The Dog....

Yesterday on Facebook I left a comment that we had to take our dog to the vet...everyone said the same thing..."You have a dog?" I promised a story and here it is.

Sunday we went to Big South Fork National Park. It was a great day. We did a little hiking, a little geocaching, a lot of nature seeing & we stopped at the visitors center and did a little chatting. It was really nice. BTW...the ranger asked where we were from. I told her NE Ohio. She said, "oh, ya'll had a little bear incident up there." I laughed. She asked if I got to see the bear (lol) but I told her I didn't. In fact, they have all kinds of bears here and I haven't seen ONE. Anyways...we went back to my parents house, ate dinner & goofed around a bit. I started looking on line at the geneology website for the area my family is from. They have it set up with a list of all the cemetaries and volunteers have scribed what is on every tombstone in each cemetary (well they aren't all done). There is a format for photos to be added. I was so excited but most of them don't have the photos. So....I loaded up a grumbling husband and tired kids to head to the closest cemetary to take pictures. It is very close to my parent's house. This is a picture of it:


It was very buggy out so we didn't stay long and decided to go back to the house. My parents live on a very country road. We always see interesting things on the road (turtles, snakes, rabbits, one time a fox, etc...). I tend to be on the lookout when we are driving for random vermon. Well, we were driving along and I saw this little puppy. Jake stopped and it looked scared. I tried to talk to it but it wouldn't come to me. It was by this overgrown driveway and we weren't sure if anyone still lived there. We decided to leave the puppy and go back to my parents. Later when they got home from church we asked them if anyone lived there and they said no. We told them about the puppy and explained that we thought somone dumped it off. It was almost getting dark at his point. We didn't have a leash or much dog stuff. My parents did have a dog (RIP) so they had a little food and a few items. But we didn't know what we were goint to do with this dog if we even caught the thing. So, we get in the car and go on a dog hunt. It was exactly where we left it. It was very timid but let Jake pick her right up. She was very scared and weak. We are pretty sure she had been out there for at least a couple days. You can see how skinny she is in this photo:

We gave her a bath because she is covered in ticks and fleas. I think the bath really helped with the fleas but she had about 20 ticks insided her ears. I picked them all out. And she has them all over her. And she has literally thousands of little tiny "seed ticks" all over her. Hundreds on her ears, legs, belly.... all over. We decided we didn't need to tie her up or anything. The first night after picking off ticks and bathing her I took off my clothes and hung them on the back porch. The next morning my Dad went out to the barn and she wasn't there. He thought she ran off but later he found her laying on the back porch by my clothing. Awwwwwww......Look how sweet she is:

I don't even like dogs....really.

But isn't she so cute?

So, Jake took her to the vet yesterday but they couldn't get her in so she is going back today. We have to find out if she is healthy enough to keep. We put some flea & tick stuff on her and instantly she started feeling better. She barked at my Dad and was chasing me a little. She really likes the kids. And of course the kids LOVE her. I think I told you before but in case I didn't.....my kids have been saving for a Wii. When we started approaching the $200 mark they decided it was a dog fund. I have been reluctant. This dog is not free - the vet bill and a kennel will surely eat up the Wii fund but she really is a rescue dog.

She doesn't have a name yet. Here are the choices.....

1. Willow (my idea)

2. Sunshine or Sunny (Elise's idea)

3. Cricket (my Dad's idea and Jude's favorite)

So, that is it....my dog story.