The monkey made me do it

One Helluva Weekend

Yesterday I took Monkey to the park.
We played kick-ball, a little fetch, she wrestled around with a Chow mix for a while, and then after we'd been there about a half hour, a group of three new dogs came in. Monkey trotted over with tail wagging to say hi, and I half-watched from across the park as they surrounded her and started sniffing.

Monkey has a problem with being sniffed. As long as it’s her nose doing the work, she’s fine, but when other dogs get too personal with her she stiffens up and gets poofy. If it continues, she makes her mean face and will sometimes do the Cattle-dog jaw snap (never biting, she just clicks her jaw in the air as a warning). The final stage is a theatrical growl and a whirl away from the offender, usually running straight over to me since in reality the Monkey is a Chicken. I saw her go through the stages with the three new dogs, and started walking that direction when I heard the first jaw snap and the other dogs start to snarl. Then I saw the German Shepard mix, who outweighed Monkey by at least twenty pounds, jump up and put his paws around her head, biting into her neck and pulling her to the ground as the other two grabbed hold of her front paw and her side. I was running, screaming “LET HER GO! GET THEM OFF OF HER!!” while the dogs’ owner was grabbing at whatever she could get of her three balls of sudden aggression. By the time I’d gotten over, Monkey was on her back (as a good, submissive dog should be – it’s the canine version of crying “uncle” but in this case only left her offering up more targets) and the Pit Bull was yanking her front leg one way while the Shepard and the other mix were attacking her exposed abdomen. I kicked the Pit Bull hard in the nuts and made it let go, but couldn’t get the Shepard mix off. When his owner and I finally pried him loose (the third was off at that point, it wasn’t as attached as the others), Monkey rolled into a ball in the mud and I started yelling at the owner, demanding her name and asking everyone around (the entire park was there) where the nearest vet was. I got Monkey to stand up, and saw the inch-and-a-half diameter bloody hole in her flank, along with more blood along her stomach and leg. That was all I needed to see, I started shaking and headed to the park entrance. The dog owner said she would follow me, but the first place we went to was closed, so I ended up getting her contact information and heading off to an all-hours emergency vet across town.

We spent three hours at the vet. She got stitches in two places (the upper and lower teeth grips of the Shepard mix) with disgusting little straw-drains coming out and is shaved all along her abdomen and on her right front leg. There are puncture wounds everywhere, and she’s going crazy with the itching as they’re slowly healing over. I haven’t left her side since we left the vet, since part of her healing process is forcing her to leave her stitches alone and when I’m not there to personally tell her to stop licking, she has to wear a giant cone on her head. Most of the time in the past I’ve thought those things were hilarious, but when I had to put it on her last night and saw how traumatic it was for her, I just can’t laugh. She can’t move around very well in it, since my apartment is so tiny and the cone catches on everything. She can’t lay down with it on, since it catches on things on the way down and she’s already uncomfortable laying on her stitches and drains. I had to sleep last night, and thought that if I put the cone on and left her alone, she would find a way to lay down out of sheer exhaustion. I went to bed at 3 a.m., and when I looked again at 8 a.m., she was still sitting up in the same position I’d left her, staring dejectedly at the floor through that gigantic piece of plastic. I took it off and watched her sleep like a rock for the next four hours.

I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I go back to work tomorrow on an overtime schedule and can’t leave Monkey alone without putting her in the collar. I can’t bring her to work, and I can’t stand working for ten hours knowing that she’s sitting in one place, staring at the ground, unable to lie down or even walk around the apartment.

(Later) Yet again, my parents save the day! I just got back from Tacoma, where I handed off Monkey to the only caretakers I would trust her with while in this fragile condition. My dad has a light schedule this week while waiting for an electrical inspection and mom is off tomorrow, so they’re going to watch her and keep her with them so she doesn’t have to be in the cone except for at night. I’m guessing she’ll sleep most of the day since she won’t be able to in the evenings with the cone on. Thank God they’re willing to do this sort of thing, I was on the verge of bringing Monkey to work with me and keeping her in my car in the cone all day, since at least then I could let her out on my two breaks and at lunch. Nine hours trapped in the backseat is a bit much to ask of a dog, though. Plus then she would have had the cone on all day and night, and who knows when she would have gotten any sleep.

I miss her already. Good Lord, if I’m this attached to my dog, I’m going to be a total mess if I ever have kids!

posted by LadyJay @ 5:40 PM