Dog Daze

I took the dogs to the vet for their annual check-up today.  We are several months late - they were due to go back in August and September, but circumstances which I won't get into in this post caused the dogs' routine check up to fall by the wayside for several months.  It's always a  pain anyway because of our big dog, Lucky.

Lucky was a shelter puppy that we adopted when our son, The Boy, was 6 years old. At the time he wanted a dog that "looked just like Old Yeller."  It was my first mistake to go along with this idea, since I knew that I'd be the one doing most of the care of the dog. I should have picked a smaller dog - not a Lab mix. My second mistake was choosing a puppy with some evidence of fear issues. However, her fear issues did seem very minor at the time. These issues did not really surface until we had her about two years. She got along well with The Boy and the other children who played over here, and although she chewed everything in sight  and she shed 24/7/365, she was working out pretty well.  

Then, after we had her about 2 years and I took her to the vet for her check up she went NUTS at the vet's office.  She barked, bared her teeth, wouldn't let the vet or the assistant come near her.  I had to wrestle with her in the examining room to muzzle her just so the vet could get inside the door. None of us could believe it, because she had been to the vet before and had been fine. No more. Ever since then, going to the vet has been a major operation.  I have to get the muzzle on her before we leave the house, and of course, then she knows we are going to THE VET. Plus, today, for the first time, I carried the dogs to the vet in their crates which I placed in the back of our pick-up . Lucky doesn't care for her crate when she's in a good mood, much less when she knows she's about to be faced with THE VET.  I'm sure the neighbors enjoyed watching me wrangle that 50 pound lummox into her crate. 

Then she developed these strange behaviors that we hadn't seen in her before. For instance, she barks at anybody (even The Boy) wearing all black clothing. The Boy took a martial arts class for a while and the first time he wore his all-black uniform ( there's a special word for it but I can't remember it) Lucky had a fit. I have never known a dog to hate one color so much. In fact, I've never known a dog to have any reaction to colors at all.

 She is also deathly afraid of thunder and can hear a thunderstorm approaching long before we do. I know the trauma that caused her fear of thunder, but that is a blog post for another day.

The vet says she has never seen a Lab as nervous as ours and she thinks Lucky is a mix of half Lab/half some type of shepherd. If she is, she's the worst half of both.

After we had Lucky for about 3 years, we ended up acquiring our little dog, Bud. He's a charming Jack Russell who showed up on our doorstep with a big gash in his hip and a broken leg. We took care of him and he's been with us ever since.  All the people at the vet's office love seeing Bud - he's very sociable and sweet.  When I bring Lucky in, everybody just sighs...

Everybody loves Bud!

Bless her heart, she's got issues.