Oliver - October 2010

Oli - enjoying the warmth of the sun

Big yawn there Oli Boo!

Oli... looks so cute

Beautiful Oli Boo!

Awwwwwwww......

"I feel a sneeze coming on"!!!

Another big yawn!

Bodi - Enjoying his new toy

Oli - Having a blast his first Christmas with us!

Beautiful Bodi!

Oliver - Waiting for that Christmas treat!

Bodi - Waiting for the Christmas treat from Mommy!

Oli - resting with Daddy and his new toy!

Bodi - Loving his new toy!

The Boys are beat after opening ALL of their gifts!

This is from our good friend (and the boys vet):

“Here is my take on the matter:
Since Bodi’s injury, there has been some disruption to the dominance hierarchy in your household. I think Bodi’s behavior represents his attempt to re-establish his dominance. As long as no body is getting hurt, I would give it some time and let them work it out without your intervention. If the fighting occurs in your presence, let both dogs know that YOU are the top dog in the household. Put them both in their place and demand that they acquiesce to YOU.
— Dr. B”

Things are getting better slowly, there is still a bit of tension between them at times, but they are playing together more, allowing themselves to be together at times, and the hair takes a little longer to raise up.  A large part of the problem seems to be Oliver’s total lack of fear when it comes to pushing in front of Bodi to get his portion of love and petting, as expected, Bodi gets pissed at these times.  Before all of this happened Bodi would let Oli do this, but now he is quicker to lay into him.

Today Bodi and Oliver played in the yard for quite a while, as usual Bodi spends way too much time barking at Oliver, but Oliver’s speed keeps him out of reach (the benefit of being 15lbs. lighter LOL).

On the walks both are working towards backing each other up – watch out lizards.

We feel it will still take a while to get back to normal, but with a bit of work and controlling the energy everything will get better and these two pains in the butt will be living the good life again.

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I stood by your bed last night …I came to have a peep.
I could see that you’d been crying,and you found it hard to sleep.

I whined to you softly as you brushed away a tear, “It’s me. I haven’t left you. I’m well, I’m fine, I’m here”.

I was close to you at breakfast… I watched you pour your tea.
You were thinking of the many times your hands reached down to touch me.

I was with you at my grave today… you tend to it with such care.
I want to reassure you. That I’m not lying there.

I walked you towards the house as you fumbled for the key.
I gently put my paw on you…I smiled and said, “it’s me”.

You looked so tired as you sank into your chair.
I tried so hard to let you know that I was sitting there.

It’s wonderful for me to be so near you everyday,
To say to you with certainty, “I never went away”.

You sat there quietly, then smiled… I think you knew
That in the stillness of the evening I was very close to you.

And when the time is right for you to cross the brief divide,
I’ll rush across to meet you and we’ll stand there side by side.

I have so many things to show you ! There’s so much for you to see.
Be patient, live your journey out, then come home to be with me.

Thank you all for your good wishes for Bodi, and concern for Nancy – We all appreciate it very much.

Bodi’s appetite is still not really there, unfortunately he has figured out that we are hiding the pills in the canned food meatballs (he normally never gets canned food, so I think that was suspect right from the start).  Now we give him the meatballs, he rolls them around with his nose, licks them, and walks away,  too smart for his own good.  For the time being we are using soft cheese to hide them, works for now – hopefully will continue.

The swelling has quickly spread down his chest and front legs, through his belly, and is encroaching on his back legs.  The swelling has started to come down on his face and neck quite a bit, which is good – he doesn’t look quite as pitiful, but from there on back- look out.

The bruising has pretty much settled in the lower extremities, his lower chest and the stomach, turning bright red/purple down near his crotch.  It is because of this bruising and pain that we can’t pick him up easily to help him up on the bed or sofa – the screams he let out when we tried quickly changed our minds on that.  Bodi, besides moving very, very slowly – is having a tough time walking, seems to be in a bit of of pain in the front leg/chest from the bruising, so, this makes him walk like a very old dog, definitely not the Bodi we know.

As can be seen from the closeup, the bruising has moved through here.  Bodi is a very fit dog, so those rolls that you see there are not normal, and are all from the swelling in his chest area – it looks funny as he walks, rolling side to side – and I am sure it’s very uncomfortable for him.

We had him back at the clinic yesterday morning and he had a good checkup – they say that the poison is running its course and we just have to be patient.  As long as he eats, drinks, and does he thing outside, he is functioning – and that’s good.

This morning was a tough one though.  Since we are still giving him the Pain Killers and Antibiotics, and he isn’t eating a whole lot… He had the (dis)pleasure of vomiting everything up about an hour after getting his meds – the bruised chest and emptying himself 8 times surely drained him… Trust me, that stuff is not fun to clean up out of a carpet.

End of day 3: The swelling and bruising just keep right on running through his system – to tell you the truth we had no idea how bad this was going to be for Bodi – It’s like pushing meat through a sausage – It just keeps swelling and moving down his body, leaving it’s marks and pain along the way – His face looks much better, but now his crotch is all bruised and swollen, and we are accepting the fact that his back legs will get it tomorrow.

Even 3 days after that little Rattler did it’s thing, Bodi can barely walk, he eats very little, he drools and coughs incessantly – Bodi definitely took the bullet on this one, as the snake was right at Nancy’s feet… And I would hate to think what that venom would have done to Oliver at 20lbs. less weight than Bodi – that would have been very tough for him I would think.

So, as you can see – he is on the mend, it will be a long haul to get him back to normal, and – DAMN – Rattle Snakes suck when they bite your best friend.

As to the info we keep getting on the snake vaccine – As we have said all along, it is not the savior for your dog if it gets bitten – It is not even a guarantee that it will help at all, it is just a little insurance against the laws of nature that may help out in the treatment and recovery of your pet. People will buy aspirin all day long thinking that it knows how to specifically help every ailment that comes along in their body when they hurt – and knows how to find the right pain at the time, but want to throw their hands in the air that the vaccine doesn’t do anything… If the vaccine helped Bodi even a tiny bit – it was worth it to me.

Doing her big loop in an area that we call Valhalla, she was going to cut it short and head back, but felt that as long as she was out and about she might as well take the slightly longer loop through the trail in the field and then back – give the boys a little longer walk since she had not been out as often with the sore foot.

Bodi and Oliver, unlike Tucker, will try to go after anything that moves, seeing a lizard on the trail is dangerous as they will turn on a dime and lunge into the brush, certain that they will catch the critter – and actually never even coming close. Due to this, Nancy always keeps them on a short leash and works hard to keep them out of the brush – smart girl there. I, as men do, let them off leash and deal with the consequences.

Because we take the boys out on the trails so often, and we have seen Rattle Snakes, we chose to get both of the boys hooked up with the Rattle Snake Vaccine. Unlike what most people think – the vaccine doesn’t mean you don’t have to worry if they get bitten, but it does give you more time before the major damage hits, which gives you a better chance to get to the doctor before your dog is very badly messed up. We can’t tell you for certain that the vaccine made a difference – Tucker never had the vaccine, and never got bitten, but if it made this even 1/1000th easier on Bodi by having it – it was well worth it, many times over.

So, back to the walk… Coming down the trail Bodi spots something and dives into the brush – Nancy pulls him back and instructs “LEAVE IT”, Oliver, now at the edge of the brush while Bodi is being reprimanded, starts batting at something with his paws – doing his best cat imitation. Nancy looks at what he is swatting at and sees the tail end of a rattle snake, “beating feet” as they say, leaving the scene.

Nancy pulls the pups close and starts to check them out, all looks well, and due to the fact that neither dog yelped, she feels like she has dodged a big one and things are OK. Taking one more quick look, she notices what looks like a small amount of blood on Bodi’s cheek, and two puncture wounds. Bodi still hasn’t given any reaction that he has been bitten, and is still ready to walk.

Nancy heads back and has to walk the 2 – 3 hundred yards back to the Jeep, her first reaction is that she should carry Bodi – but walking 2 dogs kind of rules that out – and Bodi, at just under 60 lbs. is still a bit of a carry for 300 yards up and down hills, over the trails. Within a short distance, Bodi starts to slow – and by the time he is about 50 yards away, is very slow, and salivating uncontrollably.

Nancy calls me shortly after the bite and lets me know what has happened, I call the nearest Vet and am informed that there are no doctor’s there at the moment – and gives instructions to go to the Animal Hospital. I call our good friend, and Bodi and Oliver’s normal doctor, Dr. Berry and he instructs me that we should head straight to his clinic, Agoura Animal Clinic – he would notify same and since he was off that day, they would be ready when Nancy got there. We would normally head straight to Agoura Animal Clinic, but since they are about 3 times as far away as the nearest clinic – we tried the nearest first.

I was at the clinic waiting for Nancy when she pulled up, and I got Bodi out of the Jeep. He was quite out of it by this time, with drool running out of his mouth. I carried him straight into the clinic and Dr Kane had Bodi on an IV, had anti venom into him, and checked everything out on Oliver as well, just to be sure that he hadn’t gotten nicked at the same time.

At this time Bodi’s face was starting to swell slightly, but they were surprised that he didn’t look worse. Since Nancy got him there so quickly he was just at the very beginning of the swelling that we would see over the next couple of days.

Once they were certain Bodi had stabalized, they gave us the rundown on Bodi, informed us that since we would be watching Bodi closer then anyone else throughout the night, sent us home with Bodi hooked up to a portable IV unit.

Unbelievably, throughout this entire ordeal, Bodi has not yelped, has not growled, has not whimpered – he went through it like a real trooper, and the only time we heard even the slightest whimper from him was when we would nudge his face while working on the IV – or when he had to go out to go to the bathroom and was trying to let us know.

Bodi was placed on the bed hooked up to the machine, drugs running through his system, and he pretty much stayed that way all night, while I stayed up and watched him to make sure that he got his antibiotics and pain killers at the prescribed times. It was a very long night for me – and I am sure, twice as long for Bodi.

The swelling was going strong throughout the night, and as of now – 2 days later, it still hasn’t stopped, it has slowed a bit – but hasn’t stopped. The swelling has moved down his face, throughout his chest, down his front leg, has bruised throughout the chest and leg area, it’s unbelievable how it has taken him. As of now, 2 days later he has trouble even walking from the swelling, and still, not a peep out of him from the pain. His face swelling has come down a bit, but he still can’t eat regularly due to the pain and swelling.

Oliver has been as careful as can be, he hasn’t tried to play with Bodi, has stepped aside when Bodi comes through and has spent a lot of time sniffing his wounds, and licking his face and body. The toughest part was when Bodi was at the clinic and laying on the blanket while they attended to him, Oliver kept trying to slide over to sit and/or lay down next to him, always trying to be a part of everything Bodi is going through.

So now – it’s just a matter of letting the toxins run their course, letting his little body fight what is going on – and spoiling him rotten with our caring and love.

At the time we had 4 cats, and if you want to know what disrupting a household is like – just throw a Vizsla into this mix – Luckily Tuck always loved the cats, only one of them actually came to love Tuck though, but I can’t blame them for that – they’re just stupid cats after all.

Tucker was always willing to learn, and fit right into our life perfectly – we took him everywhere that we could, and he learned to be a big part of things without getting in the way.  To this day we still have people that tell us that he was their favorite dog ever – and some of them have dogs in their lives at the time. Tuck always loved all of our friends and in return they loved him too.

Tucker was the most sensitive soul I ever knew, if Nancy and I raised our voices he would get upset, start to shake and eventually would leave the room to hide out, of course this made it difficult to watch sports, since we would be yelling at the game and suddenly notice that Tucker wasn’t in the room with us, and we would have to go find where he was hiding away from our yelling. The easy thing was that we always knew if there was a problem, because Tuck would never be out of the room that we were in – so, no Tuck, and you knew something was up.

This sensitivity really came into play whenever one of us was hurting, Tucker would become the biggest cuddle monster and would go out of his way to be there for us.  When Nancy went through breast cancer Tucker spent many a day wrapped around her making sure she was OK.  He would walk up and put his nose on your nose and just look into your face, an incredible boy to say the least.

We’ve had our own business for quite a while now, which makes it easy to bring our boys with us, Tucker was always the star of the show… We had clients that we would call to confirm a meeting and they would ask if we were bringing Tucker with us, and would make sure to let us know that if Tucker wasn’t coming, there really wasn’t any reason to meet at that time, and we could wait until Tucker could be present.  The best part is that they would have a chair at the meeting table for Tucker so that he could crawl up in the chair and crash out while we conducted our meeting.

The memories stream back quickly, too quickly at times as they bring tears with them.  The time he was brain-cramping and hit his leg on a hidden rock – we thought he had broken it – he just stood there holding it up and crying for us… The time he was doing his brush surfing (hopping through the deep brush so he could see above it) and we watched him jump up and then disappear as he went over the edge of a ravine and landed in the creek about 15 feet below, we had to hang over the edge and pull his wet butt back up to the trail… Coming home one time after leaving him inside for about 12 hours (we got stuck somewhere) and finding a little bit of pee tinkled throughout the house as Tucker ran from the back door, to the kitchen door, to the front door, up the stairs – everywhere, trying to find any way out, finally ending up in the upstairs bathroom where he finally releaved himself on the tile (We felt so bad for that one, he tried so hard to find a way out!!!)…

I think of all of the nicknames we had for our guy, I could go on about the Tucker forever, but we have to save those for another time.

Tonight I will raise a toast (and please, everyone reading this, do the same) to the dog that really thought he was human, to the dog that taught us about true commitment and love, to the one and only “T”…

These Pics (except the one with Nancy) were all taken the last morning that we had Tucker, they are tough to see at times, everything comes flying back – but they are the last ones we got and will always show that even on his last day he was the most gentle soul possible.

Tucker and Rowdy... Beautiful

Tucker and Rowdy… brothers, born in 1997… have both moved on to the Rainbow Bridge.  Rowdy crossed the RB in March 2008 and Tucker in August 2009.  Tuck and Rowdy were both from the same litter… Russet Leather Rawhide.

They loved to play together and often displayed that youthful exuberance, exhibiting the famous Vizsla “brain cramps”!  We always thought that they were crazy dogs!  Ha!  That

Playful pups!

they were…

We miss them both very much and wanted to send them love, kisses and many, many blessings!

Enjoy the pics!

Beautiful Boys

Oliver is a 1.5 year old that we adopted from SoCal Vizsla Rescue, He is a beautiful, extremely thin, very active, sweet young Vizsla that we will gladly welcome into his “Forever Home”.

Last night was his first night with us… What a sweet boy, he played long and hard with all of the toys that he could find, and then when we sat down to dinner, he curled up on the sofa and went to sleep.

At bed time, it took just a few to get him to calm down, but then he curled up next to Bodi, put his head on Bodi’s butt and went to sleep.

He definitely has some separation anxiety, but then it has only been 1 day and he is just getting used to the new digs. He tends to whine when left by himself, whether in the bedroom, or when left alone in the house, but seems to be much better when Bodi is nearby.

Couldn’t be happier, Nancy, Bodi, Oliver and I look forward to many more posts on this new subject, and new member of our family.