Bennett

Bristow & Bennett

OK, as suggested by Rye, here's a photo of our two Jack Russell Terriers. Bristow is on the left and Bennett, the puppy, on the right. Bennett is about 10 1/2 months old, and Bristow is about 2 1/2 years old. Bennett is the most active of all three of our dogs, but for some reason, she is a little roly poly. She reminds us so much of Babe, the pig. We can almost hear her thinking "Baa Ram Ewe!" sometimes. So funny.

My Sick Puppy

She's usually so lively and perky--always jumping and running. But Bristow had not been herself for a few days. She had been throwing up, and was extremely lethargic and pitiful. It was so sad. We figured it was just a little illness, and that she would be better in a couple of days. But after three days of throwing up and getting thinner and thinner, we had to break down and take her to the vet. The last time we took her to the vet it cost $265. She had gotten into some rat poisoning and had to have her stomach pumped and stay overnight. We really hoped it wasn't going to cost that much this time.

Imagine our SHOCK when they told us they had to keep her for a few days, take X-rays, do some blood work, give her some IV fluids, and monitor her progress, and that it would cost approximately $1400! Now, we love Bristow very much, but that was just out of the question. We told them that there was just no way we could do that, and asked what could be done for under $300 (even that was really going to be difficult to come up with). The guy left the room and came back with some "wonderful news." It was possible that we would only have to spend $1200 and we would only have to put half down and could finance the rest. - What?????

Needless to say, we had to tell them we couldn't do that either. So, we were left with a very difficult decision. Take her home and hope that she would recover from whatever this problem is or go even further into debt to try to find out what the problem was. The vet said that she thought it could be her pancreas, which of course didn't sound good. After a lot of discussion, we decided to let them inject fluid under her skin and take some X-rays to see if there was an obvious obstruction causing the problem. At least we would know something.

The X-rays were inconclusive, showing some gas bubbles, but no obvious obstruction. Somewhat reassuring. They injected fluid under her skin and we took her little limp self home. The vet told us to give her Pedialyte and chicken and rice and that if she wasn't better in a couple of days, we would need to talk about euthanasia. Oh my gosh! I had no idea that it was so serious! Poor Bristow. Anyway, it ended up costing us a little over $200. Here are a couple of photos showing the big lump on her side where the fluid was injected.

We have been giving her Pedialyte with a syringe and feeding her little bits of chicken and a food supplement, and she seems to be slowly getting better. But she did throw up again this morning, which is not good.

And . . . now Bennett is throwing up! Argghhhhh!

So, that's what we've been dealing with here. We love our dogs so much, so this has been an extremely difficult week. Hopefully my next post will have some good news. For now, I'm just going to get back to my sick puppies. Oh yeah, and work.

BENJAMIN DANIEL!

Now that we gave Scout away, we are down to just three dogs, all of them females. We try not to give our dogs people names. I know that Dakota has become a people name, but to me, it's a dog name. Anyway, when we first got Dakota and Bristow, the girls wanted to name them after themselves, so their full names are Dakota Diane Andrews and Bristow Angelina Andrews.

When we got Bennett, we didn't know what to give her as a middle name. When Ryan came home from Japan, we decided to name her Bennett Danielle, after Ryan Daniel. But Ryan thinks she looks like a boy dog, and immediately started calling her Benjamin. So, now we call her Benjamin Daniel, especially when she's in trouble.

Like today . . .

What????

For some reason, Bennett thinks she has to tear a toy to pieces. She isn't satisfied to just sit and chew on a toy, or play with it, she has to dig her teeth into it and systematically pull it apart with her teeth. Seriously, she has torn up EVERY SINGLE dog toy we had. This was the last one, and she obviously had a great time ripping it to shreds. This toy is supposed to be indestructible. But we have learned (the hard way) that there is no such thing.

I was sitting in my chair reading, and I heard her playing with it, but I had no idea she had torn it apart like this. Arrggghhhhh!!!!

BENJAMIN DANIEL!