Sweet Melissa - II

Sweet Melissa is having a fairly good day. At least she's no worse. She's getting the hang of how she must maneuver herself (sans the use of her left front leg, the limitations of her right hind leg and her bad hips) in order to sit and stand and lie down. The 1,000mg of coated aspirin a day appears to be working as well or even better than the Rimadyl or the liquid NSAID (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), Metacam. Unfortunately, she's lost her appetite for all but the most tasty of her treats. She continues to drink sufficient water.

We brought Melissa home from the breeder when she was eight weeks old. This was near the end of October, 1993. At that time, we had only one dog, a Siberian Husky named Nikolai (Rimsky-Korsakov) Blue Buck. Nikolai was a gentle soul who also came from a breeder. But, it was our decision not to place little Melissa in the back yard with Nikolai. As gentle and good-hearted as he was, our fear was that Sweet Melissa--even at eight weeks of age--would try to assert herself and Nikolai would react naturally. So, Melissa spent several months in our house and confined to our kitchen during the night. Suffice it to say, generally at 3a.m., Sweet Melissa would awaken and fill the house with her pitiful cries. Either David or I would climb downstairs, give the little princess a goody and, always, toss her little ball across the floor for her to fetch...over and over again until she would collapse and fall asleep. Either David or I would then climb back upstairs and sleep until about 6a.m. when, yes, the little darling would, once again, wail into the dark of the morning.

Here are some shots from those early days.