I love my Lucy. She has such personality...playful, obedient AND defiant, loving...on her terms. I thought it was funny when Adam said to me "if you were a dog, you would be JUST like Lucy." I laughed..."thanks?" She truly is a maremma and despite some of her frustrating qualities, she's proving to be a fantastic member of our family.
Almost a year ago Lucy ran off and we thought we had lost her. She came back looking, smelling, and acting like a different dog. We were worried she wouldn't bounce back in a "good" way and that she might end up skittish and depressed for a long time. She did go through a period of readjustment and was a bit skittish for a while. But, fortunately, she became much more obedient. Her response to the "here" command was positive at least 80% of the time. She also became unusually content spending more time in the kennel. To this day, she goes in the kennel without a fight...sometimes when you don't necessarily want her to. We still use her training collar here and there...but a small shock is rarely necessary. She quickly responds to the beep most of the time.
Unfortunately, Lucy still thinks that the entire 1/4 mile radius from our house is hers. I suppose it wouldn't be a problem if she wasn't a "puppy" anymore (she will be 2 in April) and didn't like to get into things and harass the neighbor's animals. I also don't like it when I call her and she doesn't return because she's too far to hear me. It's not uncommon for her to be gone for 1-2 hours if she runs off. In the 4-5 months after she ran away, she pretty much stuck around the house. But in the last 6 months or so, we've been trying to keep her more contained because of a comment from a neighbor. I feel bad now that it's the season of poor weather because we are rarely outdoors to play with her.
This was taken after a super excited Lucy stuck her whole head through that little hole hoping to get out. We all went on a hike 15 minutes later...she had a blast!
True to what we've read, she favors men to women. She loves Adam and her papa best (my dad). It is clear that Adam is her master and when he's around she listens to me less. Adam has been working hard when he can to start building a fence to border our field. When it's finished (hopefully by summer), Lucy will be able to run free more often...with the goat(s).
Lucy gave us a little scare a few weeks ago when she stopped eating one day. After 2 days of no eating and lethargy I thought that maybe she had caught a virus from our neighbor dogs. Just 2 days prior to her illness I had let her out to shoo the obnoxious neighbor dogs away. The neighbor dogs (at least 5 beagles and one big, mean, black dog) love to sit at the property line and bark and growl at the kids playing outside. I strongly dislike these dogs! Usually, I'll let Lucy out and she'll go chase them away. Lucy is an extraordinary dog, in my opinion, as she doesn't bark at them...she just runs up there and has a "silent conversation" with them. Obviously, she doesn't find them threatening enough to cause a ruckus. Sometimes the dogs take some convincing and Lucy will run back down to our house and just stand by me and stare at them while they bark ridiculously...then run back up again. Eventually, the dogs leave.
ANYway, back to 2 days prior to her illness...I was having Bible study at my house and our kids were playing outside. I heard the neighbor dogs start (worse than usual), and then I heard Lucy. She was NOT happy! She was growling and shaking the kennel to get out. I let her out and she darted up there and immediately began fighting with the mean black dog while snapping at the beagles here and there. It only took about 10 seconds and the dogs ran home. I could see Lucy's adrenaline in her body language as she jogged back to the house. She shook off about 30 seconds of steam and went right back into the kennel. I was so proud of her!
If you follow my blog, you know that I have a neighbor with lots of animals and no resources to properly care for them...let alone, keep them contained! So, it made sense to me that Lucy could have caught a sickness from her dogs. Lucy
did come back from that fight with a small cut above her eye. Adam wasn't too concerned, but I was stuck at home with my sick puppy and I was very concerned. She would just lay there...no food or drink, heavy breathing, definite fever...ugh. On day 3 she perked up a bit so we thought she was getting better. By then, we knew she didn't have salmon poisoning because enough time had passed and she wasn't vomiting. She was back down on day 4, but we managed to hand feed her some morsels and force water down her with a turkey baster (it was a Sunday and the vet was closed). She was still down on day 5, but we were able to get her to eat small amounts and force the water. Adam wanted to wait it out and not risk the big vet bill. We had a full bottle of antibiotic saved in the fridge from when she ran away the winter before and we thought she might have contracted salmon poisoning (obviously, she never did). That reserve of medicine was the only thing giving me any peace of mind. The next morning we were supposed to leave to visit Adam's side of the family for Christmas. When I went out to check on Lucy I was surprised to find her sitting outside...which I thought was a good sign. Instead, I found some diarrhea and vomit. I wanted to take her to the vet right away...it had been 6 days! Adam did some research on the computer instead and discovered what he thought was the culprit.
Elokomin fluke fever...like salmon poisoning, but milder and far less fatal. Fortunately, the treatment was the same as salmon poisoning, so we forced down her first antibiotic pill. She kept it down, we left for Vancouver, and asked my dad to check on her in the afternoon. "Grandpa" was happy to do so and was very concerned about his Lucy when she barely got up to greet him :(
When we got back home that night Lucy was already feeling a bit better and drank some water on her own. Every day she got a bit better and after being on the medicine for 3-4 days she was close to being back to her old self. This all happened on the week of Christmas, so some of our plans got muddled because Adam and I had to force a pill down her two times a day for 10 days. Still, anything was better than having a super sick pup.
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