If it’s painful, you become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken your heart and soften you. You learn to embrace it.
– Pema Chodron
The heavy sadness that followed me everywhere this weekend despite the sunshine, seems to have let up a bit. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’ve had my first real sleep in three nights or that the tide has truly turned in my puppy pen.
After three nights of nearly no sleep, it’s hard to remember the order of events, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I mix up a detail or two.
As I mentioned in the previous post, Darlin’s temperature dropped soon after she arrived here Thursday afternoon which meant that labor was imminent. Continue reading “Our Tragic Weekend”→
What a difference a few days make in the life of a foster dog home. We started this week with two fosters and the certain knowledge that Vera was going home on Friday to her forever family who had come to visit and spent a good hour with her -walking her, playing with her and falling in love. Estelle would leave the next week after her spay surgery with a delightful family who live just over the line from us in Maryland.
Fast forward two days—there is an urgent plea for fosters. Could I take a pregnant dog or a litter of nine puppies who could be flown in (yes, flown in) on Thursday? My puppy room was empty and my two fosters all set. Another litter? A pregnant dog? Either option would be fun and sure, I could use a break from the editing grind to drive to the airport in my favorite state.
I decided to go with door number one because door number two was nine definite poopers and door number one came with the excitement of delivery and the possibility of many fewer puppies. A gamble, I know, but I was taking my chances and going with the devil I didn’t know.
So yesterday, I drove to Warrenton, Virginia to pick up my newest mama dog. She is not a spring chicken and this is not her first rodeo, but gosh, doesn’t she melt the heart?
I had all kinds of silly names picked out (with the help of my family the night before), but upon meeting her silly didn’t seem appropriate. She’d been Darla at the shelter and I took to calling her Darlin’ so that’s her new name—Darlin’. I’m going to give the pups ‘pet names’ like schnookie-puss and sweetems. Anybody got a good one for me?
Darlin’ liked the whelping box and hopped right in upon arrival. She’s been there ever since and her temperature has dropped to 98.9, a sure sign that labor is imminent! I’m spending my day with my laptop on my lap in the puppy room, waiting.
But wait! Isn’t it Friday? Isn’t Vera leaving today? Nope. Sadly, her wonderful adopters had a health emergency. Everyone is going to be fine, but they won’t be adopting a dog at this time. No one in my house was upset at the idea that Vera would have to stick around. That said, four dogs plus who-knows-how-many puppies is pretty much my capacity so please spread the word that I have a 60-pound, cat-chasing lovebug looking for a home!
And if you want to follow the birth, as it happens, be sure to join the Another Good Dog facebook page where I’ll be posting updates and maybe even do a live feed after everyone has arrived.
If you’d like to know more about me and my writing, I’d be thrilled if you checked out my website, CaraWrites.com, where you’ll find links to all my books, my other blog, and far too many pictures of dogs!
What goes through a dog’s mind? This week, as I watched my three musketeers – Gracie, Estelle, and Vera, following me from room to room, up and down the stairs, my three furry shadows, I’ve wondered what, exactly, are they thinking?
Vera has only been here about ten days, but she has easily stolen our hearts.
In the past year she’s been rescued from death in a shelter, arriving in her first OPH home testing heartworm positive and bearing a ghastly embedded collar wound. After her neck healed (with a scar so deep you can sink your finger in it up to the first knuckle) and she was treated for heartworm, she was adopted. Yay, happy ending, right?
Ever since our little cow puppy emerged, clearly different from the rest, it has been a magical journey.
Not only was his color different, but his hair was longer and softer, his head shaped differently and his body, well, wider is the kind way of putting it. His enormous hind feet sported six toes and he seemed to need to sleep much more than the other pups.
Another returned dog. I won’t bore you with the details of why this dog has come back to OPH care after being adopted 8 months ago. Prior to that she was treated for heartworm in her foster home. Prior to that she was neglected and abandoned and left with the deepest, most horrifying embedded collar scarring I’ve ever seen. She makes Lucy’s neck look like a paper cut.
When Vera Bradley arrived, her adopter was apologetic, explaining that Vera was a little wobbly and confused because she’d given her a sedative for the two-hour drive. Vera’s nails were long and the adopter told me she had to have her vet do them because they’re black, plus Vera is sensitive to the sound of the clippers (we learned later in the weekend that Vera is terrified of snapping sounds – a neighbor’s nailgun sent her into a panic).
After she left, I took Vera to my local pet salon to have her nails trimmed while she was still in her twilight state. She stumbled in and stood for the trimming like a love. The technician was aghast at the embedded collar scarring and took Vera into the grooming area to show all the other employees. “I’ve never seen anything this bad,” she said. “Poor baby.”
And she’s right. It does feel like someone attempted to chop off Vera’s head, but more than likely her neck simply grew around a collar that was too small. Whether that happened when her owner wasn’t paying attention or while she was a stray, we’ll never know. I’m amazed she survived it.
When we got home from the groomers, Vera plopped down on the Frank bed and curled in as small a ball as she could, given her size (she’s about 60 pounds, but is easily at least 10 pounds overweight). She remained there the rest of the day, declining dinner until I sat beside her and urged her to eat. Even then she only finished half.
I took the pups for their wellness check and most impressively, we arrived there with no puppy barf after our long, hilly trek (Sugar Cookie did serenade me the whole way).
If you follow my other blog (about my writing life), you know that lately I’ve been reading extensively about the craft of writing. One thing I hear again and again is that the protagonist (main character) must undergo change for the story to have an arc, purpose, hold the reader’s interest, etc.
Fruitcake was one of four puppies born to Estelle, a pregnant dog rescued by Operation Paws for Homes from a sad situation in South Carolina. Estelle gave birth the day after she arrived in Pennsylvania at her new foster home.
In just over two weeks, all the other pups are sitting, standing, walking, but not Fruitcake. The vet diagnosis is Swimmer Puppy Syndrome in Fruitcake’s hind legs.
Therapy begins – slings, chutes, and hobbles, plus LOTS of volunteers.
In just two weeks, Fruitcake is sitting and standing on his own. He’s running in his chutes and walking just fine with hobbles. Oh, and he’s stealing lots of hearts!
Fruitcake is well on his way to walking and running like his siblings. Every day his stability, strength, and stamina grow.
For regular updates on Fruitcake and all my foster dogs past and present, be sure to join Another Good Dog Facebook group and if you’d like to know what else I write, check out CaraWrites.com.
This post is part of the Blog Paws Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop. Be sure to check out some of the other great blogs by following the link below!
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What a week it has been for Fruitcake! He is making great progress. A week ago, I took him to the vet because he couldn’t sit, stand, or walk. Whenever he tried, his hind legs did a split and flailed around helplessly like flippers. The vet told me what I’d already guessed(thanks to google) – he most likely had Swimmer Puppy Syndrome. Luckily, he only has it in his hind legs, many pups have it in all four.
She encouraged me to try to make a sling to support his body and allow his legs to get under him. She also said that just moving his legs into the proper position as much as possible would help. We needed to build muscle and reinforce his muscle memory. She told me that we might also consider putting hobbles on his hind legs by tying the legs together so they couldn’t slip out sideways. And then she said, “Because of his deformed feet (he has six toes on each back foot), there might be something else going on in there. We’ll just have to wait and see and maybe take xrays when he’s older.”
I went home with my mind spinning. How could I fix this? I set Fruitcake down in the puppy box with his siblings and watched him flatten out like a pancake, with his hind legs out to the side and his stomach spread across the floor. I don’t think a normal puppy could put their legs in that position even if it wanted to, so maybe there was another way of looking at this. Maybe we could say that Fruitcake is very special – he has six toes on his hind feet and he can do a split! With those big boots and flexible legs, certainly he could learn to walk.
I spent a good portion of Friday night and Saturday morning sitting in his box repositioning his feet underneath him again and again and then holding my hands on either side of him to keep them from slipping sideways. By Saturday evening he was sitting up on his own. I decided this was HUGE progress. But what else could I do?
Here’s a video of Fruitcake after he mastered sitting up.
I wrapped a scarf under his belly as a sling and held him up so that he could get his feet underneath himself. This was awkward and he spent as much time wriggling sideways to chew on the scarf as he did standing up. Again and again he squirmed and then his top heavy front end slid forward and he landed on his nose.
I took to the internet looking for more ideas and posted on the OPH family page to see if anybody else had ever had a swimmer pup. Ideas and sympathy flowed. The hobbles seemed like the best plan, but even with the vet’s instruction and the internet photos, I couldn’t figure out how to make hobbles out of vet rap and put them on my squirming puppy. Each time I attempted, Fruitcake screamed and fussed and Estelle grew frantic.
I texted my neighbors and Chris, who is also my vet, stopped by after work and brought tape and showed me how to make hobbles for Fruitcake.
With the hobbles on, Fruitcake could stand and do a slow wobbly waddle across the box before spending the rest of his time trying to figure out how to get the hobbles off . Now I put hobbles on him in the morning and he is upright and easily able to tackle his siblings or wrestle a toy before successfully getting them off about mid-afternoon. I do think they will be key in his therapy.
The same day that Chris came with the hobbles, another OPH foster, Debbie, sent me a link to an article about bulldog puppies with swimmer syndrome. The breeder had built a chute that was just wide enough that the puppies could brace their legs against the sides and walk! It was amazing. I showed the article to Nick and he built a chute for Fruitcake. The first time we put him in it, Fruitcake was uncertain. He was cranky and complained about the confinement. Finally, he simply lay down and slept.
The next time, I put him in the chute he walked the entire length of it—his tail wagging and a look on his face that said, “Wow! Look at me!” Continue reading “Team Fruitcake”→
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