WOOO WOOO WOOO!!

Zsa Zsa is visiting with us for the week. I missed her soooo much! Zsa Zsa (who is now named Natasha) was a foster of mine for 4 months and was adopted early this year. She is the one foster I will always regret someone adopting from me. I so wanted her but since my house is small, I knew if I kept her, that would be one less dog I could help save.

Her new mommy asked me if I wanted to keep Zsa Zsa while they were on vacation over the Thanksgiving holiday. HELLO?!! YES!!! They came by this morning with Zsa Zsa on their way to the airport. I was very happy to see her although she has changed sooo much! Her undercoat is very thick now and is a creamy white color under her black outer coat. Since it is so thick, it shows through everywhere. She is blowing her coat in spots too so I broke out the undercoat rake today. I have quite the collection of Zsa Zsa fur now. (Why do I keep the fur? I will tell you why; Fur can be made into felt which can then be made into stuffed animals, like huskies!!)

She still comes up to me and lays her head in my lap (which I love!!)! She still woos when she is straightening up after stretching too. But she has developed a new habit...She sticks her paw in the water bowl before she takes a drink. While we are outside, it is too funny, inside is another story :o) I still love her regardless of how wet the floors get.


She does still love to play with puppies too. She spent most of the day playing with my 5 month old foster, Picasso. Picasso is understandably exhausted tonight.

Bart has really done it this time!

I took yesterday off work so I could get some cleaning done at my house before the window replacement dude showed up today. Things were going well. I had to vacuum and move things from in front of the windows so the window guy could actually get to the windows. No problem, right? I was in and out of the house most of the day, running to the store, going to my kids' school to meet with a teacher, and then the kids and I had dentist appointments in the afternoon. All sounds pretty normal, huh? Well, it didn't turn out that way.

When I leave the house, all of my foster dogs get crated but I let my Bart stay loose in the house to wander as he pleases. I completely forgot how upset he gets with me when I am in and out of the house all day long. HE didn't forget though and he decided to remind me just how upset he was with me when we left to go to the dentist. Here was my evening from about 5:15pm on....

We got home from the dentist, entered the house and found everything possible that could be gotten off the counter in the kitchen on the floor of the living room. Bart stood there looking at us like this was absolutely fine since he was ticked off and should be able to show it. We started picking up everything and found a whole slew of things that he should not have had if only he hadn't been ticked off: The insoles of the one pair of work shoes that still had insoles were out of my shoes and chewed almost beyond recognition; A package of strawberry, unfrosted pop tarts; Used tissues taken out of the trash; All of the dog food bowls, one of which still had some leftovers from one of my foster dogs breakfast; A stack of plastic disposable plates, shredded of course; And the real kicker (and the reason for this blog), to my horror, we found an empty Rimadyl bottle. I had this out on the counter because I have a puppy I am fostering who was just neutered. There we still about 8-10 pills in the bottle when I set it on the counter that morning, but now it was completely empty. I started freaking out. I called our vet and the first thing he asked was how many pills were in the bottle. Of course, I can't think or count at the moment because I am freaking out. Then he asked how long ago he did this. It had to be within the last hour and a half because we left the house around 3:45pm. He said to get a cup of peroxide and pour it down his throat! I was told to do this immediately and then to repeat in about a half hour, then give him a pepcid and bring him in for kidney and liver function tests in the morning.

Let me interject here to say that I have 4 other dogs in my home at the moment and two semi-responsible teenagers (I use the word responsible loosely here). My kids were supposed to be going around the neighborhood last night with our cutest little puppy to sell hockey tickets to the Indiana Ice/Green Bay Gamblers game that we are doing as a fundraiser in partnership with the Ice. Picasso, the cutest little puppy ever, is getting leashed and the girls are getting ready to go while I am on the back patio with Bart trying to force him to drink peroxide.

The process of removing a potentially life-threatening substance from the stomach of a dog goes something like this: 1.) Open a bottle of peroxide, hold in your hand and have at the ready to pour. 2.) Get your dogs' butt backed up into a corner, this is to keep the dog from backing up and making his escape. 3.) Straddle the dog and hold him with your knees to keep him from flinging himself to either side to escape. 4.) Stick your free hand into the dogs' mouth and pry open. 5.) Pour in a swallowful of peroxide. 6.) Let go of the dogs' mouth to allow him to swallow. 7.) Repeat steps 1-6 until a cup of peroxide has been ingested. 8.) Let dog run away from you into a fully fenced backyard to harf up the contents of his stomach. 9.) Inspect contents of stomach that have been harfed up in the backyard, then bag the contents and rinse the area thoroughly so none of the other dogs can eat it. 10.) Repeat steps 1-9 until stomach is completely empty. 11.) Give your dog plenty of water and a pepcid tablet. 12.) Monitor your dog throughout the night until your vet appointment the next morning.

I got to step 9 and realized I was out of peroxide (why don't I stock up on these kinds of things?) and needed to run to the store. I hear one of my daughters yelling out front for Vivi (one of my foster dogs who is going to her forever home Friday evening). Since I have no fence in the front of my house, I run like mad to get to through the house while yelling for my other daughter to keep an eye on Bart while he is harfing.

I grab my keys as I am booking through the house. I get out front and see Vivi a few houses down on the other side of the street. This isn't so bad, I think to myself. I will drive down there, open the door and she will just jump in the car because she loves to go for car rides. I drive down the couple of houses and the daughter who came with me opens the back door. We both yell out very convincingly, I thought, that we wanted to take her for a ride. She looks at us, grins as if to say, let me take you for a ride and runs down a few more houses. I drive to where she is, entice her again, she runs a few more houses down. I repeat these steps until I am about 2 houses from the end of the road which is a main thoroughfare and it is rush hour! I get out of the car, grab a leash from the backseat (leaving my car running, unlocked and sitting in the middle of the road mind you) and ask if Vivi wants to go for a walk. I turn away from her to see if she will come after me but, NO, she isn't having it and she runs across the busy street! NARROWLY escaping being struck by cars travelling in both directions!! I am screaming bloody murder now because she has me scared so badly, but thankfully she is running towards a soccer field where a game is being played. (I ran across the street too but I actually looked to see if there was anyone coming.) Surely the spectators will help me. But, NO! I cannot believe that a soccer field and bleachers full of people seeing a grown woman running after a husky waving a leash in the air and calling out a name (the dogs name, HELLO?!!!!) won't stop and help a person out and grab the freaking collar of the dog. What is wrond with people today. Two girls even leapt away from her, scared. How stupid is that? Every husky I have ever met has always been like "lick now, ask questions later." Anyway, while standing in the middle of the soccer field, thankfully the one not being used by soccer players, Vivi ran up to me, layed down on the ground and wanted me to pet her tummy. I grabbed her collar, attached the leash and started walking home. I guess at some point I threw my cell phone to my daughter who was with me and asked her to call my neighbor to go pick up my car from the middle of the street because as I was walking homr, I saw my car safely ensconced in my driveway, off and locked:o)

I am at home now and realize I still need more peroxide. I go to the store, get the peroxide and pepcid, come home repeat the steps listed above and finally I am able to rest (yeah, right!) and watch over my Bart baby to see how he does throughout the night - it was one long night.

Bart had his blood drawn this morning and sent out for his tests, now I am playing the waiting game. Did I get to him in time? How much did he digest? He better be alright!!!!!

Bart's Mom.
(harf bag anyone?)