In March 2010 Ouzel will be six years old, and as many of you know we have vacillated heartily over the decision of whether or not to breed Ouzel and Skookum.
The thought of managing a litter, finding good homes for this super high-energy breed, and training a puppy to hunt when Ouzel -- in her prime now should be doing the hunting -- discouraged us from proceeding.
Last Wednesday I went to the vet’s office to pick up Ouzel after her surgery. Heidi came along to help lift Ouzel in and out of the car. Because Ouzel is middle-aged, the vet said the surgery was more dangerous than if she had been a young dog. I expected her to be walking slowly and painfully out of the vet’s office. Instead she pranced—her tail rotating like a fan set on “high.” The vet smiled and said, “she’s not depressed.”
He was alluding to one of the danger-signs to watch for post-surgery. “Good luck” he called as Ouzel pulled me down the new ramp the vet had built for dogs “needing a little extra assistance.”
Ouzel entered her airline crate easily despite the clear plastic cone they had fastened around her neck to keep her from tearing at her sutures.
Once underway I heard the cone smacking the sides of the crate; Ouzel was whining, and she wouldn’t settle down. I pulled over onto the side of the road, and went around to the back compartment of my Mountaineer to see if she was okay. Fine, standing in the crate—wild eyed and defiant, and she refused to lie down.
Once home, I put her in the bathroom with layers of soft blankets hoping to simulate the crate environment she was supposed to be in, but again she would not calm down; in fact, she stood at the door in the bathroom for four hours.
When Bruce got home that night, he brought her up onto the couch in the living room, and took her cone off. He wrapped a leash around her neck preventing her from licking her belly; she finally went to sleep beside Bruce. Of course Bruce was stuck on the couch most of the evening; he read a book; I knitted, and we listened to old time music on the stereo. So, this describes Day One of “being in a crate.”
Day Two of “being in a crate” was spent in the living room, because Ouzel would not relax in the bathroom. Day Two Ouzel slept a lot, and I thought –the surgery is finally catching up with her. Good.
Day Three of “being in a crate” she spent an hour outside with Bruce as he stacked wood. Several workmen came down to the house, and they were moving equipment out of our shed and putting it onto a flatbed truck. I was dumping seed into a wooden feed hopper for my homing pigeons when I suddenly thought of Ouzel. Where is she? I quit the chores and climbed the stone steps from the pigeon lofts up to the woodshed where the men were. Ouzel was standing on the back of the flatbed truck; Bruce was oblivious; Bob, a workman was handling tools in the flatbed. I yelled, “Bob, don’t let her jump off the back of that truck, grab her.” He grabbed her, but her grabbed her under the belly, and she screeched. He looked surprised until I explained he just put pressure on her wound.
As Ouzel walked with me back into the house I said to Bruce and all the men standing around “she’s going back inside, and the cone is going back on!” And, so ended Day Three of being confined to a crate.
Sher and Dorothy
