When I got back from Paducah/Murray Saturday evening I picked the dogs up to give them lovin just like I always do when I’ve just come home. I noticed Aly was acting different right away; She wouldn’t kiss me and was shaking as I pet on her. I put her down, thinking maybe she was mad at me about staying gone. She does that sometimes.

A few minutes later I let the dogs outside to use the bathroom. It’s completely normal for Ben to stay outside longer than Aly (she doesn’t like the cold) but after about 5 minutes I looked at the door only to find Ben standing there waiting to be let in. No Aly. I opened the door to let him inside and called for her. She didn’t come. I stepped out on the back porch to look for her and there she was, standing at the bottom of the steps, shaking. I called her again and she started the pace back and forth but wouldn’t come up the stairs. I finally went down the stairs, picked her up, and carried her up the steps.

I sat down on the couch to start working and she came to the couch and whined at me. I patted the couch cushion, telling her to jump up on the couch, and she wouldn’t. She just continued to whine. I then picked her up and placed her on the couch next to me. I started petting on her and that’s when I figured it out. When I touched her lower back (the beginning of her lumbar vertebrae, for those medically inclined) she yelped and coward-ed. This broke my heart. I knew what was wrong.

Dachshunds have back problems. Their bodies are so long and their legs are so short. Aly is a risk taker for sure. When medium sized dogs are afraid to jump off of something tall Aly is already waiting at the bottom, having already jumped down. She jumps off the top of our back porch on a daily basis. It’s about 4 feet tall and Aly is 4 yr old, 8-9 lbs, and (her head) stands only 6-7 inches tall.

Aly being a dare devil should have only become a problem is she were overweight, which she isn’t. Also, she’s much too young to be experiencing said back problems. I know from research and just hearsay that this problem could sometimes only be fixed by surgery and then, other times even surgery can’t fix it. She could be paralyzed.

All day Sunday Neil and I helped her down the back porch steps and up then again and again. She picked her up and placed her on the couch when she wanted up and put her down on the floor when she wanted down. Monday morning I called the vet and took Aly to her appointment at 3 that afternoon. No x rays were required. He knew what was wrong with her. He felt around on her back and sure enough, she yelped. He checked her hind leg’s reflexes and they weren’t stellar. He did say, however, that the fact that she’s still able to walk is a great thing and she could do just fine on meds. Surgery wasn’t something we should think about at this time.

THANK GOD!

He sent Aly home with three different medications: one that she has to take 3 times a day for 5 days, one that she has to take 3 times a day for 5 days and then once a day for 5 days and then once every other day for 5 days, and one that she has to take 2 times a day for 7 days. All of these meds have to be given to her with applesauce because she’s a pain when it comes to taking pills. If that weren’t enough, she is restricted from activity (jumping, running, etc.) for 3 weeks. Oh boy, this is going to be fun.

When at all possible she’s to stay in her crate. So far that proves to be the easiest task because that’s the only place she wants to be. Neil and I will continue to pick her up and take her wherever she needs to go. I will do whatever it takes to encourage her back to heal and prevent it from ever happening again. No more jumping off the back porch for her!

All my friends know this about me but I’m not sure I’ve talked about how much I love animals. In particularly, dogs. It is true that I love all animals and I’m not exaggerating. I even like…eek…snakes and spiders. Not for pets of course but they’re animals all the same. I do, however, love dogs more than any other animal and I think it’s pretty easy to see why. They are the best pets. Man’s best friend, am I right?

I was raised with dogs as pets. As were my parents and my grandparents. I don’t know of every single dog my grandparents ever owned but I do know my parents’ dogs. First there was Velvet, a black lab mix. Even though she was gone before my time, I know she was a beautiful dog. My parents have tons of old time-y pictures of her.

Then there was Taffy, who died when I was young. She drowned. We don’t like to talk about it. She was a mostly black basset hound. Something else you should know about me and my family, or rather my mom and I, is that we are basset hound freaks. Obsessed with basset hounds. How many more ways can I say that we absolutely love any and all basset hounds?! True story: whenever my mom or I see a basset hound on a TV commercial we will always CALL each other and say, “I’m watching _____ and a commercial for ______ came on and GUESS WHAT IT HAD!!!!! A BASSET HOUND!! Oh, it was SO CUTE!!!” Yea, we totally geek out over basset hounds. It could be a freakin’ basset hound made of stone! and we’ll think it’s adorable. I will understand if you never want to come here again. In fact, I’ll understand if you leave now.

……

Are you still there?

Ok good! Anyway, so yea, Taffy. She was a good dog. Sigh. After Taffy we got Spotty, who was a male tri-colored beagle. We also love beagles. Ah hell, we love hound dogs! Spotty was the only male dog my parents ever had and probably will ever have. Male dogs are just gross sometimes. Yea, you know what I’m talking about. Oh, but Spotty, he was special. She was the sweetest, most laid back dog and ugh, I miss him so much. He was old when he died but old age isn’t what killed him. He had this awful habit of getting into the outside trashcans. And not just ours, but everyone’s in our neighborhood. We have one of those close knit neighborhoods where we all know each other and each others’ dogs. Everyone loved Spotty, or at least we thought. Apparently someone was tired of Spotty getting into their trash so they dealt with it the only way the sick bastard knew how. He put poison in his trash. I don’t think I have to say any more. That was five years ago. It was heartbreaking for everyone in our family and I still tear up when we see a picture of him.

While we had Spotty we also had Penny, a female tri-colored basset hound. Yes, another one! She was a present for my younger brother John but she was everyone’s pet. Sadly, Penny died before her time as well. Wow, this kind of makes my family look like we can’t take good care of our pets. I assure you, this is definitely NOT the case. Penny was hit by a drunk driver. It was devastating. Penny and another dog were playing in the yard and they just weren’t paying attention. The first dog ran out into the road and before we could do anything about it Penny ran after. The person was driving WAY TOO FAST. They didn’t even slow down. They didn’t even stop. They kept driving and it all happened so fast that we couldn’t even get a license plate number. Of course we were all so in shock we weren’t looking at anything but …Penny. I say the person was drunk because how could a sober person do such an awful thing?! Wow, I didn’t know it would be this hard to talk about.

Moving on before the crying turns to sobbing.

My mom thought it up in her head that Penny’s death could have been avoided completely if she’d had a playmate. If we’d had another dog along with Penny then they could have been fenced in somehow, playing. Spotty by then was too old to play with a young pup. When the time was right we got two two more basset hounds. Lilly and Siddalee. Lilly, because she is a white (or lemon) basset hound and Siddalee, who was tri-colored and because I was really into The Ya-Ya Sisterhood at the time. Did you notice I referred to Siddalee in the past tense? Siddalee died of liver failure back in February 2008. She fell ill all of the sudden and when they finally figured out what it was it was too late. They say that once liver failure is diagnosed in dogs its progress too far for treatment. All they could do was keep her comfortable. I remember getting the call from John on the way to my night class. I cried through the whole 4 hours. This the most upsetting thing to talk about by far. When did this blog turn into a sob fest for me? *sniff sniff*

Well, where there is death there is also life. Lilly was having a hard time with Siddalee’s death, as did we all, but we have ways to cope as where dogs don’t. And, ok yea, we needed a new dog too. My mom decided to do something she’d never done before: adopt. It was the best thing really because we needed a dog close to Lilly’s age. Her name was Daisey and I think  that was the first sign. Lilly, Daisey. Oh yea, we had to have her. I think she’s a year younger than Lilly but she has a great personality, just like Siddalee, and they really mesh well. She’s annoying at times but really, what dog isn’t?

Unless you’re talking about my Aly-Cat. She was an impulse buy. The best purchase I’ve ever made. My mom and I took Siddalee to a local breeder because we needed help breeding her. Sounds self explanatory, right? The breeder had two miniature dachshund puppies left from a litter, both females. Because I can’t resist puppies I picked Aly’s sister up. I looked her over and she was adorable but nothing special so I put her down and went to reach for Aly. I noticed right away that Aly really, REALLY wanted me to hold her. After picking her up I saw that she had not two brown eyes like her sister, but one brown eye and one blue eye. Gorgeous! I placed her back in the pin with her sister and went about my business. Aly whined and whined the whole time we were there. “Poor doll”, I thought. “I guess I’ll just have to go hold her again.” The breeder, being good at her job, tried to talk me into taking her. She said she’d give me a deal if I took her home with my today. I was still living in the dorms at the time so I had to decline but that didn’t stop me from thinking about Aly the whole way home. By the time we’d made it back home I had decided I was going to go get her on my way back to Murray that evening. That was it. It was final. I called Neil and he approved, saying it could be for my birthday, which was only a month away. An hour later I returned to the breeder and without saying a word, handed her the check. She smiled and handed me my eight weeks and one day old puppy. Aly slept on my shoulder the entire way home. She was that tiny.

Neil and I didn’t get Ben until he was already 9 months old. My mom jokes that he was first bought when he was a puppy but was returned to the breeder because he was such a bad dog. He still is a bad dog! I had been looking online for a week or two and found Ben at Wide Meadow dachshunds. He was so beautiful in his picture that I got excited and jumped the gun. My best friend, Megan, and I called that day asking to see him. The following day we drove four hours to see that beautiful boy and then four hours back to bring him to his forever home. The rest is history.

Make sure you check back for the continuation of this post. Yes, this was just a preceder!

I’m going to start a new blog topic for Mondays. It will be called “In The Moment” (Monday) where I will talk about myself and my life in that particular moment. Within each “In The Moment” Monday blog entry will be a few topics as well. One week I might talk about who I am (in the moment) or something completely different. You’ll never know what I’m up to! Unless you read the blog, that is!

Also these Monday blog entries will sometimes  laid out in bullets for two reasons. One, because I feel it will be easier for you guys to read and two, because I’m lazy. You should all know by now that I’m no story teller.

Well, let’s get on with it!

My Puppies

In this moment (I promise not to say that at the beginning of every Monday post if I can help it…) they are sleeping beside me. Even though their father (the hubby) is in the other room and the doors are open to them, they would rather be with me. It’s funny because sometimes Neil will call one or both of them into the other room and they will go, because they are obedient puppies, and for some reason or another he’ll shut the door. They’ll start whining for him to open the door so they can come back in here and be with their momma.

It’s obviously not that they love me more….okay, maybe that is it. They do love their father — he’s fun and plays with them more than I do, but I take care of them. I’m sure all of you mothers out there know what I’m talking about.

It was really cute, but also kind of sad, when I came home from staying with my parents while I was sick. The puppies were so excited to see me. At least Ben was. Aly, on the other hand, was pissed! You can always tell to because she won’t go outside to pee, like Ben always wants to when we get home and he’s let out. But then again, he LOVES it outside. No, Aly has to be with momma, in momma’s arms, on top of momma if she can be. I might have Neil tape it sometime. My closest friends have seen her do this and know how silly she can get.

But right now Aly is not going crazy. Her and Ben are sleeping beside their momma, just like they do no matter the time or day or where in the house I may be. There is nothing in this world quite like the loyalty a dog has for its master.