Tula Has a Heart of Gold
Tula went into full labor last night — about four days early. We took the pups this morning — two of them, one brindle girl, one pied girl. The rest was fluid – a LOT of fluid. My 19 lb girl weighed 26.3 at the vet’s office this morning, and opening her up was like Niagara Falls. I kept asking the vet “Where’s the rest of the puppies? Are you SURE you checked both horns?”.
The bad news — one of the pups did not make it. We never got a heart beat, in spite of her being full sized. The one who didn’t make it wasn’t even in a horn — she was in the body of the uterus. The other pup, the double hooded pied girl, is lovely and thankfully doing well. She has a tiny, perfectly formed, symmetrical heart shaped brindle marking right above her butt. It looks like a stick on tattoo.
So, she is now Bullmarket Absolut Heart of Gold. No call name, until she’s been here a week or so and is doing fine…
As of right now, she’s vigorous, screamy, and eating like a little piglet — just what I want to see in a puppy. So far, so good.
Sean buried her sister under our cedars this afternoon, with the puppy we lost one year ago this week.
Here’s a short video of the baby, taken just a few hours after she was born. Lots of snorking, snuffling noises in this one (hey, they don’t do much at this age).
Frenchie with a candle fetish & Nell demands a retraction
Veterinary Pet Insurance Announces First Winner in Monthly Contest Highlighting Bizarre Pet Accidents
from The Sun Herald —
BREA, Calif., Aug. 26 — Most people’s diets contain too much sugar. But for Sugar, the Jack Russell terrier, the problem was too much turtle. After meeting a wild turtle in the back yard, Sugar decided to have her new friend for dinner. Sugar’s method for disposing of the turtle’s shell — eating it — left her with a small piece of the shell lodged in her nasal cavity. After weeks of respiratory difficulty and inconclusive X-rays, veterinarians performed surgery and found the piece of shell, which Sugar’s owner, Ginger Reynolds, now has in a small glass tube.
“She started having trouble after eating the turtle, but we really didn’t think that part of the shell was stuck in her nose!” said Reynolds. “The veterinarians had never seen anything like it, and they did an amazing job given the unusual circumstances. Thanks to them Sugar is back to normal.”
Reynolds’ claim for Sugar’s surgery was one of more than 80,000 claims received in the month of July by Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI), the nation’s oldest and largest provider of pet health insurance. A veterinarian’s note included with the claim caught the attention of VPI’s claims department: “Sugar was caught red-pawed eating a turtle.” The claim was considered among other unusual medical claims submitted in July and, at the end of the month, VPI employees voted Sugar’s claim the most bizarre of the bunch.
Though undeniably unique, Sugar’s claim was not without competition. Honorable mentions included Louie, a one-year-old French bulldog who ingested more than 50 tea light candles; Ember, a six-year-old mixed breed dog who chased and caught her own tail, breaking it in several places; Bubba, a two-year-old Boston terrier who was shut into a recliner; and Oakley, a ten-month-old Labrador who ate a box of disposable razors. All of the pets with a claim considered for the distinction have fully recovered and received insurance reimbursement for eligible treatment costs.
50 tea lights? Even Bunny couldn’t eat 50 of them. 20 maybe, but not 50 – although she did eat a clock radio on the weekend.
And now, a statement from Ms. Penelope —
Penelope would like me to point that she is not, contrary to my previous post, cranky. In fact, she’s merely discomfited by the fact that something the size and shape of a cantaloupe is lodged underneath her rib cage.
Point taken, Ms. P, and my apologies.
Penelope says “You carry this around all day and see how rainbows and butterflies you’d be feeling”.
School Kids Raise Money for Frenchie With Cancer
Sigmund Frog is a school counselor at Patton Elementary school in Austin, Texas. Unlike most school counselors, Sigmund works for a rather unusual pay scale — belly rubs and cookies.
Sigmund – better known as ‘Sig’ – is a brindle French Bulldog belonging to school counselor Kathy Moore. Moore discovered that kids related to her better when she brought Sig along to counseling sessions, and he’s been accompanying her to school ever since. Now, it would be unthinkable for kids to not see Sig along side Linda. In fact, some of them feel he’s a bigger part of their counseling than Moore is.
“The dog makes us happy because it, like, snuggles with us,” Spencer says.
“Good boy, Siggie,” says a student.
“Sig especially has a way of knowing when a child is really in need, and he will zero in on them,” Moore continues.
When Sigmund was diagnosed with cancer – a disease that can be prohibitively expensive to treat in dogs – the kids of Patton Elementary school insisting on helping to pay for his chemo treatments. Owner Moore was initially reluctant to accept their help, but finally relented —
“It gives the kids a stake in Sigmund getting well,” Moore says.
“I didn’t realize how important it was for them to feel like they were helping him,” Moore says.
Read the full article here.
It’s now four months later, and the kids at Patton Elementary are back at school – and so is Sigmund, his cancer almost beaten, and his chemo treatments almost over.
“We got great news that there were no reactive lymph nodes,” said Moore. “That means there are no indications of more cancer.”
A summer long chemotherapy program helped, but Sig’s liver reacted poorly to the drugs. So, doctors tried again with a new chemo regimen and the dog responded well. There are still a couple of sessions left, but things are looking up, and Sig’s counseling appointment book is filling up.
Read the full second story here.
The students at Patton have their counselor back — and best of all, they have Sig’s shoulder to cry on, and his ear to whisper in.
His first client of the new school year is a child named Destiny. Destiny Arriaga made her way to the counselor’s office with the aid of a cane. She is blind, and though children at Patton are supportive and helpful, making one’s way in a school full of sighted kids has its pitfalls. So, Destiny has regular visits with Moore, and more to the point, with Sig.
“I love him, said Destiny. “He snuggles with me.”
Moore watches child and dog delight in each other.
Here are the two KXAN videos of Sig’s story — the first from May, and the second just released. After the jump, as the videos start playing automatically.
Tula might possibly explode
Poor Tula — I’m afraid if she gets any bigger, she might just possibly explode. She’s always been a petite girl, at about 18 pounds, so it’s fairly shocking to see her go from her normal lithe, active self to this, in under two months.
And of course, what happens when way pregnant girls with big, big bellies lie on their backs?
Why they get stuck, of course.
Penelope continues to be about as unthrilled as it is possible for a dog to be about this entire experience. We caught her sending away for a copy of “Baby NOT on Board” the other night. I think she’s dropping us a hint.
Delilah thinks all the fuss is just borrr-ing, especially since her diet means she’s not getting any extra snackin’ time fall out (she’s rather voluptuous, I’m afraid). Tessa, of course, is so sick of anything to do with puppies or pregnancy that she’s decided the best approach to take is studious avoidance (read: extra naps).
Ten days and change to go for Tula, and two weeks and change for Penelope… the count down continues.