Nala has a visit to the Doctor and A new lady in town

Nala just can't seem to get a break.    Friday when she came home from the vet after her heart worm treatment, she was not feeling very well.   We decided that she was functioning at about 40% of the normal Nala that we know and love.   By Saturday afternoon, she was up to about 60% of normal.   She was walking better, still very unstable, especially on her rear legs.   But her tail was up and she was wagging pretty constantly instead of just from time to time.    Sunday morning we were seeing more of our friend, Nala.   She was even showing some enthusiasm when breakfast came.    Nala is usually a chow hound, and when she does not eat, we all worry.  

Then came Sunday afternoon.   She slept almost all afternoon.   But worse, when dinner time came, she sniffed her plate and wandered off.   She did not want to eat anything.   She would not even take her pills with peanut butter, or with some bread or cake.   She had to be forced to swallow the pills.

Monday morning, she did not want to even go to her breakfast plate, she refused to eat anything.   Her tail was down again, she was walking pretty stiffly.    We loaded her up and off to the vet we went.    We had to leave her there for observation.   Later Monday we went back to pick her up.    She was sure glad to be out of the pen and back with us in the car.   She said that the floors in the pen were pretty hard and her favorite bed was not there.   She was afraid we were going to leave her again.

Back home she has a pill to make her appetite better, another pill for her stiffness in her hips, and a pill to keep infection away.   She is just having a bad reaction to the drugs.   The drugs do not wear off easily when you are 13 years old.   She needs more rest and more food to build herself up before she can recover.    She will get all kind of special food in hopes that between the good food and the appetite stimulant, she will get some nourishment and some strength.    We are all just thankful she is recovering here instead of having to spend another night in the vet office.

Meanwhile our cousins have a new foster.    We have not taken on another foster because we want Nala to get healthy before we bring in someone else.   But our cousins were called to go out of town and pick up a wonderful 11 year old golden lady named Gracie.    Her family was moving out of their home and into an apartment.   At their temporary apartment, they were not allowed to have Gracie in the house, they had to leave her in the garage.  They quickly determined that was no way to treat a 11 year old lady.   The called the rescue and asked to have someone pick her up so she could have a better home, the kind of home she deserved after a long life of faithful service to her family.   We are told that Gracie is not used to a lot of dog friends, she takes a while to get used to new friends.    People are fine, but dogs are not as quickly accepted. 

We have not met Gracie yet, but we will.   Our cousins humans are going to be gone for a week to some terrible place they call Hawaii.   When we asked about going along, they said we would not like it there, there are no squirrels, no snow, no ducks, or anything fun.  So our three cousins, and Gracie, will be arriving here on Friday and they will spend 7 or 8 days with us.   Hopefully, Nala will be feeling better then, but Gracie is a laid back kind of a dog, so we don't expect any excitement with her around.    Having Molly, Piper and Emma is easy, they stay often enough that they know the rules.  Gracie is not a puppy anymore, so we don't expect that she will be any problem.  We look forward to having Gracie visit for a few days, we will introduce her to life in a wild and ferocious pack of Golden Retrievers. 

Mogley G. Retriever