A long time ago a slightly crazy girl thought that the time was right to add a puppy to the family. The puppy was an adorable little thing. . .yellow labrador retriever. The pup was the only one in her litter. This should have been a warning sign but no, it didn't deter this crazy girl at all.
So the youngest child in the house was about 10 months old and a 3 month old puppy came to live with the family. The puppy was an amazing escape artist, finding a way out of a completely fenced in yard not once or twice but several times and even managing to get herself hit on one of those excusions.
She was easy to housebreak and mostly easy to train. (Thank goodness for small victories, right?)
But she loved to chew. And that was pretty much the death of the "awwww, look at that sweet puppy" phase for the crazy mama girl that brought her into the home. Please don't judge. Imagine how you would feel if you came home one day and discovered that every single one of the lower cabinet doors in your kitchen had been chewed on~~in the middle of the door~~by the puppy? And she also managed to get on top of the counters (still baffled on that one) and ate things from the counter. It was a real blow to the relationship.
For a good 5 years we have had a love hate relationship. She adores me when I give her food and I adore her when she sleeps outside. I have turned into that person that I never thought I would be (you did realize I was the crazy girl in the story here, right????). I mean, who hates her dog? Especially one as pretty and smart as mine?
Last fall she had a medical crisis. We weren't sure what happened but she went downhill fast. She couldn't walk. She wouldn't eat. We couldn't get her to drink anything. She stayed in one spot for more than 12 hours. She was swollen and miserable. But if you sat with her, she wagged her tail.
We got her in to the vet's office and his advice that Friday night was "put her down."
Um, no. So we had a bunch of testing done and it turns out that she has a thyroid problem. She lost close to 25 pounds in the first month of taking thyroid medication. She regained energy we hadn't seen in years. It also freaked her out some, all that energy, and she developed hotspots on her paws from obsessive cleaning.
That crisis was about 6 months ago. During the crisis I boiled chicken for her. I made rice with chicken broth. I sat on the living room floor in my jammies feeding her (Eating in the living room? Me, on the floor in my jammies with her?)
But we have returned to normal. I consistently give her reminders that she is a "D-O-G for Pete's sake" and insist that she get away from my food.
And by returning to normal, we mean she is back to some of her old tricks. You see, for a few months leading up to her crisis, she slept through the night. Like the dead. But now she is back to waking us up 4-5 times a night wanting to go out, wanting back in, wanting to go out, wanting back in, and so on.
She drives me nuts.
As she should, right?
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