My warm puppy is Keeper. She is a rescue dog afraid of everyone and everything. We've had her for several years and she has been a very good dog. We call her "Happy Wagger" and many other terms of endearment that get Keeper wiggling and barking and leaping into the air with joy. Unfortunately, we had to leave her home while we went to visit family during the 4-day Thanksgiving weekend. We left Keeper in the care of best friends while I pleaded with them to love her! Play with her! Don't let her be in her crate all weekend! Love her! We came back from our weekend and she seemed played with and loved and very well taken care of! She wiggled all over when we got home and she seemed . . . . fine. Normal. Happy.
A few days later, Keeper started bothering her elbow. A lot. Licking the elbow and trying to bite the elbow. Lots of panting, pacing and worrying. Not to mention Keeper!
I took her to the vet.
Our vet is wonderful and did every kind of test possible. Several skin scrapings to rule out every kind of mite known to man, blood work and poop tests. So . . . . . it was a huge relief when the vet came back to report that Keeper is perfectly healthy. I almost cried because I had been worrying about how I was going to tell the kids that the dog had cancer/some other terminal illness and wouldn't live until Christmas. . . .
But the vet was hanging around. Looking uncomfortable. And I got uncomfortable. And dog Dr. says, "Um . . . . . I'm going to bring Mindi in. She's our behavior modification specialist!" Behavior modification?! For a dog?!?! As it turns out, behavior modification for ME!!
$240 later I learned how to get Keeper excited about being in her kennel while we are gone; how to give Keeper confidence in herself; how to teach Keeper new tricks. All while I am learning new tricks, too . . . . we'll see . . .
Happy-ness is a warm puppy. Indeed!
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