Duncan Had A Very Very Bad Day

Yesterday afternoon Duncan was hit by a car, a little before 4 PM. The side of his head took most of the impact. We rushed him to the hospital where they worked to stop the brain from swelling further. The x-rays showed nothing broken (!) and no internal bleeding probably because his body wasn't hit - just his head really. This morning it appears that the swelling has stopped, but his one pupil is still dilated indicating he's not out of the woods yet. They have decided he's stable enough to endure the anesthesia he needs for stitching up his lip laceration. He urinated today, which is a good sign that his internal organs aren't failing.

It is so awful to feel responsible for this. And I wasn't even there - my mom feels more directly responsible although I've assured her that I don't feel that way towards her. My heart hurts for my dear doggie. I can't believe he's survived it, but I also can't believe that he still might not make it. The vet won't make any promises. I understand why, but I still wish he would. Could.

Why haven't we bought a fence - didn't we say the same thing last time something like this happened?? More updates to come...

Wandered into some trouble

Around 6:30 Sunday evening, my husband was working in the yard, and the dogs were outside off their leashes. We don’t have a fence, but Suzie has lived with us long enough she knows where the boundaries are. Duncan though, hasn’t learned them yet. My husband turned his back to look for something in the garage, and apparently he was turned around for longer than he thought. In that time, Duncan wandered into the street and got hit by a car.

The neighbor saw him get hit, but didn’t know whose dog it was until my husband went looking for Duncan and asked him about it. “Yeah,” he said, “I did see a little white dog get hit by a car and then he bolted.” They went looking for Duncan, and realized that Suzie might follow them into neighbors’ yards so my husband brought her back to the house. He went looking some more, and when he still didn’t find the dog he turned towards home to tell me what happened and to ask for my help to find Duncan. When he got to the door, Duncan was there waiting to be let inside.

About 7:00 he told me that “my little one” as he said, had been hit by a car, I was in disbelief. Because I didn’t see the dog, at this point I had no idea how badly he was hurt or even if he was alive. My face drained, my chest felt like I’d been punched, and at first all I could think about was how I was going to tell the Humane Society about it. They had asked for a picture and a brief update after he was home with us for a while, and how could I possibly tell them that we’d allowed this to happen?

Duncan made it up the stairs and ran to me. I checked him over and he didn’t seem to have any serious injuries. There was some blood, so I put him in the sink to find out how bad it was. It was just a scrape, and otherwise he was fine. My husband went back to the neighbor's to report the good news. The neighbor was really mad at the driver, who didn't even slow down. Duncan had been in the lane for so long that the driver either hit him on purpose or had his eyes off the road for way too long. He told the story of his terrier that was killed by a car on that road just a few years ago, during the Super Bowl no less so that day turned really sad really fast.

Over the next couple of hours, I spoke with my mom and read some articles on the web – the potential for internal injuries got me worried, and I started looking for signs. He was acting like he was in pain, laying down a lot, and his eye was twitching a little.

So by 9:00 decided to take him to the animal hospital. There are lots of vets in our area who use the words “animal hospital” when they name the practice – so I thought there would be a lot of nearby options for treatment. But when I called around, all of the after-hours recordings were sending me to just three 24/7 emergency rooms in the area. One is on the shore an hour away, one is in South Jersey 45 minutes away, and one is in Philadelphia (across the river, past a $3 toll, and in the next state) that was only 40 minutes away. So we went to Philadelphia. I was really surprised that there was nothing closer than this.

On the way there, I explained to my husband that I was glad we were going. Even though we were pretty sure he was fine, and we knew it would be expensive, it was worth it to know he was okay. I would have worried about him all night otherwise. And I explained how much I had invested in this dog, both emotionally and financially. We had looked for him for a long time, I had driven a long way and taken time off work to go get him, we had paid a lot of money to adopt him, and I was really attached at the heart.

We got there a little before 10:00. After they took him and determined he was not in immediate danger, we had to sit in the waiting room for a long time waiting for a more thorough exam – lots of other animals were coming in that night that were in very bad straits. One dog came in very sick and bleeding out, and he didn’t make it. The teenage girl that had brought that dog was just bawling in the lobby, very distraught over her sudden loss. I told my husband that I would act that way too if our dog died.

“Really? You’re that much attached?”
“Yes, remember how I told you there was a lot invested in him?”
“I didn’t know it was THAT much.”
“Yeah, it’s that much.”
“We need to get a fence.”

It was tough to sit in the waiting room and watch all the other anxious owners, and to see all the animals that were really bad off. It was a very tense two hours.

But the vet told us our dog was unscathed, a little bruised, his bloodwork was normal, and he sent us home with a course of anti-inflammatory meds. He advised us to watch Duncan’s breathing over the next day or two because sometimes those problems only show up over time. Whew! $135 later, at about midnight, we were out of there.

And then in the car on the way home:
Hubby: “And we need to get him microchipped.”
Me: “We sure do. We don’t want him to get hurt or lost.”
“I worry more about YOU than him. If he got hurt or lost, now I know how much crying I would have to deal with!”

Our new adopted quadruped mammal

On Tuesday I checked my email and read about a Cavachon in a Humane Society shelter in northern New Jersey. We've been looking for one of these dogs for months, and were about to resort to paying a breeder over $1000 for a puppy. But wouldn't it be great to help a doggie who needs a home, and save money to boot? So we kept waiting and our patience paid off:


He's between 2 and 3 years old, and his previous owner named him Rocky. We changed his name to Duncan. He was brought to the shelter because his human parents were working too much, leaving him alone 10+ hours a day. He cried all day every day, and was becoming destructive. We don't have that problem, so he's perfect for us! Here he is an hour after I brought him into the house:


He's a bit timid and behaves as though he's probably gotten smacked in the past. Duncan is a very mellow boy. He loves to curl up behind my knees and rest his adorable chin on my ankles. There's almost nothing more endearing that a doggie could do! My mom's dog is a 3-year-old field trial labrador (HIGH energy) is just tormenting him. She wants to sniff him, mount him, and otherwise demonstrate her dominance. We have been able to keep her under control with close supervision, and by separating them when we're away. We'll start working with them both this weekend, with the aim to make them buddies -- on equal ground with no aggressive dominance and no fearful submission. It might take more than one weekend, but we'll get there. We have to!

New house needs a new dog

We're looking for a dog. We've been thinking about it for a long time, but we finally got serious about it a few months ago when my mom brought her dog for her visit at our new house. We really liked having her dog around, and we started to really want our own dog.

After considering our needs, we decided the best option was to adopt a retired Seeing Eye dog. We sent in an application and have been on the waiting list for about three months. They said the wait could be "extensive," but we were okay with that because that is really the dog we wanted to have. We found out later that an "extensive" wait is about one to four years.

Then last week the Westminster Kennel Club broadcast their annual dog show, and we watched the whole thing. Both nights. After that show, we saw that we had so many more options available. Our #1 dog became a Cavachon, and I started watching our area shelters to find an adoptable one. I'm still waiting for a Cavachon to show up, but I'm truly torn. I want to keep waiting for the Seeing Eye dog, but I also want to give a home to a shelter dog who really needs me. Especially if that could be a Cavachon or something close to it.

We went to our County animal shelter last night so that I could practice NOT taking a dog home with me. And so that I could practice some skills I saw on a recent episode of Dog Whisperer, where Cesar Millan goes to a shelter and explains why this family shouldn't adopt this dog or that dog, and he showed why this last dog was the most balanced dog in the facility. So I wanted to look for a balanced dog, and really I only found one yesterday. And he was too big for us, so it wasn't that hard to walk away. I did have to consciously avoid thinking about what would happen to those cuties if nobody took them, and it was not easy. I did want to help all of them.

After my mom moves into our house with her dog, perhaps we'll feel less urgency to get our own dog. It might be easier then to wait for the Seeing Eye dog to become available. But if mom's dog doesn't do it for us, and there's no suitable Cavachons around, and we just can't wait for the Seeing Eye dog any longer, then maybe we'll look for a breeder who can sell us a Cavachon puppy. But for now, I'm just trying to wait for my mom's dog to get here. I don't want to have to make any other dog decisions until then - the real trick is not to be swayed by my husband, who wants a doggie NOW.