Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Puppies and Ringworms

Bruce and I are now the very happy owners of two beautiful puppy goddess.

Hera the Goddess of Women

Hera is our beautiful German Shepherd Dog.  She's almost 5 months old and feisty as hell.  She's got her puppy teeth and isn't afraid to use them. She is my puppy.  If we're home alone together and she can't see me she'll come find me, she likes to keep me in her sight.  If Bruce is home that's another matter- then she's usually attacking his feet.  She knows her name and comes running when you call her. She's a beautiful beautiful dog and I can't wait to see her grow up.

Helia is a Sun Goddess (previously Akai)

 Helia is our mutt...kinda.  The Vet said she's a Red Heeler, but it's very obvious there is something else in her too.  When she walks she totally looks part boxer so we'll see when she gets older.  She is a total sweetheart.  Her puppy teeth are still kinda dull so it takes her a little while to eat her treats and if she doesn't eat them fast enough Hera lets her know by stealing them.  Helia had a rough start to life, she was tied up with wire and left in an ant pile- so when GaDaH-SA got her she had tons of cuts and a rash.  Most are all healed up but her tail is still super sensitive and if Hera gets a hold of it she cries and then runs away.




We were originally supposed to just have the one pup but Bruce's heart melted for Helia so we had to take her too.  Helia and Hera love to play all the time, especially when Bruce is around.  With me they're cool to just chill and nap in the living room.  They do know the tricks though and sometimes wont come back in the house unless enticed by a treat.  They love the big backyard and can run around in it all day if we'd let them.  They've found weaknesses in our fence a few times and escaped- luckily only going as far as the neighbors front flower bed.


We have them still sectioned off in the front of the house and Sookie the Viking Kitty has the whole back to herself.  Every once in a while while the puppies are out in the living room she'll come to the baby gate and torment them, then I can't get them to leave this spot till she goes back away.
We don't plan to keep them separated forever, just temporarily.  While they get over...

RINGWORMS!

ICK! My poor babies came down with ringworms.  One day I notices a spot missing hair on Hera's nose and then it started to get bigger.  Then I noticed she had more on the tummy.  On Helia it was harder to tell since she had already had some spots on her from her previous life as an abandoned pup.  It was so sad I felt terrible for the puppies.  I took them to the vet and met up with GaDaH-SA Jenny and the vet told us what I already new, that they were in fact ring worms and that both of them had it pretty bad.  The vet gave us some antibiotics and an anti-fungal pill to give them daily.

Hera's look to be healing quite nicely but poor Helia got them bad on her tail.  And she wont leave it alone! Yesterday before I went to work I noticed some dried blood on the floor in the kitchen and soon realized it was coming from Helia's tail.  She has been biting the thing raw.  I called the vet for advice and she told us to give the meds a little more time to work but in the meantime to wash it and try to put some of the ringworm ointment on it.  So last night Bruce and I cleaned it off with hydrogen peroxide and then slathered it up with ointment.  She screamed and cried throughout the whole thing and hid in Bruce's lap.  Luckily this morning things looked so much better.  Her tail was pink again and looked less irritated.  We'll probably keep washing it daily for a little bit now.  But I think she'll be okay.

For now both pups seem to be taking the medicine pretty well.  But their puppy-mama cannot stand to see them sad or in pain.  So every little wince and wimper breaks my heart.  After puppies with ringworms hopefully it'll only get better.  They have already filled our house with such love, I know it will only grow.




Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Puppies! Puppies! Puppies!

A little more than a year ago Bruce and I adopted our cat Sookie.  She's a beautiful 20 lb Maine Coon and we're totally in love with her.  She's everything a cat should be, lovable when she wants to be, weird most of the time and a total bitch when it suits her best.  I have an entire album on Facebook dedicated to the furry mess so I may be a little more in love with her than Bruce. 

Sookie the Viking Kitty

We've always talked about getting a dog when we were finally in a house, cause its just not fair for a pup not to have a yard.  When we've talked about dogs German Shepherds always came up over and over.  So after we got in the house I started looking online.  Most of the summer I found nothing, but since we had rescued Sookie we wanted to try and rescue again, there are just sooo many good dogs out there that need homes.  In early August however I got lucky and found a rescued German Shepherd PUPPY! I was amazed! You never find German Shepherd Puppies that are rescued- I think it's cause they're too damn cute! 

This is Hera.

Hera was rescued by Give a Dog a Home- San Antonio in May with her sister Athena.  Unfortunately Athena died from Parvo and then Hera got pneumonia.  Hera has been off her antibiotics for a week now and seems to be doing great.  She goes back to the Vet today for her final check up and if she's all cleared we could be getting her very very soon.  Adopting Hera is a very interesting process theres a 6 page application, 2 reference letters from non-family members and a reference letter from your vet.  After that there's an in-home visit and a two week trail period.  If all goes well with the Vet today then we should have the home visit this weekend and start our trail period next week- I'm super excited.

The lady who runs the dog rescue is really awesome and has invited us into her home to spend time with Hera while she's been sick.  The first time we visited about 2 1/2 weeks ago Hera didn't have a lot of energy and we mostly played with the other dogs.  She has 4 full grown German Shepherds of her own PLUS 1 she's fostering and 3 puppies.  It's dog-city there.  The second visit was just me and Hera had just finished her antibiotics and had become very playful.  She played all around with this cute Red Heeler pup and then kept coming back to me to make sure I was watching.



Hera and Akia playing together
I'll figure out how to rotate the video later and edit it...If you have suggestions let me know :)

Last night Bruce was able to come again and got to see Miss Hera in all her puppy glory, but Bruce of course fell IN LOVE with another dog!  The nerve of him! Little Miss Akia both times has come over to him and fallen asleep on his lap and licked him and just shown a more all around interest in him than Hera.  Hera likes me better and will definitely stick by my side if things get too rough in the dog house for her.  So now we are discussing the two dogs and its horrible.  I still have my heart set on Hera because she's more protective and you can already tell that she'd be a good loyal Shepherd, but Akia is also very very sweet and adorable but we don't know all that in her, we see some Red Heeler but there could also be pit bull and so we just don't know what to expect.  Either way we've told Sookie about the incoming dog and she is not happy...it's okay Sookie don't cry mama still loves you.