Lydia

Those of you who read my brother's blog have already read that I adopted an abandoned dog last weekend. I guess, not a big deal in the big picture, but kind of a big deal to me. When we were kids growing up, we always had dogs-I'm not sure if it was more my mom's idea or my dad's-I would guess mom's. When I had my own kids, we started out with Snapper, a dog someone gave my husband. Soon, Mickey joined Snapper-Mickey was a shepherd mix puppy-I'm not sure where we got her. Snapper and Mickey were given away a couple of years later and we every once in awhile, would feed a stray dog or have one given to us. We adopted a couple from the Humane Society with varying success. We had a dog we had to give up during an economic downturn when the kids were little-if you can't afford to buy groceries, you can't afford to feed a dog.

The last dog we owned I've written about before-she was found with her littermates in a park near where my husband worked. We had been without a dog for awhile, and decided to give her a chance. She lived in our chaos for 10 years and died unexpectedly of a heart attack in the kitchen one evening. That was in September of 2001.

Seven years later, I was doing ok without having a dog, and really hadn't planned on getting another one, and as the thought crossed my mind from time to time, I dismissed it with the notion that I wouldn't ever go looking for a dog, and that when one who needed a family would cross my path, I would know it.

Lydia crossed my path a week ago Friday. She was hanging around over at my brother's house, and what a sight she was. Skinny, hair in patches, and the smell-oh my, she smelled. I went to QT and bought a couple of cans of dog food as she was miserably hungry, and fed her in his backyard. My intention was to take her to the Kansas Humane Society the next day, which was Saturday. As I drove over to pick her up Saturday morning, I had my daughter with me to help hold her in the car, and we discussed options. By Saturday afternoon, I had this dog at my house, having taken her to a vet who happened to be open. She passed the first two tests at the vet's office-if she had heartworms, I was done. If she had mange, I was done. She had neither.

So it's been a week of adjusting to and getting to know this dog. She has some problems-the vet said that every tooth in the front of her jaw is either broken or cracked. She's malnourished, and has a bacterial skin infection, mites, and some fungus. She's on antibiotic pills, a good diet, and gets a bath with a medicated shampoo twice a week. (Did you know there is a self-service Dog Wash here in town?) After all that, she STILL reeks. She isn't spayed, so we'll take care of that, but first, we have to determine her dental problems. I can't afford hundreds of dollars in dental bills, but we can get her assessed for free at the "dog dentist" and will see what we need to do. She appears to be eating ok. Because she doesn't have much hair, she will not be able to stay outside once it turns cold at night. Someone gave us an igloo doghouse, so today, I'll get a hose and wash it out, dry it, and see if I can make some bedding for her in there.

I've seen some vomiting (that's so lovely when a dog does it), so I'm not sure what that is about. She tends to wolf down her food, and has some scavenging behaviors due to what the vet estimates are about 3 months of living on her own. She is very needy, and when I come home from work or even if I haven't been gone that long, she is beside herself with delirious excitement to greet me-she can't believe I've come back. So she jumps on me, so we're working on that. She has begun barking at people who come up to the house, not a nasty bark but just a-you don't belong here and I'm letting mom know, bark.

Even if we are not able to keep her because of the dental work or other health problems which may crop up. I feel better knowing that she's lived well and been taken care of the last few weeks of her life. She's a nice girl, and will be a good companion. I kinda hope it works out that she can stay.