I hardly know where to start.
Oh.
Begin at the flag.
Not to scale! “X” is a food drop.
Six turn track for Capella on Friday — she did great! Given that she has a track in an April 28th test, this was super encouraging.
Capella after the track
On Saturday morning I volunteered at the Scentwork trial. In the afternoon, my team and I worked on the house.
Rosebud: What’s in here? Cat toys?
Pozy: What?! I meant to add polka dots to my backside.
Harper: Nice! A new bed.
Sparkle: Do you need this?
Pozy: You left the paint can opener thingee on the floor. Again.
You get the idea. My team is not quite as helpful as one might hope.
Painting was involved. I am accumulating quite the collection of paint cans, which are useful in holding security cameras. Who knew?!
I got it all done and then took dogs on a quick walk. This is Sparkle saying “hey” to the neighbor.
Then I jumped on a Zoom party for my sister.
Then — at about 8:45 pm I let Claire and Sparkle in from the yard and immediately knew something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Very, very wrong.
Claire had a frothy mouth. I checked her gums — they were pale. I checked her abdomen.
We were in the car on the way to the emergency vet within minutes.
She went right off to surgery.
Because she has not had enough surgeries in her lifetime.
I stayed until Claire was safely out of surgery — I arrived home at 3:00 a.m.
Bloat is a Big Giant Deal. Life threatening. Claire’s stomach and spleen twisted — she now has no spleen.
There is no solid evidence about what causes bloat and the associated torsion. I feed my dogs three times a day specifically to avoid large meals. I do not use raised bowls. I avoid exercise after meals. And so on.
The truth is that random bad sh!t happens — and it happened to Claire last night.
We can imagine we are safe because we do X, Y and Z — and don’t do A, B, and C. And yes, maybe that makes us feel better.
Or at least smug.
But none of it stops random bad sh!t from happening.
Darn it.
So far Claire is doing REALLY well. Like — surprisingly well according to the excellent veterinarians who are caring for her.
And I am doing everything I can to help.
I wore my most lucky Lucky Socks today.
I wore her special tie-dyed High in Trial obedience shirt.
And I brought the extra lucky Lucky Happy Hippie Heart when I visited her today.
After all, I am an expert in dealing with random bad sh!t. Or if not an expert — at least, very experienced at it!
So circling back to the start flag — no tracking test for Capella next week because we need close eyeballs on Claire for the next little while. No worries — there are other tests but there is only one Claire.
Send some good thoughts for my girl ❤️
And I sure hope your weekend was less eventful than mine — and involved more sleep!