Wednesday, May 17, 2006

You lot are really spiffy, you know.
Thank you for stopping by, 2paw; I've just remembered that I have not even though about what my May Green Project Spectrum will be--eek. Ruth, multiple consecutive weeks now - this bites. Lucia, thank you. And Amber...you may be spinning some merino. I'll say no more. Jena, you may rub your face in the malabrigo (thud) (comes to) - oh, was I saying something? Oh, yes - you may caress it to your heart's content. The yarn, people, the yarn.

Doggy Depression
We now turn to the animal kingdom, and our Dear Family Dog, Daisy. Daisy is a Brittany. Daisy is normally a happy little being, fruitlessly trying to catch one of our four (!) cats, wagging her whole body when anyone comes near her; you know--happy dog. She eats, she poops, she snuggles her head against my leg. Well, last week she had a vet appointment. This was bad enough, of course, but she turned out to have an ear infection (as suspected) and now Mommy has to give her ear drops twice a day. She hates this beyond all reason. We think she's showing signs of depression. Little to no interest in food, barely tries to go after the cats (they're enjoying this immensely, btw), no poop, sits in her crate all day. She'll come out, and then when I walk into the room she runs and hides in her crate again. She is very, very sad. I'm hoping that eventually (Soon, Please) she will notice that it doesn't hurt in her ears any more and be a Happy Dog again (preferably one who doesn't run away from me to hide).

I am not a dog person. We have four cats for a reason, not entirely to do with rodent control. But when DD#2 was learning to talk, she discovered Dogs. And Puppies. The child had a vocabulary of less than 50 words, and one was Puppy. Dogs love her. She loves dogs. It is an unexplainable thing. My tiny child would run up to the scariest looking dogs imaginable and they would see her and go, awwwwwww. Mutual love at first sight. Dobermans, Rottweilers, anything. So she began asking for a dog in the late 90's. The deal was, okay, your new baby brother is too small to really cope, so if when he's bigger, he wants to get a dog, too, then we'll get a dog. Of course little fellow loves dogs. Must be the British genes.

Anyhow, the poor little dog, cute and cheerful though she normally is (even now, she never ever makes the slighest move to bite, even when her ear hurts a LOT)--this sweet little thing is Very Very Sad Indeed. Do any of you real dog people have any pointers, here?

In other news, the pump just died. Just now. I'm going to hope that it either gets better once it cools down, or that the water is now receding like the guy on the news says and I won't have to pump it out of the basement any more.

4 Comments:

Blogger Lucia said...

I am not a dog person either, which is why I have you beat by one cat. (This is your fault, as you also know.) But is it possible that in addition to the ear infection she's suffering from weather-related sadness? I know I was.

I do hope the water is receding, even though my basement is dry. Enough already.

6:42 AM  
Blogger Rebekah Ravenscroft-Scott said...

how long has she not been pooping? that could be the reason for the lethargy and reluctance to play. if it's been more than 2 days, yes, take her right away to the vet again. especially if she's eaten and nothing is going through in the usual way.

does she hide just from you (the administer of bad medicine) or from everyone in the family?

yes, I'm a dog person (three big babies!) and what you describe is something that I would worry about if it was going on for more than 2 days.

Good luck!

11:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What is Daisy's favorite treat? Sounds like she's been conditioned that Mom is a bad thing. (See Mom, get nasty ear drops. Yuck!) Coax her out of her funk with treats/play/belly scratches, whatever is her favorite.

A great book on dog/animal psychology is 'Don't Shoot the Dog' by Karen Pryor. I did clicker training with Java and it made an amazing difference.

I'm a dog person (can you tell?) Let me know if you have any other questions.

11:03 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Poor puppy. Maybe he's just depressed over all this rain like the rest of us. Now that the big yellow orb has sort of returned to the sky he'll feel better. Springers are such cuties - we used to have one when I was growing up named Freckles of course.

See you tonight?

11:57 AM  

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