Marley, Buddy And Lexi!

Here's the latest news... My rottie "niece" Lexi has come to live with us for an undetermined length of time. My hubby's sister is getting a divorce and didn't want to leave her behind, but needed to move out right away. So 3 year old Lexi is here! Her mom and her people kids are really happy because they really didn't want to lose her.

Buddy and Marley really like her. She prefers Marley. Buddy plays a little to crazy for her. After day 2 she finally showed him that she weighs 2 1/2 times as much as him! She's such a good girl and we're happy to have her here.

Thanks!

I want to thank everyone who's been keeping in touch with PMs over the past week. There are quite a few of you and you know who you are!

I feel it is important for me to post publicly again because in the time since the original thread regarding Penny was locked by LS support, a new furmom has contacted me but is afraid to post because of the way my decisions were so harshly judged.

Now, I DON"T WANT THAT WHOLE THING TO START UP AGAIN, because that is NOT the way things usually work around here and we all know it. We are in the business of consoling each other. We all have a common bond -- a deep sense of loss for our furbabies (sometimes furlessbabies too!) I truly believe what happened to me was a fluke. When it comes to medical care of dogs -- routine or emergency -- I personally have never seen anyone criticized for any decisions or treatments they did or did not use. Penny was suffering from 3 diagnosed canine psychological disorders, which is something we here on LS usually don't lose our own dogs to. What happened next is what would have happened if anyone questioned someone's medical decisions -- all hell broke loose! I am grateful to LS Admin for shutting the whole thing down! And again, I'm grateful to all of you who have been with me through this.

We tried everything we could to save Penny. If anyone has any concerns about what medical or profession psychological treatment she received before it all came to this terrible end, I will be happy to answer you in a PM. But please keep it off this board! This is a place for healing - not interrogating!

Penny is at peace now. She's buried next to her beloved Copper and they share a stone that says, "If love could have saved you, You would have lived forever..."

Buddy!

While I'm bringing things to Penny at the shelter during her final days, they're letting me play with the other dogs to help me feel better. One of the guys is Buddy, a 1 year old Boxer mix. He had a home, but they couldn't keep him, so there he is at the pound. Because he's half Boxer, he's thin to begin with. But being at the shelter for 3 weeks has really stressed him out and now he's skin & bones.

When people would come in to look at dogs, I would tell them how nice Buddy was, but they were all worried about how skinny he was and how dull his fur was. So I decide to take him home overnight to give him a bath and evaluate his behavior to help him get a home faster. He's totally perfect! No behavior problems at all. So I took him to the vet to see if his health was ok. Other than being underweight, he's fine. He was a very good boy for his bath and at the vet.

The whole family, including Marley, fell in love with him. We all talked about it quite a bit. Penny hasn't even been put down yet. But then again, poor Buddy's been there for 3 weeks! Dogs usually aren't stuck there that long. But his skinniness is just not attractive. We all decided that what was going on with Penny was bad enough. We didn't want this great dog to have to live there for one more day!!! So we adopted him.

HERE'S HIS "PRISON PHOTO"

Penny's Gone Now Too

It's good to see alot of the same people here right now because I'm just too emotional to get into the whole thing but I'll try.

My vizsla Copper was put down on New Year's Eve after we found out that he had a very serious form of cancer. My other vizsla, Penny, was a rescue dog who had been severely abused for 4 years and was a very special case. We knew her history when we got her but I have a lot of dog experience & was willing to give it a try. One of the best things for her was Copper. She trusted us more when he was around. After he died, she was completely broken up. She started going back to her old ways. We got her another dog & that helped for awhile but then she started dominating him. She'd bitten me in the past. After Copper died, she bit me again. She'd been gettting very aggressive anytime she'd be just a tiny bit afraid.

Well, today she was on the couch with a bag of chips. I wasn't even trying to take them from her. She lunged at me, grabbed my forearm and wouldn't let go. I had to kick her repeatedly to get her off me. My husband ran to get a stick because he didn't think she was going to stop. Fortunatly, I was wearing a leather coat. Even with that I have a 2" tear in my arm that is really deep and needed 2 layers of stiches.

Before I would go to the ER I told my husband we had to take her to the animal shelter before I changed my mind. This was my 3rd ER trip from her biting me. It's just so hard because when she's not afraid she's such a sweet dog. Now she has to stay there for 10 days before they can put her down because of dog bite laws. No one can walk her or even pet her. I feel so torn up and guilty. She doesn't deserve for her last days to be like this. But I can't keep her here either. I'd run the risk of getting attacked again or changing my mind. Or worse, she might finally bite someone else.

Tonight there was a thunderstorm. We worked so hard to help her through those. She needs to be under a blanket watching TV to feel safe and instead she's alone in a kennel. I really wish they could have just gotten it over with because thinking of her alone and afraid is just ripping me apart.

Even though she's bitten me 6, I still love her unconditionally. That might be hard for some people to understand but I don't care. It's not her fault that she's the way she is. If she had been treated decently, this never would have happened. People who think there's nothing wrong with beating a dog are idiots! She was such a sweet loving dog. She just didn't understand that I wasn't going to beat her. I never did and I never would have.

The Old Black Cats

Ok Everyone,

Now I'm suddenly in this panic mode! I suddenly have this paranoia that my two old cats are going to just die at any minute. For that matter, I'm also convinced my husband has lung cancer.

Buckwheat is 16 and I've had him longer than I've had my human kids. I think he's in good health. He had the same problem with crystals in his bladder that Lynda was talking about with Atticus, but that was over 10 years ago and he's been on special cat food for it since with no reoccurence. Other than that, he lost one of his front teeth a year ago. You know how you love them all but sometimes one is extra special. Well, that's him.
Spooky's 14 (I think) and obese. She's about 18 lbs and the vet's been after me for years to get her to lose weight. Well, it doesn't matter what I do. She's an overeater! The cat food is put up out of reach of the dogs so she has to be able to jump to get it at least.

And I'm worried about the new dog Marley too. He's still puppy-ish and starting to chew things he shouldn't. What if he ends up with an intestinal blockage like Patton and dies?!?!

I was looking through a box of photos for puppy pictures of Copper. I found some of the Black Cat Gang and that's when things just hit me. Two of those 4 are gone plus Nina a gray cat that I don't know if I even have any photos of because she wasn't with me very long.

Here's Moon Cat and Spooky. Moon Cat is gone now. He was a ferral cat that a rescue org. took in. He turned out to be a real sweetie and lived with me for 3 years before he left and didn't come home. He's the longhair who's sitting.