It's a Dog's Life.

It's been quite the week here.

It all started out last week when we got a call telling us that they were ready to send us the puppy that had been reserved for us.  Mauri had had his eye on Bernese Mountain Dogs for awhile, but unfortunately it is a breed of dog that is impossible to find in our area.  We did find a litter, but it was somewhere in the province of Sevilla.  They were willing to send the puppy to us, though, by a special pet courier service.

The first picture that they sent us of our soon to be puppy

Originally we were expecting the puppy on Thursday, then on Friday, and finally on Saturday when the puppy did actually arrive.  Somehow the people who were going to send the puppy our way couldn't get their act together, and they kept giving us excuse about why the puppy's arrival would be later and later.  In the end, it was probably better that she arrive on a Saturday because Mauri was home to go pick up the puppy with me.

We cleaned her off after her long trip home

At around 9AM we received a message that our puppy had arrived.  So, we rushed to the courier's office here in Denia to go meet our new baby.  We were a bit nervous, especially after all of the seller's strange excuses and lies about when the puppy had been sent out (she had actually been sent out the night before and not two days before as the seller had stated), and we were worried that maybe they were going to try to give us a different puppy.  By that point I probably wouldn't have been too surprised to see a poodle puppy or something, and I had prepared myself to be ready for a disappointment in the case that we were to receive something that we did not want.

I was very nervous by this point because I already felt guilty for having the poor puppy travel for so long, but if we had to return her, she would have twice the trauma.  Luckily, we saw that she was definitely a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy, and that she was beautiful.  So, no sending her back.  We still aren't sure she is the same puppy as the one we reserved in the first photo, but by this point it really doesn't matter.  Her spots are mostly in the same areas, and although it seems like she has less white fur on her face, her nose has obviously grown out and the rest of her head has grown, so I guess its reasonable to think that the patterns of fur on the face will also be slightly different now.

Having another little hyperactive, get-into-everything little one can be quite the experience.  Sadly, though, we haven't had that many opportunities to experience what that is like.  From the very beginning the puppy wasn't as puppy-like as we thought she should be.  She didn't want to eat very much either, but when we brought her to a vet that first day, the vet thought that it was likely due to her long trip and to so many life changes that she was experiencing.

Mauri felt bad for her, so he went out to buy some more types of puppy food to try out.  She didn't seem very interested in any of them.  We started to wonder if the puppy hadn't been fed puppy food yet or what the problem was.  On Sunday, though, not only was she eating even less, but she vomited twice, and by that night, she had diarrhea.  I started to give her rice to try to help with the symptoms, but she only ate a little.  Ironically, on Sunday night, I also started to feel sick, and by bedtime I was also vomiting.  I woke up several times throughout the night for more.

Trying out one of the new beds that I made for Sheena and her

Throughout this whole ordeal, the weather just kept getting worse and worse.  By Monday, it was so rainy and windy that not only did Mauri not go fishing, but Eric's school was cancelled.  Our puppy still didn't want her dog food, so we brought her back to the vet.  He thought that the puppy was likely just still adapting to her new household, and told us to give her rice, made with a little broth bouillon for flavor, with one of the puppy foods until moving slowly to only puppy food.  We tried to do just that, but she wasn't showing much interest in the food.  I felt pretty sick too, and mostly just stayed on the couch all day.

So, on Tuesday, we contacted the sellers to try to figure out what food she had been eating to try to give her the food that she liked and was accustomed to.  We, then, went out to buy it to add just one more bag of puppy food to our collection.  They told us to mix the food with a baby food chicken and rice jar, so we also bought some of those.  Even with the mix, she ate some, but didn't show a huge interest in eating the mix.  I was starting to feel a little bit better, and was even hungry enough to eat breakfast with Mauri, who had stayed home again due to the weather.

With me not feeling well, we brought Eric to school, but picked him up early when he refused to eat and take his nap.  It seems that he knew that papi was home, and he wanted to be home with us.  By lunchtime, though, I was no longer interested in eating, and wasn't feeling great again.  I could only hope that Mauri would stay home again on Wednesday to help out with the puppy situation.

Of course, I had no such luck.  Not only did Mauri go to work, but they decided to close all of the schools again, despite the fact that the weather advisory had been lifted and the morning was quite sunny.  So, I was stuck taking care of the two little ones while sick on a day that I also had a laser hair removal appointment to which Eric could not go.  I also knew that I was going to have to take the puppy back to the vet because she was now refusing to eat anything at all.

First thing in the morning I tried to work everything out.  They told me that the vet's schedule was busy all day, but when I explained the situation, they told me to bring her in right away.  When I brought her in and explained her turn for the worse, the vet told me that she was going to have to stay there for the day.  He said she was dehydrated and that she needed IV fluids.  I was actually relieved to have one less thing to worry about that day.

By that point, the vet decided that she probably had a gastroenteritis, and said that "Sorry, but the puppy and you look alike right now." We concluded that puppy and I may have ended up with the same virus.

After the visit to the vet, I called to cancel my laser appointment, but they told me to come in anyway with Eric.  Since I only had to remove the hairs from my face that day, which only takes a few minutes, the girl said that one of the other girls of the office would watch Eric meanwhile.  I wasn't really prepared for the appointment, not expecting that they'd tell me to come anyway, but I didn't want to lose it.  So, knowing that the puppy was accounted for, Eric and I headed to the mall for my appointment.  It was a good excuse to get out of the house for awhile after having been cooped up there      for the last few days with a sick puppy and non-stop rainstorms.

Eric didn't really cooperate with the poor girl, and the girl who was doing my appointment really rushed through the procedure so that Eric wouldn't have to be separated from his mommy more that need-be.  I'm not sure she did a great job because it was so rushed, but I guess I at least didn't completely lose my appointment.

We hung out at the mall for a little while longer, and Eric played on the coin operated cars.  He loves to climb on them and play with the steering wheel.  As soon as you put money into them, though, he gets scared and starts crying.  So, for now, it ends up being a cheap way to let him play.  The only annoying thing about them, is they have been placed randomly all over the entire mall, so it is impossible to walk any real distance without having to stop or lug a screaming kid away from them.  "Coches, mommy, coches!!!!!"

Mauri picked our still nameless puppy up from the vet on his way home that night.  She looked a little bit better, but we mostly let her be that night.  In the morning, though, she seemed like a new puppy!!  She was going crazy for her puppy food, and she ate quite a bit and no longer had diarrhea.  Feeling a bit better, she kept trying to play with Sheena, she tends to be constantly pouncing on inanimate objects and running around like crazy.  If you try to cross the room, she'll bite on your pants legs just to play.  In fact, if you didn't know any better, you'd think she was a not-so-independent cat.

Over the next couple of days, our cat dog seemed to be much, much better.  She was constantly playing, and constantly peeing!!  I am not exaggerating to say that she peed at least 30-40 times throughout the day.  No sooner had I cleaned one up, but I turned around to find another waiting for me; side effects of being hooked up to IV fluids all day Wednesday, I guess.  At least I was able to dedicate more time to her since school was finally open again; no more rain days!!

Meanwhile, on Friday night, Mauri came home with a name for our nameless little bundle of joy.  I had made a list of different names that I either liked or that I thought fit with her color or breed or personality.  Most, though, only worked in one language or another, and for some reason or another they just didn't seem to work. I had names based on female goddesses, like Juno, protector of women and Children (since Bernese Mountain dogs are very protective of their families), names based on Swiss cities, like Zurich or Luzern, and names based on her colors like Sable or Cocoa or Ginger or Penny.  There was Sierra or Aspen, for being a mountain dog, and Swiss regional names like Lily or Leisl.  Finally, I had names that I either just liked or that otherwise seemed to fit her, like Lana or Laika or Maggie or Zoey...  In the end, though, we couldn't agree on any.

So, I kept looking for something based on her coloring.  I didn't really like Cookie, though, and I had thought about Baileys for some reason, but Bailey is a name for a boy.  Mauri took over my brainstorm, though, and came up with a Baileys alternative, Kahlua.  His reasoning was that both the liqueur and bottle are dark brown or black.  I, at first, wasn't sure about the name.  Not only did I doubt naming a dog after a liqueur, but I had preferred a two syllable name for her.  Once I realized, though, that nobody here knows what Kahlua even means, and I figured it was nearly impossible for us to find another name that we could both agree on, I decided that Kahlua it was.  It took me a couple of days to get used to it, and I was almost embarrassed by the name at first.  I got such good reactions to the name, though (oooh, exotic!), that I got over it quickly enough.        

Sadly, Kahlua's improvement didn't last long.  On Saturday morning, Mauri noticed that she was no longer running to eat all of her puppy food.  She seemed to be feeling pretty well all day, though, and did eat a little bit.  By Sunday, though, things were just getting worse again.  She was wanting to eat less and less food, and the diarrhea had started up again!!  Since she was eating a little bit, we decided to forgo the expensive emergency Sunday vet visit, and I waited until Monday morning to bring her back in.

When the vet saw her, he said that she was almost to the point of needing to stay with him for the day again on IV fluids all day.  He was indecisive, though, so I told him if she stayed with me I would keep a close eye on her.  He gave her a few shots to help her feel better, and we were on our way.  I was to come back the next morning...
By then, yesterday, Kahlua was greatly improved, but still wasn't completely recovered.  She was only eating a little bit, and the vet said that although she did look better, that he could tell that she wasn't feeling 100% yet.  So, he gave her a couple more shots, and told me to bring her back once more the next day.

So, this morning, I brought her to what I thought was the last vet visit.  Kahlua seemed too be much better, except for the fact that she wasn't eating as well as she had been last Friday.  The vet now diagnosed a new problem, though; she had pharyngitis.  He said that the throat irritation would keep her from eating as much as she did when well.  Both Kahlua and Sheena had been coughing up something for the last two days.  I had mistakenly thought that it was from the dental chewing bones that I had bought for our teething baby.  They were both chewing them into little pieces that I was finding all over the floor, and I had assumed that the little pieces were getting stuck in the back of their throat and that that was what was making them cough so much.  So, I took them away and replaced them with rope knots.

The vet promised my poor little ball of fur that she wouldn't get any shots today, but then had to go back on his word.  He also sent me home with some pills for Sheena.
Hopefully by her next appointment in two days, she'll finally be doing well...  We'll just have to wait and see.  At least she is starting to really fit in with the rest of the family.  Sheena has gone from ignoring her to sometimes playing with her.  Eric, whom she loves to follow around, likes to laugh hysterically at her when she pounces around.  He does get upset when she nips ar him when trying to play with him, though.

It's interesting to see how quickly she has adapted to her new family.  She excitedly cries, happily wagging her tail, each morning when she sees us, or when Mauri comes home from work.  We've only had her for a little over a week now, but she now always wants to be near us, and gets very sad whenever we leave.  So, I guess I have adopted another little baby who just wants to be held and wants to play with her family.  It seems that toddlers of any type can be frustrating and exasperating at times, but they are also so cute and very sweet and a lot of fun!