Hi Pyr Types!
I haven't been on in awhile so I look forward
catching up with everyone's posts. Since I was last on, I've been busy
with my pyrs who seem not able to stay out of the vet's office! Daisy went
back yesterday for blood work so I checked with the desk nurse to see if we'd
made it a whole month between visits. We had not but she wished us better
luck next time ;-) Back in July Daisy tested positive for whip worms and
was treated. For the first time ever, she actually had normal
stools. That only lasted a week or two and things slowly began to go down
hill and for several days in a row, her stools were bloody. We retested
several times but each time the results were negative. The vet even
retreated her just in case. She's gotten to the point where she has
chronic diarrhea and leaves presents for me in the house every day. Her
blood work yesterday was for a pancreatic condition and overall health
profile. The funny thing is, she's not losing weight, she has a great
appetite and seems to feel fine. She's back on a rice and hamburger diet
with no snacks whatsoever. We've broken down and clipped a lot of the
fluffier bits around her tail for hygiene purposes. Badger had the ear
surgery back in June. His right ear has completely healed up but the left
still tends to have lots of gunk and be soupy. We're back to cleaning it
twice a day. He'd had his head shaved for the surgery and looked pretty
odd ... big fluffy body and tiny little bald head ... so we went ahead and
clipped the rest of him. He actually looks pretty good! He looks
like a white lab with a turkey wattle and froo-froo tail!
On a topic other than health, Daisy is my
dog-aggressive pyr. The other day she very nearly pulled me off my feet
and dragged me down the street after a stray dog that got too close. It
was scary as you-know-what and left me weak in the knees (and really
ticked!) I got two sprained fingers, a pulled back, and a lot of
irritation to an already painful arthritic elbow. That was it! I
went out that same day and got one of those Halti head harness things. It
works!! I felt bad at first because she looked so sad with it on ... it
does rob her of her dignity ;-) but the thing works! I have wanted to take
both dogs to obedience since we got them but it's depended on Bill making time
in his schedule to go with me. I just can't handle Daisy on my own when
she's bent on attacking other dogs.
In other dog (but not pyr) related news ... the
people across the street got a Lab puppy over the summer. As far as we can
tell, the principle residents of the house seem to be a man and his
hell-raising teen daughter with different faces coming and going on a weekly
basis. But anyhow ... when the puppy was really little, no more than a few
weeks, we would see it wandering unattended with no collar in the front yard,
crying and yapping. Then it - she - got more adventurous with age and
started coming across the street. A few times Bill took her back over and
knocked on the door. Sometimes someone would answer but when they didn't,
he just put the puppy in their back yard. The other day my son and his friend
were going out the front door and the puppy was on our porch (no, we've never
fed it!) and the teen girl was across the street on her own porch with her
friends. She yelled across to my son to just "kick" the puppy out of the
way. "Just kick the stupid dog." He then went into his speech about
how she should keep the puppy on a leash and that someone was going to
eventually call animal control or else the puppy would get hit by a car.
Her response was that she didn't care and she hoped it would get hit.
Naturally, when I heard this, all I wanted to do was scoop up that puppy and
bring her to my house! I'm still half tempted to walk across the street
and tell the father that if they're tired of caring for her, we'll take her
in. The biggest problem is if Daisy will treat her as a new chew
toy. I've got my hands full with my own two dogs but I would be willing to
keep the puppy long enough to housebreak her and leash train her and then look
for a good home or contact Lab rescue and foster her until a permanent home
could be found. I suspect the novelty of the puppy has worn off due to
messes in the house, etc. No one is home during the day to properly train
the puppy and believe me, these are not the sort of people who would do their
research and crate train, etc. The messing in the house would explain why
the puppy is kicked outside all of the time. (True, Daisy poops in the
house but it's entirely a medical condition. When she doesn't have loose
bowels, she never has accidents.) What are everyone's thoughts on this
situation? What would some of you do?
Kim
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