Sunshine and Light

Belated Happy Anniversary

It's just a little over 3 years ago that we brought home a skinny 5 month old puppy with tails, ears, and paws too big for him. His tail was skinny and ratty, and portions of him looked like they were on loan from another, bigger dog. As my husband says, all he needed to complete that teenage look was braces and acne.

The wonderdog was the bright spot at the end of a really LONG year that ended with my husband's father dying. So at Christmas time, sort of simultaneously, I decided to get him a puppy and he decided to campaign for a puppy. We walked dogs at a local shelter, and spent days checking out various dog shelters around the area, and surfing the web. Finally, I stumbled over Petfinder.com and there was our boy. But it wasn't all home free at that point. For one thing, there were 6 cute 6 week old aussie shepherd/black lab puppies 2 cages over. My poor husband, it was his dog, but I totally overrode him on the puppies. There was just something about our boy, that made me want to take him home. For another, we hadn't precisely cleared it with my landlord. So even after finding him, we still had to leave him at the shelter while we went home and got proof that it was ok to have our marauding puppy in my house. The problem is that until you sign the paperwork, the dog is not yours in the shelter world. We were lucky in that the shelter was closed the next day (although it didn't FEEL lucky at the time) which allowed us to get our act together and come back the following day. We were there when the place opened, and my husband sat in the cage with our new family member until the last i was dotted and the last t crossed. (The dog was staying with me, so I had paperwork duties) He sat there and snarled at anyone who even looked at fuzzbutt for roughly two hours, although the staff finally took pity on him and let him walk the monster around outside in the snow.

And thus began a rewarding and educational three years. Three painful years for our friends, I'm sure, since they have to listen to endless "cute Fred" stories and "clever Fred stories" and of course the "cute and clever Fred" stories. But it's ok, we break it up by showing them "cute Fred" pictures.

Our first big learning experience came 10 days in, when our puppy started throwing up. A lot. And that was the education into the phrase "sick as a dog". He lay on our kitchen floor, trembling, while we helplessly fluttered around him. Finally my husband got in touch with one of his teammates who is an emergency vet, and she told him to give Fred Pepto Bismal. You'd be amazed how hard it is to get Pepto into a puking puppy using a spoon. There were pink smears on the walls, the floor, my tennis shoes. But finally we got enough down that he stopped throwing up. My husband moved the puppy onto the sleeper sofa, and slept with him there all night. The next morning we took him to the vet who gave him assorted shots, including one to settle nausea. We realized the next day he had worms, and since it was Sunday when we figured it out, Monday we were back at the vet.

The good news is that since then, he's been a happy healthy dog.

Happy anniversary, Fred!

posted by MyHusbandRules @ 6:23 AM