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Jester

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  1. When we met Miss Maisy for the first time, she wasn't the dog we were supposed to meet. We were supposed to meet a dog named Cassie, but during the day the family that adopted Maisy returned her and adopted Cassie instead. Maisy was a wild beast that night (I think she was happy to be returned). The kids and my husband met her as she ran around her foster's living room, jumped OVER the coffee table and then across the couch. My husband looked at me and said, "I want that dog." I wasn't convinced, but I was outnumbered.

     

    We couldn't take her home that day because Hurricane Isabelle had taken out our fence so her foster kept her for us for a week. I went to her house every day at lunch time to work with Maisy because I didn't want to take a wild child home. Day 1, her foster mom let her out the door and she ran around the house, doing about 4 laps before she came to me to give me the time of day. I had cookies in my pocket and I quickly taught her to Look at Me. The next day, her foster mom let her out the door and she came running down the steps about to start doing laps when she saw me. She came to a halt and trotted over to me and looked me dead in the eye to get her treat. I just stood there holding the treat to see what she would do next. She looked at me, looked at the treat, looked at me again and then *WHUMP* down went her butt into a perfect sit. Her foster mom asked me how on Earth I had taught her to sit so quickly. Turns out that Maisy was just incredibly smart and had been watching The foster mom's dog Reuben do tricks to get treats and put it all together.

     

    Maisy loved to play soccer, loved to play frisby, loved to bark at me when I used the corded phone in the kitchen and couldn't get away, loved to go visiting, and loved everyone. She really was a smart dog and she never used her powers for evil. She never once shredded a thing and never once put her nose in the trash. She really was the sweetest, cuddliest, friendliest, happiest, and just most wonderful dog of any breed I've ever had the pleasure to be with. I never wrote stories about her, but I loved her with all my heart and I really miss her so much already. She was the Best Puppy Ever, Maisy the Mouse, Maisy my Puppy, Mouse. I'm so sorry I couldn't cure your tumors, sweetheart.

     

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  2. Pheno will do that. It will also cause excessive drinking/peeing. The goal is to get the dog on the lowest dose possible to keep the seizures under control while minimizing side-effects. You may also want to consider Potassium Bromide. None of those side-effects but it is more expensive so most vets don't start with it.

  3. Lizzie had quite the eventful life. I've never told her story before because it was in her best interests to be icognito, but I will tell it now.

     

    She came to my adoption group (GEGR) as "Tammy" in 2004. She was adopted straight from the hauler to a lovely, older woman who renamed her Alice. She lived there for about a year when her owner passed away. She came back to GEGR and was placed in a new home, with a new name: "Ginger." She lived with that family for a few years and got into all kinds of trouble. She attacked their neighbor's little dog and put it into ICU. She also occasionally bit their young son. A few months later, she bit another neighbor's dog's tail off THROUGH the fence between their yards. That signed her death warrant - you see she was living in Virginia, and two attacks to companion animals there gets you labeled as a viscious dog. We found all this out when her family had to make a choice - pay for the extra home owner's insurance, place placards all around their property, and keep her on leash/muzzled anytime she left the house, or have her euthanized. They called me (it was the week of Christmas) to let me know they were going to have her euthanized. My husband and I quickly asked them to give her up, back to the group instead. They agreed without hesitation (they felt they had failed her) and my husband drove to the vet's office in Virginia immediately to get her.

     

    His telling of that story is much better than mine, and is much better in person so you should have him tell you when you see him. In a nut shell, when he let the folks behind the counter know he was there to pick up "Ginger" they responded in hushed silence, with a cold stare, and then emptied the waiting room. That's right, it was the end of December and they made everyone take their pets outside. They then brought a belly-crawling, terrified "Ginger" out of the back room sporting a bright red bandanna. My husband said the sight of it all made him laugh. He signed the release papers, removed the bandanna and then took her outside and mingled with all of the people from the waiting room until "Ginger" calmed down. He brought her straight home and we began the process of deciding what to do with her.

     

    We (GEGR Board of Directors) discussed putting her in doggy "witness protection." Basically, we would send her back to the track where they would obliterate her ear tattoos and "lose" her (send her to another group in another part of the country). We talked about euthanizing her. We talked about rehabilitating her, too. The final decision was to give her a week at the Wainwright boot camp and assess her and then make a decision about what to do with her. I quickly determined that she was just a very sensitive dog who needed the right mixture of firm and friendly in an owner. We kept her for about 2 months, working with her on basic training at home and also taking her out and about to socialize her properly. After those 2 months, I mentioned to my husband that I thought it was time to put her on the website and find her a home. After all, we knew what she needed in an owner. He disagreed. He actually looked me straight in the eye and said, "I think she'll need to be here for at least a year before we consider adopting her out, and if she needs to stay longer than that she can." I was dumbfounded. I told him that there was no way I was prepared to keep her that long. We bickered back and forth for about another month until his birthday - I adopted her and gave her to him. It was a match made in heaven.

     

    We decided then it was time for her to have a new name. We tried on lots of names, but the one that stuck was Lizzie Borden. We thought that was pretty fitting given her checkered past. Her nickname became Lizzie the Monster, and then was shortened to just Monster. I do think we called her Monster more than we called her Lizzie laughing6.gif Over that next year I believe that she bit everyone in my family except me. Kids really aren't very smart, but I'm not sure what my husband's excuse was. Oh there were certainly times that she *wanted* to bite me. She would get frustrated, pull her head back and bite the air off to the side (making sure I knew that she wasn't *actually* going to bite me, but that she was mad).

     

    In the last few years I found myself calling her Elizabeth rather than Lizzie or Monster. She really did turn into a sweet, fun, happy dog. She was one of those pups that would whine just to hear herself whine, which drove me absolutely insane. She knew it, too. I would tell her that I didn't like her, I didn't want to adopt her (My husband made me do it), and that she was just a meanie. She would look back at me with a twinkle in her eye, wag her tale, and let out a YOWLING whine. Damn dog. This past weekend, Lizzie suddenly got very sick in the course of a day. I thought it was just a stomach bug, but after about 5 days of nursing her back, I took her to the vet's office today and we discovered that she had a rather large mass in her abdomen. While we were discussing possible courses of action, Lizzie had a very intense, full body seizure. I made the decision to let her go, and I know it was the right one.

     

    Lizzie, you damn dog -- I'm miss you already.

  4. Have you taken her to see the vet for it? This wound resembles what my Australian Shepherd had. It was diagnosed as Discoid Lupus (an autoimmune disease). It started out as just a pink spot and then turned to a sore. We had originally thought he was just rooting in his bedding too much. It was very sensitive and when i would apply cream he would wrinkle his lips too but he was not being aggressive it was and "ouch" cringing look. Sometimes he would sneeze after like it was really sensitive. This location on the nose is notorious for Lupus and Pemphigus. I tried many therapies with my dog but ended up with him on Prednisone. Eventually we learned if we kept him out of the sun as much as possible he could be weaned off the pred in winter months. Hope this is helpful! Good luck!

    I did take her to the vet (that's where I got the "super-cream"; it is anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, etc.). We discussed that it might be pemphigus because of the location, but we agreed that we would try the cream first and re-check in two weeks to see how it is doing. If it doesn'[t get better, we will do more tests. It already looked 1000x better after just 4 days.

  5. Just thought I'd toss a little "great news" into the H&M forum...

    Bobbi got adopted :yay

     

    Her nose is looking wonderful, and her adopters are doing great with the peanut butter on the plate trick. She is so, so happy with them it melts my heart :wub:

  6. I tried the peanut butter on a plate trick and that seemed to help. At least the cream stayed on a little longer... I think I need to refine my technique for spreading it on the plate so she has to work at it harder. Thanks for the ideas, everyone!

  7. My foster, Bobbi, has a wound on her nose that has not yet healed. Best guesses are that she hurt her nose and then prolonged use of a muzzle has prevented it from healing and made it worse. She is a retired brood momma. Anyway, she has been banned from wearing a muzzle (she's too sweet to need one anyway) and I've been putting some super-cream the vet gave me on the wound. My problems are these:

     

    1) She hates, hates, hates having it messed with (I'm sure it's very sore). I have to back her into a corner and hold her mouth to get her to hold still so I can put the cream on. She bares her teeth when I do it (although she does not tense and has not tried to bite me). I think she's just letting me know how much she hates it. I give her cookies and such immediately after and I do my very best to be extremely gentle. Any other ideas?

     

    2) She immediately works at licking the cream off. I have no idea how to prevent her from getting to it. Yesterday and today I have stood holding her nose for 30sec - 1 minute after I put the cream on to at least let it it a little before she starts licking. The cream tastes really nasty, so an "ick" spray won't prevent it. Ideas?

     

    Gratuitous photos :wub:

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    And a link to her foster blog: Bobbi's Blog

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