i got my life back! (or, at least, my VERSION of “life”)

an image i didn’t know would exist within only a week:

copper and lil’ dude, out in the yard, playing. this has become their favorite past time, and while the weather’s nice i encourage it whenever i can – for a couple reasons:

1. it allows me to get shit done around the house
2. it gets lil’ dude a lil’ more socially adapted (versus lucky, who was kept sequestered by alex for so much of his puppy years he was socially retarded)
3. it’s GREAT exercise for copper – check out how much fat she’s lost:

copper about a year ago:

versus now:

the down side is it makes the lump on the front of her throat look more pronounced (i.e. “bigger”) but otherwise she seems like a new puppy again. last time she was in the vet (for said lump) she weighed 66lbs. this last week she weighed in at 58lbs…so, why was she there? why did i think i wouldn’t have this pic this week? well, it all started last friday…

…i let the girls out in the back yard when i first get home, and me and lil’ dude go out front. the reason for this is two-fold: for one, i don’t let lil’ dude around buffi ’cause she’s blind and can’t see it coming when he tries to jump up on her to play. i think that’s cruel to her, so i don’t let them really hang out. for two, if lil’ dude is around copper he tends to want to play and fight and whatever and so he doesn’t go to the bathroom OR let her do it in peace. so last friday when we cut out the carport door apparently i forgot to pull it shut all the way, and we went back in through the front door, so when i gave the girls dog biscuits and went in the back of the house the wind blew open the door and cop was outta here.

i freaked.

here it is, 1:30am on a saturday, i’m dead balls tired, and i’m running around the neighborhood with lil’ dude in tow (i figured the jingle of his collar might draw her out from the shadows) stage-whispering “COPPER” up and down the two streets that adjoin my own…but i didn’t bother to go the other way down my own street. i circle back to the house, put him up (he was pooped) and get in the car, putting the top down so i can hear her collar if she’s around, and take off. what made this particularly unpleasant was a front had blown in, so i’m in shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops and it’s thirty-eight-fucking-degrees out. fortunately i only make it two houses down and i hear the jingle…i come to a gentle stop, open the door, and up trots copper like nothing’s wrong and she jumps in my lap, steps into the passenger seat, and turns and looks at me like “yeah! a car ride!”.

i backed up the two houses back, into the driveway, and into the carport. then i take her in the house and crash. two days later when i go to let her out of her crate she’s got one of her front legs pulled up to her chest and is hopping around on three legs. i gave it a few days to work itself out. when it didn’t i feared the worst since this is how calum ended up losing a limb, but it turned out she had just picked at something caught in her paw to the point of giving herself a severe secondary infection. $165 later ($100 for the day surgery, $50 in meds, and a $15 mani-pedi she desperately needed) we went home with a big bandage on her paw and her still kinda hopping about. two days later off came the bandage (which was supposed to happen) and she instantly started licking at her paw (which was NOT supposed to happen).

i called the vet and they said she’d have to get one of those lampshade collars so she didn’t pick at the wound, but over the weekend she must have left it alone enough ’cause as of this morning miss pink nose was back in the pink, and they can go outside and play – which means i can write longer articles like this (fairly) uninterrupted!