The Ones Who Love You Most

Happy Valentine's Day! I had a different idea for my "love post" to blog about today but after the scare we had yesterday I changed my mind. I decided to write about true love. The kind of love that has no judgement, no expectations, no walls, just genuine love and affection. I'm talking about the love of a dog. You can't deny that your dogs love you more than you knew was possible. As soon as you walk in the door, even if you just stepped out to get the mail real quick, they are over the top excited to see you and you fall in love with them all over again. Their love for you never glitches. It's pure, honest, from the heart love and adoration.

I wasn't always a dog person. My first pet when I was a kid was fish, then I graduated to birds. Both were equally traumatizing experiences. When I moved out of the house I got a cat and he was the coolest kid in the neighborhood. A little Pet Cemetery mixed with cuddle bug. I called him Chewbacca Man. Long story for another day. When my daughter was at the right age to be responsible for a pet we got her a dog named Oliver. Huge personality little Jack Chihuahua mix. This dog was a runner, lover, barker, sun seeker and hater of big dogs, especially black ones. He loved my daughter and my sister to death. I grew on him and eventually we became inseparable and I became a dog person. Later we got him a sister, Luna. A husky and princess in every sense of the word. There was no love at first sight with her, she was a rescue who needed time to feel safe enough to trust us. She doesn't leave my side now. A year after that we got Coonhound Buck. He was the tiniest puppy who stole our hearts from the beginning and has tested our patience ever since. You can't help but love all 82 pounds of him. That's how I became known as The Crazy Dog Lady. This person who never really liked dogs but now couldn't imagine her life without these 3.

Which brings me to yesterday. I had been out of town for the weekend. My husband got home at 3am, all was good. He hung out with the dogs in the morning and left around 11am. We both got home at 3pm and Buck collapsed just outside the garage door. At first I thought he just sat down weird and hadn't gotten back up yet. He did try to get up and scooted outside to do his business which is when we could see that both his back legs were turned in and he wasn't able to bear any weight on either of them. My husband carried him inside and we called our vet. It was late in the day obviously and they were at "full capacity". I will forever hate that term as we started driving towards the emergency vet an hour and a half away who also told me on the phone that they were at full capacity. I continued calling emergency vets as my husband drove. I finally reached one that was busy but willing to put Buck on the waitlist. While I was still on the phone with them, though, they were able to reach out to a different clinic that has a Neurologist on staff and got me on the list there. It was a long drive with an anxious, uncomfortable dog and 2 parents not knowing what the fuck happened. It's a very scary and helpless feeling. Once we arrived he was triaged in the car and we waited another hour and a half for them to take him inside to be seen. He was strapped to a gurney and wheeled in. They rushed him through a door and shut us out. He was scared and crying. We were scared and confused. The receptionist told us someone would come get us as soon as the doctor had time to examine him. We finally met with the doctor who gave us a lot of information that was over our heads with the basic message of they don't know what's going on and need to do more testing. This is when numbers start getting thrown around. How much do we want them to do? All the things. That's what we want. All the tests until we know what's wrong and how we can best help Buck get better. She was able to reach the neurologist while they started running blood tests and when the lab work was all normal it was decided to admit him and keep him overnight. This way they could keep him comfortable and have him prepped and ready for the Neurology team in the morning. The plan as far as we could understand is to sedate him and start doing advanced imaging this morning to go down the list of possible diagnoses to rule each one out until they figure out what's wrong and what is next for Buck. Leaving there without him was difficult but we both felt he was in good hands and it would speed up the process today so we made the long drive home. Today we wait for answers.

Dogs. The ones who love you most. We have a mutual love, humans and dogs. They test us constantly. We strive to never let them down. They push our buttons. We tell the crazy dog stories and laugh about it later. They are our kids and we are part of their pack. They rely on us but let's be honest, we rely on them so much more! There's no love that compares to this. Maybe it's because they don't talk back. ;-) It's a unique love that will change your life forever. Happy Valentines Day to The Ones Who Love Us Most, our dogs.