A Few of Her Favorite Things

She is 11 months old now. Believing she has been a part of our family for 9 months is hard. Believing she ever wasn't is equally difficult. She works out with me every day. I look forward to her maturing so that Abbie can join us. Now, Luna wants so desperately for Abbie to play she harrasses her incessantly and makes her miserable, trips her up trying to herd her into doing her bidding. For what it's worth, when I run, she tries to herd me too--at least I think that's what she's doing.

Here are some pictures of her doing some of her favorite things:

She's been working on this limb for about a week now. It started out bigger than her.

One of her favorite things in the whole world is a soccer ball. She knows how to kick it and will use her footwork to battle mine. When she tires of that she just picks it up and runs off with it.






We always get a treat when we come inside. Sister gets one too. :)

Our trip back to Dr. Brown went well. Luna didn't even have to be sedated for the procedure. He simply numbed her eye and froze off the little place that had the hair. She was even quite good for him and the nurse. She did, however, show some aggression toward the other dogs at the office--only if they came our direction, though. As long as they ignored us, she ignored them. After that little trip, though, I decided to take her to the farmer's market in High Springs with me to socialize her. She did quite well, and I even let someone come up to her to say, "hello" and pet her--an adult, of course, who understood to be slow and calm. I'm going back to the market tomorrow. If the logistics work, I'll take her back with me.

UUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As I sat here this morning, Luna came to me for me to get something out of her mouth. I'll be darned if I didn't see ANOTHER sprig of hair from her left eye! I guess we'll go see Dr. Brown next week....

Check up.

61.5#
We had a check up today with Dr. Green. All was well, and he says we're growing just fine. Turns out Luna is just going to be a small shepherd. What she lacks in size, she makes up for in moxie, though. :) Turns out she's pretty protective of her mom and her big sister. Honestly, it wouldn't hurt to get her socialized a bit better. I think maybe we'll work on that.

Waiting for the vet.

Just hanging out the other day...

Pull!

Luna's eye is healing well, and Dad takes her for her follow up visit tomorrow. She loves to go outside while I work out, and one of the things she has discovered is the joy of pulling on the vines hanging from the water oak tree in the back yard. It's fun to watch, so I thought I'd share.

A little video love...

Recurrence

Tuesday, July 6, 2010
A few weeks ago Marc noticed that Luna's dermoid was back, that yet again she had hair growing from her left eyeball. We, us and the vet, hoped--believed even--that Dr. Brown had been able to get all the aberrant cells, but just enough were left behind to bring a recurrence and that is what we had. Right away I made a followup appointment, and we scheduled surgery for two days later on June 30th. On our first appointment, Luna was such a good girl. We had to wait for about 45 minutes before Dr. Brown was ready for us. While we were waiting, several people came into the waiting room. Each time, Luna barked. At first, she barked for several minutes before I was able to quiet her. With each visitor, though, she quieted more easily, eventually only barking a couple of times to let them know who was boss. When we finally made it back to the exam room, she continued to do well. She was very afraid, but she didn't offer to bite at the vet's assistant or the vet, and she didn't act crazy, just wary. She even took a treat when it was offered. After seeing the new hair, Dr. Brown confirmed we needed another surgery, and we scheduled it for two days later. When we got to Orange Park on the 30th, Luna weighed 49 pounds on their scale, but I think that was a little light. Leaving her at the Orange Park office almost broke my heart because she begged me not to leave her, cowered between my legs. About 3 hours later, they called me to let me know she was ready (I had gone to get my hair cut in the meantime). Even though, I was already on my way, I still had to wait 30 incredibly long minutes to see her. She was quite anxious when she did finally come out, scrambling to get to me, to get out, to get into the truck, to get home. She whined all the way. It was heartbreaking.

We are now 6 days out from the surgery, and the eye, though initially quite swollen, is looking better, appears to be healing. We are putting drops in her eyes several times per day and giving her a pill twice a day. She doesn't seem to mind. We mind, though, because we want so desperately for her to be well and happy and free of vet visits for a while.

In this top picture, you can just see the shaved area on her right front foot where they tried to place an IV. I'm guessing that they weren't able to get it, though, because she also had a similar area on her back foot (lower pic), a less common place to put an IV.

Luna and Abbie were standing close together last week and it suddenly occurred to me that Little Sister had outgrown Big. Luna's back now stands an inch or two above Abbie's. This top picture is from July 2nd. The picture below it is from a couple of months ago.

Again, a couple of months apart with Abbie lying down in the bottom picture...

Luna goes out with me when I do my workouts. Here she has a little one all her own. :)

Our First Nights Away From Home

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Our little family made its first trip away from home this past weekend. We took a ride down to Orlando to see Brandi and Robby and Ethan while they were at Disney World. To accommodate the baby girls, though, we stayed at the Royal Pacific on Universal Property (we're old hat at that now). Marc and I were a bit nervous about taking Luna who has proven to be not only amazingly vocal but also a bit protective, especially when Big Sister is around.
The first few times Luna heard people in the hallway, she got a little rowdy, but after our reassuring her a couple of times and her figuring out that they were not coming in to bother us, people could pass undisturbed. A couple of times, early in the morning, drunk folks came by and were being loud so she went to the door and growled-- no barking, though. When we went out, she tolerated the strangers fairly well unless they decided to head our direction or look or way at which point she would growl and bark a bit. Overall, she was very good. I was remiss, though, and forgot to take any pictures.
To make up for it, here are some from when we made it home.When they put in the pool, they left a little pile of sand. it took her a week or so to notice it, but when she did, she decided it was absolutely GRAND.