Multi-tasking x2

This is the second portion of the post from yesterday.


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This past weekend, Puppy ended up visiting the vet unexpectedly. Here's how it went down.

I'm in our guest room, painting (more on this later), and Husband calls me. He says, "meet me at the kitchen door, Puppy's paw is hurt and bleeding." He said it with such a calmness that I kind of wondered if he was kidding. Of the two of us, he's usually the one to freak out (and I love him for it). So, like any worried Puppy Mommy would do, I looked out the front window to see if Puppy was hurt or limping, and she wasn't. I sat at the back door and they came in, and sure enough, her entire front left paw was bloody, and she'd managed to get splashes of blood pretty much everywhere on her body. Impressive, really. I held her still while Husband used the puppy wipes to wipe off her feet, and try to soak up some of the blood on and around her paw.

We thought she'd torn her dew claw. Dr. Google led us to believe that she could need it removed. We called our vet, and they seemed to play it down. Like there was nothing wrong with Puppy. Um, hello.. if I can see my dog's blood in drips, and there's enough that it splashed around her body, there is something wrong. They said we could bring her by, and that she'd need to be sedated. And that it'd be almost 4 hours before she could be seen. So, now, after telling me my dog is fine, you want me to bring my injured dog to you, so you can sedate her and ignore her for 4 hours? Yea. No.

We called up Trusty Vet.

One of the many things I love about my church is how diverse the people are. We've got everything in terms of careers, interests, hobbies, and talents. It's wonderful. The Trusty Vet veterinarian is a lovely woman who attends our church with her husband and son.

They were so friendly. Puppy was never scared or alone. Or sedated. They saw her right away. They called the other vet for medical records, and we all learned that the old vet never called/emailed/contacted us in any way to let us know Puppy's vaccines had expired! How horrible! Especially considering we live in a neighborhood also inhabited by coyotes. We were very upset by this.

Anyway, Dr. Bradshaw found out what happened and what caused SO MUCH blood. Seriously. A lot of blood. Turns out, at some point while Husband and Puppy were playing frisbee, Puppy landed funny and actually broke her dew claw. The crack in the claw was waaaay up into the quick, which is what caused the bleeding. Luckily, nothing phases Puppy. She got two shots, dew claws clipped, and some sort of vaccine-goo up her nose and never whimpered or fought it.

She's not one of those dogs who allows herself to be subjected to her humans' emotions. No, no. This dog is constantly happy, jumping, playing.. or sleeping. Those are her settings. Always.

 

Doesn't look so bad after being cleaned for almost a 1/2 hour straight.

 

 

So excited, even to be at the vet.

 

 

She definitely isn't a guard dog, but she'll love you to death if you let her.

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In other news, Big Bertha celebrated her 100,000th mile on Monday evening!

 

I know she's not very big, in fact she's remarkably small.

 

Big Bertha is my first car, and though I sometimes fear she's out to get me, she's been amazing.

 

She became mine on December 31, 2006. On December 23, 2006, I had my wisdom teeth out and spent that Christmas and the few fuzzy days surrounding it on pain medication. One day in that fuzzy window of time, I was somehow allowed to take a driving test. Still on pain medication from my surgery. A lot of the test I don't remember, but I know it was raining and that in my license, my cheeks were swollen.

 

The day I got Big Bertha, I was actually supposed to be getting a green Nissan Sentra. We had the car on hold for me, but Mom and I got stuck in traffic and somehow, some other random person just had to have that car. It's OK. That Sentra probably wouldn't have lasted as long- it had more miles already on it and was a year or two older. So, Big Bertha, who was our second choice, became the winner!

 

The first place I drove was to my job at Baskin Robbins (and at this point, I was no longer on pain killers, by the way). I didn't have to work, but I had to show Brittany, my Baskin/Dunkin BFF (we even had nicknames from the Blockbuster employees and the Stevie B's bbq employees: Baskin Britt and Dunkin Dsouza- BB/DD) my new wheels. She made a free milkshake- our special "Banana Surprise" -and she ate some ice cream while we admired Bertha. I remember Brittany had a Suzuki.

 

Big Bertha and I have had some fun, and some not as fun, experiences. We've been rear-ended thrice, we've had tires blow out on interstates, and we've been flooded overnight, causing severe (and still not completely fixed) electrical issues. But she's been a beast. Even on days where I'm pretty sure she's going to kill me, I love her.

 

She moved with me to Huntsville and since then has taken me all sorts of places around the southeast. Bertha and I (plus whoever else may have been in the car) have driven up Monte Sano for a few hikes- once when her underbelly got scraped up so bad by a ledge that I had to take her get the brakes checked; to Gatlinburg- where we got stuck when the back passenger side tire slipped off a snowy road; to Pensacola/Destin/Gulf Shores; to Nashville and Chattanooga; to Birmingham; to Atlanta, and many more. Oh, and she's driven from Ft. Lauderdale to Huntsville thrice. Bertha and I are all about adventures, you know.

 

She's got a few bumps and bruises, a dent in the back bumper and a few scratches. She's got an unreliable "check engine" light, and I'll never know again if all the doors are shut (without turning around, of course), she's randomly super loose with the amount of gas she'll devour, and she's got an oil leak, but it's ok, because for the most part, she's gotten me to and from my destinations with ease and safety.

 

Like everyone who values their first car, she's got some details that make her mine. There are two turtles on the dash board in front of my steering wheel. She's got a metal slinky on the windshield-wiper-stick, and a rainbow plastic slinky on the blinker-stick. She's got a UAH window cling, a UA window cling, and the remnants of a "Charge On" sticker (all that remains is "arg" for some reason). In the back seat leaves a Chick-Fil-A stuffed cow from 2008, two bibles, a frisbee under my seat, and a jacket (always a jacket). And the trunk has a pair of flip flops, a sweatshirt, and a beach chair.

 

Not to mention, she has a pretty good sound system for an unmodified 9-year-old car.

 

 

Here's hoping, but not expecting, another 100,000 miles with her.