Spay Update

It's been a week now that Tula had her surgery, and we've had the E collar on her for a few days. It helps a bit with her licking herself, but every now and then, I will catch Josie licking the incision for her. Not good! I swear, if it's not one dog, it's the other one that will drive me to the looney bin. So, we took her in to see the vet, so they can take a look at it, since she's pulled 3 stitches out herself, and the vet said it actually looked great, and she was a quick healer. Excellent news, since I'm paranoid. I hate waiting for open wounds to heal, brings me back to when Josie was attacked and she had this tube that looked like a little rigatoni (there is that food reference again) sticking out of her, and draining the pus and blood. I am so happy that we have hardwood floor, on so many levels. A day or 2 goes by, and now one of the stitches is puffy and hard. So we decided to take her in this morning. The vet actually pulled the rest of the stitches out (the stitches looked nasty, more so than the actual incision). Now the whole area looks a ton better already. She is on some antibiotics, but we've given her benedryl, which is supposed to make them a bit drowsy. Nope, not this puppy. She's on some tranquilizers now. What did she do? She ran laps around the condo halls. Unbelievable! But she is the best nighttime cuddler in the world, and she takes her turn with cuddling with either me or Anthony. It reminds us why we are so happy to have her around. We'd cuddle with Josie, but she prefers to sleep on her own. Oh well.

Queen Tula II

We awoke this morning to Tula minus 3 stitches. At some point during the night, she pulled 3 out. So, we put the Elizabethean collar on her right away. It took awhile for her to adjust to it. She stayed still for a little while, then she proceeded to walk backwards throughout the condo for about an hour. Here are 2 shots, one taken last night with me cuddling with her on the bed, and her the following morning, with the collar. Looking very, very pathetic. :(

Bob Barker will be proud

Today, we dropped off Tula for her spaying. I wanted to know a bit more about the entire procedure, so I googled it. Here is a site with step by step photos on spaying, which was a lot more than what I wanted to know, but it did answer my question. It also answers the question on why I couldn't be a vet b/c the little ovary looks like an uncooked dumpling to me. I remember as a child, we would go to the library at the College of Dupage (COD) in Illinois, and there was a section on dog anatomy that had a real dog intestine inside this glass box. As cool as it was, it also tainted Arby beef sandwhiches for me for life. It's not that I relate dog anatomy to food, it's just that I can not see it as a biological mass with real functions. This is why I could not be a surgeon for animals, or people. I even have a hard time sussing out what the hell I am looking at with those body slices at Body Worlds, as well. Anyway, the vet said she's doing really well and she's entertaining everyone at the office. We will call them tomorrow morning to see when we can take her home (with her Elizabethan collar!). Josie looks really, really lonely, however I think she's enjoying the little break in a way.
Here are some photos I have managed to snap on my camera phone. The first one is Anthony sitting with Tula, waiting for Shrek the Third to start at the Wellfleet Drive In Movie, the second one is Tula at her training class at PetFart (Petsmart). The third one is of Tula snuggling in the back seat of the jeep with Josie, and the fourth is Tula trying to snuggle with Anthony, but he ended up throwing the cover over here (which she likes) but the duvet was just a bit too heavy for her so I pulled it off her head.

excessive barking-do you hear it?

So Ant and I were gone for a lot of 4th of July, had to leave the pups for a few hours in the crate. And on July 5th, we also had to leave for about 3 hours. Upon our return, we found an anonymous note from one of our neighbors. It was typed up and printed out on 3 hole paper. It read:

"Dear Neighbors,
Although we understand you added a new dog to your family, the incessant barking that has resulted has become unreasonable. Yesturday, on our day off, your dog started barking at 8AM, and although we left the condo for a couple of hours in the afternoon, upon our return at about 2:30PM, your dog was barking again and did not stop for hours. Today, I am working from home...and your dog is barking again. I don't know what to suggest, but it is just unreasonable for me, as your neighbor, to have my day constantly interrupted by this barking."

After much calming down, and the realization of the childish note left at the door, as well as the impersonal nature of calling us "neighbors" instead of by our names b/c we know everyone in the building...we decided to try to make them look foolish by responding back to them on the condo message board. First of all, we were most angry that it was anonymous b/c we can not apologize. Nor can we come to some sort of resolution with the unhappy neihbors. Therefore, this was our kind reply. Hopefully the residents will not be embarrassed to respond to us next time, as we are not scary people, and we actually do sympathize with the barking.

"Hi everyone. It's been brought up that we have a problem with Tula's
barking (and probably Josie's too, it's a chain reaction). Both
Janetta and myself want to sincerely apologize for any disruption or
disturbance her barking may have caused. We want you to know that
we're working very hard on her training to break her of the habit
(including professional training), and are looking into other methods
of dealing with it, including putting a crate in our storage unit and
keeping her down there during the day. To help us with this end, if
anyone is in need of some peace and quiet at specific times, let us
know and we'll do whatever we can to make sure that those are quiet
times for you (as we already try to do as much as possible before 8am
and after 10pm anyway, but if you need anything in the daytime, just
tell us)

In our defence, we've just been through the toughest time of year for
dogs, and as such they've both been nervous wrecks for most of this
week. In all honesty, as I know there's more fireworks displays
planned for the weekend, they both will probably continue with the
panic and anxiety, and therefore the barking. And in my defence
personally, although I spend a good 95% of my week in our unit and
keeping things under control, even I have to head out and leave them
from time to time.

Also, Tula gets spayed next week, so that should help with calming
her down and keeping her quiet. If anyone has other suggestions to
help is keep things quiet, please feel free to let us know, although
we do draw the line at shock collars to restrain barking. We want to
work with you, and make this a comfortable and relaxed place to live,
and we'll gladly take any advice or support anyone wants to offer.

As we said in our first mail, if anyone has any problems at all,
please do let us know, and we'll do anything we can to resolve any
problems that come up, as soon as we possibly can. And we want to
thank you all for your patience to date, and hopefully in the future,
and also for the lots of positive feedback we've had so far.

We would have handled this matter personally, and given our apology
in person, rather than a group mail like this, if only the note that
was left by our door had some name or contact information on it,
rather than being left anonymously.

If anyone does have problems in the future, please do come to us
about it and talk to us about it. If you need to get hold of us, our
home number is xxx, my cell is xxx, and Janetta's
is xxx. Even if we need to come back from wherever we are to
quiet the dogs, we'll try our best to do it.

Janetta & Anthony"