And Then There Were Two

We've had a rough week. The stray that had puppies in our yard had to be euthanized on Monday. Over a 48 hour period last weekend, 4 of the puppies died from distemper. We managed to save 2 of them. We took one to the vet on Sunday because it was showing NO signs of disease and left it there to kennel after getting shots. We found out that the puppies had the mange at that time too. On Monday, Will took the mother and the remaining puppy to the vet and they gave us the advice to have the mother euthanized, but they felt they could save the other puppy. We left them there to kennel until tonight. The brown one pictured above has an eye infection in one eye due to the distemper, but hopefully the ointment they sent home with us will help prevent blindness for that dog. That is the one that follows Amelia everywhere, at her heels, so she really loves that one.

Will sanitized the areas where they had been hanging out and the dog house. We brought them home this evening and have tried to introduce them to the dog house as their new home, but so far they are just looking for their mother and exploring. We finally clamped a towel firmly, in multiple places, over the opening of the dog house to try and keep them inside. It is very cold tonight and they need to stay in the shelter we have provided--I'm too allergic to bring them inside and they aren't house-trained either. It is supposed to start warming up tomorrow so it is only tonight that we are worried about temperature. We ordered a small fence that can be a puppy or a baby gate system with rush shipping, but they didn't ship until today unfortunately and so it won't be here until tomorrow. They have to be contained/quarantined from our pets for a month so that the mange doesn't spread. We also want to control where they go and hopefully train them to stay in that area. Amelia has instructions on their antibiotics and eye ointment to give them for the next week or so and we have to take them to the vet once a week for the next month to be "dipped." They'll get boosters on the distemper and the mange in 2 weeks.

We told Amelia she could keep one of them but would have to find a home for the other one. Hopefully that will be easier now that we have some confirmation from the vet that they are a mixed breed, part Shar Pei and part Pit.

Next morning update:
They really were very cute at bedtime. They didn't want to go into the dog house, at least not while "blonde girl" a/k/a Amelia was out there as a potential playmate. I had her run inside and get a t-shirt that she had worn recently so they would be able to smell her. Will clipped the towel closed over the door and we ignored the few "whines" that emitted for a short while. This morning when we opened up to give them their antibiotics and let them out to go to the bathroom, they were sleeping near the opening, on each other, and each of them touching that t-shirt which they were also laying on. That was pretty sweet. We put out some food and water for them and headed to school. As we left, they were growling over having to share the food bowl again--don't think they had to do that at the vet's office--but happily chomping down and ready for a day of play.

Monthly Check-In

Checking in for February.... :-) This has been a rough month for little quick illnesses--I should count my blessings. Even though I've had to take a few days off with sick kids, none has had anything serious so far. Considering the way flu and other viruses are running through the community, that is definitely a blessing. I'm home today with Olivia--we should both be back at school tomorrow. She had to be fever free for 24 hours so we took today off to finish that up. She has been productive this morning working on her author project for school which is due on Friday. She missed 2 days in class to work on components of it so I got permission for her to work on it at home so she won't be so far behind. She has just about finished her game cards for the board game that she is designing and then needs to write up the rules. She has been working on the game board at school so she can finish that up tomorrow. She also has to make some kind of cube--I know where a template is online so I may print that out for her today. She also has to do an acrostic poem--that needs to be worked on today too. Otherwise, she will never finish.

I have updated my website and it is looking decent. I think I'm going to eat a little lunch in a minute and then go and take a shower. There is lots of laundry to fold so I should get on that.

This past weekend, the Girl Scout troop went on a retreat. We rented a cabin in Chattanooga and spent 3 nights there working on bonding, fellowship and fleshing out our Silver Award project. We got most of the Cadette GS Challenge finished--they couldn't do the service component and will have to arrange that on their own. They also looked through the book and finished picking out IPs to work on related to the project and also 5 career exploration activities to do as the alternative to the Dreams to Reality award. Many of them also did some of those career exploration activities. We also "saw Rock City"--it was fun.