Two days before Christmas Kirk came home with a gift for me...an adorable puppy. After much playing with her, fawning over her, and just general fun, I decided to name her Isabella...or Izzy for short. She is a Shiba Inu...and when I got her, she was 8 weeks old and 4 lbs 6 oz.
She's a feisty little puppy and quickly won my heart. How could she not? She's smart, stubborn, energetic...and very friendly. It literally took me about 3 days to get her housebroken. She responds well to positive reinforcement....and she's a healthy eater. Well, and she terrorizes my next door neighbor's girlfriend's full grown shelties (they actually love playing with her)...not to mention his cat(she borrowed his toys as they were perfect for her tiny size)...but in a friendly way. (Some have even commented that she's very much like her owner) Why did this make my blog, you wonder.... Well, here's why.
Many of you know that because I'm a retail electronics manager with multiple locations, the holiday season is my busy time of year...so everything slows down for me. The blog writing, the myspacing and cherrytapping, the message boards...yes, even the hanging out with friends. Well, on the 30th...I took a few hours off to attend a friend's wedding about an hour north of my home. While waiting for the wedding to start I got a panicked call from Kirk. Isabella had been attacked the big dog across the street and was headed to the emergency animal hospital. The second I realized what he said I felt my stomach just drop and my heart rate rise. I threw my card at a friend who was there and told her to wish the happy couple well for me and to give them my gift. I'd had an emergency and needed to get home. All I heard from Kirk was that this bigger dog went for Isabella's throat area and that he'd had to punch Ziggy hard in the head to get him to let her out of his mouth...and that a neighbor was driving him to the hospital.
It turns out that Alan, our neighbor across the street, had brought his big German Shepherd/Chow mix dog into our yard. Isabella had just woken up from her nap and had to potty...so Kirk had her outside. Alan thought Ziggy should meet Isabella. After Kirk expressed some concern because Ziggy's not particularly friendly, Alan said everything would be fine...they'd just sniff each other. So Ziggy sniffed her...and when she went to sniff back, she found herself in his mouth. Fortunately Kirk reacted quickly and went to pull her out of his mouth as he punched the 40+ lb dog in the head. According to the vets...it saved her life. That big dog filleted the side of Isabella's face. He managed to bite almost from her eye (he narrowly missed that spot) all the way down past her mouth, pulling off fur, skin, and fat. If Kirk hadn't pulled on her...there would've been muscle damage, too...or possibly death. So at 9 weeks, she had her first surgery...that required her to stay overnight. Kirk and I were a wreck.
They'd had to put an irrigation tube in the side of her face for leakage and to prevent infection. She'd had stitches all up and down the side of her face. She was on antibiotics and doped up on pain meds. The vet bill was over $1000. And now I had to confront the neighbors..fortunately for them and me...they decided to do the right thing and pay since it was the owner's judgement lapse. He'd been drinking, we found out later. Did I mention I was also grand opening a new store? Yeah...I had my hands full and my mind was worried. They weren't sure if the trauma from the injury would cause the skin that they'd tried to sew back on to die or what would happen.
As it turned out...she developed an infection and the skin around the trauma site died. So back to the vet we went. She'd managed to gain weight through the whole thing and went up to 4 lbs 9 oz. But she was gonna have to have a second surgery. This time they cut out all the dead skin and had to pull the skin from her neck up to the skin on her upper face and sew them together...hopefully healing that way. She's a baby, so they said that although it was a traumatic incident, she couldn't-healthwise- have picked a better time because she's still growing and her skin is elastic. But still...more stitches, more time in an e-collar.
She's been a very lucky girl...because this time the wound healed. After nearly bi-weekly visits to the vet...she doesn't have to go for another few weeks. She's also gone up to nearly 8 lbs. My pup is growing like a weed. And I was told that after about a week, once the wound was pretty much healed, I got to take off her e-collar. So yesterday...finally...I got to take off her e-collar. She's still on anti-biotics...and some meds to keep her from being too hyper that she tears open her wound again...but otherwise she's fine. She's even been going for walks/runs around the block...and playing with a lot of the other neighborhood pups again. She's back to her energetic self. Thank GOD!
You know...I took for granted how tough a parent's job was...until she got hurt. I can only imagine how much harder it is on a person when it's their child. Worrying about the puppy was hard enough. Now it's back to the normal stuff...like her teething...and thinking that Kirk is her own personal chew toy. You'd have no idea she'd even been hurt, now...well, except for the shaved hair and the scar...but that will all grow back or wind up covered by hair. Now maybe the rest of the year will go more smoothly.
Go Bears!...since the Cowboys tanked.
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