Posted in Flashback Fridays
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Pet-wise we are having a rough month. As I've already shared, on October 3, we had to have our 18 year-old cat, Baxter, put to sleep. That was a very difficult thing to do, and I still get choked up when I think about him. Literally the day of that fateful vet visit, I noticed that our dog Bridget was sort of winking one of her eyes (see above pic). I hoped that she had just scratched it or something and went on dealing with our dying cat predicament. Well, it didn't get better. It just kept getting worse, and then to make matters worse, we came home from church about a week later to find her limping badly and unable to put any weight on one of her back legs. Lord only knows what she was doing while we were in church to injure her leg in such a way! For a leggy, lanky boxer, it was awkward at best trying to get her outside to potty and drink and eat from her food bowls. Well, we have now been to the vet twice, trying to find out what's wrong. So far, they are treating it as a soft tissue injury, and we're on our second anti-inflammatory to try to give her some relief. So far, she's still hobbling. Her eye, which was scratched and infected, is, thankfully, better (thanks to me wrestling her to the ground three times a day and squeezing some ointment into it....sorry no pictures of 8-month pregnant me rolling on the ground with my 65 pound dog in a headlock).
Things are different around here. Bridget has been lying almost constantly on her bed. Usually she follows us around wherever we go. She always meets us at the door with a toy dangling from her mouth. She excitedly twists herself into a crescent when we have guests. Now she simply stays on the bed, perks her ears up a bit, and thumps her little stub tail just as fast as she can. I guess it's the best she can do. The place where I find her absence the strangest is in the bathroom. For the first time in over a decade, I can actually relieve myself in total and complete privacy. The kids stopped following me into the bathroom years ago....but not Bridget. She would follow me in and sit not too very far from the potty. Every. Single. Time. The bathroom has been a cold, lonely place the past couple of weeks. The kids have been helpful. They faithfully give her water from a little medicine dropper (please ignore the mess in the background...we were painting our bathroom that weekend and had some miscellaneous things stacked in the living room)....
and they are even willing to share their dessert with the invalid.
Bridget's injury has made me think of her more active days, especially of the days she first came to us....
Annaleigh was only 18 months old when we got her, and Harrison didn't exist yet. It was interesting having two babies at the same time...
Although Bridget has been a great dog for us, she was a H-A-R-D puppy....and she was a puppy for exactly two years. I've never come so close to killing a living thing (besides bugs). Once when she was about a year old, she nearly killed me. We used to keep our kennel in our bedroom. We had had guests over, and she knew it. When I went to let her out, she thought the people were still there and was in a hurry to go see them. I had slipped my hand under her collar, trying to get her under control when she took off. I lost my balance and fell, but she kept going and drug me clear into our living room....after violently smashing my face into the door frame. I didn't speak to her for two weeks. As a matter of fact, I think my blood pressure is rising just thinking about it. Excuse me a minute, while I go kick her right now.....just kidding. I'll just flick her nose or something. Bridget has never been much of a chewer thankfully, but one thing she can't resist is soap. It's a really weird thing. As a puppy, she once consumed half a bottle of pink Barbie bubblebath. Once at Ma and Pa's house, she ate an entire box of dryer sheets....and left the box basically unharmed. She will stand and jump for the bubbles that the kids blow in the backyard for hours. Another thing she can't resist is a full trashcan. Even as an old gal, if the trash is full, she won't knock it over, but she will inspect the top for any little morsels. She once swallowed an entire corncob. We only know she did this because she threw it up several days later...still nearly whole. Well, if you are of the bent to pray for animals now and then, we'd appreciate one for our Bridget. This is a hard time for us to be dealing with this as we're trying our best to get ready for Peanut's arrival. I've had some depressing flashbacks of late. Sorry. I'll try to come up with something a little cheerier next time. Or perhaps you have something happy to share with us....? Sign in below with the link, and let us all in on it!
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