Tuesday, September 14, 2010

What a Long, Strange Monday it Was . . .

Talk about a bad Monday . . .

Yesterday, I started my 15 minutes a day 12 step writing regime, and I even have a sponsor.
I had already had a conversation with the family about mom needing to finish her graduate school career. At 50, it's getting ridiculous! And that means starting the dissertation. Because 90% of dissertations that are not finished were never started.

And yesterday I did several hours of housework in order to get some order back after First Day Rosh Hashannah (no work done), Second Day Rosh Hashannah (no work done), followed immediately by Saturday--an all-day seminar (no work done). I was feeling proud of myself after I put in my 15 minutes of writing that expanded to 30, followed by phone calls and getting a necessary form filled out for the Catron County Assessor--for the Ranch!!!--and a trip to the Albuquerque Uptown Borders store to purchase Strunk and White. (That's The Elements of Style, and oldie but goodie!)

I was feeling on top of things. I was doing my life pretty well indeed.
Or so I thought . . .

I picked up the Rasta Jew from Cross Country practice at about 6, and when we pulled up, I asked him to bring the dogs in. Shayna was already inside, but Lily and Umbrae were in the dog run.

Now usually, the Rasta Jew waits a while before bringing them in. He generally needs to inhabit his room alone for a while, and reassure himself that he is part of his space. So, looking forward to sitting down to read a book about a city girl turned farmer, I went about putting away some clothes in the closet. And was suddenly surrounded by two very excited, wild and crazy dogs. (I usually make them all sit in the dog run before I open the gate, and again at the door before I let them in. I do this to avoid what happened next. And when Lily jumped up on the bed, I ordered her down. And she jumped straight over the footboard and right onto Shayna.

We had a repeat of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in my bedroom.

Except that the Rasta Jew had to dry fire his pellet rifle next to Lily's head to break her away from Shayna. So it was a Monday evening trip to the Vet Urgent Care with Shayna, who had multiple abraisions and wounds on her left foreleg and chest. She was more serverely injured than I thought by looking at her.
Over three hundred dollars later, I was ready to take Lily in for immediate euthanasia.
Rehoming her seems irresponsible since I'd just be passing the problem on to someone else. . .

The Urgent Care Vet gave us the name of an animal behaviorist, and the Engineering Rancher Geek, who had initially said we should euthanize Lily today, spent 45 minutes on the phone with one of the researchers. I filled out a very long questionnaire, as did the ERG. To see this person will be quite expensive, but that expense includes a full medical evaluation and lab tests. If this leads to a definitive answer that either something can be done or it cannot, it could give us peace with whatever decision we make.

In the meantime, upon return from the vet last night, a groggy Shayna went into her crate and has refused to come out in nearly 24 hours. I cannot give her the antibiotics--the priciest item on the estimate for her care--but I think if I can just entice her to eat one of the liver-flavored pain tablets, she will come out and eat, drink and take the antibiotics. And take a short, halting walk outside . . . this is the longest Shayna-on-strike we've had since we brought her home.

Whatever hard choices we make in the next few days, for sure we cannot let this happen to poor Shayna again.

Oy. I don't like Mondays. At least, not Mondays like this!





5 comments:

Karen said...

A difficult day indeed. Have you considered powdering the antibiotics and mixing them into tempting food? This is often a good choice. It might be an option for the pain meds as well.

tm said...

We had to get rid of a difficult doggie to aggression with children. We were all ready to put him out of our misery the permanent way when a childless couple chose to adopt him. I was reluctant, but they had a behaviorist evaluate him and signed a "hold harmless" agreement. The situation is frustrating. Hope you work things out--one way or another.

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Karen: Thanks! Worry tends to narrow my creativity and although I had soaked the liver flavored pain pill in chicken drippings and served it that way, I had never thought about crushing up the antibiotic tablets. Got it down her stirred into potroast drippings and rice. This morning, the same breakfast meant the second antibiotic went down painlessly. I bribed her out of the crate with doggie biscuits. She's been out, and is now napping.

Kim: This is hard, isn't it? We are going to see the behaviorist and find out if he can help place this dog. Although she is not agressive to children, being agressive to Shayna is not acceptable. It's a good thing the ERG was not there, though. He would have probably shot her out in the woods, he was so angry. We hope not to put her down, but I also don't want to pass on a problem . . .

Brianna said...

Maybe if she is only vicious to other dogs, you could give her to someone who would keep her as an only pet?

Karen said...

While I've had too much experience getting meds into animals, needing to get 18 pills into a horse twice a day drove the idea of pulverizing or dissolving pills well into my head. :) (Applesauce, in case you were wondering) Glad it helped.

Hopefully the behaviorist will have good information.