Before this new addition, our family consisted of Q, me, the three girls, two dogs (Ally - 14 1/2 and Suki - 9 1/2), and four cats (Jasmine - 13, Misty - 12, Kit Kat - 11, Snickers - 11). We have a full house, but Ally is a golden retriever and I've always said that I wanted to get a puppy well before it was her time to go. I was still planning on waiting until December (after a trip) to get a new dog and I wasn't planning on such a young puppy. However, a friend was caring for a stray that had puppies that needed homes fairly quickly and so Q agreed to up our schedule.
Kyra is quite smart. Today is day three at our house and she's already learned her name and is taking really well to crate training. She has got a great temperament and is great around her new siblings, both human and feline. My two dogs haven't been that friendly. Ally avoids her and gets up and moves whenever the puppy comes near her. Suki isn't that bad, but after spending even a little time with Kyra, she will get up and start loving on Ally, licking her face and nuzzling her. It is still early in their relationship so we'll see. I picked up Kyra from my friend's house and took her straight to the vet to be checked out before I brought her home. She was 3 pounds almost exactly (the runt by far of the litter) and has a heart murmur and intestinal parasites. They were going to run more tests on the fecal sample, but I don't know when I'll get that info back.
My friend told me the mother was a rott mix, but the vet says she is a shepherd mix and the puppy is a shepherd boxer mix. Here is the picture I have of her mom.
Like my Ally and Suki, Kyra has a white spot on her chest and that just makes me happy. We call Suki's her floppy dog spot because if you scratch her white spot, she relaxes all her muscles completely and becomes floppy.
Darth Baby and Kyra have fallen hard for each other and they never seem to be more than 3 feet apart unless Kyra is in her crate. You'll notice that Darth Baby will even ditch her favorite stuffed animal Pooh Bear for the puppy. Darth Baby also likes to strip her clothing and shoes off at the first opportunity. I don't let the girls go outside unless they have shoes on and because she doesn't want to not be able to go out with me when I take Kyra out to potty, Darth Baby's shoes no longer voluntarily come off. The first thing she did this morning was to yell for 'Ally', which is what she is calling Kyra. When she found her, she immediately started yelling, "Shoe! Shoe!" We even caught her stark naked with just her shoes on shortly after returning to the house after mass this morning.
The nerdlet and the bear cub also seem really pleased with her, though the bear cub is a little jealous and comes to Q and I to get more hugs when Kyra is near us. She has said 'Kyra' which is a hugedeal because she is still mostly non-verbal.
On the confession side, Ally has always had an issue with hair loss. When my mom was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, we joked that that Ally must have gotten it from her grandma. Over the past couple of years, she has lost more and more hair and more and more weight. This has coincided with slowing down, too. I assumed it was old age and didn't much worry about it. This past week she got some sores on her head and I was worried that she was hurting herself, so I took her in. The sores turned out to be pressure spots, similar to bed sores, from where she leans against the sliding glass door, but that isn't what this is about. When they weighed her I was shocked, she was under 40 pounds (at her heaviest she was 78 pounds and ideally around 65). Her bones stick out and I assumed that it was because of the arthritis and age; I had no idea that she had lost that much weight. The techs treated me like I was intentionally starving her and I don't blame them, but if anything I have been feeding her more than I ever had, in both dog food and human snacks. The vet told me that it was obvious that she has a metabolic disorder. They are doing a chemical work up to see what is going on, but I feel just horrible. I left the vet and burst into tears when I started the car and bawled the whole way home. I've doubled her food intake (giving her the same amount in the morning and evening, adding two additional meals, and giving her daily snacks) and I should hear the results this coming week.
On the plus side, I had asked for some pain meds for her on the bad days where she has a hard time moving around or is acting grouchy with Suki. The vet prescribed Rimadyl and gave her one there. When we arrived home, Ally leaped out of the van. Ally stopped taking stairs before Darth Baby was born and I've been lifting her in and out of the van since we got it. Talk about a great pain killer. I think I'll be giving it to her in halves because I'm afraid she'll actually hurt herself.
I'm not going to post a current picture of Ally because I'm truly ashamed at what she looks like now, but I have a picture of her when I first got Jasmine and she mothered her, giving her tongue baths and carrying her around in her mouth like she was her puppy that I found recently.
Aww, what a sweet puppy.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry your older dog is ailing. :( Shortly before my mother's old huskie died (Lymphoma), he got out of the yard and was found by a shopkeeper about a block away. No idea how he had the energy to run at that point... but he was so emaciated and weak one of the ladies who found him was quite nasty to my mother for "abusing" her dog. /sigh. Not fun. Hopefully Ally will be feeling better soon!