Today’s photo features a familiar face, my own sweet Daisy dog who loves the camera (and who also loves a good stick).  This was taken after the tree fell on our house last month, and now that the roof and fence repairs are complete and all of the sticks and debris have been cleaned up, I thought it was a good time to revisit this photo.

It’s also timely because it comes on the heels of a recent post by vet Dr. Rayya over at Dr. Rayya’s Online Veterinary Journal.  If you’re not familiar with her blog, be sure to check it out as it offers a wealth of information for dog health and care (and other critters too), as well as a behind the scenes view of life in a busy vet’s office.

Recently, Dr. Rayya featured a German Shepherd Dog named Major who had an unfortunate accident while playing fetch with a stick.  If you’re like me, before you read a sad dog story or see a sad dog movie, you want reassurance that it all turned out okay for the dog before you read or watch.  In that spirit, I’m happy to report that Major has made a full recovery, but please take a moment to read his story before you let your dog(s) play with sticks again.

I am not one of those alarmist people who wants to ban everyone’s fun just because one person or animal gets hurt by an otherwise harmless indulgence, so that’s not at all what I’m suggesting.  Even Dr. Rayya says it’s still okay to let your dogs play with sticks (I mean, it’s not like we can stop them from indulging in this seemingly instinctual attraction).  I just want to remind people what can go wrong and to exercise some caution and supervision where sticks (or any other toys for that matter) are involved.  Dogs, like my girl Daisy, can get pretty passionate about their sticks so it’s up to us to make sure they enjoy them safely.

I recently had surgery and I’m currently at home recovering from a painful procedure.  I certainly won’t go into the gory and personal details here, but to ease your minds and curiosity, suffice it to say I simply had some much needed repairs for a non-life threatening yet painful problem, and I’m lucky to have a wonderful husband, family and of course my dogs to ensure a full recovery.

I fully expected my first post-surgery post to be about the loyalty of dogs and their therapeutic capabilities.  While those things have held true with my dogs lovingly at my side as guardians, sympathizers, jesters and whatever they sense I need at any given moment, something else came out as I started to type.  This experience, while my 5th surgery in four years, was a bit nerve wracking for me.  I was anxious and had a horrible feeling going into it, which is completely counter to my usually stoic and rational demeanor.

And then I realized, while waiting for my name to be called at the surgery center, that I had done none of my usual research or planning and I was just kind of winging it, probably because I’ve got so much experience now, I just didn’t feel the need.  That is, until about 20 minutes before game time.

Which got me thinking about our dogs when we snatch them from the safety of our homes, throw them into our cars and haul them off to the vet for poking and prodding. And then we wonder what the drooling and panting and whining is all about as we try to convince them that we’re just going  for a car ride.  The next thing they know, they wake up with missing fur, feeling groggy and with some awful pain throbbing from one of their body parts (that is, if all of their body parts are still intact).   As rational human beings (and I’m being generous with the word rational since it doesn’t apply to all of us humans), we still suffer physical and mental trauma after a major (or even minor) medical procedure. But at least we know what the heck happened to  us.  At least there was some form of consent.  At least there is some notion that things will be improving for us.

So today as I allow the love of my beloved canine companions to heal my wounds, I have promised both of them to be more mindful of their fear and confusion when it’s their turn.  And pray that they stay healthy enough to avoid such trauma.

I can’t take credit for the photo below – it was taken by my brother-in-law who was caring for my dog Webster when he unexpectedly needed surgery.  Under his protective cone is a bowl of dog food; being the chow-hound that he is, there was no post-surgery discomfort or protective cone that was going to prevent Webster from eating. Now that’s the canine spirit for you!

Photo credit: my B-I-L Tom

I met this beautiful boy yesterday while I was out running errands. His owner was walking him through a large (and busy) parking lot at one of those mega strip malls when I spotted him (luckily I always have my dog-radar on and my camera ready!).  I followed them through the parking lot trying to pick the best spot and moment to jump out and photograph him.

His owner was very nice and seemed flattered that I wanted to photograph his dog.  He is a puppy (that’s a big puppy, huh?!), and I even got to give him a few pets afterwards.  I called this photo Black Beauty because I was so taken with his beautiful coat – it was solid black and so shiny.

Did you know that dogs with black coats have a harder time getting adopted and suffer a higher euthanasia rate because of it?  These statistics are tracked and documented, and it is believed that black-coated dogs suffer this fate because many people find them intimidating and scary.  Another contributor is simple marketing – it is harder to take a good, clear photo of a black dog, so they often have dark photos on adoption sites that don’t do much show them off to potential adopters.