Tuesday, January 26, 2010

a month of 'firsts'...

After all of the fun we had with the broken toe, we got to see Gracie have alot of 'firsts'...first Thanksgiving, first snow, first boarding, first Christmas... All of them were so special, knowing where she came from and just how much she has overcome to get this far.
I've mentioned how heightened her smell is due to her lack of sight. Well, Thanksgiving brought so many new smells (all of the interesting ones relating to food) for Gracie and she couldn't contain herself! We deep-fried the turkey in the backyard so no dogs were allowed out there while the oil was even remotely hot. I mean, come on!...my dogs are known for getting into everything at exactly the wrong time. That was not a risk I was prepared to take! So all weims were taken to the front yard to relieve themselves. We also had ham baking along with all the usual sides so our little gray girl was spending a ton of time in the kitchen with her nose high in the air! She attempted to counter-surf several times and almost pulled plates of food off of the counter a few times due to the way she just throws her legs up at the counter but can't really plan where they are going to land. It's quite comical to watch!
Anyway, she got to taste all the good stuff and was so excited! Her sisters, Miley and Maggie, sat nearby...drooling...and they got their samples, too. All in all, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving. We all talked about what it was we were thankful for this year and while I am always thankful for my family, this year I had one more thing on my mind. David and I were given a very special addition to our family...Gracie. We wouldn't have sought out a handicapped dog but apparently God knew our home is where she belonged...long before we did. I thought about the first time I saw her and how I felt a pull towards her. The picture of her didn't show how bad off she really was. Her body was so tiny that her head managed to hide it in the picture. She looked pitiful and, most of all, tired. No living creature, human or otherwise, should look that tired at such a young age. I just knew that if I could get my hands, and love, on her she would be fine. And while she is not a 'normal' dog, she is just Gracie to us and that is all we will ever expect her to be.
So...upon further reflection...I guess we have one last thing to be thankful for this year. The Weim Rescue, because without it, I wouldn't have found Princess Gracie and she probably wouldn't have survived.
Thank you, WRT, your work is so important. Please keep saving those that can't save themselves.
P.S. The picture in this post is of Gracie after Thanksgiving Dinner. I'm guessing she had too much turkey? :o)

toe update...

First of all, I want to apologize for my lack of posts. As I'm sure all of you were, I was focused on my family during the holidays. So, now that things are back to normal, I can catch you all up on the Walker Weims!
Gracie was a fairly decent patient throughout the splinting of her broken toe. She didn't chew on the bandage hardly at all but she pulled it off by scraping her foot against the ground (like a bull) MULTIPLE times. Plus, it was rainy for several of the weeks when she was wearing it so we had a couple of instances of her soaking the bandage with her constant running in the yard. Now, keep in mind the vet charged about $28 per wrapping so I was not going to keep paying for them to re-wrap it every time there was a problem. So, I gave myself a lesson in splinting and did pretty well! I ended up re-wrapping it several times and we finally stopped wrapping about a week short of the target date. She just kept getting them off and it was getting pretty expensive. Plus, a couple of the times she managed to get the wrap off, it was when we weren't there so she had been running around with the toe unsplinted so we figured any damage was already done. Gracie wasn't favoring that foot anymore, either.
Gracie is 100% again and going full speed!