Missy, The Special Case

Missy is an odd duck.  We got her on the classifieds where I work and the women was just looking for a new home for her.  The other dog had died (Missy's companion) and she did really want to get a second.  We already had two dogs, and had just a few months before, put down our third so we decided we could take her.

The picture we were given really didn’t give you a good idea of what she looked like.  She was sitting on a screened in porch smiling, but the camera angle was from far above her so really all you saw was her head.  When we arrived the woman called her into the house and she came barreling up to her.  When she saw the two of us she stopped dead in her tracks and we could see her whole body.  Oh, she’s fat.  Very fat, so fat that she had a sway in her back and a fat roll on her tail of all places.  We loved her instantly.  Erik immediately sat on the floor to greet her and she cautiously approached him, grunting all the way.

Of course we agreed to take her home, but little did we know what we were getting into (not that it would have stopped us).  Her first evening with us, Erik was convinced something was wrong with her, that maybe she was having a panic attack or hyper-ventilating because with every breath she would snort and made a sound almost like she was gagging.  Turns out that’s just how she breaths, has ever since.  We also noticed pretty early on that she drank a lot of water, probably at least twice as much as the other dogs so Erik thought she might be diabetic.  (See a trend here? She's HIS baby)  We took her to the vet where they run a slew of tests and find that thankfully she is not diabetic, but has a thyroid problem.  So now our 45 pound beagle is being medicated, twice a day, everyday, or (so the vet says, guilt guilt) she'll go blind. 

Not only is she medicated for her condition, she has also had in the last year, medicine to clean out her ears (Erik's idea), a bump removed from her eyelid (Erik's idea) which resulted in surgery, stitches, eye drops and a cone, and an X-Ray (which isn’t cheap, and happened to be both of our ideas) because we were convinced she ate a Barbie arm (because the vet said 'forgein objects make me nervous'), turns out it was just gas and the vet recommended Mylanta.  Yeah, like for people.  

So while the other two dogs have been sent to the back yard to live in preparation for the new babies, our third, and thus far most expensive, baby is still in the house.  Still tucked behind the claw footed tub where she likes to sleep and still waking Erik up at least twice a night to let her out to pee.  She will always be our special case, and we love her for it.