Joint Custody

I'll be house-sitting for Heather again beginning tomorrow. I packed all my clothes last night and had Hubey stash Tessa's crate in the car. He and I have been texting and emailing about when we will each be responsible for her. Even so, we are both forgetful and try not to be so inflexible that neither of us can make last minute changes. This morning we had a text conversation that went like this:

H: When are you taking her?
Me: Can I get her on mon on my way to heathers from work?
H:Confused. Thought u were taking her 2nite? That's why u needed crate. Oops, u did mention getn acquatinted with sampson first. I 4got, no wonder I didn't have a time u were takn her. Sorry.
H: Any time is fine just txt me when ur able.
Me: Is this what it wuz like wit J? :) (his daughter)
H: Yep
Me: Im sooo sorry.
H: Yea, but aren't u sooooo happy we couldn't have kids....he totally saved us from an even worse situation.What would that have been like?!?! All for a reason.

That mad me sad. Not angry, just sad. Many people say the same thing and I know they don't mean to make me feel sad so I don't hold it against them. But here's the thing; I don't believe all things happen for a reason. As my husband for the past ten years I can't believe he doesn't know that by now. But since he'll not always be my husband I don't get mad at him for making such comments. He didn't mean to hurt me, that's what he believes and I can't be mad at him for his beliefs not matching my own.

I wanted so badly to have children, children with him. After getting married I remember a converstation I had with Donnawhere we discussed how many children we wanted. I said, "Four. More if we can afford it. I'd love to see how many combinations of Hubey and I we could make but I'll settle for four." I loved growing up in a big family and wanted the same as an adult. When it didn't happen I accepted it for being what it is. Just not what I planned and in life, you cannot always get what you planned for. I can't say we'd have made it through the first child to even get to second, third or fourth. But here is what I responded as my last text, and he didn't text me back afterward:

Nope, can't say im happy i never had ur child. Even if it is easier

Walking my dog in the hood...

She's big, she's beautiful, she's unusual, she looks fierce, she wiggles when she walks. So, she attracts a lot of attention. In my neighborhood many people are afraid of her and curious as well. The comments I hear most as I walk by with her:

"Ooo that's a big dog."
"You holding that dog? You holding it tight?"
"Daaaaaaaaaamn looka dat dog!"
"That's a big ass pit, right there."
"Don't nobody mess with you, do they?"
"You're well protected."

Questions I am most often asked:

"What kinda dog that is?" She's a bullmastiff and if I tell people that they most often reply, "a bullmaster?" So I repeat, 'bullmasTIFF.' Often I lie and tell them she's mixed because I'm afraid of her being stolen with intent to fight her or breed her.

"She have puppies?"
Nope, she's fixed.
"Why you do that? You coulda made a loooot of money!"
When I have a dog I have a dog as a pet, not a money maker. Though, with all this one has cost me it might have been a good idea.

"That dog bite?"
If it's an adult I answer, "Not unless she's got reason to." To children I say, "she doesn't bite children." The kids ask from a distance of at least ten feet and with my answer they come a little closer, then closer and ask:
"Can I rub her?"
Yes, they say "rub" instead of "pet." I can often say, "I'd say yes but she'll steel that bag of chips you're holding." They always then hold the chips closer to them, smile and run away.

"What you feed that dog?" This always makes me laugh. I mean, everything. I feed her everything. I answer, "dog food."

The fight

On the night of the milestone Tessa and Sampson proved they still had issues with each other.

I got home shortly after midnight and greeted Tessa in the kitchen then let Sampson out of his crate. He ran around and around, inside and outside then back inside. Inside he ran by Tessa several times and on one occasion she snapped at him and he snapped back. I believe in letting dogs fight it out for up to three seconds, anything beyond that could result in visits to the vet emergency room. I did what I could to intervene.
Sampson's pinch collar had fallen off in his crate so he was naked and impossible to grab. I got ahold of Tessa's collar but she wriggled out of my hold and slipped her head out of the collar. There was a lot of growling and snapping and saliva. I got between them, holding Tessa back by blocking her with one leg and without any success yelled for Sampson to sit. Tessa squirmed away from me and chased him under the kitchen table and into the sun room, I followed. I grabbed Tessa's hindquarters and pulled her back and away from Sampson but he continued to challenge her with growls and barks and bared teeth. He came at her with his teeth and bit at her face so I let her go, or she got away from me, I don't know which. I was hoping Tessa would get him pinned to the ground and calm him down by holding him, as I've seen her do frequently with unruly boys, but Sampson is too fast and too agile. He kept getting away. When the biting began to really scare me I left them for the sink to grab some water to throw on them.
By the time I turned around to toss it at them the had stopped, standing side by side and both slouched and panting. I yelled for Sampson to go outside and after I got him out there I turned around and tossed the water at Tessa's face, "you idiot! What was that all about?" She kept panting and panting. I looked her over and she seemed fine so I let Sampson back inside. I ran a clean paper towel over each of them looking for blood but saw none.
The next morning I called the vet and made an appointment for Tessa after observing that the brow over her right eye was scratched and swollen and the white of that eye solid red. Before the appointment the two dogs shared space without incident but Tessa did make a couple of moves that worried me. My vet consulted me on how to make the situation easier to deal with. She spent an hour talking it over with me. (Pet Vets in Oak Park...they are the BEST!!!)
Then I had to call my soon to be ex husband and explain the whole thing to him. I felt like a single mom having to call her baby's daddy and tell him of an accident that occurred on my watch. Remember Kramer vs. Kramer? He was incredibly understanding about it. "You would've been yelled at if I had gone home and found her beaten up without explanation." As hard as I thought it was going to be, it was easier to tell him about the fight now that we're where we are. It was harder to talk to him about this stuff when we were married.

Milestone

Last night, for the first time since we arrived on Tuesday Contessa initiated play with Sampson. It was beautiful. We were sitting here in the green room, as it's called by Heather, the three of us. I was on the laptop with Tessa on the couch next to me and Sampson was on his bed. Very calmly, Contessa got off the couch and approached Sampson on the floor and began to sniff him. She took a step back and gave him a play-bow. "Good girl!" I told her enthusiastically and Sampson jumped up immediately. And then they played. Two big silly dogs playing lightly at first but soon bumping into each other and jumping up at each other wetting one another with their excitement created saliva.
I corralled them down the stairs and tried to lead them to the basement where there's no furniture, it's cooler, and more room. Just then Mandy called and needed more directions on where to park. The play had to stop for a moment while I took her call but it picked up again when I got them into the yard.
I was absolutely elated.

Doggy Blues

Two years ago I was vacationing at my family's summer house in the North Woods Wisconsin when my husband (soon to be "ex") called. "Are you sitting down?" He always said that when it was something really big, for some reason.

I sat and he told me that our dog, Contessa, was sick and "Lis, they don't know what's wrong with her." I waited one more day up North for the news of our dog's condition to change to something good. You know, like she ate something bad but she was fine.

Nothing changed and seeing the worry on my face made my dad tell me to pack so he could bring me home. The five and a half hour trip never seemed longer. To make it worse, no dog to greet me when I walked into the house. Empty, quiet, lonely.

By the time I made it home Tessa had been in constant veterinary care for forty eight hours. My husband had to take her to a specialty hospital a forty five minute drive from our house because our regular vet and the hospitals close by didn't have anyone that could tell what, exactly, was going on with our dog. I drove up to see her right away and spoke to our regular vet on the way. "Go see her Lisa," she told me. "She's dying and she might not make it home." I was completely shocked to find a lethargic dog with a swollen tummy and very little of the happy-girl-look she normally had in her eye. Her new doctor, a kidney specialist named Dr. Thornhill, told me he had tapped her tummy to see why it had swollen and found blood. They needed to open her up to let it out and find the source of the bleeding.

After surgery we had little more to go on. She still wasn't eating, her kidney function continued to drop and they found lesions in the stomach wall but no sign of what left them. Another day passed before the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever test came back positive and the hospital was able to start her on the proper antibiotics. My husband and I visited her daily, sometimes together and sometimes separately. She was always happy to see us but too tired to show much enthusiasm. She swelled with water and grew bigger each day. She was admitted at ninety seven pounds and after eight days was one hundred and seventeen, but she hadn't eaten. Every part of her that could hold water was filled, her legs, her toes, her lips, her ears. Her neck hung with water weight so low that the feeding tube in her neck was being crushed by the overlapping skin. Temporary stitches were made behind her ears, like a hair clip, to hold the skin back and up behind her head. Her mouth was open constantly and her swollen tongue fell out of it from behind her swollen gums in a desperate attempt to cool her body and ease her nausea. After nine days my husband and I visited her together and Dr. Thornhill greeted us for the first time with a long face. "We don't have many more options. If she doesn't eat she won't get better and the feeding tube isn't going to be able to give her everything she needs to help her body repair itself. She's taken on too much water so we're going to try to relieve her of some by giving her a diuretic. We'll know soon if she's going to pull through."

I cried the whole way home. My husband refused to give up on her and told me so. I think he was a little mad that I had begun to lose hope. I dug out my rosary and prayed to the God I was no longer sure existed but had prayed to in time of need before. I posted pleas on Craig's List for people who had more pull up in Heaven to please say a word for my dog. I emailed all my friends and asked them to do the same. I talked to the little girls next door and asked them to help with their precious prayers. I was desperate.

The next day I drove out to see her and the technicians told me that she was too weak to come to the visiting room, I would have to visit her at her bed. I brought with me a pillow from our couch and two t-shirts one that I had worn and one that my husband had worn. The three items smelled like us and I hoped it would help remind her that we were with her even when we weren't. The technicians were kind enough to let me hold my baby for over an hour while she slept. I talked to her almost the entire time.

"Contessa, what are you doing in here? The sunflowers are filling with seeds and the squirrels are soon going to be raiding them without worry that you'll chase them away. A tick, Contessa? A tiny tick did this to you? You're a BULLMASTIFF! You are a strong defender of giant estates and you're going to let a tiny little tick take you down? Come on, now! Enough already, you have got to start showing this thing who you are. You are Contessa Medici Pookie Bear, Brindle Bullmastiff extraordinaire. Get up and fight already!" I did not cry once with her. I laughed and sang her songs and told her everything that was going on at the house while she was gone. Finally the techs kicked me out.

The phone rang at 11:20 that night. My husband spoke and I waited to hear the news. "Lis... that was Dr. Thornhill." Well, duh... "He said he couldn't believe it but Contessa is starting to look like she's getting a little better. She's lost some of the water weight and she ate something today." We hugged and cried.

A week later we brought our emaciated Bullmastiff home. She was now only seventy two pounds and carried with her a box of meds, another box of fluids to be administered subcutaneously three times a day, and a seventeen thousand dollar bill. (My knees went weak when I signed for it).

The meds were unbelievable. Thirty six different pills to be given at five different intervals throughout the day to a dog that didn't even want to eat her food much less pills that were making her feel sick. We tried hamburger, baby food, peanut butter, tuna, salmon, ice cream, all of her former favorites were now making her turn her head away from us and gag. Some mornings she was too weak to climb the stairs outside to pee, the only good thing about being so thin was I could now carry her. Slowly, our dog began to eat again and gain her weight back. Slowly.

So a couple weeks ago when she started to show signs of lethargy again I began to worry. I thought maybe she was reacting to the changes in her pack. Her dad and I no longer sat on the couch together watching TV with her, we didn't even sleep in the same room. We didn't eat together and throw her scraps when we were done, we were all three rarely in the same room. I thought maybe that was effecting her. When I spoke to her dad about it he began to notice changes also so I took her in to the vet to be sure.

My gut was correct, her blood work showed some weakness. Today I wait for the results but the vet feels she may have Addison's disease. This is treatable with medication but I can't help but feel so sad for a dog that has been through so much already. I think, that her Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever actually brought my husband and I together while we struggled to keep a failing marriage whole. We bonded and stayed strong for her sake and I believe the ordeal kept us together another year. This time around, even our dog can't save us but she has managed to get us talking again. We are more easily able to discuss necessities and move toward beginning our new lives without being hurtful to each other.

She truly is a miraculous dog. The love of my life.

What You Can Learn From a Bullmastiff

I've lived almost five years with this amazing animal and she has become my all-time favorite dog. She's taught me a lot over the years so I asked her to write out some advice on living life to the fullest. Here's what she said:

1. Get a personal trainer

That's right, let someone else worry about how much you eat and how often you exercise. It's easier and they are more honest with you about your weight.

2. Take naps every day.

3. Two shorter workouts a day are better than one long one.

I prefer early morning and early evening. This works out best for my personal trainer and the temperature is most favorable at these times. Also, the squirrels are most lively at these hours and busy eating so they're not as likely to see you coming.

4. Know when to move on.

Lie in the sun until you get hot then move to the shade. When you're too cold move back into the sun. On the same note: Walk fast through the sun and slow in the shade. Why torture yourself? Get to the shade quicker and then enjoy it.

5. Don't judge men by their height or color.

Hey, some of my best boyfriends have been white.

6. Chew your food.

Swallowing things whole is never a good idea, unless someone's coming and may catch you counter surfing. Savor your food.

7. Children shorter than eye level are more work than the taller ones.

They often smell like poop, they have no respect for your eyes and nose, they drool more than I do, and they repeat commands even after you follow them.

8. Be cautious of people approaching the back of the house.

Really, what sort of human picks at garbage? And the other ones, the guys that get really tall on the poles, that's just not natural.

9. People approaching the front of the house should be greeted respectfully.

Even the ones putting white envelopes in the little house with the red flag on it. And yes, even the ones with the little pamphlets that always wear suits and dresses.

10. Drink a lot of water.

I hear it's good for your skin and has all kinds of healthy benefits. I like it because it makes a really fun noise when I lap it up. It's really refreshing.