Catching Up: A Graduation and One Sick Pup

I can’t believe how the time slipped away from me since my last post…and me still not finished blogging about our summer!

For posterity, over the next couple of posts I must go back and record a few memorable things that happened the past couple of months.

:: :: :: ::

First, there was the high school graduation of my baby sister.

Here is little Boo Boo, peeking over my shoulder with her big baby blues, adorable as can be.

This photo was taken while I was home during Christmas break my Junior year of college.

I’ll never forget answering the phone in my dorm room the previous Spring and my mom saying, “Um, honey, you might want to sit down for this…” when she called to tell me that she and my stepdad were expecting.

My mom was keeping up tradition, after all.

You see, her grandmother, her mom and some of her aunts had done almost the exact same thing, having later in life babies or two separate sets of children within the same family separated by a big gap that had them fooled into thinking they were done with diaper changes and middle of the night feedings, and then "surprise!”.

But what a great surprise!

And just so you know, I will not be keeping up the “baby after 40” part of that tradition. The nearly 10 years apart was enough excitement for me, thankyouverymuch (although adoption is an appealing possibility…)

I remember ‘arguing’ that I should get priority on holding little Boo Boo while I was home on break because I lived so far away and didn’t get to spend the same kind of time with her that everyone else did.

None of us could seem to get enough of holding her.

I can still remember rushing off to the media center in college every time I’d get a package from home, because I was so excited to see the latest videos starring little Boo Boo.

The following summer was the frenzied summer that Jeff and I (and my sister J and her husband E) were married.

A couple of years after that, with a baby of our own, Jeff and I found ourselves living in my mom’s basement apartment and when mom was working, I got to watch little Boo Boo.

Rather, she got to help me watch Jericho. She was such a good little helper, and Jericho would coo and giggle and smile so big for his auntie.

I have a lot of wonderful memories of ny little sister during that time.

She was a huge fan of Toy Story, loved having me read Bible Stories to her, and helping me put Jericho down for his nappy-time before she went down for her own. She also loved ‘helping’ me bake, especially if it was cookies.

One of her favorite things back then was the old animated version of Peter Pan, particularly the character Smee.

She went through an all-things-piratey phase, and we often took her to play at a place we referred to as Pirate Ship Park. We kept a scarf and a fake earring and a toy sword in the car for her to play wtih whenever we took her there.

Here she is with her two oldest nephews, my sister’s oldest, T, and on the right, Jericho.

Little Auntie Boo Boo adored her little nephews, and they adored her!

Jericho would look at her so earnestly while she chattered at him. Here he seems to be replying, “Are you kidding me?”

And then…we moved far, far away.

It was like our lives had clicked into fast forward because all of a sudden, here she was graduating (as class Valedictorian, no less…little miss SMARTAY!).

And here she is now, my beautiful 'baby' sister, otherwise known around here as Auntie Alison. And she is every bit as beautiful inside as she is outside, and has a great sense of humor).

Sooooooo very proud of you, Ali! Looking forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for your future!

:: :: :: ::

Secondly, Parvo.

That dreaded doggie disease that usually affects puppies.

Oh, how we loathe it.

Years ago, when Jericho was in Kindergarten, we had a horrible experience with it…

(**cue wavy flashback effect**)

Mosely had wormed his wriggly self into our hearts from the moment we first brought him home, and we were all immediately and hopelessly attached to him.

How Jericho (and Jeff and I) adored that little pup.

Jericho wasted no time at all incorporating him into our family portraits.

Here, Cousin K is also pictured along with his pup Sarah, Mosely’s sister.

Mose was a fantastic and beloved part of our family. So much so that we planned to eventually breed him to carry on his legacy.

But it was not to be. Our beloved Mosely succumbed to Parvo at just over one year old (7 years in dog years).

Now I have cried over a few deceased pets during my lifetime, but never so much as our Mosely.

What made it particularly hard was that Jericho had just started Kindergarten a few days earlier, and while other children were happily chattering and excited those first few days of school, he was in mourning for his beloved puppy. To explain the whole thing to him was one of the hardest things we've ever had to do.

It didn’t help that during the previous school year when I would drive Jericho’s cousins to school in the mornings, Mosely would hop in the cab of the truck with us, so excited to ride along. After that, well, the drives to school just weren’t the same, and that reminder was with us for a good long while.

** end wavy flashback effects**

Fast forward nine years, and little brother Judah was weeks away from beginning Kindergarten.

One morning we noticed that our little Ticker began acting really mopey and sad. She wouldn’t touch her food.

At first, I thought it was just the ‘dog days of summer’, and that the desert heat was getting to her. I wondered if maybe she was just thirsty, because for some odd reason, our dogs’ water dishes kept getting overturned each day, and so for the umpteenth time went out and refilled the dishes with cool water.

But after keeping a close eye on her all day, she seemed to be getting worse.

A day or two before I’d noticed that our entire bed of flower bulbs (100+ bulbs) had been decimated. Dug up completely, bulbs scattered all over the back yard like so many green onions.

Then, I discovered she’d been sick, and it was evident she’d eaten some of those bulbs.

I was concerned that some of the bulbs might have been toxic to her and was kicking myself for not writing down somewhere what all I’d planted so that I could look it up.

I remembered my sister’s family having had a very sick dog years before who had eaten something toxic and was staggering around the yard in agony, miserably sick. After talking with her about it, she mentioned that the first thing their vet did was to pump that dogs stomach full of charcoal, and within 24 hours, that dog was back to her usual self.

It happens that we keep a supply of activated charcoal in our medicine cabinet in case of the flu or food poisoning and have even used it to knock out a bad sore throat that wasn’t responding to the usual gargles and echinacea. (It works by taking toxins out the other end, if you know what I mean). Good stuff, that activated charcoal.

Well, it couldn’t hurt to try, I thought. I sprinkled the capsules into a clean bowl of water, and after sniffing it, lo and behold she guzzled down a good amount and managed to keep it down.

However, she was still not her normal wriggly, excitable self, and rotated between sprawling herself out on the cool of the concrete or lying in her doghouse looking pitiful, her usually wet nose dry.

She looked pitiful…I’d only once before ever seen a dog look so sick, and that was--

…Mosely.

Dread filled my heart.

Not Parvo! Not just before Judah goes off to Kindergarten! Oh, Lord, please not, I prayed. We immediately gathered around as a family and prayed over our little puppy, and then decided that a trip to the vet was in order.

Our backyard neighbors to the right had a couple of pit bulls which had recently given birth to a large litter of 9 or 10 puppies. Puppies that had been whining and whimpering for the previous couple of weeks while we were trying to sleep at night and at the first light of dawn each morning.

At that time, the puppies were only 3 or 4 weeks old (too young to be weaned and given away), and I remember thinking how odd it was that they suddenly began to disappear one by one until there were just two remaining.

Of course, I didn’t think of any of this until we found ourselves in the Vet’s office…where we'd just learned Ticker had just tested positive for Parvo.

One of the longtime Vet assistants who had administered that test said that science has confirmed that it’s highly contagious (she likened it to touching wet paint, and then anything you touch after that gets paint on it) and can be tracked around on the soles of shoes, and the germs can remain in the soil for up to a year or longer in infected yards. Because of this, even indoor dogs can get it.

We would need to be especially vigilant to sterilize our patio area with bleach solution and also have designated backyard shoes and be sure to keep the dog messes picked up in the yard to try and keep it from spreading to friends and family (and possibly neighbor dogs) that came over. And so far, so good on that score, thank the Lord.

She also commented that it can be spread by nose to nose contact through fences, but that they always see a huge surge of cases as soon as the weather in our area turns hot and the flies come out. Because of this, she had her own suspicions that flies were carriers, landing on infected messes in one yard then flying over the fence and landing on a bowl of dog food in another. It’s just that contagious, dastardly virus that it is.

The Vet made us no promises, but said that it boded well for Ticker that she had not begun the lethargic drooling stage nor did she have any bleeding out the other end. We’d caught it early, which meant a greater chance of fighting it off.

He also explained that what usually deals the final blow to a puppy is not the Parvo itself, but a secondary infection to the blood marrow that can be aggravated and hastened by the dehydration brought on by the Parvo virus.

Long story short, they sent us home with an IV drip bag that contained a strong antibiotic to head off that secondary infection.

We had to administer it twice a day (by IV) into the skin at the scruff of her neck. Thank God Jeff was there to do that part morning and night while I held Ticker still, because injecting her with the IV needle made me a little woozy. This procedure gave her a temporary camel-back, as the fluids would leach into her system through the muscle tissues. We were thankful they gave us that option, because it saved us a bundle (hundreds of dollars) on overnight E.R. care.

The following morning, Jeff was up at the break of dawn getting the IV bag ready and thought, “I wonder how Ticker is doing?”

Just then, he looked out in the yard and saw Ticker loping around with a stick in her mouth, whipping it around in her usual playful, wriggly way. That fast, she was on the mend.

By God’s grace, even though she did get Parvo, it didn’t get her…nor did it affect our other dog Raisin. After seeing all those other neighbor puppies disappear one by one, we truly believe it was a miracle and a direct answer to our prayers.

And there was much rejoicing in our household!

On a side note, we also figured out why the dogs water dishes kept getting overturned.

A week or so after she was completely well, I saw her dip her entire head into one of her deep water dishes then rear back and shake off like she’d just come out of the water from a swim, tipping the big bowl over in the process.

Our desert-dwelling Lab/Retriever mix was trying to communicate to us in her own way that she needed a small pool to play in (those instincts for water play run pretty strong in these breeds!)

Of course we got her one, and now, not only has she quit tipping over her water bowls, but this is what we see off and on during the heat of the day:

Ahhh, yeah…that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout! Niiiice and cool. Now if only there were some fish to chase around being that I've scared off all the local pigeons…

And so, there was a wonderfully happy ending to this particular tale.

Judah continues to churn out his own artistic renderings of our dogs.

Ticker is the happy-go-lucky dog pictured at the top of this drawing, and the one below is our grumpy old dog Raisin…but, that’s a story I’ll save for another day.

Puppy Love

So a couple of weeks before Easter, we took Judah out to our friends little hobby farm in a neighboring rural community to 'see their animals'. Their kids are in 4H and they have pigs, goats, horses, chickens, dogs and cats.

Such a thing is always a treat for little Judah, as mama isn't ready we aren't yet set up for our own goats and chickens.

What Judah didn't pick up on right away was that this was really a covert mission for him to select his very own puppy from their almost-ready litter. He has been yearning for his very own puppy for ages.

I regret to say I have no pictures of that day, as my trusty, seven year old camera was on the fritz.

The mama dog is a papered, purebred Golden retriever whose owners had high hopes of breeding her next year and selling the puppies.

Unfortunately, the gate was left open one night, and half of the puppies in her littler bear a striking resemblance to a neighbors black lab.

It mattered not to us. They were all roly-poly, cuddly and adorable, and in the end, one of the pups chose Judah.

Here is our adorable little puppy Ticker.

Judah named her all by himself, saying, "Don't 'ticker' off or she'll bite ya!"

Just his kind of pup, apparently.

She can take it just as well as she can dish it out. Judah has got scratches all over his arms and legs to prove it (though he is known for using every possible excuse to get to wear a band-aid).

Ticker is an adorable but wily little thing, sneaking indoors at every opportunity.

Her cuteness is in her favor, because after my bulb bed was decimated, the tops strewn about the back patio like discarded green onions...well, Ticker really ticked ME off.

She has since buried and unburied the remaining few bulbs a half-dozen times, each time coming to the back porch looking very dusty and oh-so-guilty.

It's really hard to discipline and train such a cute little thing.

The day after the decimation of my bulb bed and her subsequent trampling to death of all the bean sprouts and young squash plants in another of my garden beds, I was seriously reconsidering the whole idea of puppy ownership.

Wouldn't you know that was the very morning that Judah's Sunday School teacher told Jeff she was glad to hear Judah had finally gotten a puppy of his own. Apparently that had been our boy's heartfelt prayer request each week for months.

The choice was clear...we simply HAD to keep her.

She continues to dig up the backyard, has chewed the basketwork off the leg of one of my wicker chairs out back, gives Raisin a real run for her money and consistently attempts to play tug-of-war with any loose article of clothing on anyone entering the backyard. I had forgotten all about the damage that a puppy's milk teeth will do to kids clothing.

But then, I see my boy holding his beloved puppy and my heart melts into a puddle.

And I find myself crooning, "Oh, my little Ticker-Wicker-Woo" (a name that stuck long before she began teething on my wicker chairs) to her all over again, all her past offenses forgiven.

It probably helps that when the boy 'sneaks' her inside, she always finds her way to me.

Isn't that how it always is? The one member of the family that wasn't keen on the whole idea of a new puppy to begin with, and she makes it her mission to win me over?

Napping under my desk

or on my foot

or in my hands

She's pretty much wriggled her way into all our hearts.

Well, except for our older dog Raisin.

"You have usurped my throne...you will pay!"

It's not all sunshine and roses around here.

In fact, the advent of a new puppy has resulted in some rather strange behavior from Raisin.

In an apparent bid to be as endearing as possible, the old girl has suddenly reverted back to puppy-like antics, gnawing on every puppy toy or bone she finds, frolicking in the yard, and racing for the glass sliding door every time it's opened lest she miss out on some offered treat.

When she thinks we're not looking or listening, she also growls possessively when the back door opens, as though to say, "Get away, Ticker...they were my people first!"

It's shameful, really, to see such overtly jealous behavior in a dog of her years and supposed maturity.

Being 49 (in dog years), we had recently begun giving her a Glucosamine Chondroiton supplement to help with the stiffness she seemed to have after sleeping curled up all night in her dog house. We even went so far as to bring her indoors on nights when the desert temperatures dipped into the teens over the winter.

Judging by all the exercise Raisin has been getting since the puppy joined our family, I'm beginning to suspect that either the supplements have worked a miracle or the 'arthritis' was all a big ploy from day one.

I am such a sucker!

Little Ticker, sensing Raisin's disdain of her, has turned her cute puppy charm on the old girl and I believe has finally begun to wear her down.

Begrudgingly, but they're sharing nonetheless.

It's a start, I suppose.

The Doggie Drama Continues

This past couple of weeks saw discussions in the Frump household about giving away D.O.G. , our not so beloved puppy.

They were family council type meetings where the problems were all laid out, and we each expressed our opinions as to what should be done about them.

Probably because Judah was tired of getting knocked down by D.O.G. every time he went out to play, Jericho was the only one who had any qualms about giving him away. Naturally, of the four of us, he's the only one to have grown attached to him having been his primary caretaker these few months. Even then, not all that much...not like with our other dog Raisin.

For most of the time we've had him, D.O.G. has been a very destructive, naughty puppy, chewing up everything in sight, ripping clothing with his razor sharp teeth and forever digging out of our yard.

Normally by now, our dogs have already learned what is acceptable and what is definitely off-limits behavior wise, and we've tried to teach him, believe me. He just won't learn.

This dog isn't very quick on the draw.

And from what the owners of two of his litter mates have told us, their dogs are the same way. Destructive bullies.

Up to now, I haven't felt one ounce of endearment towards that dog, and that is really saying something, because I'm an animal person and can grow to appreciate nearly any of God's creatures given time. (Well, except ferrets. I'm not a fan of fast moving rodents in the least.)

I look at D.O.G. and just see "Duuuuuhhhh". Not a single glimmer of good old horse sense (of the dog variety) in his eyes.

The worst part, however, is that D.O.G's presence in our household has caused our other dog Raisin to show some signs of distress.

Raisin has (since D.O.G's last growth spurt) moped around with a hangdog expression. This kind of cowed-down, tail-between-her-legs resignation towards this new puppy which invaded her life and grew from small and managable to big and ungainly in a very short time.

Raisin has not been her usual self, when before D.O.G. she'd had a chipper and easy-going disposition.

D.O.G. has become a terror. A pushy alpha male that would pick on her all his waking hours.

The bigger he got, the faster she was forced to eat her food or risk having him wolf it down the second he was done with his own.

It was pitiful. Poor Raisin couldn't even rest in peace night or day, because that puppy expected her to play, and when she didn't want to, he'd instigate fights. We'd hear them at night, and look out to see Raisin getting evicted from her warm bed and him marching in to sleep on the nice warmed-up dog pillow inside as though it was owed to him.

It seemed that she just didn't have the strength left in her to fight him anymore. He'd worn her down, and because he was a bully from the start was getting the best of her.

Then, one morning after I'd spent a considerable amount of time out back filling up the holes D.O.G. had dug along the side fence, I saw snatches of fur missing from Raisin's neck. Scabby patches. Upon further inspection, it appeared she had other places that had been previously nipped at but were in varying stages of fur growing back in.

I felt horrible. I hadn't realized it had come to this.

Then, D.O.G. made a fatal mistake. While I was heading for the back door, I witnessed him pulling the wrinkled up Shar-Pei skin around her neck out from her body...stretching it out like panty hose.

This wasn't mere puppy antics...he was just being plain old mean to her for sport.

I'd had it. This was not fair to Raisin and I most certainly didn't want him turning on Judah in this manner.

There was no other way about it, we simply needed to find him another home.

As it happened, in January one of our niece's lost her beloved dog Snickers to cancer. Jeff had to help her take her dog in to have it put down. Just the telling of it all to us later was a real tear-jerker, a sad and somber occasion.

It had been a few weeks, and our niece seemed to really miss having two dogs to look after and greet her when she got home from work, so we asked if she'd consider taking Stupid D.O.G.

We let her know we didn't want her to feel obligated in any way, and had even warned her ahead of time about all his less-than-desirable tendencies. We only wanted her to consider it if she truly wanted another dog.

To our great surprise, she said she'd give it a whirl, on the condition that D.O.G. got along well with her other dog.

So one evening a couple of weeks ago, we took him over to her house to give it a test run.

Her dog immediately laid down the law, standing firm as the leader of that pack, and D.O.G. got a big dose of his own medicine.

He actually whimpered and cowered in the presence of her dog (a male who looks like he's got some Corgi in him, and is shorter in stature than D.O.G.). We all found it rather amusing, this canine justice being meted out.

When D.O.G. realized he was out of his league and couldn't bully her dog like he had Raisin, he did the only other thing he knew to do and immediately began snuffling around the yard picking up every stray piece of dog jerky and Milk Bone dog biscuit on the acre. Acting as though he's never gotten a square meal in his life.

So the deal was, he'd stay one night, and if the dogs seemed compatible, she'd keep him.

That afternoon, we went home and Raisin seemed to have a whole new lease on life. Her chipper disposition was back and she ate a leisurely and stress-free meal, stretching out for a long and worry-free nap in the sunshine.

Her good (non-competitive) behavior was back, too, and she wasn't clamoring at the door like she did when D.O.G. was there. She seemed both relaxed and delighted with the new arrangement.

A call to our niece's house told us that the dogs seemed to be doing okay for having just met.

The next morning bright and early, however, D.O.G. was delivered to our door.

Turns out he'd scarfed down everything in sight inside our nieces house, including all the food she'd put out for her dog.

And then he whimpered all night long for us, apparently homesick (though I suspect it was digestive troubles, his greed having caught up to him).

Long story short, it doesn't appear that it's a match.

To make things easier on Raisin, we opted to keep D.O.G. in the front yard.

The yard we'd not wanted to keep him in before due to his propensity for digging (because if he digs out the front fence there is no second line of defense...he's gone). Heartless as it sounds, this time that wasn't a concern for us.

He seemed fine with the arrangement, greeting Raisin at the fence between the front and back yards, and romping around the front yard on his own.

Raisin looked a bit put-out upon seeing her nemesis was back, but still seemed chipper when we went out back with her. It seemed she could deal with things, so long as she had a whole yard to herself.

Then, on the morning of Valentine's Day, I was the first one up, padded out to the kitchen to get breakfast going...and found this:



What in the world?! How did D.O.G. (on the left) get into the back yard with Raisin?!

I promptly marched out front, went around to the side gate and found this:



This is the hole he dug from our front into the neighbor's front yard.

You can't tell from the pictures, but it was deep enough and wide enough for a much bigger dog than D.O.G. to get through, which tells me he must've spent half the night digging.

Apparently, upon entering their front yard well-after dark, he found he couldn't dig under into their back yard (thanks to concrete reinforced cross-fencing which he'd also encountered in our yard) and so he went around the opposite side of their house and dug under there, circling through their backyard and then digging back under into ours.

Yes, he's apparently become familiar enough with their back yard due to his previous excursions to know how to get back into ours.

Now I've heard of dogs digging out, but never have I heard of a dog digging it's way back in!

Yes, apparently D.O.G. missed Raisin that much. Or maybe it was her warm bed.

But let me tell you, she was none-too-happy to see him.

The funny thing was, D.O.G. seemed rather pentinent, as though he knew he was skating on thin ice with us and had better watch his step.

And that was when something really strange happened.

The tiniest little spark of endearment towards that dumb dog formed and was fanned into a very faint flicker. Of the kind that sputters a bit in the breeze, and though it disappears from time to time is still there, barely flickering.

Somehow, when I saw all the trouble the stupid cur went to in order to be a part of this family again...well, I just couldn't help but to take pity on him.

Even if I do resent that it means we'll have dig a trench and install chicken-wire along the entire front fence where he keeps digging under.

And that we'll have to add an extra step of tying him up just to get our cars out of the driveway lest he lope off down the street and get himself run over.

And get him into obedience school (if they'll even take him).

Something about that crazy mutt reminds me of some other dog story out there...

Oh, yes...I remember now:



I think they're related.

The neighbors big dogs (which I might add we've only ever seen in their back yard)...greeted their very puzzled owners the following morning from their front yard.

I'm quite sure the neighbors wondered what on earth had possessed their old dogs to suddenly decide to dig under into their front yard when they'd always seemed perfectly content out back.

After all the trouble D.O.G. has caused already, digging into their yard and cavorting about with their dogs (and eating their food and doing who-knows-what-else), I didn't have the guts heart to tell them how it happened.

I did notice in passing that they'd reinforced the cross fencing on the other side of their house so that no dog will ever dig out (or, as was the case in this story, in) again.

**update**

This was to post the day after Valentine's day, but alas, our niece decided to give it another go on her day off.

And though D.O.G. whimpered and whined for Raisin again that first night, it appears they do get along well enough that she's decided to keep him. (Thank God, because I didn't have the heart to take him to the humane society.)

Which also means that Jericho can still visit him from time to time.

Providing, that is, that D.O.G. doesn't pull one of those Incredible Journey type of stunts, find his way back to our house and dig his way back into the yard again.

Because, frankly, I wouldn't put it past him.

And that would mean he'd have to stay for good. Lord have mercy.

My Inaugural Post

Okay, so about the hideous picture.

Yep, it's really me in all my frump-mama glory.

The picture itself was staged the morning after the following events took place:

A couple of years back, I was up early getting ready to go help in my son's class at school. Although I am usually a jeans and tee-shirt kind of mom (hence, FrumpMama), I can and do rise to the occasion when necessary (church, husbands workplace & son's school), taking extra pains to look my fab best...pains being the operative word here.

You know how it is, ladies. Beauty takes time.

Lots of time.

Because there are lots of steps.

Get up, plug in hot-rollers, shower, shave, lather-rinse-repeat, dry off, dress to the shoes, apply anti-perspirant, brush & floss, gargle, apply masque to face before drying hair to hurry the drying process along, then while masque is drying, put in hot rollers...and so on.

So I had just rolled my hair when I heard very loud firm knocking on the front door.

Our puppy Raisin was immediately on the job, sounding the alarm at the front entryway and trying for all she was worth, trying to sound older and more fearsome than her age.

"Who could that be?" I muttered as I headed down the hallway, not expecting anyone at that relatively early hour of the morning (it was around 8:00 am and my son wasn't even up for school yet for crying out loud).

The loud insistent raps were heard again and the knocking pattern was unfamiliar so I picked up the pace a bit.

Raisin was circling madly and barking like crazy when I shuffled past to get to the peephole. "Yeah, yeah, Raizy...it's okay," I said soothingly in an effort to quiet her down, then stood on tiptoe to peek outside.

To my surprise, there on my porch stood two uniformed officers.

My heart leapt to my throat, and before I could fully comprehend what that might mean, my husband having left for work an hour or so before, I heard officer # 1 loudly say, "Animal Control!"

In that initial deer-in-the-headlights moment of panic (which was what the photo was supposed to capture, by the way), I called out rather feebly, "Ah--j-just a moment, officer."

Even FrumpMama's have some dignity, after all.

I hightailed it back to my bathroom, and in the next 20 seconds, I madly wet and wrung out a washcloth and furiously scrubbed the dried, crackly masque from my face with my right hand, while jerking hot rollers from my hair with my left hand, ala Edward Scissorhands (except for me, it was those little horseshoe clip thingies that hold the hot rollers to a person's head flying all over the place)...all the while wondering why they would be on my porch.

When I finished in what I deemed to be record time, I took one last glance in the mirror to be sure I hadn't missed a hot roller, and rushed back to answer the door, feeling a bit sheepish about the delay.

The good news? The neighbors with the incessantly barking dogs which I had recently called the city about had been cited and fined, and the dogs were remarkably quiet from that point on.

The bad news? Animal Control opted to go door-to-door through our entire neighborhood on a 'routine' check for dog licenses in order to accomplish this.

And our little pup Raisin, who had been with us nearly 6 months, hadn't yet gotten hers (bad dog owners, BAD!).

Interesting 'routine' check, that. In the 6 almost 7 years we'd been in that house, they'd never once been by for anything!

In hindsight, I suppose the Lord wanted to drive home to me that scripture about not pointing out the bark (or was that speck?) in someone else's eye when you have a dog--er, make that a log in your own. And probably also to go to the person first (Matthew 18 principle), rather than immediately going all the way to the top.

We were issued a warning and had 15 days to get the license (cha-ching).

Even worse was that this necessitated setting in motion the process of getting Raisin fixed, because the city gave a coupon at the time of licensing for a good percentage off of the procedure if it was done within a certain (short) time frame with verification.

So at the vet's office the following day for the spay consultation/doggie physical (cha-ching, cha-ching!), we learned that our bargain (free) purebred Shar-Pei puppy had a very serious problem common to wrinkle-faced dog breeds called entropion.

Which had already caused her wrinkles to push her lashes inward and worst-case-scenario could cause scratching of the cornea and eventually blindness (cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching!!).

The vet explained the logic behind taking care of both the spay and the eye lift at the same time.

I might add that I'm thankful I was the one that took her to the vet that day, because had it been the man of the house, I'm not sure the puppy would have come home with him that day.

Not to imply that my husband is heartless...he loves that dog and probably spends more time with her than I do...but as the sole breadwinner in this home, he was faced with one of those weight-of-the-world decisions: hmmm...feed the family this week and keep car #2 limping along or prevent the beloved family dog from going blind in the future? Needless to say, the dog was the least of his worries right then.

Due to the time contstraints and all, and wanting the best for all my family including the dog, I was willing to live on rice and lentils if need be to be sure our dear pup didn't go blind.

Not long after that, she underwent a hysterectomy-of-sorts and an eye-lift.

Both at the same time.

Poor Raisin. She was out of commish for a week with stitches hither and yon, and had to add to her humiliation, had to wear one of those lampshade collars.

I'm pretty sure someone must have been through a similar ordeal to have coined that phrase "Sicker than a dog".

She was pitiful.

Needless to say, my husband was not a happy camper shelling out all that money for dog-related expenses.

I won't even go into how Raisin's wound care and the nasty job of keeping her lampshade collar clean fell to me because no way, no how was he going to do it after spending all that money because I'm just self-sacrificing that way.

Which was precisely why I felt compelled to stage the picture the following day for his desktop background.

The good news is that it did garner the chuckles I had hoped for when he signed on that evening and that picture popped up at him life size.

The bad news? The family dog is the only one that will ever get cosmetic surgery around here.