Master Plan, Phase 2: On Hold

Somehow, I am not quite sure how, I arrived at the plan to adopt an older dog *AND* a puppy in 2012. Luckily Iggy seems agreeable to it all. He's never had 2 dogs at the same time. I've only had 2 dogs at the same time for a couple of years (prior to moving out of that house/relationship). So it is a little outside our comfort zone.

I know I mentioned before that I had always wanted to adopt older dogs because I worry they won't get a second chance. But I don't view that as excluding me from adopting a puppy too.

But first to see if Phase 1 of the plan was going ok. We took Radar to the vet yesterday. I was worried about: 1: his weight (too skinny) 2: his back leg (hip displaysia? arthritis? too late to do anything?) 3: his hearing (either his name really isn't Radar, or he has "selective hearing" or he's deaf)

The vet was a funny little man. Very bookish. Prone to acting out his diagnosis (the loping imitation of hip displaysia was sorta funny). And he drew out a couple of diagrams about hip displaysia versus arthritis on a paper towel for me to take home. He told me that "adopting older dogs is like a mystery -- you see lots of clues but really have to guess at what the history is since you can't just ask them."

At that point we were talking about his hips and walking ability. Radar seemed not to care if the vet moved his back legs all around (the adoption vet said she was unable to extend his back right leg). The vet was speculating about whether the issue was genetic (hip displaysia) or arthritis (the vet thought perhaps Radar was hit by a car at some point -- does this really happen and the dog lives?). Radar's back legs both show muscle atrophy and especially on the right side. In fact, his right side is noticeably smaller than the left.

And his waist is too small. The vet seemed disappointed that Radar didn't have diarrhea. If he did (I guess) this might allow for the weight loss (5 pounds since he was originally dumped at the shelter). Without that as a reason, he was worried that there might be some cancer, specifically in the lungs which "sounded funny". The vet listened with 2 different stethoscopes, so he probably knows what he's talking about. But it could also be that when dogs are super skinny (like Radar) the heart rubs against the lungs and causes the grating sound he was hearing.

So first order of business is to fatten Radar up. Which is a good goal. It seems harder for me to lose weight myself or get my pet to lose weight. But I seem good at gaining weight (seeing all-new numbers on the scale these days -- eek!). The vet gave us a web site to use to figure out what to feed the dog to increase his weight gradually. (The annoying thing about that is that the web site is in kcals and the dog food bags seems to list in grams...I need to figure out some conversion somewhere. Of course even fattening up the dog the right way can't be easy.)

In a month or so, we will go back to the vet and weigh Radar. Then, if he's gained weight we'll see if we can get the vet to listen to his lung again. Then we'll decide if we need just x-rays on the hips or the hips and the lungs. I am trying to decide if knowing what the hip issue is will help us figure out how to treat it.

The vet also said it looked to him like Radar had some minor hearing loss. Radar's ears twitched to the vet's clanging of metal lids behind him, but he was really mostly interested in the treat I was holding. Inconclusive at best. It seems like as time goes on his hearing gets better. I think some of it is that he's learning what the relevant sounds are (the garage door means Iggy is home, the doorbell means someone new is about to come in, etc). And I think a lot of is that his name wasn't Radar...and now that he's learned to respond to that name we're stuck with it. (There was also a Hawkeye and a Trapper at the shelter...)

He probably does have selective hearing too. We all do, right? Choose to hear what we want to hear... ;-)

At any rate, today we decided to delay phase 2 of our master plan. On about an hourly basis I oscillated back and forth: get a puppy now because Radar seems to love other dogs and desperately wants to play on our walks? Or give Radar time to settle in and convince him that we're his family (he is so friendly that he'd go home with anyone!)? The "give Radar some time" side won out. So we missed out on the super-grumpy-but-totally-cute Frank

and the possibility of owning an intriguging Sharpei/Mastiff mix.


I am assuming that there will always be cute puppies to adopt, right?