Angel, Day 2: Mystery of the Lake
I’m jotting down a few notes before we go to our marathon Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) session. Angel is at the groomer’s right now, and I’m eager to see what she looks like after they shave her down. Unfortunately, she’s going to have to spend the D&D session in her crate; there’s just no alternative. I won’t leave her loose in the kitchen with Paris, in case the War of the Bitches breaks out.
The opening salvo may have been fired. Yesterday evening someone peed a big lake in front of Angel’s crate. We’ve got that in the kitchen, so it wasn’t a major hassle for clean-up. But I’d give a lot to know whether it was Cognac being chivalrous (in some doggy fashion) or Paris putting Angel in her place. They say that two females are the hardest combo, and a situation where one is spayed and the other isn’t is the worst. So far, the suspiciously-placed pee is the only indication of hostility; I’ve got my fingers crossed that Paris and Angel will get along okay.
The visit to the vet yesterday went well enough. We have to go back with a urine sample. Otherwise, the vet found a place where the collar had been galling her, so we bought a new collar, and an old scar of unknown origin, and generally sores where her mats have been pulling at her skin. But no open sores, and no horrible conditions like some of the recent rescues from puppy mills have had.
And we got good news, too — Angel weighed 8-1/2 pounds! Okay, the 1/2 pound may have been all hair, but still, that’s a huge improvement over the 6 that she weighed when the mill auctioned her off. It’s like a 5′7″ person who starts out at 100 pounds and gains 40 over 6 months; pretty terrific. That is the one thing that her previous owner gets full credit for.
No, That Woman also gets credit for some important socialization. Angel likes being held, even though she trembles while we’re doing it. By way of contrast, the recent mill rescues have been described as “feral;” they don’t want to look at anyone or be touched. Partly it’s that Angel won her release so young, of course. I’m convinced it was starving herself down to 6 pounds that did it. At that weight she almost certainly wasn’t coming into heat.
Keeping her weight up was looking like it might be a challenge; we went out and bought the food she had been eating, but Angel still wouldn’t eat yesterday’s dinner. But during the afternoon yesterday she did eat the dog-food sausage that we give the dogs as treats. (She wouldn’t take it from my hand, but would eat it if I put it down in front of her.) Lynn, the rescue coordinator, said feed her anything that she’ll eat at this point, so for breakfast this morning she got a mix of the Orijen that we feed the other dogs, the sausage, and her old food. She ate all the sausage and I think half the other stuff, so we have a plan.