Oops, I Did It Again

I brought home another foster dog. Meet Leon.

Leon is about a year old and is mostly a border collie, but his grandmother was a Jindo, a Korean breed of dog. (Funny story … when my volunteer went to evaluate him she called me and said “Leon’s mother is Jin-Doh” with kind of a funny pause in the middle. I racked my brain for a second trying to figure out who Jin-Doh was and why hadn’t I heard of this famous border collie? When I finally asked “Who is Jin-Doh?” she said, bless her, very patiently as though I were retarded – “Uh it’s a breed, the Jindo?” The curse of being a know it all is that when I make an error, I feel twice as stupid as the average, non know-it-all style person)

My dogs are, once again, profoundly disappointed in me. Not one to let lowered expectations interfere with a photo op, I took digital proof.

Woo is sad.

Piper is sad

Red Dog is again in his happy place, where there are no intact GIANT HEADED puppies in his way. Seriously, look at the size of his head compared to Woo’s:
But back to Red Dog and the deep disappointment

And Tweed is just sleepy or something. He is a rebel and doesn’t cooperate with my photo themes
Anyway, Leon is only here for a few days as he goes to his real foster home on the weekend. First, I am taking him to the vet to get his testicles removed, and maybe have them shave down his GIANT HEAD a little. Poor guy doesn’t know why he’s smiling so much, as he really has no idea what’s going to happen to him tomorrow!

But when I told Tweed that Leon was leaving in a few days, he was skeptical and adorable all at the same time.

Piper says “Bye bye Leon!”

Recently I made the difficult decision to put Red Dog on prednisone. For some time he has had a problem with his elbows that seems to be rooted in an auto-immune disorder, and it’s causing a lot of inflammation and pain for him. We tried to control his pain through medications but he was progressively getting worse and less mobile. On the weekend, my old man dog fell down the back stairs. I thank doG that I had a premonition that it was only a matter of time before this happened, and I had hold of his collar at the time. If I hadn’t, he would have fallen through the open railing and bounced down another flight of cement stairs. I was terrified and after having a dramatic little cry in the back stairwell, I figured that given the choice between steroids and falling down flights of stairs, Red Dog would choose the steroids. So I bit the bullet and on Monday, he began a course of prednisone.

The difference has been nothing short of dramatic. In just a few days, he has gone from a hobbling red troll to a slightly stiff but pretty darn mobile senior dog. He can walk at a normal pace again and has resumed chasing his frisbee with the gusto I remember. I am beyond thrilled with the results, and could not be one single iota happier with his improvement. There are not photos of this magical transformation, I’m just really freakin’ happy! Way to go Red Dog!