The Life Before Us.
This poor, sweet dog of ours.
When we adopted her in May we knew that she had recently had a rough few months. She’d been rescued from the typical risks of being a wandering stray, had contracted heartworm, given birth to a litter of puppies, and been neutered. She’s still under treatment for the heartworm, but is otherwise a very happy and comfortable canine, content to curl up on beds, couches, chairs, or humans and nap for hours unless she gets hungry or needs a walk.
She does also get bursts of playful energy, but until the course of heartworm treatment finishes this can exacerbate her condition, so we do our best to keep her calm when she has the zoomies.
Yesterday, while I was frantically attempting to finish filming and editing my pieces for The Infinite Wrench 24, Dana noticed that Keeper’s occasional coughing and hacking had changed — it was more pronounced and more frequent, and we were concerned that perhaps a recent walk in the cold rain had brought on pneumonia. Dana took Keeper to the ER for treatment and X-rays, and we were relieved to learn that she didn’t have pneumonia, and would eventually be okay, but even the minimal high-energy activities she was engaging in were aggravating the ongoing state of her condition. She has a slightly enlarged heart, and depending on what her vet tells us today she may be starting a new round of doxycycline.
The technician also told Dana, last night, that the gunshot wounds don’t seem to be causing any problems.
“What?” Dana had said. “Excuse me, what?”
“She has two bullets in her chest,” he replied. “She had them when you first got her in May. We thought you knew that.”
We saw the X-rays this morning. Indeed, there are two small pellets still in her chest from some unfortunate encounter in her past that she will not be able to tell us about.
We have a dog with a big heart, some kids she’s never going to see again, and two bullets lodged in her body. We’ve long assumed that she’s some kind of terrier mix but she might also be part country song.
Creative Control 