violet had her surgery and yesterday she had her 3-week follow-up where we found out that while she’s healing well she will definitely not have a fully functional leg, although it could prove helpful for balance and some other leg-centric activities.   the biggest issue is that violet seems to have written the leg off completely – won’t use it, won’t look at it, won’t have nothing to do with it, to the point that she many times lets it drag behind her and the sores and ground-down nails that result are of no consequence to her. 

up until yesterday i’ve been mostly concerned and worried about her just getting to live her life.  now that she’s been given the go ahead to return to basically full activities (which are fuller here than she probably is used to) i’m excited to see her start to thrive.  in a nutshell we’re going to do the things we can to try to get her to use the leg and if it becomes dead weight for her or is a continual problem trying to keep her foot safe then we’ll have it amputated.  since we’ve had two 3-legged dogs and countless 4-legged dogs we’re fine with either scenario as long as violet gets to live the life she should have been living from the get go. 

she’s such a sweetheart and so loving that i feel like a bit of a jerk for being upset about her joining our family (before i knew her) but it’s not the first time i’ve felt that way and it probably won’t be the last. 

i do have to interject into violet’s post to let you know that carly is the true star of our family.  i’ll save the whole shebang for another post but let me just say that she has been a fantastic ambassador to the new introductees into our family, as evidenced in this video…

we got a call the other day from an acquaintance who had “rescued” a dog from a bad situation and needed some help figuring out what to do.  unfortunately “the dog” had a broken leg and now the rescuers had had her in their care for a week without providing any care for the leg.  not knowing what else to do and realizing that this dog needed help we told them to take her to our vet the next day and we would pay to find out what exactly was wrong with the leg and what needed to happen and then we would go from there.  at the time the idea was that perhaps if the care was to be extensive that we could set up a collection or something to get her what she needed.  the next day i spoke to our vet after she had seen the dog and it became clear that the situation she was in needed to change.  she had a badly broken leg that either needed (hopefully) pinning but possibly amputation.  dave & i talked about it and decided the best thing for us to do was to take responsibility for her both financially and emotionally so arrangements were made for us to pick her up the next day and go from there.

dave was away the day/night that this all went down and i am embarrassed to admit that i just felt an overwhelming sadness, both for this dog and the situation she was in but also for us.  i just did not want another dog and hadn’t planned on another dog (not that these things are always planned) – i’m just not a fan of change and this change was a little more than i felt i could handle at the time.  we have just really gotten  to a new normal since adding benny to the pack and things are settled and moving along smoothly so to throw a cog in that wheel really was not what i wanted.  there’s also the sad fact that dave and i have not been away together for almost 2 years (i actually haven’t left the house for even a night in that time).  we haven’t had a pet sitter in that time, although to be fair we haven’t made a real concerted effort to find someone up for the daunting task, but still…

i was feeling fairly downhearted when we went to pick said dog up and then we introduced her to the pack and everything was better.  i have to tell you that we have some amazing dogs…i am so proud of how they accepted this little bugger and they were all just so lovely it’s amazing. “the dog," in her own right, is equally amazing as she took all the introductions in stride and was completely unphased and completely loving.

so it’s probably time for the introduction of this little lady that i’ve been rudely referring to as “the dog” so i am pleased to present violet:

she’s a female pit bull who is probably about 5-1/2 months old and she has coped amazingly well with a broken femur for over a week now (evident in the video below).  i am happy to say she had surgery yesterday and our amazing vet feels very positive about the result.  because of the scarring present (due to the time the fracture was given to heal on it’s own) some of her long bone had to be removed but we are hopeful she will have a fully functional, albeit shorter leg.  we’ll have some tough weeks ahead trying to keep a pit puppy calm and quiet when she’s feeling better but we are thrilled to have her in our life and looking forward to a lifetime with her.  

growing up we always had a kitchen witch in our kitchen (and if your kitchen witch resides anywhere other than the kitchen you’ve got problems) and it’s an odd superstition that i’ve carried into adulthood.  for the last decade or so our kitchen witch has been an ozzy osbourne figure, although the only way you would know it was supposed to be ozzy is because the packaging said so.  i don’t know if there are rules as to what makes an official kitchen witch but my theory is whatever you think is the kitchen witch, is.  over the last year i have acquired a new, interactive kitchen witch and his name is watson. 

watson started hanging out with me in the kitchen on a random basis but over the last few months if i’m in the kitchen so is watson, although he has a sixth sense of when i’m just grabbing something and when i’m actually cooking and he doesn’t waste his time on the former.  i’m sure you’re thinking that he’s a pretty smart guy and has placed himself on the front lines for food droppage but the fact is he’s not really interested in the food.  he’s such a faithful presence that often i’ll try and give him something and most times he’ll take it from me like i’m testing poisons. all the other dogs in the house will charge something falling in the kitchen like the doors just opened on a black friday sale but watson just looks at me like i’m a clutz.   he’s actually a delight to have there whether i’m in the kitchen for an hour or all day and he’s so much better than ozzy osbourne but i do worry that his loyalty is a bit obsessive compulsive. 

many of our dogs seem to have these odd habits that come out of nowhere and quickly become constants.  maybe because we have so many dogs each feels they need to assert themselves into a specific activity or maybe they’re just weird (probably equal parts of each).   perhaps all dogs do this and because we have a pack of dogs we have a greater appreciation of the different habits each dog acquires?  maybe you guys can weigh in on whether your dogs have exhibited similar behaviors?

tired of carly & benny yet?  no, okay good - here's a little montage for ya!  i promise after this i'll move on.

i know i've been light on the posting of late but at this point in the summer the dogs do little interesting beyond panting and sleeping, although i have managed to capture benny & carly in action a few times...

hope you're all enjoying your summer and having a wonderful holiday weekend.  

speck does not get a moment's rest from benny, which i believe we can accurately refer to as karma!