Didee August 26th, 2008
This past week, the Village welcomed it’s newest K-Kid, Sara-Leigh (pronounced Sara-Lee). She and I hit the vet clinic early last Friday morning.
Sara was supposed to have been 7 yrs old, I thought she looked more like 9 yrs old (don’t ask me how I pulled the number 9, I did think she looked nine though) and the vet techs thought she looked more like 12! I told them to knock that off…she ain’t 12. Anyway, after the office girlies called Sara-Leigh’s previous vet, we learned she is only 6! Her birthday is 6-20-02. I’m sure she will eventually look her age once we get her straightened out health wise.
Sara-Leigh suffered from a flea infestation to the point of having fleas impacted in both ear canals. Consequently, and I guess this goes without saying, she was loaded with tapeworms. Ears have been cleaned and flushed. She has also had the proper worming medication to evict them stinkin’ tapeworms.
Sara-Leigh is also leaking urine..leak, leak, leak. Pick her up and it was drip, drip, drip. So, her butt and legs were stained brown and she has urine burns on her skin. We have medicated shampoo for the urine burns; I have to bathe her two or three times a week. Before the shampoo bath, she soaks in an oatmeal bath treatment. She likes that alot! Poor little baby has two different kinds of bacteria in her urine so she is on a two week round of Baytril. The vet expressed her bladder and blood clots and granules hit the examining table. Bless her little heart. She is on Proin to stop the leaking.
She weighed just a hair over 14 pounds, the vet wants her to gain 3-4 pounds, so we are working on that. Thankfully, she eats with great gusto.
But here’s the biggie, Sara-Leigh has an upper respiratory infection and so she has been banished from general population for a two week period. I feel so bad for her. She is downstairs in what used to be our kennel room. I spend my days going up and down stairs. I spend an hour or two up here, then down I go to spend time with little Sara. We go for walks and fortunately there is plenty for me to do downstairs, so I do whatever, while keeping Sara-Leigh company. I also have two outside dog runs left from “back in the day” when I was showing and breeding (seems like a lifetime ago). I thought she might enjoy being outside while I did some yard work yesterday, but she hated it! Dog runs apparently, are not her style. Village co-founder Charlotte said, “Heck no they’re not her style, she’s a Frenchie!”
I guess the plus side to this house banishment is she does not mind being crated. I open the crate for her, she’ll putt around the room a bit, than back in the crate she puts herself. She goes back in the crate and sits and watches me.
For those of you that don’t know, because we live so close to the water, our house is a *stilt* house…meaning we have stairs leading up to the house, 21 of ‘em to be exact (somedays, it feels more like 51). Here’s the sad thing, Sara knows how to *do stairs*, lots of dogs that come here don’t, they have to be taught. Not our Sara-Leigh. I was flappin’ my jaws on the horn with one of the other volunteers yesterday. Sara was kinda toolin’ around the yard, when I spied her checkin’ out the stairs. I figured she wouldn’t have a clue, I figured wrong. Up she zipped. Now, she knows where the house is and tries to climb the steps whenever we are outside, she stares at them wistfully. Well, if all goes according to plan, she’ll be right as rain in 11 days, then she can come up here and go toe to toe with LoLa, as I am most positive those two girlies will take an instant dislike to each other.
I have to tell you all, as moth eaten as her coat is, urine burned as she is, plus blowing snot, when we hit the vets office nobody there could keep their hands off of her. She received a collective AWWWWWWWWW outta them!
Guess it’s like Charlotte sez “Nobody doesn’t like Sara-Leigh.”
football with her. Perhaps it is because she has already run them all ragged!
