Frida Now and Then
Found this adorable picture of Frida that I took right after I found her trotting down the shoulder of the main road that runs lakeside. The other picture was taken right after the vet said I should put the cone on her. She hyperventilated for hours until I finally had to take it off. Anyone know of something I could put on the sore on her leg to make her stop licking it? She gets infection after infection in it because she can’t leave it alone.
Pobrecita!!!
Poor little Frida. She has a place on her haunch she has been chewing and chewing at. It has become infected and when a course of antibiotics didn’t heal it because she kept chewing on it, the doctor’s decree was that she has to wear this cone around her head for two weeks and go through another ten day round of antibiotics. Can you see by her worried expression and turned down ears how much she hates it, is puzzled by it, wonders if she’s being punished?
When I first put it on she went charging around the house knocking against everything, tipping over pots and little tables, ricocheting off the edges of furniture, even running into me!. When I took her to her bed, she just put the cone down on the floor with her nose to the floor, curled her tail down between her legs, compressed her body to the point where I feared she would implode, and just stood there as if made of stone. She wouldn’t respond to treats, my voice, pats, hugs. She was mortified and so she insisted on also being ossified!
Finally, I had to remove the cone because she refused to eat even a dog biscuit, let alone her dinner. After dinner I heard her chewing on it again, so I had to put the collar on again. Poor little girl.
Bedtime in the Bodoga
Frida and Morrie both got new beds today, thanks to Morrie who ate Frida’s old one and has eaten two of his own as well as one of the cat’s beds. He leaves only his idol Diego’s bed alone and sleeps in it whenever he can get away with it, so I bought him one just like Diego’s. (It’s upside down for now with the plastic side up just in case he decides to have an “accident.” (That’s not unknown to happen!) Once he’s a big boy, we’ll put the hot pink cloth side up. (Although it isn’t obvious in this picture, he does still have ears!)
Frida got a big pillow that isn’t even tacky. First one I’ve found that isn’t obnoxious colors or plaid or some other horrid print. At first Frida was suspicious and wouldn’t sleep on or even put one paw on her bed, but as you can see, she is now giving it a chance:
Since Morrie is still being mean to her, Frida gets to continue sleeping in the main house. She should have a few privileges of age. We all should! She now likes her new bed and I think it will be more hair-resistant than her old bed that seemed more like a hair-receiver than a bed.
Here’s Diego, in his same old bed that has made it through six months with Morrie:
The carpenter came today to measure for the shelves and storage bins for kibbles. They’ll have aluminum liners so the mice can’t get in–or the dogs!!! And, they have their own tiny fridge for opened tins of wet dog food and fresh bones, which the vet tells me I have to freeze for two weeks before giving them to them. Do you think the Taj Mahal got this much press when it was being built????
I tried removing the cages and just had their beds in the room, but they were so restless and that was when Morrie ate Frida’s bed, so I’ve put their beds back in cages and they seem much happier. I haven’t been shutting Diego’s door and he hasn’t reminded me to do so. He used to want it shut and locked. Morrie has learned how to open his cage door. Smart little trouble-maker!!! He’s even opened the side that has two locks instead of one.
I think I mentioned before that my friend Dan of Dan and Rhonda fame has dubbed the Doggie Domain with a new name: The Bodoga. (A bodega is a storage room so the bodoga is of course a storage spot for dogs!)
Let me know when you are sick of Doggie Domain (Bodoga) news. I don’t seem to be able to stop myself. I have a cool slide series showing the entire construction process but can’t figure out how to have the last pictures I want to add go on at the end and also I don’t know how to post a video or slides on WordPress. I just now learned how to find the Shortlink and how to post on Thursday Doors! Does the learning curve ever flatten out?????
Different Thanks
Family Thanks Giving
Three dogs, paws up on the gate to the garage whenever I get home. The little one leaps up and down like some ballerina at the bar, the biggest with his irritating barks–loud and harsh and insistent—for whatever reason, be it mom’s arrival home or a dog who dares to pass by in the street. All of them escorting me to the door, attempting to help me with my bags and bundles.
The big dog sneaking into my room at night when she thinks I haven’t noticed. Wanting to be even closer than within eye-shot down the hall, she sleeps on the cold floor in lieu of her warm padded bed, perhaps because she wants to remind me that although the second dog is cleverer and handsomer and the newest dog is the littlest and most pleasant to have jump up on the bed with me, she was the very first and has known me for the longest. She has put up with intruders—both these two canine upstarts and the one human one who entered my house and stole my house guest’s laptop years ago when she was my one and only!
And although I am allergic to them, I wash off the licks of thanks that Morrie gives for a few cuddles on the bed before he sinks down to the foot to curl at a more hypoallergenic distance. Wash off my hands and arms after I’ve pulled off clumps of Frida’s thick undercoat. Dress the wounds that Diego’s claws have left on my legs and arms when he just can’t resist jumping up for closer contact. All of these wounds and welts and sneezes and wheezes just the aftermath of the constant thanks these kids adopted from the streets offer every day, as often as I will allow them.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 