The Student

So, I've gotten a few inquiries as to how Blitz is doing since his return home.  Simply put, great!  No signs of pain or limping, and while there is a definite small bump on the front of his right leg, we think it might be more like scar tissue that swelling as it doesn't feel warm to the touch.  He settled right back in with us like he never left, and still loves playing with his green squeaky ball and laying in the bathroom between the wall and the toilet and being in the kitchen.  The biggest change has been his size.  When he left he looked like this:

And now he looks like this:

Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that he still does have quite a bit of puppy in him still just because he looks full grown (which he is not quite yet) when he's getting into something he's not supposed to or driving me a little nuts during his "bewitching" hour of about 8pm-9pm.  We try to walk him twice a day and that really helps him be a contented hound in the house; no crazy rampages thru the living room grabbing all the pillows off the love seat or sticking his head in the hampers to grab socks to chew on.  The weirdest thing that happened lately was that at my family birthday dinner last week, we brought him to my grandparent's where the dinner was at, and he was a prince the whole time.  Then, as the dishes were being cleared to make way for the cake and coffee Granny went out into the garage, Joe went to help her and Blitz followed right behind.  Joe heard a "crunch" and looked down and saw that Blitz was munching on a half- hidden -under -the- dryer tray of rat poison.  My Granny and Gramps felt so horrible - they didn't even remember that they had any poison down.  So after a call to poison control, trip to the emergency vet ($$$) he is just fine.  By doing that, he also managed to weasel out of the appointment that we had for him to be fixed... yes, he's a smart one!

Last Tuesday night was our first night of obedience school with him, and it was really fun.  Lots of good tips and techniques and he seems to be a pretty quick learner.  We just have to be diligent with the homework.  So, we'll just continue one day at a time with him and enjoy him to bits - which is easy to do.  He is gorgeous to look at and has personality out the wazoo!

Guess Who is Coming Back Into My Life?!?!

As of next Thursday, BLITZ!!!!!!!  For good! This is just the icing on an already big, fat, gooey-chocolaty cake.  Life is so peachy right now...

Oh, and San Diego was great.  Tropicalish, relaxing, fun... but that seems like old news and much less interesting than that other little gem of information!

Heartache

I don't want to write this, because if I do, it will make it seem all the more real.

Joe left this morning with Blitz to return him the the breeder, Al.

To say that we are sad would be a monumental understatement.  Since last Thursday, things have really sucked around here.  Let me explain... Last Monday Blitz was at my folks house for the day while Joe was sleeping and I was at work.  I got a phone call from my mom as I was walking out of work asking me to come straightaway to her house, something was wrong with Blitz's right leg.  When I got there, he had a swollen spot on his foreleg that looked like somebody had shoved an egg under his skin it was that puffy and a significant limp.  My mom had no idea what happened because she was with him the whole time - no falls, yelps of pain, she didn't see any bees outside next to him, nothing.  She had put him in his crate for an hour while she went to a Dr. appt and when he went in he was peachy, when he came out he had a bump and a limp.  I wasn't really that worried, because he let us touch it and didn't seem in pain or agitated. So I took him home, iced it, and got an appt for him the next morning with the vet.

Joe took him to the appt, (another 500 bones spent) they did Xrays which confirmed that there was no break or fracture, so they thought it was most likely a spider bite that got infected and sent him home with some antibiotics.  The lump went down, he perked right along, and we thought all was well.  Until Thursday afternoon when the vet called with devastating news.  He had had a radiologist look at the xrays, and right off he noticed that something was wrong;  Blitz's joint was malformed, which had cause his bone to slip out of place, and caused all the swelling.  He explained that if you cup your left hand and place it over your right hand that you've got clenched in a fist, that is how the joint SHOULD be formed to rotate and bear pressure properly.  Now, make both hands into fists and place them knuckle to knuckle, and you have how Blitz's is formed.  They said that the more he grew and heavier he got, the more pain he would be in, and more unstable the joint would be.  There were three ways to fix it:

1.  Surgery on the joint that would cost upward of $5,000.  We would have to severely limit his exercise an activity so as not to re injure the     joint, then when he would be a year old and done growing they would preform the surgery, and then he would have to be casted/splinted for 8-12 weeks while it healed.

2.  Amputate the entire leg including the shoulder blade.  Since he is so young he would recover very quickly and should adapt with no problems.  But what the hell kind of quality of life would that be for him?  

3 Euthanasia (ick, ick, ick!!)

Option #1 was out because even if we could afford that kind of treatment for him, with our schedules how could we care for him with limited movement/exercise???  German Shepherds NEED an outlet for their energy, and even if the surgery was done, there's no guarantee that it would be successful or require something more, and where is the $$$ line that you draw?  That really left it between #s 2 & 3.  I just didn't feel good about #3 AT ALL.  He is so full of life and has so much to offer - how do you just snuff that out?  I am all for ending it when pets are in pain or beyond any other help.  But for the love of Pete, this is a puppy - who happily chews his ice cubes and digs in the backyard and fetches his ball and sleeps on your feet while you stand at the sink and do dishes.  So option #2 was looking more like a possibility, but I knew deep in my heart that it would probably dampen the quality of his life just to keep him in ours.  I cried a lot.  Heck, who am I kidding?  I still am.

Friday I got a flu bug and we had one of the hottest days of the year.  Oh yeah,and my period too.  Poor Joe.  I was a nauseated, cramping, crying mess who felt that I was about to spontaneously burst into flames.  So he took me and Blitz to my folks to the sanctuary of their AC and we stayed there over night since he had to go to work and he smartly realized that I was in no condition to be left alone.    

So we waited, and waited, and I cried and cried.  It seemed like no matter what we chose it was a crap decision, and one that didn't have a great outcome.  

Yesterday, Joe took Blitz to the breeder's house so he could see him with his own eyeballs.  Al and his wife Sylvia are such loving people.  My goodness, what they offered to us and to Blitz was more than generous and really shows their character.  They felt very strongly that they needed to "make it right", and wanted us to entrust Blitz to their keeping, for them to raise.  Even though his condition is not hereditary, simply a birth defect, they felt the need to step in and basically give Blitz the best care and life possible.  They will not put him down and they will not amputate.  While they have never had this occur in a litter they have bred, they have owned other shepherds who have had joint issues so they know all the intricacies of how to care for him with the types and amounts of exercise, joint supplements, etc.  When he is a year old, they will have the joint surgery done on him in Mexico where it will be much cheaper and they have family, and he will live out his life as a family pet to them.   There's a part of me that screams "just tell me what to do and I'll do it!!  anything!!"... but I just don't have the set-up that they do, or the expertise to deal with something like this.  They are also going to give us a another puppy  from a littler they hope to have born sometime in the late fall.  I have mixed emotions about that...  yes, I want a dog very badly, but dang it, I want the one I had.

So last night as Joe and I were discussing all this I was still feverish hoping against hope for a miraculous healing, it was becoming very clear that we had to accept Al's offer.  It was truly the best thing for Blitz.  Honestly, the best possible scenario - his body stays intact, he stays alive  and there's no one else who could care for him as well.  And what is truly amazing, it that for Al and Sylvia to take him, it is a sacrifice for them to do so as well.  The zoning laws where they live says that they can only have 3 dogs at a time, and they already do.  They will send one to his friend Luis is LA so that Blitz can stay with them.  Talk about above and beyond.

I sure cried a lot this morning as I gathered some things that needed to go with him to his new home.  Part of me feels silly, because it is not like I lost a person in my life, and in the scope of things, this is a relatively small loss compared to what other people in the world are dealing with.  But... he was my buddy.  Always close by me, following me around making his funny little noises.  It is sad to think that for awhile it will be just me here at night.

That is a very lonely thought.

Can It Be... ???

Oh yes it is...  here I am!!  Oye, what a month it has been.  On May 10th, we were able to bring Blitz home.  It is so much fun having him here with us - and a LOT of work.  Luckily, he took to sleeping in the kennel at night really well, and after a week and a half was sleeping thru the night with no potty breaks like a champ.  Housebreaking has been another issue.  At this point, there are really no accidents any more, but for the first two weeks I wondered if there really was a light at the end of the tunnel and at what point I should buy stock in Bounty.   

When he had been with us for 2 weeks we took him to the vet for his second round of shots, we got him microchipped, spoke to the vet about when we could sign him up for the snip-snip, and casually mentioned that he drinks A LOT of water.  Like he would drain his bowl and then keep licking it and licking it.  Since I've never had a larger type breed before, I didn't know if it was normal or not, but thought that it was just more of a nuisance because since he was constantly guzzling water, it was hard to gage when he would need to be taken out which resulted in lots 'o pee everywhere.  Well, five hundred dollars later, we walked out of the vets office rather shell shocked. 

No, the vet informed us, excessive water drinking is NOT normal, so a barrage of tests was done on him, and a lot of the possibilities as to what the diagnosis could be looked pretty grim.  It could be something just as simple as a UTI or he just absolutely loves water.  Or it could be his kidneys were not formed correctly so his body tells him to drink as much water as possible to help them flush things out.  But they really can't do anything to test that until he's full grown and they do an ultrasound.  If that were indeed the case, ultimately his lifespan would be shortened and there would be no cure.  Or, it could possibly be diabetes lipidus.  If that were the case, it would mean that his brain was not creating enough of a certain hormone that concentrates urine, and was always sending the message to his body to constantly drink more.  There is medicine for that, but it could range anywhere $3-7 a day for the medicine for the rest of his life.  So until we heard back from the vets office with some results, they wanted us to record how many cups of water a day we gave him to see just what his intake was.

The conversation that Joe and I had that night was not a fun one.  Basically Joe said, we had to figure out where the $$$ line was that we were not willing to cross.  Could we really afford to provide the best life for him, if in fact Blitz had an illness?  The very painful answer, was no.  It broke my heart to think about having to find another home for the little fluff ball that I had become very attached to.  He was MY DOG.  I cried like a 5 year old.  We decided that we would wait to hear from the vet before making any decisions.  Luckily, it seems that his blood work and urine samples all showed good levels of whatever they were looking for, although thru charting his water intake he does drink not quite double what a puppy of his size and weight should.  So, the vet wanted to do a trial run on the diabetes meds for about a month.  If his water intake were to decrease while on the meds, then we would know that it is in fact diabetes, if no difference, then no diabetes, and he's just a water lovin' hound.  I am pleased to report that so far a week on the meds, and no difference.  YES!!!  Things are looking up, and at this point, we know that he'll be with us for many years. 

So that's the latest with Blitz... that doesn't even include me slicing my hand open at work while cutting an avocado for my sandwich at work, me getting in a fender bender in our new car, Joe getting an a car accident at work (he's fine), saying good-bye to Joe's brother who decided to go to Australia for a year.  Whew.  That's a lot.   But that doesn't mean that I haven't had time to look at all your blogs, just because I've been so negligent of my own.  This lady?  I love her whole site.  I love learning about how she does her photography, and I've already cooked several of her recipes.  And her and her?  Well, they're inspiring.  

The desk for the office has been ordered, so hopefully after that the new computer will not be far behind.  That will make blogging and uploading photos SO much easier - getting to use the laptop only when Joe is sleeping is hard because there's 42 other things I should be doing.  Whoever said sharing is fun was a liar.  I'm ready for my own space!!

This Should Help Get You Through to the Weekend

Since I happened to get scheduled for a day off today, Joe and I had a whole day to ourselves...which was a rare and wonderful occurrence.  We toyed with a couple of different ideas, but ultimately curiosity got the best of us - we wanted to see what Blitz was looking like in person!  So off to San Jose we went and had a nice lunch before heading over the the breeder's house.  Good news, he gets to come home on May 13th!!  Less than two weeks.  We still have some things to pick up, like food bowls, chew toys, treats...and probably a slew of other stuff.  Anybody have any crating tips they would like to share?  I'm all ears.  I've read a couple books and feel fairly confident what kind of nighttime regime I'm gonna (try to) have, but during the day is a little different story.  We do have a puppy pen and crate in the office, but any other tips/ lessons learned would be very appreciated!  I'm sure most of what we come up with routine-wise will be trial and error...

Isn't he just so stinking cute?!?!  Lots different than a month ago when the eyes had just been opened and he was pretty much a squirmy lump.  Did you know that shepherds come in 3 different coat types?  I didn't either.  There's short, plush, and long haired varieties.  In the beginning, I had originally wanted a Rottie, because I didn't want to deal with long hair.  Joe helped me see the light as to why GS are superior, and I thought I could deal.  When the puppies' coats were coming in, it was determined that one of the males was a long hair, so that really simplified which one was for us, once again, I didn't want the long hair.  This time, when we saw the breeder he said that the other male was turning out to have more of a plush coat, and would that be ok?  We assured him that it would be, because I came up with a solution.  It's called Dyson.  

Just chillaxin' with Joe.  Because he's cool.

Here's Tilda the mom at lunchtime with the pups.   She's a real sweetie.  Poor girlie, puppy teeth are sharp!  Yikes!

For those of you who are really observant, you can kinda see I cut my hair.  I really like it - about 4 inches taken off.  I was inspired awhile ago by Katie Holmes... but it's not quite as short as hers (yet).  It's more like an A-line bob... because of the layers that were already in my hair it's not quite the shape I want it to end up being, but I was impatient to get it cut, so we went for it.  Holly (my hair dresser) will get it  fine tuned a little more next time.   I love her.  She's always game for whatever I decide, and I do go through a lot of things.  Normally I decide to chop my hair off, then regret it and try to grow it out while experimenting with bangs, no bangs, different parts, highlights, different layers...I'm all over the map.  But so far, no regrets.  I love that it has a real shape to it, and blow drying is waaaaay easier.  I guess we shall see.  I'll try to get Joe to take some better pictures of it.

And the closing shot.  We wore him out but good!  I hope that your Wednesday was as fun as mine!  

Bloggers, Meet Blitz

We're getting a puppy!!  And this is the little dude!

We got to go Thursday night to see the puppies and hopefully try to narrow down which one we wanted.  Obviously, it's hard when a puppy is only 2 and a half weeks old to tell much to differentiate it from it's siblings.  Joe knew he wanted a male and I am just thrilled to be getting a dog so gender didn't matter to me, and so that helped bring the choice down to the two males.  One was a pudge, with big paws and head, and the other one while not scrawny, was definitely smaller.  We asked the breeder, Al, which one he thought would be the best dog for us (knowing that we want strictly a pet and are not planning on breeding or showing).  He said that if he had to choose one to keep as a pet, it would be the smaller of the two.  He said that little puppy impresses him every feeding time by the way he latches onto the mom even though he's getting smooshed between bigger sisters and brother, he does not give up his spot.  Simply put, he has focus, and I guess tenacity.  Al thinks that will transfer over into his training and willingness to want to please us.  So, unless something were to dramatically change with his health or development... we'll be bringing him home sometime in mid-May.

So cute!

 

There was much discussion about the name...  Back when we were researching what breeds we thought would be compatible with our wants and needs, the German Shepherd came to the forefront straight away.  As Al has told us "they (German shepherds) are first in somethings, but second in everything", meaning that they are an extremely versatile dog - they pretty much do it all - hunt, swim, great with kids, protective, herd, agility courses, schitzhund, do well in snow, the list goes on.  Because of their temperament and intelligence, they can easily adapt to what you need them to do.  But I digress.  Joe really started liking the albino ones (too weird looking), or the all black ones that looked like wolves (too scary looking).  I was completely against both.  I kept having visions of the white dog rolling in the dirt and mud and looking gross and being a nightmare to keep clean.  So I struck a deal with Joe that as long as he agreed to get a German Shepherd that looks like a traditional one, he could choose the name.  He went through a lot!!  There were some real doozies.  Actually, it was a guy that used to be in Joe's group of high school guys that he led at church a few years back that came up with the name.  He was home on spring break, and came over to workout with Joe and have dinner with us.  He said that we should think of a German name for him.  He threw out "you should name him 'Blitz' from blitzkrieg, that would be really cool."  Blitzkkrieg means "lightning war".  And the name grew on us.  So thanks Andrew!!

So get used to this little face.  Because until little munchkins come, he and his antics will be getting a lot of air time on here!