Doggie drama

I haven't made a post for a while so there is a lot to catch up on! Just thinking of the main points of the last couple of weeks.... of course my mind races to what the animals have been up to. I think I should rename my blog from 'Kara's World' to 'Stories About Pets to Bore People With.'

So a couple of weekends ago Lucy got hold of a corn on the cob while we were preparing to bbq on Sunday night. She scarfed down about 3/4 of it while we were chasing her round the garden. I remembered hearing they are dangerous for dogs, so looked on the internet and all the sites said to seek medical attention. So I called three emergency vets and they all recommended she be seen right away (I was thinking one of them at least might think we could wait and see, but no it did seem to cause concern at each place). So we went and they made her throw up and it all came up because it was soon enough that it hadn't left her stomach yet. It could cause intestinal obstruction which can be fatal. So no x-rays or much worse surgery. So the question is, why do these things always happen on a Sunday? I must be nearing the 1/2 dozen mark on pet visits to the emergency vets on Sunday, between the three of them!

Over Memorial Day weekend we took Lucy to Dad and Gretchen's condo at Lake Monroe. Lucy had never been out on the water before, and as she seems to have a lot of Lab in her (including the webbed toes) we have been anxious to get her swimming. She was pretty unsure in the boat and tried her best to keep a low-profile. We anchored up in a cove and despite her best efforts to become invisible, no one forgot that she was there and she was quickly placed lovingly (cough: [gently] tossed) into the water. We had hoped she would jump in after the peer pressure of watching my dad's dogs jump in, but that turned out to be wishful thinking. Once she was in, she started paddling away like an old pro. We were shouting, 'Good girl, Lucy! Good dog!' as she swam and swam. Then we realized that she was actually swimming away and seemed to have no intentions of returning to the boat! Yes, she swam to shore. She didn't even look back as we were calling to her to come back and she was swim-swim-swimming away. She got to where she could stand up, and she just stood there looking at us. I told my dad that I couldn't hear her, but I knew she was standing there whining and whimpering. We pulled up the anchor and drove the boat over to her, and John got in to bring her back to the boat (once we were within earshot we could hear I was right -- she was whimpering away!). She got back on board and again tried to shrink into the floor, hoping she would be forgotten. We took it easy on her, but she was made to get in the water two or three more times, this time with a rope tied to her life jacket so she couldn't get out of reach. Yes, she had a doggie life jacket, but it's mostly for ease of getting her in and out of the boat because there is a handle on the top of the back of it. She was so funny at some points because she would swim to where different people in our group were on floaties and she'd climb up on them. She did it to me when I was on a flimsy little floatation thing, and she somehow managed to stay on it for about a minute or so without drowning me too much. My dad had a sturdier floaty and she climbed right up with him and parked herself in his lap! She is a good little swimmer, we just hope she really gets into it someday and really likes the water, instead of timidly tolerating it like she was.