She looks like a little angel with her big brown eyes full of soul and brimming with personality, those beautiful long soft ears that frame her sweet little face and her shiny black nose that is unbeaten when it comes to sniffing its way to boo-boos in need of a kiss. Yet she has a knack for turning on a dime and flipping out on a random unsuspecting pup for any variety of ridiculous food-related (but completely justified in her eyes) reasons. She's food aggressive, so the fix has always been to just feed her separately and keep any cookie situations under control. Every once in a great while she'll decide to guard the closet door that separates her from her wonderful, glorious bag of food. But the other pups know to just steer clear of her when she's being a jerk, and all ends well when she gets over it and goes to the sofa for a nap.
Last night was looking like a nice end to a pretty okay day. The workday was quiet and I even got a good amount of my pile of projects completed. Bonus info for the quarter was released. Not amazing, but extra money is always quite welcome. Class was actually kind of fun and got out early, and I was heading home to my three sweet pups and my Kitchen Wizard, who was whipping up some mango fried rice for dinner. Not a bad day, for a weekday, at least.
I called when I was leaving the lot and Jason was stuck at Lowes where he was picking out ceiling fans for the bedrooms. I was the first to get to the house. I opened the door to find Lucy and Necco asleep on the sofa. Lucy groggily jumped off and stumbled toward me to say hello as I headed to shut off the alarm.
Before I knew it Ollie was racing down the stairs to say hello, as fast as his excited and clumsy limbs could manage. He bumped Lucy pretty hard and pissed her off. Within seconds, before I even had the code entered, it sounded like they were trying to kill each other and a blur of fur and teeth rolled into my line of sight. I yelled for them to stop. They didn't even seem to hear me. I threw myself between them and covered Lucy with my body as Ollie poked over my shoulder as if to ask if she was okay and let me know he didn't start it. I sat up and noticed blood all over my hands, and the floor, and my leg, and my clothes. Lucy's ear was a mess. A large piece of the ear was torn and the skin was peeled back and bleeding like crazy. I immediately called the vet and Jason as I got her in the car and on her way to her vet in Warwick.
The vet on duty was the same one who did her surgery last summer. I like him, he's a great doctor and he gave me a very simple to understand explanation of the wound and what needed to be done to fix it. So Lucy went in for surgery around 9pm.
Jason met me at the vet and kept me company while all the behind the scenes prep was happening. He was very concerned, and supportive and even though I told him I'd be okay and he didn't need to come down, I was grateful to have him there. It was exactly what I needed. We were told she would have to stay overnight for observation so we should go home and they'd call us when the surgery was done and let us know how it went.
We got home and Jason made grilled cheese for dinner (a perfect, deliciously melty and earth balance browned grilled cheese with daiya and noosh). The doctor called after we ate and told us that she was okay and recovering. They managed to do it all under sedation, no anesthesia, so that was one big worry out of the way. He said to call around 10am and they'd let me know when to pick her up.
I called at 10 on the dot and arranged for a noon pick up. The photo tells the story well. Drugged up and sleepy with a stitched ear and a big e-collar. She hopped into the back seat, wagged her tail, cozied down and gave me a lick. She's a trooper.
When I got her home, she and Ollie exchanged nose sniffs and licks. The pups seem more over it than the people. We're still a little bugged out and concerned about another possible trigger to watch out for. I spent the afternoon sitting with sleepy Lucy to my left, Necco to my right and Ollie on the sofa next to us. It was very sweet, really. Good pups, snuggles and happiness while I got some at home work and school stuff done.
Now, Lucy and Necco are still napping on the sofa while Jason is cooking up a storm in the kitchen. Mango fried rice is happening and I'm going to go watch!
