Too Many Dogs

Four dogs are a lot.

Having two tiny gremlins is nerve wracking to say the least. When Murphy went in to get neutered. I about had to take a Xanax to get through the ordeal and he's the one who had surgery. He went through it with flying colors. He was an excellent anesthesia patient, the procedure went very well, and I was able to take him home that afternoon.

Murphy, however, was a terrible patient. He kept trying to lick his nether regions, so they put the cone of shame on him. He was more upset about the cone of shame than the surgery. He kept running into walls, he got the edge of the stupid thing caught on his kennel, and then he managed to paw it off twice and proceeded to lick until his business was red. He whined continuously and peed on the bed because he wouldn't go potty the first ten times I took him outside. He seemed to think the cone inhibited his ability to pee. I managed to figure out that putting his harness on him has the same effect as the cone, it's just not as scary. He's getting used to his harness now, but at the time he seemed to think when he wears his harness, he's in trouble or something so he doesn't do anything but sit and look miserable.

Two days later and he was fine. His usual rambunctious silly self, bouncing off the walls.

Colleen went in to get spayed a week later.

Turns out I gave the vet a nervous complex. I guess he and I both needed a Xanax. Colleen went through the surgery fine and everything was fine, but he admitted after the fact that he'd been a nervous wreck all week about it.

Words you never want to hear from your vet.

Well, Colleen doesn't even weigh four pounds (despite eating like a horse), and the vet said it's like performing a hysterectomy on a preemie. Perhaps in the future of papillon ownership I will lean towards the bigger ones.

I've panicked over Colleen three or four times already. As a three-month-old puppy, she fell off the cat ledge and fell six feet onto my art table. I heard a yelp and a whine, and I raced downstairs to find her standing on the art table looking completely bewildered. Cue call to emergency vet. I was hysterical. The nice man on call told me she was probably fine, she just needed to sleep it off, and if she wasn't fine to call back and bring her in. She slept that whole afternoon, snapped at her brother a few times for bothering her (it was his fault she took a flying leap in the first place), and the next day she was fine.

Then there was the choking incident. I think she was about five months old. I took all the dogs out to go potty. I turned my back for literally a second to scoop poop, and when I turned back around she was frantically pawing at her muzzle and freaking out. I scooped her up, shoved my fingers down her throat and felt a stick wedged in there. I, of course, panicked myself, and rushed her inside. I tried to remove the stick again and suddenly there was blood everywhere, down my finger, all over her paws. I called emergency vet hysterical, they told me to rush her over, and I was sure she would die in the meantime. I threw both gremlins in the car as I didn't know what to do with Murphy and there was no way I was leaving him alone. I got them to the vet clinic, and by this time Colleen was just sitting on the front seat staring at me with huge eyes, very much alive, seeming to breathe just fine. I realized the blood was mine. She'd gnawed my finger halfway to the bone. The vet checked her over, did x-rays, she came up completely healthy, and I paid a 300 dollar bill for my own stupidity.

Then there's Joy. Joy started to regress. Horribly in fact. She was doing well there for a while, and then I threw out the abusive asshole who was living with me and got two puppies, and suddenly she decided she's a puppy again too. She has become destructive. She has eaten my niece's favorite unicorn (that was traumatic - believe me, I used to be an eight-year-old little girl who cherishes all her stuffed animals, I can only imagine if a dog had eaten Fuzzy or Tuppy), two pillows (one being the first thing I ever sewed all by myself in eighth grade), and my mattress topper. I came home to find chunks of memory foam all over the bedroom and huge Jaws-like bite marks all along the edges of the topper on the bed. I was furious, but looking back now, I mean, Joy really should be renamed Jaws. It's kind of hilarious. I still have the topper. It's not ruined, and it's covered so whatever, but the bite marks really do look like a shark went after it.

Oh, Joy. She has started eating poop again, she barks at EVERY SINGLE DOG she sees, including the neighbor dogs that she sees literally every day, and she also barks at every distant bark she hears in the night. I can't let her outside when the neighbor pit bulls are out there. She and their female race to the break in the fence and bark at each other like they want to kill each other. Sometimes the neighbor dog starts it, and sometimes Joy starts it. I have bent over backwards trying to find the best diet I can for all my dogs and ended up making her sick with boiled chicken. She's always eaten chicken. Her kibble is chicken, she eats freeze-dried chicken treats, her Fresh Pet is chicken. But plain boiled chicken? Nothing added, thoroughly cooked through (I made sure) and total diarrhea. I felt awful. Poor dog. The other three dogs were fine.

I expected gastrointestinal issues from Tess. That dog had the tenderest tummy ever. Joy is a canine trash disposal. She'll literally eat shit off the ground, but chicken gave her the runs. Go figure.

And Kira? Well, Kira is my best child. She's older than the rest, seven or eight. Most of the time she's good as gold. She eats her food, she naps on her bed, and she stays out of the way. Then there was the night she almost killed Murphy. I took the four of them on a walk, something I have done many times and they are all usually pretty good (except for the dog reactive thing that suddenly everyone has acquired). I tie Joy (Jaws) around my waist, hold Kira's leash in my left hand, and the puppies in my right. The puppies wear harnesses. Joy wears a gentle leader. 

Anyway, downtown there are a bunch of statues displayed, and Murphy sort of lost his shit at the life-sized rhinoceros statue. Tess used to do that too. When I first got her, she freaked out at each statue until I walked up to it and put my hand on it to show her it wasn't alive. So I did the same with Murphy. Colleen pranced right up and gave it a sniff. Joy just sort of rolled her eyes at everyone. Kira decided she needed to cross to my other side so she could jump on the platform the rhino sits on. She jumped up, then down, then over Murphy, rolled him in the street, got everybody's leashes tangled and Murphy slipped his harness.

I had visions of him darting across Main Street and getting hit by a car. He started to run down the sidewalk with me chasing after him, dragging Joy who was still tied to my waist and Colleen who just follows me wherever I go. I had dropped Kira's leash and told her to stay by the rhino which she did, utterly terrified. Luckily it was a Friday evening and there wasn't much traffic. I was so panicked that of course Murphy ran away from me as I'm sure I terrified him. I finally crouched down and called him, and he creeped over to me, so I was able to grab him up in my arms.

We spent the next fifteen minutes sitting on that rhino platform with Murphy clutched against my chest, Kira sitting like a demure lady by my feet, Colleen next to me on the platform and Joy still thinking we were all nuts. I think I thanked God about twenty times, sitting there and Murphy didn't move a muscle, just snuggled in my lap and let me hold him. Meanwhile a cop car passed twice, probably wondering what the hell.

Traveling is fun too. When I want to go anywhere, I have to board Joy and Kira, and drive the gremlins down to Colorado so my best friend can watch them. It's no longer just leaving my menagerie with my friend and one time house-sitter the Cowboy to watch them. He even offered again, "Hey, I'll watch your pets any time," and he just doesn't understand that this is not like it was with Tess. Tess was easy. In nice weather I could leave her out on the porch with food and water and she just watched the world go by. Now when I leave even for four hours to go to work, I have to lock Kira in the bedroom, Joy in the hallway, the gremlins each in their own kennels, and everyone gets a Kong to keep them occupied. Otherwise, Joy will destroy my house and eat the bed.

It is a fiasco, let me tell you.

These guys will be the death of me.