My Dog is a Houdini...

Among many other things.

I am surprised I haven't posted more about my dog.
I'm going to tell a little story about her.

My dog is Darby. She is almost 3 years old. She is a Rhodesian Ridgeback. She is a very special member of our little family.

We've had our fair share of adventures with her. When we first got her, she barfed every time she was in the car. We even had a system. A very disgusting system of watching the signs: she stands up, starts licking her chops, gets a creepy smile thing going, and her stomach starts heaving. I enter the scene with trash bag, or other "catching" device. She pukes in bag. Success!

Then there was the time where she grabbed a near empty container of hummus off an end table. I saw her do it, didn't think it was a big deal, after all, It's just hummus. Apparently, our dog should not have hummus, as she had an extreme allergic reaction to it, and I thought she was going to die. She didn't. She's very sturdy.



Our biggest scare was last February when after several vet visits, we discovered she had a blockage in her intestines and stomach. This did not come as a major surprise to us, as she's always been a big time chewer. Although we keep a good eye on her, she is stealthy. After a pretty major surgery, the dr. found shreds of a rope toy all tangled up in her innards.

Once again, she was very resilient, and recovered beautifully from her surgery.



Fast forward to today. Darbs has had a couple of bumps removed in the last few months. The first two were removed in October, said to be harmless, but if she gets more, let them know. She had a couple more pop up and we decided to have them removed and sent in for analysis. So now we wait. But while we wait, we deal with a very tricky dog. We've tried just about everything to keep her away from her stitches (on her back leg). She removed them all together on Sunday. We had to call the on-call vet to have her stitched back up. It was ugly! So we took her home, put the giant cone of shame on her head, kept her bandaged, and put a pair of boxer shorts on her.

On Monday, we discovered that she squirmed out of her cone of shame and chewed out more stitches. We brought her back in, where the stapled, stitched and wrapped her up as best as they could.

Today, I got her a new cone (e-collar), that fit her much better, no way could she get out! I bandaged her up again, replaced the boxer briefs so they were nice and snug, kept her in her e-collar, and put her in her crate, where there isn't enough room to move with the cone on.

Seriously. Short of locking her head and front paws in stocks, she was secure!

I got home just after 5pm. Her e-collar was still on! Success! Although...somehow....it had teeth marks. And somehow, her boxers and bandaid were off. And somehow, her boxers and bandaid were completely missing. As in, she ate them. The stitches look okay.



W.T.F.



She hasn't been this happy in days.



I can't believe that her stomach feels so good, and she has some pretty nasty gas.



Dr. won't prescribe a sedative, but reccommends that we board her there for the day, where she can be watched.



NAUGHTY!!!!



I love her so much. I would do anything for her. Some people say this will change after the baby arrives. I can see why they'd say this. Baby is close to arriving, and I admit that I don't worry about her like I used to. Some of that is perspective, and some of it is distraction.



I just hope she is getting this out of her system, because in a matter of days, I won't be able to cater to her every strange demand.

Poor, pathetic hound. I love you!! :)

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