Cheese's "Big" Brother and Sister-to-be

I thought I'd just tell you a little bit about Cheese's doggy family to be, especially as they are doing a very good job at the moment of reinforcing my belief that my time with rescue dogs is done!

I posted a brief background introduction to Moss and Casey back in my very first post so, to recap:

"On a cold, snowy day, Fi received a call to ask whether Lizzies Barn could take a litter of puppies that had been found abandoned in a cardboard box. "Of course", was the answer. The litter turned out to be just 4 day old tiny black and tan scraps and there were 6 of them. Sadly, within just hours of starting a handrearing regime, one little boy was lost. For the next 2 weeks Fi's life centred around the puppies and they thrived. Fi had a holiday booked over Christmas so two puppies came to us to be fostered and the other three went to another foster home together. From the start, it had been decided that if one of the little boys survived then he would be Sophie's next terrierist so she had got to name Moss at 4 days old and then just hoped and prayed until he arrived with us at 2 1/2 weeks of age ~ eyes not long open, just starting to move, tail just starting to wag. His sister, Casey (named by Jacob ~ my son) came to us to be fostered alongside Moss so that they could keep each other company until she went to a new home at 8 weeks. Sophie and I spent Christmas 2010 bottle feeding every few hours, cleaning puppies, changing newspaper and napping as often as possible! The puppies continued to thrive though and eventually it transpired that Jacob and Casey had bonded too tightly for her to be rehomed so both pups stayed with us! Moss has been to training classes with Sophie and is now a KC Bronze Citizen and Casey has attended several clicker workshops with Jacob where she has shown that she is more clever than the rest of us! Both pups (they'll always be "the puppies" even as they approach their second birthday) had been sickeningly healthy until just a few weeks after we lost Bran, when we discovered that Casey has quite a severe flea allergy. Unfortunately, the flea allergy triggered a full body skin infection and, whilst we've been managing that, we've also discovered that she has luxating patella and will probably need surgery to fix it *sigh*  It doesn't bother her though and the pair of them are like little tasmanian devils whipping through the house causing noise and chaos and laughter most of the time."

Allow me to introduce you properly  :o)

Casey weighs about 5.5kgs and has straight, quite thick fur (unlike any of the others in the litter!). She is incredibly bright, adores learning new things, loves people and cuddles more than anything else in the world and likes to hold your finger or thumb in her mouth if she gets so excited that she doesn't know what to do with herself! She is also VERY bouncy and springy and we had hoped that she'd enjoy agility, but actually it's just FAR too exciting for her to cope with, so maybe we'll try again when she's older.

Posing in the garden

Our beautiful girl

With her bestest friend, Mika

Cheekiness

Being a girl, Casey has taken it upon herself to be the protector of our family and will generally be the one to decide whether other dogs are allowed to greet us or not or whether visiting dogs are allowed to sit on the sofa/play with the toys/have a drink from their water bowl, etc etc. 

Casey also has a rather impressive vocabulary and tries very hard to communicate with us by speech. The noises she can make have to be heard to be believed!

Her bestest friend in the world is our big ginger tom cat, Mika. He gets very frequent Casey kisses (thankfully, the cat version of these which are just butterfly kisses on his face, whereas the people version of these involve her tongue being shoved up your nostril!!) and they are often to be found snuggling up together.

Casey's favourite person ever is Jacob, my son, and she has a special inbuilt Jakeradar so that she can hear when he opens his eyes in the morning. We then have to listen to the "Jake's Awake" song until he comes down to greet her. Fortunately, he adores her too and they spend a lot of time together.

Casey's favourite hiding place!

Casey's favourite trick ~ placing her head right against your mouth so that you HAVE to give her kisses

We worked very hard with the puppies from a very early age to ensure that they developed very separate identities and didn't bond so tightly to each other that they became difficult and that has been successful enough that they actually just to spend little time together now. They will occasionally have a little play, but we never find them sleeping snuggled up together the way that they did when they were tiny. They both used to love snuggling with Bran or Flora, but not each other.

We think that they are probably yorkshire terrier x chihuahua but Casey and Moss look SO different to each other and have such different personalities that nobody ever guesses that they are even related!

Little and Large. Well. Not exactly "large" but "larger than Moss"  ;o)

Moss' turn. He weighs about 2.5kgs and has very very fine long, straggly fur that is incredibly difficult to manage so we trimmed it all off recently and now he has thick, soft short fur. We've not quite worked out whether he is incredibly dim or incredibly clever because we can teach him almost nothing! He did pass his Kennel Club Bronze Citizen test on his second go but it was all very much on his terms. Two and a half years in and we STILL can't get him to do a "down" on command! Moss is toy obsessed, particularly with his beloved reindeer. He would quite like to have someone on hand to play tug with him allllllllllllll day. His favourite victim to badger is Mika but he hasn't quite realised that Mika is a cat and will never play tug with him! 

Just before his first haircut

Looking very cute

Being the Mossasaurus in his favourite fleece

Trying to make Mika (the cat) play with his reindeer through the window

 Moss tends to be very aloof with people, which can be difficult when we are out and about as he is so small and cute that everybody wants to make a fuss of him and he just couldn't care less! Moss' favourite person in the world is Sophie, my daughter. As long as she is with him, then his world is ok. If she goes out, then he will become the loveliest, quietest dog ever and sleep on the sofa until she comes home. 

Moss has the most irritating bark on the world ~ the sort that brings out the same effect as nails down a blackboard ~ and we hear it A LOT! However, of an evening, he was worn himself out playing and becomes very very cuddly and it is how adorable he is at night and when Sophie is out that enables us to tolerate the noise and pestering the rest of the time  ;o)

Giving his mummy kisses when he was a tiny boy

Where Moss will be found when Sophie is poorly

So. Anyway. That's Moss and Casey. They are dogs number 6 and 7 for our little family, and they are rescue dogs number 6 and 7, and they are dogs number 6 and 7 who need rather hefty medical care  :o(

As I mentioned back at the start of this post, we discovered that Casey had luxating patella in her right leg not long after we lost Bran. 2 days before her 3 month check up with Joe (ortho vet at Highcroft Vets), she stopped using her left leg. When Joe examined her he found that her right leg was marginally worse than it had been, but that her left leg had deteriorated terribly and that she would need surgery within the next few weeks. It was all a bit of a shock, but we booked her in and the surgery went smoothly and she immediately started using the leg when she came home. 3 days later she had her first post-op check up and she had an infection brewing so was given antibiotics. 3 days after that she was back at the vets because she had a bad reaction to the antibiotics and needed a whole new batch of meds to stabilise her stomach. 

Whilst Casey was on strict crate rest, we started to realise that Moss was displaying many of the symptoms that had brought us to take Casey to see Joe about her legs in the first place, so we added him to her appointment for her 2 week post-op check up.

Joe was pleased with Casey's progress, then checked Moss and found that he was also suffering with LP in both legs. And needed surgery. The first lot within a few weeks. So Moss was booked in and his surgery went smoothly and he promptly refused to use the leg at all. 1 week later and Moss started to pass blood so was admitted to hospital for 3 days. That was put down to a bug and a few days later he had his 2 week post-op check up and he had just started to use his leg properly.

1 week after Moss' check up, Casey was booked in for x-rays and her second op. However, the x-rays showed that she hadn't healed sufficiently to have her second op and it was put back 5 weeks, which brought her to the same point as when Moss needed his second op and they were booked in for the same day. By the end of that week (after Casey's x-rays), both dogs had a tummy bug and had several days of vomiting and diarrhoea. 

And so second op day arrived. Casey's x-rays showed that she'd healed well and went on to have her second op. Moss' x-rays showed that he hadn't healed sufficiently and couldn't have his second op for another 4-5 weeks. This time, Casey didn't use her leg for several days, but passed her 3 day post-op check with flying colours. 

However, Moss then stopped using his fixed leg properly. We took him to see Rachel (lovely lady vet at Highcroft) as Joe was on holiday and she was worried that she could feel the kneecap still slipping, which shouldn't have been happening when it was pinned in place. Moss was rested up until he could use Casey's 2 week post op appointment the following week.

2 days before the appointment, Casey started being sick. Moss still had the evening appointment with Joe and we were delivered the news that, as he was our dog, Joe had been extra cautious and used two pins instead of the usual one to hold Moss' knee in place but that they had come loose: either because they had just worked their way loose or because the op site wasn't healing properly and the bone was being separated. So. Another op was needed. There were 2 options: if it turned out that the pins had just become loose, then the old pins would be removed and replaced with one new pin (not enough room for another two) and some anchor wire; if it turned out that the pins had become loose because of poor healing, then the old pins would be removed, a bone graft would be needed, and then the pin and anchor wire. We mentioned that Casey was being sick and she was booked in for the following day.

Casey, it appears, is intolerant of metacam. A short course of stomach settler sorted her poorly tum out.

Moss is in having his op redone today. I've just taken a call from Joe who says that at the moment the x-rays are saying healing has started so a bone graft may not be necessary and the measurements seem to indicate that the pins haven't become very loose, so the pain may just be down to the skin moving over the pins. The knee will be opened up and he'll have a good look to see what's what but on top of the other 2 options, it may just be that the old pins need removing. If that's the case, then recovery should be swift and Moss can have his second op in a few weeks. If new pins need putting in then we're looking at another 10 weeks of recovery before the second op can happen.

(Brief update 30/04/13: It turned out that somehow the skin had thickened over Moss' pins and was rubbing so making him sore, so the old pins were removed, along with the thick skin, and he SHOULD be able to manage without them now! If the bone chunk doesn't snap off and make him lame, then he has a check-up in 2 weeks and we can then get his second op booked in. Phew!!)

Every single time something happens, I'm so very grateful for finding Highcroft Vets because they are just incredible, but I'm tired of the "something happens" and am quite sure that there will be no more rescue dogs in the Hendy house. So Moss and Casey are the end of a traumatic and emotional 9 year rollercoaster ride and I am now just hoping beyond all hope that we can get these pesky ops out of the way and the pups back to full fitness before Cheese arrives and then that will be it! No more repetitive vet visits PLEASE!!!

Moss with his newly fixed leg after the first op

Casey with her healing leg after her first op