Happy FOUND Day to Mehmet

One year ago today I was up in Flagstaff hiking Mount Humphreys with some friends. It's a difficult hike - mostly due to elevation - and we were all tired. We drove home in the pouring rain and I went into my house with the top priorities of taking a shower and getting a good night's sleep. It was really raining with a major thunder & lightening show. As I walked through the living room, I heard the dog across the street bark and I could tell - he was barking at another dog.

I groaned, paused a few seconds and thought to myself: "If I don't look outside the window, I don't have to do anything." You see, I know that bark because since I moved into my house about 6 years ago, I've had over 10 dogs end up on my front lawn. Somehow they just seem to know this is where to go to get help!

Needless to say, I looked out the window and there was a little black blur streaking through the rain and flashes of lightening. Two plus hours of running through rain, sitting on a curb while he hid under a parked car (I'm in running gear and flip flops and freezing), I eventually called my neighbor to come help. She brought her car and we used her trunk liner to slide him out, I caught him in a blanket and this little guy came home with me:

Polly & Anna have had issues in the past with other dogs and so I never intended to keep him. I put his crate in my bedroom bathroom, put up a baby gate and put a sheet over it so he wouldn't have to spend the night with two strange dogs peering in at him. But Anna moved the curtain and spent the entire night looking over him.

I took him into a vet the next day - no chip. I spent a week putting him on every website I could think of and then pasted posters throughout the park. I drove to every apartment complex and condo complex up and down the Greenbelt (the park I live off of). Nothing. No one called. It was clear he needed a new home. I started that search - he went on two play dates for potential homes. The first one was another puppy his size and they fought violently. Then we went to another home who already had 5 other little dogs and he cowered in my armpit the whole time and I cried the entire time. He had already worked his way into my heart. He chose us as his new family.

His first bath:

His first haircut:

Polly and Mehmet - buddies at last!

Starting Over ... again

I've decided to return to my much neglected blog ... and where to begin? Just starting over took a couple weeks. First things first ... we still are "One Girl, Two Dogs and a Mission" ... unfortunately. While away from this blog, a NEW dog joined our clan last year (more on him later) and we became a THREE dog household. But then a few months ago I lost my beautiful Anna.

Before I could start blogging, I had to create a new header and change Anna's picture for Mehmet. Crap, that was hard! Now she has her own spot on the sidebar.

I loved my childhood pets and I love my current puppies but there was something special about Anna. She had such a gentle soul. She didn't need constant attention but always kept her eye on me. When I was upset or crying, she was the first to notice and would come to my side and just look at me with those eyes.



Polly & Anna came to me as a package deal 9 years ago and literally changed my life. When they both came home with me as puppies, they had a bad case of kennel cough which a vet originally mistook as Anna having Parvo and told me then she might not live long. It was an emotional and an expensive start to our fabulous life together! Given her original prognosis, I guess I should be happy we had almost 9 years together -- but it was just too short.

A year or so ago after coming back from a teeth cleaning procedure, Anna's IV spot was slow to heal. And then we noticed that months after her summer haircut, her bountiful curls never grew back. It was then that the Vet diagnosed her with Cushing's Disease. We spent the next year battling it and trying treatment and watching her get thinner and thinner. Unfortunately she just didn't respond to the treatments that normally work for canine Cushing's disease. But even when battling it, she still maintained a zest for life and a love to walk. Right up until the day she spiraled downward. A day before my birthday this year, I had to make the hardest decision of my life and we said good-bye to her.

I'll never know if the disease and maybe a pituitary tumor had taken over or if we had slowly poisoned her with the last treatment dose - and that really kills me. But I can't go back and change or fix anything and so I just focus on the good times, the memories and all the love she gave me.

There is such an empty hole without her - wow! Thank GOD for Polly and Mehmet. I have no idea how I would have made it through those first few weeks if I didn't have two other furry family members to cuddle with and giggle at. I still feel like she's with us when we're walking in the park. She was a great dog - great companion and is greatly missed. I couldn't resurrect this blog without her remaining an important part of it.

Love you, Annabella!! xoxo

Yup, Anna agrees!

She does the creepy eye thing when she sleeps!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I think someone is ready for bed!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Yep - another vet bill, Anna!

Seriously, it feels like we LIVE at the doctors these days. Polly's ears and tummy. Polly's feet. Then Anna's torn toenail. Now Anna has a green gooky nose (sounds attractive, yes?). Everything looks good - she doesn't have a fever, nothing else is showing a sign of infection so it could be: just an irritant, a foreign object stuck in there that needs to be extracted OR some crazy immune disease that wouldn't be good at all.

For now, we're starting with a round of antibiotics - they took tests for Valley Fever AND Tick Fever and we shall see. $300+ later . . .

Me. I'm at the chiropractor 3 times a week and just got fitted for my NEW orthotics. (Oh, that feels so old). I have a combo set - one for my running shoes and boots and a second smaller set that supposedly I can fit into dressier work shoes. I'm supposed to wear them almost all the time and hopefully all my back pains, plantar faciitis and knee/calve pains are behind me? We shall see.

More about the girls . . . !

Well, we're off to the vet again. Polly needs to get her last shot for the WORMS she got (was it me letting them dip in the park lake? or Polly's affinity to find bird carcasses and wolf them down before I can intervene?).

She also had a bad foot and after x-rays we discovered the bones were not broken but two nails were slightly torn - when they went to cut them back they discovered they were hollow and infected. SO a couple weeks of antibiotics and the CONE and only going out to pee - and they are still oozy :-(



So since I had the camera out, I thought I would try to capture the happy pups for a picture. Polly is like my sister - very photogenic. That smile radiates out of the image. Poor Anna is like me. A *good* picture only happens every so often. They both have beautiful happy puppy smiles! And here are the attempts to capture that this morning - this cracks me up. Poor Anna!! :-)

Bringing Elizabethan Sexy Back!

The girls had to have their teeth cleaned last week. It was very dramatic. They have to put dogs them under to do the full cleaning and I knew Polly had a bad or cracked tooth. I hate having them go under anesthesia when they are perfectly healthy; it really made me nervous.

So Thursday night I had to take the water away at midnight. Then Friday I took them to the Vet. They were SO excited to go on an adventure until they separated them into kennels. It was so sad and sweet the two seconds I could see them while the door shut. They put them next to each other, but there's a big cement wall separating the stalls. But they stuck their noses out as far as possible so they could still touch . . . . awwwww. While I filled out the paperwork I could hear them crying and it breaks my heart!!

I couldn't pick them up until 4pm, but the doctor was very nice to call me during surgery to talk to me about Polly's cracked tooth. We had it extracted. Then the nurses called to tell me when they both were awake after surgery. When I got there a little after 4, you should have HEARD the dramatic crying. I guess Anna cried all afternoon when she woke up. And then when I got them home, she cried ALL NIGHT. Oy vey. Polly was the one with the pain meds and she barely let you know it.

So this morning we went for our check up. Polly is fine and healing perfectly. Anna however has an infection where her IV line was. So now I have medicine for her leg and she gets to wear THE CONE for the next 10 days. She's actually handling it quite well. I think she knows it means attention.

Anna getting fitted at the Vet.
She's not very happy yet.
That's Polly behind her checking it out.

NOW we're happy -
the McDonald's Drive-Thru!!
This might be okay after all!

When she's not in here laying at my feet, I hear her walking around the house scraping that collar on EVERYthing. This is going to be a long day. I'm teleworking and have a TON to get done. Maybe if I put my IPod on . . . .