Good News, Bad News and Corbin

What a day!  We had a nice post planned about Corbin and his Pitty Party, but as often happens, life got in the way.

Samba's tail hasn't healed and needs to be kept wrapped so she doesn't reopen the wound. She suffers from a condition well known to Lab and Dane owners called "Happy Tail Syndrome". Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that Samba is a happy girl, but her pounding her tail on doors and tables and especially my filing cabinet has become a real problem.

She had an appointment with Dr B this morning to get his opinion. I was worried that he was going to suggest docking her tail. He says we're not even close to that point yet. Samba has been wagging her bandage off two or three times a day, but Dr B had some suggestions for keeping the bandage firmly on the tail that didn't involves duct taping it to her body. He shaved the end of her tail, showed me how to do a wet dry bandage and started her on antibiotics. Maybe we can get thru this without losing a portion of the tail.

Morgan was going to go with Samba this morning for moral support, but on the way to the car she spotted a squirrel and started chasing it. Yep, how many of you guessed it? She tore her left cruciate, so now she has a matching pair. We're back to enforced rest, being carried up stairs, pain pills and lots of supervision for six to eight weeks. What a fun summer this is starting out to be.

And now to Corbin. Happy birthday, big guy. He wants to share his birthday with the other Pitties who need some good PR. We have a number of Pitty friends who are all big goofy lap dogs.

 For two days we even had our own Pitty. Someone dropped her off in the country and she found her way to my Aunt's house where we were spending a few days. She was about three months old and the biggest love bug. She spent the whole weekend curled up on someone's lap. I called her Spot.

We were living in a townhouse and already had three dogs, so we knew we couldn't keep her, but my cousin Chuck is a sucker for any lost pup and he took her home with him and changed her name to Cookie.  She was a sweet girl, but to be on the safe side since they had several other dogs, they took her to Cornell University to see a behavior specialist. She was fitted for a special harness that they only used if she showed any signs of aggression with the other dogs. I think they only ever used it twice. She lived with them for her whole life and was a great family member.

Springfield has a breed ban against Pitties, but we've been hearing rumors that it's going to be repealed. As we all know, dogs aren't the problem. Bad owners are the problem. Let's ban them instead.