Month: December 2023

Surfer Girl

I had meant to relate this story sooner but for some reason I was really tired the last few days, and one of my front legs/paws was a little sore, so writing wasn’t something I was particularly interested in doing – and just after I got the Scribes attention!

Anyhow, as I mentioned in my last post, Zoe had surgery a week ago yesterday to remove stones that had formed in her bladder. The first we learned anything was wrong was when she had a urinary tract infection back in…well it was awhile ago. It was so many meals ago – too many to count – but trust me it was awhile back. As a matter of fact, it initially presented itself in Michigan and I now remember it was warm out so…it was awhile ago.

Her first stop was at the same vet that she initially went to after being hit by the car. There they took a sample of her urine (which she supplied the vet tech as soon as they went outside) for culturing and took a scan of her bladder revealing a single stone. After taking meds to get rid of the infection, we went back to the vets here in MA. They did an ultrasound and identified two stones. They put her on special kibble for urinary care hoping this would dissolve the stones over time.

It did not. And it was quite awhile that she had been eating this new diet, so a surgery date was set.

On the Thursday in question, she and Dad got into the car before 8 am…before we had eaten! Mom stayed behind to feed me and keep me company. Zoe was happy to go for a drive thinking she was going to go out for a special meal. Instead, she got left at the vet, who then put her under anesthesia, and made a tiny cut to extract the bladder stones. Upon waking up, despite being a bit groggy, she was ready for some lunch – but she was told (in the presence of Dad who was there to pick her up) that she was only allowed to eat 1/2 of a portion of her dinner in case the new medications made her nauseous.

Zoe…
…in her…
…body sock.

Again, I didn’t find this out until they returned from the vet. I was given a Greenie in my pink kong to keep me occupied while he went to get Zoe since Mom had to be in person at work that day. Turns out the Greenie didn’t really keep me busy that long so I found something else to whittle the time away. 

I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this before. This bin almost ALWAYS has some of Dad’s homemade sourdough bread. Unfortunately for me, there was less than half a loaf remaining in the bread box – and none left when Dad returned with Zoe.

My mistake recently is I’ve gotten up on this part of the counter top which is NOT where the bread is…although there are good smells over here too. Just nothing I could eat.

When Zoe walked in, it was the first time I had ever seen a body sock. This is in place of the cone-of-shame that we’ve had to wear during previous medical procedures to keep us from obsessively licking our wounds. This set up looked so much better – for both us canines and our parents. We don’t like the “Elizabethan Collars” because we look ridiculous in them and they are super annoying when trying to sleep. Our parents didn’t like them because my brother Sammy was notorious for banging the lamp shade into the back of their legs.

Once Zoe settled on the couch, I went over to support her while she recovered…and got over being zonked out.

The only downside of these body socks is they are not made out of Kevlar (or anything remotely strong enough to contend with our sharp claws if we get an itch). This was Zoe on Friday morning with two gaping holes near her shoulders – which, fortunately, was well away from her incision.

Therefore, on Saturday morning (Zoe’s birthday…at least the day we have deemed her birthday as none of us were around for her birthing and the adoption agency didn’t have an exact date*), we drove to the Vet and got her another suit. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZOE!!!

We told her the suit made her look like a surfer girl, very cool look. Unfortunately, she can’t surf (or swim, or even get a bath like I had recently) for at least 14 days. And even then, she may want to wait to warmer weather before she goes out into the ocean again.

The Tempest

*This is also true of my birthday. But both Mom and Dad know the exact minute they were born. Hmmmph.

The Deerhunter

I finally did something that got enough of The Scribes attention to finally get back to blogging. Mind you, Zoe and I have had many other adventures since my last posting which I am hoping to relate to you over the next few weeks along with any other antics I am sure we’ll get into during that time… assuming I can keep his attention – which after yesterday I am sure he and a lot of other people will have my location on their radar.

So, I assume you are all wondering what action I took. It started a little before 8 AM when Zoe wanted to go outside for a bathroom break (she can only be outside while on a leash for 2 weeks since she had surgery last week to remove bladder stones*) so Mom leashed her up and the three of us went outside to our spacious fenced in part of the yard. I was right there along side of them during their stroll…until I wasn’t. Mom figured I went back inside and called to Dad to see if I was with him…which I wasn’t.

Next, they pulled up their “find my” app to see where my AirTag GPS said I was located. The little Tempi Dog emoji showed me in the house in a spot which could be in either the master or guest bedrooms – depending on if I was on the lower or upper levels of the house. So one of them rechecked the crates in the master while the other looked in the guest bedroom thinking I might have gotten in there and accidentally closed the door on myself. No Tempest in either location.

Mom took Zoe to look around the backyard in a couple of places I like to hide while Dad searched the fence line. Did I mention a good portion of our backyard is encompassed by a 6 foot tall chain-linked fence – intentionally built high enough so Zoe cannot jump over? Well, it turns out, there are spots along the bottom that if given the right amount of force in the right spot can be pushed out just enough for me to roll under. This has been a constant game that Dad and I play – I escape, he finds out where I got out, and after finding me*, puts rocks on either side of the fence (if it is dark out), or puts a board on either side of the fence and screws them together so there isn’t enough play for me to explore the other parts of our lot…or neighborhood. On this occasion, Dad found the spot real close to Mom’s Zoom room.

Thus the search began. Of course, I didn’t know this at the time because I was sprinting through the woods chasing some of the deer that constantly taunt us by casually strolling along our fence line and who don’t have the polite behavior of skedaddling when we start barking at them from our side of the fence. Which of course, neither my parents or Zoe knew at that time since my AirTag wasn’t connecting so they couldn’t track my movements.

Back to the search (which I heard all about later): Mom first informed the parents and kids at the bus stop outside our house that I was on the loose and asked them to please let us know if they see me. Dad started off into the woods behind our house figuring I’d be somewhere along the path the deer take. After putting the alert out to some of our neighbors, Mom got in the car with Zoe and started driving around the neighborhood streets – generally if Zoe or I see our parents in one of our cars we stop what we are doing and go to the car since we LOVE rides.

While clomping through the woods, Dad started texting other groups of neighbors in areas he thought I might be going to let them know to keep an eye out for me. One of these neighbors had the great idea of sending a picture of me to an on-line group of neighbors she belongs to. 

Mom and Zoe returned home not having seen me yet and wanting to make sure I didn’t come home to a shut house, and she (Mom) took this break to let her coworker know I was missing and to ask for help in cancelling most of her meetings for the day – apparently yesterday was a “go into work day.” Her colleague, another dog mom, quickly blasted all her social media outlets with a picture of me and suggested Mom register me on the Massachusetts missing dog website^.

At some point, one of the bus stop mothers who was out for a run called Dad and said she saw me but that I took off back into the woods. Dad contacted Mom who drove to the spot I was last seen. Just before she got into the car, she spotted some deer running across the street down the hill from us headed toward Fern road. Not long after this, another neighbor responded to the on-line group that she had seen me chasing two deer on Fern road and was headed south toward Prospect road. 

While Zoe and Mom alternated between stomping through the woods and driving around some of the other nearby roads, Dad went stomping through the woods where I was last seen. Neither had any luck. When they all had finally returned to the house to see if I made it home, the three of them decided to do one more drive around the area prior to lunch – Zoe being keen on the feeding bit of this plan.

So back in the car they went and headed toward Concord – the next town over where the acres and acres of woods near us extend into. Up and down the streets they went without spotting me. My sister was apparently barking her head off to the amusement of a few members of the pup nation. Dad saw a trail he knew would take him to the main trail which would take him back toward our house so decided he’d walk back while Zoe and Mom went home to feed Zoe. Before he got to the actual trail, someone texted him and told him they had found me. He called Mom back to pick him up and they quickly drove home^.

Checking the position of the sun in the sky, and the rumble in my belly, I realized it was getting on toward noon when we usually go for our pre-lunch walk so I headed home – without having caught either deer (so lunch would once again be kibble and not fresh venison). When I got home the front door was closed so I politely knocked and maybe barked a little so I could be let inside. No response. I upped the ante by starting to claw at the door just a tad – no one would ever notice the claw marks that might have been made…but still no door opening (I failed to notice all the gates to the backyard were left open hoping for my return). I was going to really get into clawing at the door figuring if nobody would open it for me then I’d just have to dig my way in, when I heard the indisputable sound of Zoe barking out the window of a moving vehicle (I get to hear this constantly when we are on errands with Dad*). So I sat down and waited to see who was with her and in what car. As the dog car came to a halt in our driveway, I heard Dad yell: “There she is! On the porch!!!” I looked around to see who he may have been so excited to see but I was the only one there. Mom jumped out of the car and called me over to her. I went over slowly – remember I had been running through the woods after deer for the past four hours.*

Once inside, a couple of things occurred before I was finally served my well deserved lunch:

  1. Zoe gave me an earful about how I shouldn’t run off and that I had everyone really worried and anxious – which made her anxious and worried.
  2. I got a bath. Turns out, a girl can get pretty muddy running through the woods a day after a big rain storm.

After toweling off and doing a couple of those wet-dog shake things, Zoe and I got down to eating our lunch. While we did that, our parents started sending out texts and emails to everyone they activated to let them know I was at home and safe. 

Not sure what happened the rest of the afternoon because I was sleeping a wonderful deep sleep…until it was dinner time!

The Tempest

*= stories to come (fingers crossed)

^=Bad, bad people. 

Turns out, there are mean people out there who scroll through lost pet sites and then contact the owners saying they have the lost pet. After Dad responded to find out where to get “the dog,” and didn’t get an immediate response, Dad and Mom looked and said “it is probably a scam.” This time, after I had been home for over an hour, “for their safety” they wanted to send a 6 digit code to Dad’s phone that he was to send back to let them know he was legit. He did not do this since our parents were weary of such scams since a similar thing happened on the sad occasion Montana escaped the groomer so many years ago. Apparently, if you send them back to the code they can break into your phone and do more bad, bad things. Luckily I was home safe so they didn’t have to even worry that they might be ignoring someone who actually was keeping me safe!