Trixie was another one of those medical disasters. She was plagued with ear infections throughout her entire life, and she had some sort of distended bladder or something that caused infections and leaking problems regularly. But we were still relatively young, and both of us were working at steady, good paying jobs, so we could deal with the medicals bills and the upheaval. All of our babies have been worth whatever expense in order to keep them healthy, but Trixie was such a screwball she kept me healthy too.
After Trixie, we decided to get a female Chesapeake Bay Retriever puppy. We picked her out at the breeders when she was only two weeks old and brought her home when she was six weeks old. We named her Hannah. Until Hannah, all of our dogs had been pretty independent. We have always allowed our dogs access to the inside of our home whenever they wanted to come in. They eat all of their meals inside and sleep inside at night. However, up until Hannah, they all preferred to play outside during the day, often in spite of snow or rain or sleet or hail. The huskies, in particular, love colder weather and snowy days. But Hannah was a clinger. She attached herself to me and she was most unhappy if she couldn't be with me 24 hours a day. She was never a problem dog, but she sure did want to be permanently attached to me. And we were back to four dogs, two boys and two girls and two purebred and two mutts. All the world was right again.
Well, I just went back through all our old snapshots and, apparently, I don't remember things in quite the order in which they actually happened. That doesn't really surprise me except for the fact that the lives of my dogs have always been such an important part of my life. Anyway, based on the photographic evidence we got Trixie and Hannah before we got Niki. It may be I got confused because we didn't have Nik as long as we should have.
As I mentioned before, Niki was the best dog anyone could have ever wanted. He grew to be much larger than most huskies and he had such an even, good natured temperament it astounded everyone who met him. He walked on a leash without pulling. It was just like you were out for a Sunday stroll. We took him to a gathering of husky breeders where some of them were teaching their dogs to pull sleds (on rollers; we don't get enough snow for real sleds). There were at least a hundred dogs there and Nik just walked around with us and never even barked (well huskies don't exactly bark) at any of them. He got along with every dog and every person he ever met. I do not cut my dogs toenails. I'm a chicken, and I'm afraid I will hurt them, so I just let them wear their nails down while they play outside. While we were at the husky gathering, one of the breeders volunteered to trim Nik's nails. I told her he had never had it done and he might be a little jumpy, but he just laid down and let her do her thing. You'd have thought he got a pedicure every day the way he acted. Nik was just too good to be true. Maybe that's why he died so young (5 years old). He developed some sort of autoimmune disorder and all of his internal organs began to deteriorate. Of course, we didn't know what was wrong when we took him to the Vet. I told the Vet I was scared we were gonna lose Niki, and he told me Nik was young and we should be able to find out what was wrong and fix it. A week later Niki was gone. We sent his body to the School of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University where they did a necropsy. The report came back explaining about his internal organs and they said they had never run across anything like it before in any dogs. I'm glad we provided them with an education, but it didn't bring our wonderful dog back.
The entire time we had Zeke he was truly a pleasure to have around. He didn't fight with anyone. He didn't cause any problems. He loved everyone he met. He had virtually no health problems. You couldn't have asked for a sweeter, more gentle dog. Then one evening when Zeke was 12 he started listing to one side. At first we thought maybe he had pulled a muscle or something. Later that night it started raining really hard so we went to get all the dogs in the house. We couldn't find Zeke. We finally found him wedged between the house and our tool shed. It took me squeezing into a very tiny space in the sloshing mud to pull him out and it was clear he was not feeling well. We kept him (and the others) in the house for the rest of night and I took Zeke to the Vet first thing the next morning. He could not walk in a straight line; he continually walked in circles. The Vet tried to assure me there were any number of things that could cause that, but I was afraid it was serious, as I was right. Zeke had a brain tumor. He had shown no symptoms right up until the time it got so bad there was nothing we could do about it. Of course, we chose that he should not suffer any more than he already had. And, once again we lost another piece of our hearts.
We live on what we jokingly refer to as the Great Eastern Stray Dogway. Unfortunately, it's not a joke. It seems every dumbass in the area who is too irresponsible to take care of the dog or cat they thought they wanted, drops them off out in the country (by our house) to let them fend for themselves. It is not unusual for us to go outside because our dogs are barking up a storm, just to discover a stray outside the fence. They usually run off when they see humans, or they decide four against one is not such great odds, but in most cases the strays don't hang around our house for long.
So, when we came home from work one day to see a young furry black dog with polka dot feet outside the fence, we assumed the dog would go away just like all the others. Except she was still there the next morning. She was hiding under Bud's pickup truck, which we weren't using at the time. I gave her some water, but no food, hoping she would go off in search of something to eat. I also called Animal Control and told them there was a stray at my home and asked them to go pick the dog up. When we got home she was still there. I didn't want the poor baby to starve so I gave her fresh water and a bowl of dogfood, and called Animal Control again. We went out of town for the weekend, but I left a note for the friend who was coming to watch our dogs and told him about the dog under the truck and that Animal Control was supposed to be picking her up. When we got back on Sunday night, she was still there. I gave her fresh water and more food. By this time she was great friends with our dogs inside the fence. On Monday I called Animal Control again. They told me they had been out to my house twice and they couldn't find any stray dog, but they would try again. By the time we were headed home after work, I had decided I didn't want them to find her anyway, because I wanted to keep her. I figured it would be just my luck this time they would have found her, but there she was wagging her entire backside and jumping all around in the driveway when we got home. And that's how 11 years ago Bailey came to live at our house. She was about a year old when she moved in. I really felt as if Zeke had sent her to us. She's been pretty healthy if you don't count ear infections, and she is a joy to have around.
It took us awhile to get over losing Nik, actually I don't think we are over it yet. But eventually we got another male Siberian Husky puppy. We named him Logan. When we first contacted the breeder she was reluctant to consider selling us a puppy just to have as a pet. All of her dogs were breeders and show dogs. But, Logan had one undescended testicle, and would never have qualified as a show dog, so she relented and sold him to us. Since we were going to have him neutered anyway, his testicles were not high on our list of items requiring perfection. I wish I could say he's as good as Niki was as far as temperament goes, but like I said, Nik was unusual. Logan is a normal, high strung, overactive, stubborn, bossy husky and we love him. He's been a pretty healthy dog but he's ten now and showing some signs of arthritis. Still he hasn't slowed down much yet.
Somewhere along the way, Bud and I decided that it would be more peaceful for everyone if we had only one male dog in our pack. Remembering the fight with Shadow and Max, we weren't looking to have to go through anything like that ever again, so we started making our little family to be one male and three females. We had not ever had a dominance problem with any females.
When Trixie was 12 years old, she gave out. She had never been the healthiest dog and she was tired and ready to go. We made arrangements with our Vet to have her put down on a Monday night. He came to our home to take care of it instead of making us bring her into his office. We try to have all of our dogs euthanized at our home because they are more comfortable in their own surroundings. We also allow the other dogs to see the body after the death, so they can have whatever closure dogs get. It's not always possible to do this at home, but whenever we can, it works best for all of us. The morning after Trixie was put down, Hannah had some kind of seizure in the kitchen and just fell on the floor, unable to get up. I screamed for Bud, but by the time he got there she had recovered. Up to this point, Hannah had been perfectly healthy and had not had any problems. We decided to keep an eye on her and nothing further happened that day or the next. But on the third day, she had another seizure. We took her to the Vet, but he couldn't immediately find anything wrong with her. I was terrified. I had not had any time to grieve for Trixie, and now it seemed I was battling for Hannah's life. Friday night Hannah started wheezing and crying. It went on the whole night long and nothing we did could comfort her. On Saturday morning, Bud took Hannah to the Vet, and when he came home he brought her body with him. I thought losing three dogs in 12 months was the most horrible thing that could happen. I was wrong. Losing two in one week can almost kill you.
Tomorrow the end of the doggie tale.
 |
| Hannah |
Well, I just went back through all our old snapshots and, apparently, I don't remember things in quite the order in which they actually happened. That doesn't really surprise me except for the fact that the lives of my dogs have always been such an important part of my life. Anyway, based on the photographic evidence we got Trixie and Hannah before we got Niki. It may be I got confused because we didn't have Nik as long as we should have.
As I mentioned before, Niki was the best dog anyone could have ever wanted. He grew to be much larger than most huskies and he had such an even, good natured temperament it astounded everyone who met him. He walked on a leash without pulling. It was just like you were out for a Sunday stroll. We took him to a gathering of husky breeders where some of them were teaching their dogs to pull sleds (on rollers; we don't get enough snow for real sleds). There were at least a hundred dogs there and Nik just walked around with us and never even barked (well huskies don't exactly bark) at any of them. He got along with every dog and every person he ever met. I do not cut my dogs toenails. I'm a chicken, and I'm afraid I will hurt them, so I just let them wear their nails down while they play outside. While we were at the husky gathering, one of the breeders volunteered to trim Nik's nails. I told her he had never had it done and he might be a little jumpy, but he just laid down and let her do her thing. You'd have thought he got a pedicure every day the way he acted. Nik was just too good to be true. Maybe that's why he died so young (5 years old). He developed some sort of autoimmune disorder and all of his internal organs began to deteriorate. Of course, we didn't know what was wrong when we took him to the Vet. I told the Vet I was scared we were gonna lose Niki, and he told me Nik was young and we should be able to find out what was wrong and fix it. A week later Niki was gone. We sent his body to the School of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University where they did a necropsy. The report came back explaining about his internal organs and they said they had never run across anything like it before in any dogs. I'm glad we provided them with an education, but it didn't bring our wonderful dog back.
The entire time we had Zeke he was truly a pleasure to have around. He didn't fight with anyone. He didn't cause any problems. He loved everyone he met. He had virtually no health problems. You couldn't have asked for a sweeter, more gentle dog. Then one evening when Zeke was 12 he started listing to one side. At first we thought maybe he had pulled a muscle or something. Later that night it started raining really hard so we went to get all the dogs in the house. We couldn't find Zeke. We finally found him wedged between the house and our tool shed. It took me squeezing into a very tiny space in the sloshing mud to pull him out and it was clear he was not feeling well. We kept him (and the others) in the house for the rest of night and I took Zeke to the Vet first thing the next morning. He could not walk in a straight line; he continually walked in circles. The Vet tried to assure me there were any number of things that could cause that, but I was afraid it was serious, as I was right. Zeke had a brain tumor. He had shown no symptoms right up until the time it got so bad there was nothing we could do about it. Of course, we chose that he should not suffer any more than he already had. And, once again we lost another piece of our hearts.
We live on what we jokingly refer to as the Great Eastern Stray Dogway. Unfortunately, it's not a joke. It seems every dumbass in the area who is too irresponsible to take care of the dog or cat they thought they wanted, drops them off out in the country (by our house) to let them fend for themselves. It is not unusual for us to go outside because our dogs are barking up a storm, just to discover a stray outside the fence. They usually run off when they see humans, or they decide four against one is not such great odds, but in most cases the strays don't hang around our house for long.
 |
| Bailey |
Somewhere along the way, Bud and I decided that it would be more peaceful for everyone if we had only one male dog in our pack. Remembering the fight with Shadow and Max, we weren't looking to have to go through anything like that ever again, so we started making our little family to be one male and three females. We had not ever had a dominance problem with any females.
When Trixie was 12 years old, she gave out. She had never been the healthiest dog and she was tired and ready to go. We made arrangements with our Vet to have her put down on a Monday night. He came to our home to take care of it instead of making us bring her into his office. We try to have all of our dogs euthanized at our home because they are more comfortable in their own surroundings. We also allow the other dogs to see the body after the death, so they can have whatever closure dogs get. It's not always possible to do this at home, but whenever we can, it works best for all of us. The morning after Trixie was put down, Hannah had some kind of seizure in the kitchen and just fell on the floor, unable to get up. I screamed for Bud, but by the time he got there she had recovered. Up to this point, Hannah had been perfectly healthy and had not had any problems. We decided to keep an eye on her and nothing further happened that day or the next. But on the third day, she had another seizure. We took her to the Vet, but he couldn't immediately find anything wrong with her. I was terrified. I had not had any time to grieve for Trixie, and now it seemed I was battling for Hannah's life. Friday night Hannah started wheezing and crying. It went on the whole night long and nothing we did could comfort her. On Saturday morning, Bud took Hannah to the Vet, and when he came home he brought her body with him. I thought losing three dogs in 12 months was the most horrible thing that could happen. I was wrong. Losing two in one week can almost kill you.
Tomorrow the end of the doggie tale.
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