May 20, 2003
Enjoying the sunshine, while it lasts
10:30 a.m.
Last night, my neighbours gathered in our park to celebrate the Victoria Day holiday in the usual fashion: by attempting to blow themselves up with firecrackers. The children swooped their sparklers in wide arcs and ran around tripping in the dark. The mothers stood in tight knots and observed, occasionally calling out a plea for caution.
I saw this as a wonderful opportunity. Dusty has never seen or heard anything so crazy in her life and I figured that I could gently introduce her to the madness by feeding her entire dinner, piece by piece, with each 'BOOM!'
At first, we walked out to the park, but that was waaaayyy to close for her comfort. The whole scene - the kids and the sparklers and the teens whooping it up and even the tightly knotted mothers just freaked her out. So I took her inside, calmed her down and tried the front stoop instead. This worked better, though at first, Dusty was too scared to even eat. She huddled close to me and shook like a leaf.
But she eventually calmed down, ate the food I offered and and watched, wide eyed (can dogs even be wide eyed? Her eyes looked as wide as I've ever seen them...). Then, as I sat chatting with my upstairs neighbour, she even went to sleep! A pretty good night's work!
8:30 p.m.
A visit to the vet this afternoon confirmed that the lumps on Dusty's belly are *probably* just scar tissue forming. The vet told me that they were unusually large, but would likely shrink over the coming months.
So my dog has speed bumps on her belly...
There is an outside chance that some sort of infection might be going on in there, though, so she prescribed antibiotics for Dusty. So tonight, after supper, I got out the big jar of peanut butter and immediately had Dusty's full attention. I think she's been missing that after-dinner gob of peanut butter she used to get with her pill!
I really have to get a movie of her eating the peanut butter gob (which I helpfully stick to the roof of her mouth). Her mouth works frantically, and she periodically sticks out her tongue. Too cute.