it all. She isn't lethargic or in any other way showing signs of illness. She had a booster (parvo and a bunch of other diseases vaccine) on Monday. She goes the 25th for another booster (and at that point she can go back outside b/c her first vacc. will be effective), she will go 2 weeks after that for another booster because we want to be extra cautious. She isn't out of the woods but every day she doesn't get sick is good. The vet said if she doesn't show signs within 7-10 days of exposure she probably isn't going to get sick and that since she is older she has almost surely been exposed to parvo in her lifetime and has some immunity already. It has been 6 days since Molly got sick and she was contagious at least 3 days before that so we are almost there. This experience has sucked.

Telling the kids about Molly was just awful. Vance took it the hardest, they all cried all afternoon on Monday. They have come around and realized that we had to do it and that it was the best chance for Molly to live. She had unlimited treatment available by being given up and it was what was best for HER, not for us. We will get another dog in a year or so. Parvo can remain in the environment for a very long time. It can be in dirt for 8 years!!! Before we get another dog they have to have 3 rounds of vaccines for parvo before they come home, each 2 weeks apart. We can never get another bitty baby puppy again, it has to be a bit older and have full vaccines. I have bleached the house as much as I can using a spray bottle of bleach water, and we soaked all the bowls/feeding mat, etc in bleach. The spot where Molly had diarrhea in the house I poured the bleach water on it. I had to throw away all my bedding, Toby sleeps with me and it was just too much of a risk. Molly used quite a few towels to throw up in and I had to throw out 10 towels, too. I'll replace the linens eventually, it was that or risk Toby and it wasn't worth it. If she didn't sleep here it would be a different situation, but she does.

Vaccinate and de-worm your dogs! The vet said that right now they are seeing 5-7 dogs a DAY with Parvo. It is a horrible disease, just awful. I will never skip vaccinating again. It's cheap compared to treatment for these diseases that the vaccine protects them from. Giving up Molly was hard but we only had her for 3 weeks. Toby has been our baby and family member for over 2 years; loosing her and knowing it could be prevented would be absolutely awful. I would feel SO guilty. She is fine, so far, but this has been awful. Learn from our lesson. Molly came from a BAD breeder. If she had had all of her shots and been dewormed she would have been fine. My mom took her to the vet one week exactly before she fell ill, it was a shot clinic and the dog next to her had black gook out of its eyes, that dog probably got Molly sick. Or it could have been from another dog that was in that environment, it was the only place she could have picked it up. If she had already had shots before my mom got her she would have been protected. Unfortunately the breeder lied. She was never dewormed, or she would not have had a HUGE load. It is a sad but important lesson. I really want another dog for the kids, either a golden or lab but not right now and not anytime soon. We need to heal and figure out how to fix the backyard. I am thinking about having 8" of new dirt put down, that would help. Over the whole yard but I'm not sure how much it would cost, or putting down sod. I need to ask the vet which would be best. We will miss Molly, but I find comfort knowing I did what was best for her, and what was best for Toby. Molly would have needed to be quarantined for another month, and doing that with 2 dogs? No thanks.

Keep Toby in your thoughts. If she falls ill she will be treated immediately and aggressively.

Puppy Drama-rama

Well, after a HUGE misunderstanding at the pound our dog was adopted out to someone else. What happened was this. When we went on Sunday we told them we wanted the dog I first posted about. They put all our info in, marked him as adopted, and told us to come back on Tuesday. They failed to tell us that we had to pay and fill out ALL the paperwork (not just the part we did do) for him to be ours. He ended up getting adopted out to someone else and was long gone :( If they had explained things better to me, we would have him, but we don't. I was left, alone, with 3 sobbing children. It was a nightmare. In an attempt to make it better we went to look and see what pups they had available, even though Levi was not there to help us make a decision (he has class on Tues and Thurs nights). We ended up adopting, we have her papers!, a beautiful German Shepard mix with short hair. She is a total doll, very sweet. Everyone is so stuck on Toby that her name is Toby (even though I think we should have found something more girlie, I totally lost that one 4:1 lol)

Here are some pics. Levi and the kids will go get her Thursday at 5pm :) There is no way she will be adopted out to anyone else, she is 100% OURS!

Something to look forward to after my surgery (and she gets spayed the same day)
She's 2 months old

Toby

I didn't realize my phone actually takes semi-decent pictures and I can email them to myself! I took one of Toby yesterday at the pound, I cannot WAIT to get him out of there! It's so loud :( though very clean.



We are getting a professional trainer asap so we can bring him up right, and we will be crate-training him.

I am SOOO excited!

Oh, and I was doing some (okay, a LOT) of research. There have been 9 dog attacks resulting in the killing of a human in New Mexico over the past 30 years. Guess how many of those involved a pit bull? NONE! Properly trained and neutered pit bulls are great dogs, they love children and do you remember the dog in Little Rascals? He was a pit. I have a lot of confidence in our ability to educate ourselves and raise him right :D

New Addition to the Family!

We had Ari over to babysit last night, and she started talking about her new puppy. This got the never-ending puppy conversation started. Of course my kids want a dog (what kid doesn't) and my excuse of "I don't have time" doesn't hold much water considering we don't have any babies in the house, lol. I went online this morning to see what was available. It was important that we get a puppy. The earlier the better because we can influence how this little one turns out. Not to mention Vance is terrified of big dogs and would loose it if we got one. He loves small ones and I think growing with the dog is better for his psyche. I ended up stumbling on a bunch of pit bull mixes at the animal shelter. My heart went pitter-patter at these cute little faces. Just 2 months old! I grew up with a pit, her name was Alice, we had her for 13 years and she was the absolute sweetest dog you'd ever meet. I KNOW pits have a horrible reputation (please look at this site: http://www.badrap.org/rescue/myths.cfm

) but if they are trained properly they can be one of the best family pets around. We are going to K-nine college asap, so we can avoid potential problems.
We already named him, Toby. We get to pick him up on Tuesday :D The kids are over-the-moon excited. I just have to find a kennel :)

I can't wait for you all to "meet" him! He was the only one left, out of 7 adoptable pups. They all had great personalities and where so social. He's brown and white. So cute! Pits have a huge amount of energy, but we have a track right outside and a big backyard for him. I think he'll be very happy here!