Exhausted

So The Husband has a head cold, which I am trying to stave off. Meanwhile, we've had 4 emergency vet trips in the last two weeks. Three trips for The Bulldog, and one for one of the cats, who went into diabetic shock in the middle of the night. Fortunately for him, he fell over into his water bowl, and we heard the splash. He's ok now.

The Bulldog, on the other hand, should be thanking his lucky stars that he's so cute.

Ok, so the first three trips were not his fault. We thought he was sick, then we thought it was pancreatitis, then we thought he had swallowed something and it was stuck in his stomach, so they did exploratory surgery. Didn't find anything, but they tacked his stomach while they were in there, so we didn't mind so much. Turns out he had some sort of "bacterial overgrowth" so they gave him antibiotics.

The antibiotics have let his surgery incision heal up beautifully, by the way.

So he's starting to feel better now. Surgery was the 14th, and we're starting to wean him off the pain killers. So he's getting his old energy back, but we're not walking him much. I wanted to take him out last night, but it was too icy to walk.

Today we get home, Husband is tired and cranky, and we discover that The Bulldog has decided to eat half of an oven mitt.

Back to the e-vet.

Some vomiting and x-rays later, we've recovered a portion of what was missing from the mitt. No idea where the rest is. Probably in his intestines by now. So we're giving him a boatload of pumpkin and watching to see what comes out the other end.

I am officially exhausted. And desperately trying not to get sick myself.

The Cats Will Play

My house is now dogless. It's very weird. We got The Dog only last year in June, but it seemed as if we'd had her for years.

Needless to say, Sunday sucked. A lot.

The handoff went well, as such things go. She was scared at first, being back at the shelter. But then one of the guys who'd worked with The Dog when she was there before came over to us, and I saw something I'd never seen before. The Dog wagged her tail, and then jumped up on him. I've never seen her do that with anyone besides The Husband and me. Clearly she not only remembered him, she liked and trusted him. This gave us a lot of comfort as we kenneled her and walked away.

I spent the rest of Sunday cleaning the house. All the doggie blankets went down to the laundry room. The few leftover dog toys (the ones that she didn't like) were washed and put on top of the dog crate. The crate was washed out and prepped, as were the food and water bowls. There was MUCH vacuuming, and many destroyed dog toys and old beef bones were unearthed and thrown out. And once all that was done, I cleaned off my desk for good measure.

After that we let the cats out. The poor loves have been stuck upstairs since we got the dog. For as many times as we had nearly had them rehomed, I was very glad all those plans had fallen through. They were very skittish at first, but quickly were back to their old demanding selves.

It's very odd, getting used to cats again. The Husband has several times attempted to get the cats to sit purely out of habit, and he also forgot that they always lie and pretend they haven't been fed yet. And they're so short! The Dog was over 80lbs - the cats are each less than 20. I have to keep reminding myself to look for them, or I'm afraid I'll step on them or kick them.

Of course, we've already had one Hairball-of-Displeasure - all over my netbook, which was on the dining room table (that they aren't supposed to be on). Fortunately the netbook was in its case, and I was willing to take that rather than have them decorate the stack of library books sitting next to the netbook.

The hard part now is not having that dog to greet us when we get home. No face in the window or big lanky form on the couch, no collar tags jingling or claws clicking on the floor. No kisses. No lean. No wag.

The Cult of the Dog is a sickness as much as a social phenomenon. After being separated from the cats for so long, I'm seriously having a hard time remembering why I was such an adamant cat lover. All the arguments my dog-owner friends always used keep flashing through my head. "Cats only are nice to you when they want something. As long as they're fed and their box is cleaned, they don't care who takes care of them." To which I always previously answered, "Yeah, so?" It's like cats are friends with benefits, and dogs are the steady live-in SO. Apparently I've decided it's time to settle down.

100(+) Words About: Cats and Dog

As you long-time readers might recall, I have a dog. I also have two cats.

I love my cats. They've been with us for 13 years, longer than my husband and I have been married. When we got a dog we swore that the dog would have to get along with the cats.

But the rescue folks lied to us when they said the dog was cat-tested. As we were finishing up the paperwork to take her home, one said, "Well, she's been past the cat house and she's always been fine."

My dog has a very high prey drive. It's likely that she’ll never be safe around small animals. But our contract with the rescue says she has to go back to them and them alone if we decide to give her up. Back to a no-kill rescue that's so over crowded and over burdened that they recently sent out a newsletter relating that the vets have stopped offering services until they catch up on their bills. Back to a shelter where our dog was only getting a walk once a week at best.

I can't do that to her. Her previous owner put her in a cage and left her to starve. I can't put her back in a cage.

But it's not fair to keep my cats locked in the upstairs either. They have a room and a half to themselves and very little contact with us anymore.

We finally found a friend willing to take them in. On a trial basis, yes, but it's real. I'm looking at giving up my fuzzy loves.

I didn't want to be in this position. We tried really hard to make it so we wouldn't be. But here we are, and the decision has to be made. I really do think they'll be happier, or I wouldn't even consider it.

But damn, it sucks.

Sometimes I hate being a responsible adult.