Back to Square One

I found out earlier today that we’re back to square one in terms of Cindy’s adoption

Short story is that the home which was selected as Cindy’s forever home withdrew from the process. This isn’t the appropriate place for details but I understand the family’s decision.

However, I’m obviously disappointed and honestly a bit depressed. We were so close to getting Cindy to her forever home and I was emotionally prepared to say good-bye to her and now we’re back into the great unknown. Cindy will now be re-posted for adoption and applications will again be accepted.

“I’ll just wait right here until you find me a home.”

Cindy has been with us for five-and-a-half months and it looks like she’ll be staying with us for a while longer which is really more than fine with me. I (obviously) love Cindy and she’s the least-needy dog ever, so I’m mostly just trying to accept the fact that the next few weeks will continue to be in flux for all of us.

Eventually we’ll find the perfect home for this squishy face:

“All I need is couch and I’m happy!”

Beyond Weird

Well, Lucy has taken her weirdness to entirely new levels this weekend. I had long planned to make the trip to northern New Jersey to spend Father’s Day Weekend with my parents. For a while it looked like I would be dropping Cindy off at her forever home on my way, but that did not happen…a different story for a different day.

Thus, since Cindy was not going to her new home, I made the decision to take Lucy on a road trip to NJ while Cindy stayed back at home in Pennsylvania with Marty.

It has been well documented that Lucy is weird, which could not be more evident when it comes to my dad.

Well, Lucy has gone and outdone herself this weekend. It normally takes her a good 20 minutes to a half hour to warm up to my dad. This picture was taken 24 hours after we’d gotten here and is pretty much as close as she’s gotten to my dad all weekend.

“I will not come any closer, not even for food.”

Honest to God, I’m just about at my wits end. She not only refuses to go near my dad, she also will not walk on the linoleum floor, will not go outside and once outside, will not come inside. There are painters working on the outside of our house – won’t go near them. Our neighbor offered her a treat and she acted as if it were poisoned – would not take the treat from him. She won’t let anyone pet her and she’s acting utterly depressed. I even resorted to buying a stuffie for her, which she destroyed in less than 30 minutes but did not seem to make her any happier.

I have had to literally drag her out from underneath the table she enjoys “hiding” under to get her to go outside to do her business. I haven’t the faintest idea what has gotten into her; she’s spent extended time with my parents before and we were here for a few days over the holidays a few months ago.

There’s only so many times I can reassure my family that Lucy isn’t actually this weird all the time before they stop believing me. I just wish I knew what has weirded her out.

But being so stressed and high-strung has finally made her crash.

Feeling safe between the couch and “her” table.

Rooting from Afar

As I write this, Marty is in the midst of racing in the 70.3 Ironman triathlon in Cambridge, Maryland, vying for a spot in the World Championships in Hawaii this October. Normally I would be with him at the race; I went last year and despite the eight hours of spectating and waiting, I really had a good time. This year, however, I was not able to travel due to the adorable reasons below:

Adorable Reason #1

Adorable Reason #2 (by the way, how is this comfortable??)

Last year Marty’s race was in Rhode Island which is obviously north of where we live, so on the way to the race we dropped Lucy off with my parents, who live in northern New Jersey. We had actually (naively) planned on bringing Lucy but my mom offered to keep her for the weekend which worked out for the best because, as previously mentioned, we had a near eight-hour day not including travel, and temperatures soared to probably close to 90 degrees if not over?

Anyway, despite the fact that Maryland is south of here, I was willing to drive Lucy to my parents’ earlier this week so we could travel to this weekend’s race sans dog, but we have a little squish named Cindy who is still with us. I did not want to force two dogs on my parents and bringing them to the race wasn’t even remotely a possibility. I probably wouldn’t have even wanted to bring one dog; Lucy is great at races, but these Ironman races are (obviously) on the longer side and it’s just not fair to bring a dog.

So the dogs and I are currently stationed on the couch nervously watching the live results on my laptop. I feel badly that I wasn’t able to travel to the race and if the race were one week later, Cindy probably would have been in her new, forever home. However, that’s not how things worked out but instead of being (too) down about it, I’m soaking up all the time I’ve been able to spend with Cindy and Lucy this weekend in what looks like could be one of, if not the, final weekend we’re a two-dog family.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Weren’t we just waiting in this very same waiting room five days ago?

Waiting very patiently.

Why yes, yes we were. But due to Puffy Paw syndrome, Cindy and I had an early morning date with the vet again today.

Trips really tire Cindy out (especially when she tries to jump on the bench in the exam room!). These pics were snapped before we even saw the vet!

This might be one of the funniest photos of Cindy yet.

Helping her rest her heavy head. Yes, I had shorts on.

“Mom, where is my doctor??”

Ultimately Cindy has a cyst on her paw between her toes. It appears to have ruptured a bit this morning and she is now on antibiotics and I have to soak her paw in Epsom salts twice a day. Luckily she doesn’t seem bothered by it in the least and the vet said these cysts are semi-common with bulldogs.

At least it’s an easy “fix” and we’ll get her plenty healthy for when she goes to her new home (which is going to happen sooner rather than later, whether I want it to or not!).

A Pup Cup for Lucy

Lucy strikes again. Yup, she took down parts of various sticks this weekend and spent the morning puking up woodchips. So far she seems to feel fine but it’s quite a sight to watch her hack up hunks of wood at 5:30 in the morning.

We hit the grocery store late this morning and I came home with some frozen doggie treats to help make Lucy feel better (i.e. spoil her). She enjoyed her frozen treat outside in the ridiculously humid weather before the rain starts moving through this afternoon.

I like this stuff, Mom!

Lucy enjoyed her frozen peanut-butter flavored treat and now I’m crossing my fingers that, unlike her stick pieces, this treat stays down.

I’d say Lucy enjoyed her weekend with plenty of nap time, play time, puke time and treat time.

A Puffy Paw

Such a pretty little lady:

So pretty!

Who has all of a sudden developed a not-so-pretty paw:

A red, puffy paw with a side of saggy boobs

On Friday when I came home for lunch I almost immediately noticed that Cindy’s back left paw looked like the above picture. Of course I remained calm, cool and collected when I saw it. And by calm, cool and collected I mean I practically had a heart attack, consulted Dr. Google and called…Marty? Yeah, I don’t know either. It’s not like he was going to be of any help.

Cindy doesn’t have much of a reaction to my gentle prodding of the lump and her gait seems to be the same, as in not smooth and painful-looking – sadly the norm for her!

If Cindy were my dog I would have been on the phone with the vet ASAP. However, Cindy isn’t my dog so I put in an email to S.N.O.R.T. to see what they wanted me to do since they cover the medical costs for the foster dogs. They told me to give her some benadryl over the weekend and if it was still bad on Monday to make an appointment.

Well, two doses of benadryl later and her paw looks…exactly the same. I’m already planning on calling the vet Monday unless a few more doses of benadryl do the work. Dr. Google said it was likely an interdigit cyst and the treatment options look they vary greatly – some recommend antibiotics, some steroids, some draining the cyst, etc. Needless to say none of those are actions I can take on my own, so I do think that ultimately we’ll need to take (another) trip to the vet.

I’m hoping it’s nothing too serious and that medication will be all she needs. I just wish I knew what caused it. Apparently it’s not an uncommon problem in bulldogs and could have happened from something she stepped on, although we don’t go for walks due to her heartworm treatment and the heat.

Poor girl just can’t catch a break!

We Love the Vet

Based on the amount of time and money we spend at the vet, I should buy stock in our vet’s office. Today I was back at the vet, this time with Lucy.

I’d say within a couple months after bringing her home we noticed she had a propensity to lick, bite and eat her paws. Annoying, yes. Problematic? Well, months ago I turned to the vet to answer that and it was confirmed she had a yeast infection going on.

So, since then I wipe her paws and wrinkles at least every other day with our anti-fungal rinse. The past few weeks, however, it seemed I was fighting a losing battle with her licking and biting, so back to the vet we went for the second time in two-plus months.

Laughing at the amount of money I was about to fork over.

Inspecting the food supply in the lobby.

As usual, she was a handful in the waiting room. I swear it feels as if my shoulders are about to come out of their sockets while we wait – she goes up to every dog and every person multiple times and as expected at a vet’s office, we always have a bit of a wait so by the time we get called back I’m sore and sweating.

Finally in the exam room.

Listening to all the interesting sounds in the lobby.

Ultimately Lucy has some sort of allergy – to what we don’t know as she bites and licks her feet year-round, not just during “allergy season.” So we have to wipe her feet with baby wipes every single time she comes inside and I have to start giving her fish oil supplements – I take fish oil supplements! If the fish oil doesn’t work it’s on to an allergy medicine like Claritin.

I was able to pick up eye drops for Cindy while we there, so I was able to kill two birds with one (very expensive stone). And just because she’s adorable, here’s a photo of Cindy lounging to the max.

She’s an excellent lounger.

Fortunately Lucy loves the vet – so much attention! – and our vet’s office is great, from the techs to the doctors, and it tires Lucy out, so it’s a win-win for everyone!

The Final Countdown

Before I get to the topic of the post, a few pictures from a very relaxing Memorial Day weekend.

Cindy, the lawn ornament

Cindy, the upside-down turtle, and an apparently unimpressed Lucy

While Cindy is still on an exercise restriction due to her heartworm treatments that ended just over a month ago, today we ventured into the karate school parking lot next door and she got pretty far (for her)…this was the aftermath:

Passed out cold!

In the back of my mind, I know we’re nearing the end of Cindy’s stay with us. S.N.O.R.T. has been accepting applications for her adoption for the past two weeks or so and from my understanding there are a few potential fits that are being explored.

To say I don’t want her to go would be an understatement. I knew when we agreed to foster a puppy mill dog that we really had no idea what kind of dog we were getting. She could have been surprisingly healthy and ready for adoption relatively quickly or she could have needed a lot of care – Cindy fell into the latter category.

We’ve had her for well over four months now and she fits right into our lives. Would it be easier to let her go if she’d been a short-term foster? Maybe, I don’t know. I love her to death, though, so I’m really glad we’ve been able to foster her for as long as we have because it means we’ve been able to spend a lot of quality time with her.

I keep getting asked why we didn’t just keep her and the reason is that being an adult stinks. If money weren’t an issue she would never have been officially listed for adoption and she would have fallen into the category of “foster failure,” in which a foster family (in this case, me!) becomes their foster dog’s “forever” family. Unfortunately, money does matter and bulldogs aren’t an inexpensive breed. If only I had won the lottery

So for the remainder of Cindy’s time with us I’ll give her extra hugs and kisses, snap a million more photos and know that S.N.O.R.T. will pick Cindy’s perfect “forever” home.

Confession Part II

A second “confessions” post…

What do the following three things have in common?

A bag of treats with a side of Lucy

A leash

A testy-looking Lucy

They are all required to take Lucy for a walk. Yes, despite having Lucy for over a year now, she still refuses to willingly go for a walk.

In puppy school, we learned how to get our dogs to properly walk on a leash – stay on one side of their owners, not pull, etc., with rewards (i.e. treats) for obeying proper walking techniques.

And Lucy was, and still is, really good at that. However, Lucy has a unique problem when it comes to walks – she never wants to actually go for a walk. Hence the treats. I am forced to act like we’re back in puppy school and lure her (and reward her) with treats just to get her to walk with me through the park every afternoon.

There isn’t a walk that goes by where I don’t think to myself, “feeding a dog while she takes a walk totally defeats the purpose of the walk.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. Lucy has gotten better but it is still a struggle to get her walking without a treat to lure her off our yard. It’s both frustrating and hilarious. She is a bulldog, therefore she is stubborn, and the humor in going for a walk with a treat bag isn’t lost on me. However, I have been called stubborn more than once in my life so despite her best efforts, everyday we go for a walk whether she likes it or not.

Sleepy Saturday (and Friday)

There’s no way to be certain, but we’re pretty sure Cindy has a doggie cold. She’s been extra tired (which is hard to do!) and a little snortier than usual. She spent her Friday night cuddled up with her pillow.

It took a little while to get her pillow juuuust right.

I feel so bad for her, and not just because she has a cold. I feel badly for her because she’s older and her body is probably physically way older than her seven years because of neglect.

This afternoon I took Lucy to the dog park and she had a blast, which left her looking like this:

Cooling off by the fan.

Tongue out, passed out.

Lucy ran around like a maniac with two dogs that were easily 2-3 times her size. I always have so much fun watching her keep up with the bigger dogs. She more than holds her own, that’s for sure!

But it makes me so sad and so angry that Cindy has never gone to a dog park before and most likely never will. And if she does ever get to go to a dog park, she’ll never know what it would feel like to be young and have tons of energy to run around and make friends.

I keep trying to reassure myself that she doesn’t need to go to a dog park or take long walks by the creek. Everything she has now is more than anything she had in first six-plus years of life and she certainly doesn’t know what she’s missed out on.

But it’s still not fair.