Between the Birds

And we often get puppies brought into the clinic to be transferred over to her so she can take them and adopt them out and such. I cannot tell you how many different puppies I have seen come through the door that have been so insanely adorable, but I knew they would all end up going to good homes.

Today, two beagle mix puppies came in, a brother and a sister, and the moment that I saw the little girl I fell in love. I wanted to take her home so bad. I promise you I never do this, because I know how much of a responsibility it is. In the two years I have worked there, this has been the first dog that I just felt the absolute urge to adopt and there was no way I wasn’t going to. She is the sweetest little girl, very quiet, calm, and just precious.

I just called B to find out his opinion on a second dog. He flat out said no. Thanks to him, I will be crying myself to sleep. Maybe a little over dramatic, but I wish I could explain how I felt about this little girl. I had a beagle-pit-mix when I was younger (Jenna). She passed away from cancer at around 12 years old when I was in college. And for some reason, when I saw this little girl, I immediately thought about my other dog and had this intense urge to adopt her. Her personality fits Jenna to a T, and she is the cutest little thing. She fell asleep in my arms.

What I got out of what B was saying, was about learning how to handle one dog and that Ellie will be enough for him to handle right off the bat with marriage and everything. He never grew up with any pets (except for a rabbit, which I don’t even count because it lived outside at his grandparents house). It’s kind of sad how he never had any experience with animals, and unfortunately I’m getting the brunt of that right now. It’s like he’s nervous about learning how to train or take care of one dog. I don’t know. As for me? I’ve always lived with animals. At all times, we had at least 2 dogs (most of my years at home we had 3), and at least 1 cat (again, for a long while we had 2). So overall 5 animals in the house, then on top of that we had horses for a bit. To me, one small beagle mix that will top out around 20 lbs is no big deal at all. To me, it’s a nice addition to our family.

Yes, we’re already having trouble finding a place to live, but we do know of one apartment that we can live in easily, and on top of that we already know we’re going to have to go through a realtor or rent a house so one more dog won’t be a big deal. I will have all summer to train her on top of that. I just. Ugh. I don’t even know. I want this puppy so bad. I’ve never felt this much want for a dog before.

B also mentioned money. Again, an honorable concern. Thankfully, I work at a clinic. I get half price vaccines, I get free exams, I get discounted/free meds. And a 20 pound dog won’t eat that much food. I’d be far more concerned if I ended up wanting a mastiff over a beagle mix.

I have to have this dog, one way or another.

I swear, this dog is going to drive me into the ground. She’s 1.5 years old and has had so many different problems. I just noticed today that her LEFT carnassial tooth was cracked. Thankfully, not as bad as the right one, so nothing really needs to be done about it, at least as of right now. But seriously, this is all getting really ridiculous.

Problems with Ellie so far at 1.5 years old:

- Food allergies involving diarrhea.

- The chewing of anything and everything fabric when no one is around.

- Extremely hard time trying to housebreak her until about 1 year old.

- Cracked & removed upper right carnassial tooth.

- Ruptured right cruciate & shredded meniscus which was repaired & still recovering from.

- Cracked upper left carnassial tooth.

I can promise you that she is probably the best-treated dog in my neighborhood. She is cared for SOOO well, and then all of this shit happens. I swear, if I wasn’t a vet tech & if I didn’t get discounts, I’d be so poor right now. She’s been given Nylabones, not the super hard ones, just the regular ones, and not once in my life and my mother’s life have we ever had a dog who cracked a tooth from a Nylabone (we’ve had about 10 different dogs, some guiding eyes dogs, some our own), but that’s the only thing we can think of that caused the cracked teeth. I wonder if she could have a tooth density problem…?

I feel so insanely guilty about thinking this, but sometimes I wonder if I should give her back to the breeder I got her from. Not only because of the hassle, but also because of the fact that finding an apartment is absolutely ridiculous with a husky because unfortunately they’re often on “breed restriction lists” for stupid reasons. The breeder accepts her dogs back at any point for whatever reason; she doesn’t want them to end up in a shelter, which is nice, but it’s just something I don’t know if I could do. I’ve put so much money into her already and I don’t know if I can just give her up. I mean I know where she’ll be and that she’d be happy there with all her husky buds, but I don’t know if that’s really a decision I could make.

I’ll just have to stick her in a chew-proof padded room for the rest of her life and she’ll be good to go.

In all sincerity, I truly don’t know what to do. I need advice. I need opinions. I need help in deciding what to do. My gut is telling me two different things at the same time: give her back and live with the guilt of giving up or keep her and put up with probably thousands and thousands more in vet bills and a horrible time trying to find places to live. Don’t get me wrong. I love her beyond words. I’m always happy to see her and I always miss her when I’m away, but sometimes I feel like I don’t think practically and this is one time where I think I may need to start thinking practically.

Although I must say, it’s been about a week or two since I had my last vivid one. It’s 3:00AM and I just woke up from an oddly disturbing one. Normally, they’re just weird and I have no idea why I had them; not scary, just unique & interesting. The one I had tonight involved a girl who had died one month prior, and for some reason my parents and I were responsible for transporting her body wrapped in a tarp put into a plastic storage bin to be buried. We finally got there and when her body was taken out to be brought into some building, there was an overpowering smell of death. It was so vivid and so awful. Then it turned scary when some guy who was pretending to be a sorry soul ended up being someone who I believe wanted to murder us all. That’s when I woke up and now I can’t get back to sleep.

The only reason I can think of having this one is because Ellie and I went for a walk yesterday morning and came across a badly mangled, absolutely disgusting, hit-by-a-car, completely-covered-in-flies opossum. When we walked by, the smell of death was so overpowering. It’s one of the worst smells. Unfortunately, it’s a smell I smell far more often than normal people because of my line of work. Every once in a while (every couple months or so) we get an animal who died a few days or more prior and needs to be sent in for rabies testing or just need to be transferred to a body bag to be taken care of. Unfortunately, it’s a smell that you never forget.

If you’ve never truly smelled the smell of death, feel lucky.

I had only watched other techs loosen and pull teeth, and I had never done it myself. One dog had come in due to a broken incisor tooth & the owners wanted it removed so it didn’t bother him later on down the road. I decided to step up to the plate & say I wanted to remove it. There was another puppy who was in for a spay & had like 10 deciduous teeth still in there at like 10 months old, so I watched one of the other techs for a bit once again to make sure I knew how to do it right.

We got the dog I was going to work on down & under anesthesia. I was nervous & it’s far more tedious than you would ever think, but I did it all on my own & didn’t have any help (things got a little crazy at the office around the time I had to pull it). Got the tooth out in one whole piece, no problems at all. In all honesty, it was fun. It was so rewarding to see the whole tooth come out & I would definitely be willing to do it again.

One major reason I love my line of work: it’s fun (well, at least I think it is!).

And this year, instead of being able to buy myself something fun, I’m getting slapped with an expensive surgery bill for Ellie because of her ruptured cruciate.

She goes in for surgery tomorrow & I work all day tomorrow. I told them I refuse to be back in surgery and I’d rather do office calls when she’s on the table. It’s one thing being a vet tech & seeing your dog only have a cracked tooth pulled under anesthesia… no big… and it’s another when her leg is going to be filleted open with the bone exposed; if it was any other dog I’d LOVE to be back there watching the surgery, just not my own. And then comes the long 3 month recovery period.

Happy birthday to me.

Good news: Ellie doesn’t have a ruptured criciate

Bad news: She had a luxated patella (in layman’s terms, a dislocated knee cap).

Good news: Today cost me 1/10 of what I expected.

Bad news: I still didn’t have enough money to pay for today’s total bill. I’m that poor.

Good news: I’M GOIN’ TO DISNEY FOR MY HONEYMOON.

Bad news: I still have to come up with $1000 extra somehow. Well, $500 extra. B and I are splitting the total.

Poor Ell. She’s on deramaxx and tramadol ‘cause she’s such a baby about pain, hahahahah. Two weeks of strict rest is going to be tough for her. And me. Because I want to go on walks with herrrrr.

Two days ago, Ellie was let outside to run & play and like two minutes after my mom left her out she heard her barking/screaming/death-crying. So she ran outside to find out what was up & Ellie was standing there holding one of her back legs up and whimpering and stuff.

Being a vet tech, I immediately think of the worst possible scenario, and I’m a good 99% sure I’m right despite the fact that I can’t get a drawer sign (basically just a test of movement of the tibia) because I probably am not doing it right… I’m afraid to hurt her more. More than likely, she tore her cruciate ligament. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a major ligament that keeps the femur and tibia all lined up and stuff and when it ruptures… well, think of it as rupturing your ACL. Not fun. Very painful.

I’m taking her in to get checked today at 1 and to add up the damages, and then I have to work from 2-6 so she’ll just chill in a kennel until I’m done. One positive about working as a tech in a vet’s office… if something happens to my dog, I can pretty much go in any time to get her checked & also get discounts. ;D

Despite any discounts I may get… it’s an EXPENSIVE surgery, even the easiest way to fix it. There are other surgeries to fix the problem, but they are even more expensive, upwards of $2000-$5000. The one I’ll have done on her is going to be expensive enough… probably like $1000 or so. So, that $1000 I was hoping to put towards going to Disney… yeah, that’s going towards fixing my dog. :(

It’s so frustrating, because I take care of her so well and then something like this happens. She’s a 15 month old small 40 pound husky with really good athletic ability. Of course this would happen to me. Of course. Mhmm. But I suppose you see plenty of professional athletes out there who end up with torn ACL’s or other injuries that they really have no control over. Oye. I just want to get her fixed ASAP. I don’t like seeing her in pain.

I’m falling behind in my challenges, but I have been insanely busy lately with work & traveling & wedding stuff. I haven’t even been able to get to day 3 yet, eep! I will do days 9 & 10 today, and possibly day 3 if I remember, hah.

I feel as though I have been a huge help at work lately. It’s been a bit stressful with it being very busy with a lot of sick animals, but there have been a few cases in which I was the tech on them & had to draw blood, run tests, and let the doctor know the results. It’s really a lot of work & can easily stress you out because you are CONSTANTLY multitasking, but I feel as though I handled everything wonderfully. I was on top of things, had confidence, and was able to carry out what I needed to do without having any faults. At the end of the day when all the running around was done & over with, I felt proud of myself.