The Sister Bailey Doesn't Want

and apparently no one else wants her either!

But who can resist this face?

So here's the story... Last Thursday, Bailey and I were walking at the park. We were almost back to my car when I saw two guys and two dogs (NOT on leashes) walking from the parking lot toward the trail across the parking lot from where we were. One of the dogs saw us and made a beeline to say hello. Well, Bailey doesn't take kindly to anyone running towards his mommy, so I knew this could be trouble. I told her to stop and made that "UHHHNNN" sound that has stopped other dogs in their tracks, but not this one. She ran right up to us with Bailey growling, so I frantically struggled to get Bailey to the car while keeping her far enough away from him that a fight would not ensue and yelling at her owners that THIS is why she should be on a leash. Once I got Bailey in the car and buckled in, I turned around to pet the dog because I felt bad for yelling at her. She wasn't there, so I assumed she had run back across the parking lot to her less than wonderful owners.

I got in the car and started to back up and thought, "Great! Now I have a flat tire too!" Only it wasn't a flat tire. It was me running over that sweet little girl. I got out of the car expecting to find the flat but instead found the puppy with her leg pinned under my tire. I was hysterical! Her owners, who were still standing across the parking lot watching it all, never responded when I yelled to ask if she was their dog. They just stood there and stared at me like I was speaking Greek! And somehow, after listening to her scream in pain, they got in their car and drove away.
Finally, I decided I was going to have to back the car up a little to get her leg unpinned. Then I had to back up AGAIN because she was still pinned after the first time. I think this was the most traumatic part of the whole ordeal for me, knowing that it was going to hurt her like crazy when I moved the car. After the second time, I got back out and she had run over into the grass and was licking a gash on back left leg.

To make this long story a little shorter, my mom met us at the park, I called our regular vet who said she would meet us at the clinic, mom took the little girl there, and I took Bailey home. I met them at the vet and found out she actually wasn't doing too badly. She had two gashes on her back left leg which the vet had stapled, and some "road rash" here and there. She did not have any internal injuries or broken bones, thank goodness. In all of this, she was a complete angel. She never once tried to bite any of us, despite the tremendous pain she had to be in. And Mom said when they got her inside the clinic and the vet put her down to see how she was walking, she came over to Mom and put her head under Mom's knee. Stole her heart, she did!

The vet thinks she is about 8 months old, black lab mix, 46 lbs., negative for heart worms and intestinal parasites. Oh so sweet and friendly and submissive, though admittedly hyper, because after all, she is a puppy. And a lab. And a LAB PUPPY!

So now, a week later, she is still boarding at the vet while I search to find her a home. If I could keep her, I absolutely would. And her name would be Bella Sera (beautiful night in Italian, though really it should be Sera Bella, but that sounds like cerebellum to me and who wants to call their dog that?) and she would be a great dog. And I would have my "Bailey and Bella" which just sounds cute. But I can't keep her. One of the things we have to avoid with Bailey's DM is stress, and my precious 11 1/2 year old, very happy only child would absolutely be stressed if I brought this little girl home. And if he lost the use of his back legs because of something I did, I would never forgive myself.

Bailey's Healthy Liver :o)

Praise God!!! Something's going our way! I just spoke with the vet who had bloodwork results from Bailey's vet visit last Monday. His alanine aminotransferase level, which was high last month for the first time ever, dropped from 327 to 40! That's the one that really had us worried about his liver function. Also, his alkaline phosphatase was down from 738 to 156!!! This one has been high for almost TWO YEARS, as high as almost 1,000 and hovering around 400 lately. And now it's 156! This is such wonderful news and shows that his liver is much happier now than it was a month ago.

She is also sending off blood for tests for several things that could be causing his DM symptoms instead of DM. She included a thyroid panel in his blood panel and that was normal, so it's not his thyroid. He was tested for tick borne diseases (ehrlichia, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and lyme). Those tests were all negative. The two we're waiting on now are toxoplasmosis and anaplasma. She may also want to test for neospora if those two are both negative. All three of these would be more likely to respond to treatment than DM is, from what I've read anyway. So it would be nice to find out he has something that could be cured with medicine, but we'll have to wait and see. I may get the results Thursday, or it may be next week sometime.

Also, the area for the pool is supposed to get leveled sometime this week - and not by me! So hopefully Mr. Bailey will be swimming again by this weekend...