I can't believe Marty has only been here for 10 days. It feels like so much longer! I think my other dogs are still wondering when he's going to leave - I swear, Pixie (who is the resident Miss Manners) stares at him then stares at me and then looks pointedly at the door. She couldn't be communicating more clearly unless one day she asks me frankly in English to get rid of him.
Usually I let my new dogs settle in for a while before stressing them at the vet but I had some concerns about Marty decided to take him in early. There is bad news and good news. The bad news is that he has cancer. He has one testicle that is literally 20x the size of other, the minute I palpated it at home I knew. One of the consequences of not neutering your animals is testicular cancer, and sadly Marty has that. His testicle is so big that I really want to get him a pair of tighty-whitey underwear because it just looks uncomfortable! He doesn't seem to notice though, he runs around with no problems. Marty Mega Ball. There are different types of cancers and I wonder if his is raising his testosterone and driving his EXTREMELY amorous behavior which is driving the rest of my dogs to drink.
The good news is that his bloodwork is normal and he's not in any kind of organ failure. His dead eye isn't causing him pain at the moment, he has some neck pain that I will manage and that is probably the cause of his mildly neurological behavior. He doesn't have a raging heart murmur which is HUGE! Most of these little guys have failing little hearts. Then, about a half hour after we got home, he suffered a Grand Mal seizure. Hard to say why - he handled the visit quite well, he was stressed but didn't have a melt down. It was either the stress of the visit or he is going to show me that he's a seizure dog. All of my dogs have a journal where I write stuff down so I entered the date and time of the seizure and now will monitor.
I've learned that Marty LOVES going for little jaunts on his leash. His elderly owner must have taken him on short walks and he thinks they're swell. Because it's winter and his hair is sparse, he got his own (hand-me-down) little sweater and he felt VERY handsome. He has a hard time walking up hills, even mild grades, but he seems to love a good walk.
His biggest issue in the house is how he relates to the other dogs. He just wants to have sex with them all the time. Which is RUDE, just ask Pixie. And this creates anxiety for him. And it creates anxiety for them. He has definitely settled quite a bit in a relatively short period of time and I have to work hard to make sure that everybody has safe time. He actually will back off if a dog barks at him but only two of mine do that, the others just run and he thinks that the chase game is the BEST! I'm getting really creative about how I manage him and I spend a lot of time on it. Adding Marty hasn't been easy but he definitely is worth it. When he's losing his mind chasing them, I remind him that this is why everyone hates him and he has no friends. It's tough love but it doesn't seem to register. :)
The most exciting thing is that he is clearly starting to bond with me. When I get home, he gets super excited and does a hilarious little happy feet dance. Kind of part Irish Riverdance, part Muppet Show and it's really the cutest little thing. He throws his little feet at me when I sit down and he cries and kind of cuddles in a weird, awkward way, like a cat on speed. I haven't figure out yet where his favorite places to be rubbed are...his neck hurts so I have to be really gentle but I sort of curl myself around him and scratch his chest and legs and butt and he seems to think that's fine. Not going to lie, it melts my heart.
We'll see where we are in a week! He's eating better, stressing less, and I'm getting better about anticipating what everyone needs. Every dog is a learning experience, that's for sure!!
