Hancock Update Part 2

I can't believe it's only been a month since Hancock (now Sonny) got adopted!  When Sonny's dad Paul sent me an update I had to look at a calendar because it felt like so much longer than that since we're already on our second foster dog since Sonny.

Paul and Sonny are doing really well together.  Sonny goes to daycare three times a week and is getting used to being around dozens of other dogs instead of just one or two.  Paul even sent a few pictures along!  Here are two of Sonny while he was still wearing his cone of doom.

And one without his cone of doom.

Sonny looks so at home in these pictures.  He truly looks content, relaxed and happy.  And that makes me happy.

Hancock Update!

It's been a week since Hancock went to his forever home, and I've gotten not one, but two updates on him!  How awesome is that?!

Here's what his new dad has to say (first update):

We are doing very well.  Friday night I didn't get as much sleep as desired because Hancock (now Hudson - nicknamed Sonny) decided he wanted to play with a squeaky toy at 3:00 AM and because I was waking up and listening to see that he was OK.  When I told him to stop playing with the toy he dropped it and came over to give me a kiss.  Friday he got to meet three of my neighbors and they all admired him both for his good looks and for how mellow and well behaved he is. 

 

Saturday we went to the forest preserve for a nice long walk - about 1 hour and 1/2 with a few water breaks.  He met a few of my human friends and made 5 new doggie friends.  He is so gentle when he meets another dog.  My friends were considerate in not rushing a "first encounter".  We came home and had breakfast and then took a short walk (1 1/2 blocks) to meet the groomer.  She stopped finishing up the dog she was trimming just so she could meet my new roommate.  Again he behaved very well.  We took a few other short car trips to Pet Supplies Plus and to visit another friend - all went well.  One more walk at the nearby bike path after dinner and a last  call for a few blocks before bedtime.  Both of us slept very well.

 

Sunday back to the forest preserves and a few more new friends.  My little guy is getting plenty of exercise (me too) and takes doggie naps when he gets a chance.

 

Phew, I'm tired just reading about all that walking!  I certainly won't be worrying about Hancock getting enough exercise!  And I actually laughed out loud when I read about Hancock playing with his squeaky toy in the middle of the night; such a silly little guy!

Second update:

Sonny and I are getting along wonderfully. He gets to meet new doggies every day and I'll be taking him to meet my co-workers later in the week. His incision is healing nicely. He has gotten well acquainted with my loveseat recliner. Last night he brought a toy and placed it next to his head on a pillow and took a nap. He sleeps mostly in the kitchen on the cool slate floor but takes naps wherever he feels comfortable.

It sounds like Hancock knows he's in his forever home and is settling in nicely.  We're so glad that he and his new dad are happy together!  Yippee!

Linked up with:

Hancock is Home

Just a few days after being listed for adoption we had a few people interested in adopting Hancock.  Not really a surprise; he's so cute and well behaved we knew he wouldn't last long once people knew he was up for adopting!  So we picked our favorite application and arranged for the prospective adopter to come over and meet Hancock to see if they were a match this past Tuesday.  Paul, the prospective adopter, and Hancock really hit it off!  So on Friday Paul came to pick Hancock up to take home for good.

Hancock was a lot of fun to foster, but we're really happy to see him go to an awesome home where he can get settled in forever and be the center of attention.  Paul goes on walks at a forest preserve every day and is signing Hancock up for doggy daycare, so Hancock is going to see lots of fun nature stuff and have time to romp around with other pooches, both of which are activities Hancock loves.  We're sure Paul and Hancock will have a lot of fun together.  Hurray for Hancock!

Hancock Insisted He Wasn't Broken...

But we got him fixed anyway.  I think the poor little guy knew what was up because he was drooling at the vet's office

Hancock was awake and ready to come home by the afternoon.  He's got some rimadyl to take for the pain, so he was feeling alright.  Still getting used to his cone of shame, though!  The main problem is Hancock likes to pee on trees almost exclusively and the cone throws him off.   In Hancock's mind you need to sniff the tree and then turn and hop up to it to pee on it in one seamless motion or else you're not allowed to pee on it.  Of course, the cone gets caught on the tree, so what ends up happening is he goes up to a tree, sniffs it, flings his head around and then walks away looking dejected.  I know what you're thinking, "but Carolyn, just take his cone off!  You're sooooo mean!".  First of all, I'm not mean!  It's to prevent a yucky infection from licking the incision site!  Secondly, that doesn't work.  I tried taking the cone off and all he does is try to lick himself.  So basically potty breaks for Hancock just take a heck of a lot longer than they used to.

Dash is trying to make Hancock feel better by making out with him.  Seriously, they go nose to nose and just lick each other for a little while.  It's adorable. 

 
Hancock is already trying to play with toys again, which is a good sign.  It must be frustrating for him, though, because he'll drop a toy and if it falls under the cone or rolls into a corner he can't get it, so he just cries until you help him.

The good news about all of this is that Hancock was finally listed for adoption yesterday since he is now fully vetted!  Woohoo!  He already met some potential adopters at our super favoritest pet store last weekend, so I'm sure he'll be giving kisses to his forever family in no time!

Picture Post!

Dash and Hancock are settling in together and getting the hang of wrestling and running around in the yard.  It takes them a few minutes to get started, but it's absolutely hilarious once they get into their element!

Warning, these next three pictures are not for the faint of heart!  It's Hancock doing his very best Mr. Giggles impression:

Don't worry!  They're just playing (in case you couldn't tell by how relaxed Dash looks in the face of what appears to be imminent doom!)

A few gratuitous shots or our new baby:

We also took Dash to the vet today to get him caught up on all kind of fun stuff like vaccines and bloodwork.  Happy to report he's healthy as a horse (because I guess horses are really healthy?).  Plus we got him a microchip (fancy!).  He was such a good boy; didn't fuss about anything and everyone kept talking about how pretty he is (and they're right!).

New Addition to the Family!

We finally adopted a dog of our very own!  It's so weird to think that this dog will live with us forever.  No searching for a forever family for him, because that family is us!  I haven't quite wrapped my head around the concept yet, but I'm getting there.

This morning we went to go meet Dash at his foster family's house.  They had him for about 3 weeks.  Before that he spent some time living on a farm, but he liked to chase the cows on neighboring farms (he wasn't supposed to!) and the neighbors didn't like that.  His owners felt it would be safer for him to live elsewhere, so that's how he got into rescue.

Dash is a 9 month old Australian Shepherd and weighs about 55 pounds.  You can tell that he's still growing into his body, so he'll probably end up a little bigger by the time he's fully grown.  He has an amazingly soft and fluffy coat.  He's incredibly sweet and very well behaved for a dog his age.  He loves other dogs and knows that cats are friends, not snacks (hurray!).

We're as of yet undecided about keeping his given name (Dashielle, Dash for short).  More updates as we all settle in together, but here are some pictures of our newest baby!

Look Ma, no tail!

Hangin' with Hancock (yes, we still have Hancock)

Sick Ward

When it rains, it pours, right?

This is what's been going on in the house for the last week or so

Why yes, that is an awful lot of medical stuff.  Who is it for?  More like who isn't it for!  In the last 10 days every single animal in the house has gotten sick in some way or another.

It started last week when Hancock began scratching at his ear uncontrollably one night and we quickly discovered he had a pretty yucky ear infection.  Luckily (?) I already had an appointment to take Lenny and Waldo to the vet for their yearly check up, so Hancock tagged along.  I must have looked like a crazy person walking in with two cat carriers and Hancock in tow!  So the cotton swabs and everything to the right of it are for him.  He gets a steroid pill to ease inflammation, a wash to clean his ears following by a quick cotton swabbing to get the gunk out and then medicated drops to fight the infection.

A few days after that Lenny began vomiting and...other things.  After seeing he wasn't getting better I put in a call to our vet and they said to bring him in.  We couldn't figure out what was causing this, so they sent us off with an antibiotic to help with intestinal inflammation and the kitty equivalent of pepcid (so that's the two blue bottles on the left) and orders to bring him back if he was still showing symptoms in two days.  The moment I got home with Lenny, Waldo vomited, too!  Good thing the vet had given me more than enough medicine for Lenny so I was able to split it up between them.

And did I mention that right as I was getting ready to take Lenny to the vet I heard Champagne coughing and vomiting?  I called one of our rescue directors who confirmed it was likely kennel cough and arranged to pick up some antibiotics for her (in the baggy) and was told that I could give her a little Robitussin to ease her cough until the medicine kicked in.

Whew - got all that?  We're not exactly strangers to having a sick animal in the house (it comes with the territory of fostering), but having so many all at once kind of threw me for a loop!  But now everyone is feeling much better and all but Champagne are finishing up their meds (she'll need to be on her antibiotics for a full two weeks).  So let's toast to good health!

Wrestlemania has moved indoors

A few days ago Hancock and Nova finally started playing together outside in the yard.  It' super funny to watch; Hancock uses his size to his advantage and will grab Nova's legs, but since Nova can't really use his mouth because of the cone, he flips over on to his back to use his legs against Hancock.  And as of a few minutes ago, my once peaceful household full of sleeping cats and dogs is no more.  The pups have decided that the living room is now center stage for their wrestling matches.  It's nice to see them settling in some more, and at least they're not chewing on the furniture (even if they are knocking some things over)!

Meet Hancock and Casanova!

Last Saturday was a very busy day over here.  In addition to making a faboo birthday cake for a good friend (more on that later) we brought home not one, but two brand spankin' new foster dogs.  Since they were arriving on separate transports at the same time, the hubs and I planned to tag team this one and each retrieve a dog.

First to arrive home was Hancock.  He's a red merle (mini?) Australian Shepherd and is about two years old.  He made a nearly 300 mile journey from Hamilton, Illinois to arrive with us via nine very awesome people who assisted in transporting him and several other dogs from certain death in a kill shelter to safety in various rescues.  He was picked up as a stray, but is clearly used to living in a home.  He is very sweet and likes to give hugs and kisses.  He's housebroken and doesn't mind the cats.  The cutest thing about his is the way he lays down, with his little back legs splayed out behind him!  Maybe Hamhocks would be a better name than Hancock!

Scheduled to arrive not long after Hancock was Casanova.  When I went to get him some of the other volunteers at my rescue informed me that my new guy had ripped out the stitches from his recent neutering and that he would (obviously) need to get sewn up again before I could take him home.  Apparently he chose not to play car games with the other dogs on the trip over from Winchester, Kentucky and thought undoing some surgery would be more fun. 

Despite the open wound, Casanova was living up to his name by giving out kisses and taking belly rubs from anyone who would give them.  He's an Australian Shepherd, I think with a little Rottweiler mixed in.  So while he was getting sewn up again I headed back home to finish the aforementioned cake and Thomas went to pick him up when he was done.  The poor guy was still so knocked out when Thomas got him home that he couldn't even stand, just lay there are wag his tail.  But Nova (Casanova is really too long, so we're shortening it) is feeling much better and now proudly wears his cone of shame.  Although we're thinking about renaming it the cone of destruction, because he is constantly knocking things over with it!  Nova's got a great personality; he's very confident and friendly and loves everybody (and may love the cats just a little too much, but at least he knows they're not snacks!).

Yesterday Hancock and Nova actually started wrestling and playing the yard together instead of just coexisting.  It's very exciting to see them settling in and having some fun!