(no subject)

[sal_amanda]

We had some unfortunate news in the dog family this past weekend.  My mom's dog, Willie, hasn't been eating terribly well lately, but then he's never been a very good eater.  And he's been a little lethargic, but then he was a fat little basset hound anyway.  So I certainly didn't think it was very serious.  However, that couldn't have been further from the truth.

I called my mom Friday evening to firm up our babysitting plans for the next day, and before I could even say anything, she told me they just had to put Willie to sleep.  To say I was stunned would be an understatement.  Turns out he had some very invasive lymphosarcoma that they hadn't seen signs of when he was just there a month ago for a tooth cleaning.  And it was bad enough that there was no recovery.  

So they called my brother at work and he left to go say good-bye and be there.  I might point out that no one called me until after, but I guess he wasn't technically my dog since I don't live there.  Still, he has stayed at my house a lot so I was mildly miffed about that.  

But then I had to figure out how to discuss the topic with Nora.  I think we did all right, being honest and age appropriate.  Not fun, though.

I wasn't sure my mom would be into getting another dog right away, but she told me yesterday that she's up for it.  She's got a weekend trip in a couple weeks and a week vacation at the end of the month, but she did tell me pretty blatantly that it would be a nice birthday present for them if they came home from their vacation to find a dog waiting for them.

So I'm on the hunt, but not too much yet.  Good dogs disappear quickly from the SPCA so not much use checking them out right now.  But I'm very excited at the prospect.  We have pretty much the same dog standards.  No younger than a year, no older than four, house trained, good with other dogs and with cats and with kids.  In my opinion, she needs a lab.  Though there is a weimereiner at the SPCA currently...

My one concern is trying to figure out how I adopt a dog from the SPCA and still have it be in my mom's name.  Hmmm.

Comments

[i-am-solid.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would love for her to get a Weimereiner because I want one!
I KNEW she would be all about getting another dog. Personally, I think she should stick with cats since they don't need walking and no one needs to worry about them when you are out of town. She certainly doesn't need to come home from vacation to find a new dog. That's the last thing you want to deal with after a vacation. Besides, her birthday isn't until August - unless you happen to come across some awesome opportunity before then. I defy you to find a more ridiculous but awesome find than Doc.

[sal_amanda]

We went Saturday to see the weimaraner, but we were too late. She was adopted, but she was still there and she was awesome! I need to keep an eye out for another one.

She's being totally crazy about this whole thing, though. She only wants a dog with a known history. Well, how many dogs at the SPCA have a known history? Just about none of them, so you have to go on your gut and some knowledge about the breed. I mean, I knew nothing about Beezley, other than that he was a little on the hyper side. He tried eating my purse when we took him for a walk, but I still brought him home. We didn't know anything about Willie. She's still scarred from that Lucky experience, and I think we really opted to ignore some major warning signs of his aggression with other dogs and small creatures because he was so good with us.

[beatmbg.livejournal.com]

Sounds like she would do better with a more laid back breed. Labs and weimereiners do require a lot of walks and play at least until they're older. Maybe she would do better with another basset, or a very low key dog in general. You could always tell by the way the walked on a leash when we were walking dogs at animal control in Missoula. Some dogs would just walk right next to you, and they were very calm and easy to handle, sounds like that might be a good option for them. I'm sorry to hear about their dog though, thats a very hard thing to go through.