His worst day . . . updated, again

Today, we hope, is the worst day of Marley's life.  He's in a crate, in a van, with a lot of other puppies, maybe some kittens, on the way to Corvallis MT for his neuter, second round of puppy shots and his microchip.  We dropped him off about 8:45 and he won't be back home until about 8 or 9 tonight.

We'll be waiting for the phone call that it's time to head toward Thompson Falls to meet the van and pick him up.  They'll call when they're at Plains, about 40 miles from the house, 25 from Thompson Falls.

Makes for a long day, knowing he's miserable, then he'll be knocked out, then sore, then miserable again when he wakes up.  Looking forward to a lot of TLC until he's himself again.  At least, after today he should become officially ours, ending the foster period and the shelter's responsibility for him.

In another couple of weeks we'll be able to take him in for his last puppy shot and begin to introduce him to other dogs, the dog park, places we've been avoiding for his safety.  And we'll be able to let him walk through the stores where he's welcome instead of putting him in a shopping cart.

We'll find plenty to do, but all day we'll be wondering how he's doing.  Poor little guy . . .

I'll update after he's home (probably not until tomorrow)


We got the call he was getting close to Thompson Falls earlier than we expected, so we had almost an hour's warning.  Good thing, since we'd just started eating dinner.  On the way to Thompson Falls we drove into a serious rain storm.  Even on high the wipers were having trouble keeping the windshield clear and we had to be careful to stay out of the flooded road ruts (yes, even in rural Montana the pavement gets ruts from the heavy truck traffic).  We did get there before the van, and waited outside the locked gate for them to arrive.  The van had to pull over and wait out a hail storm.  (When we went to the grocery store after picking him up we could see a lot of tree debris on the road; glad we missed that wind!)

Anyway, he was fully awake from the anesthesia, just moving a bit slow.  These days, after they snip the little boys, they give them a green "N" tattoo near the surgical site.  That way, nobody will try to do it again, and nobody has to take our word for it that he's been neutered.

Apparently Charlotte missed the excitement of playing chase.  Even though we're supposed to try to keep him from getting too excited or active, she really wanted to stir things up.  This morning they started playing tag about 6am.  Things are pretty much back to normal.  We just need to monitor his incision and try to keep him from licking at it too much.

We checked with the shelter and he is now officially ours .  Not that it will make any difference how we treat him, but it's good to know he's now family.  And he's microchipped and the chip registered to us and our contact info.  Yay!

We watched Marley & Me again the other night.  When the puppies and dogs were barking or crying he stopped what he was doing and watched until it went back to all people on the screen.  He's also seemed a bit worried when we're in Sandpoint and the seagulls are screaming from the light posts in the parking lots.  They do sound a bit like puppies in dire distress, don't they?