Update on Darby

My personal computer is still down, so I can't post a sad picture of the patient, but she is doing okay. She's very quiet and scared-seeming, obviously in a lot of pain. She will walk enough to go to the bathroom and go in and out of the sunroom but is pretty content to just sleep. One of her legs is scraped pretty badly, and her abdomen is bruised, and of course she walks very gingerly. Part of her depression might be due to the bath she had before I picked her up. Up until the accident, she thought that was the worst thing that could happen to her.

Out of guilt for allowing us to have an exterminator who would leave the gate unlatched, I went to Pet Smart on the way to the vet to get her a bed. I've been meaning to get her a nice one because she just sleeps on a bath mat in the sunroom or on towels in her doghouse. The old quilted Christmas tree skirt is her favorite, but it was time to put up the candy canes and holly. I got to PS and went to the dog section and passed up the heated beds and headed to the regular dog bed section. Not many choices. I guess lots of dogs got what they asked Santa for. Some of them were the size of a baby mattress and probably a lot more expensive. One looked promising but was $55. I realized at that point that I should have gone to Wal-Mart, but you know style is everything to Darby, and she would be offended by beds sold in proximity to Ole Roy dog food. So I kept looking. I liked one made of a tan velour with a little back, but it was no more than a thin piece of velour with a little raised portion. The bath mat would be more comfortable. I also had the idea that I could go to Hancock Fabrics (good excuse for a visit) and get some velour pretty cheap and sew it into a bed. I didn't have time for that, though, and I really didn't want snowflakes or primary colors. I resigned myself to going somewhere else, but on the way I passed the crate pads. Now those looked good. Tasteful yet soft and just the right size. So I got one of those. I gave the toys a brief look, but nothing seemed too exciting, and besides her Christmas sheep still has one ear and all 4 legs, and she has a basket of mended body parts that she likes, especially the one-legged, one-eyed froggie. Turns out she had no interest in her puppy friends at all. She looked at them like she blamed them totally for getting run over. I did buy her some chew sticks because of thinking how little there is for dogs to do during 7 days of bed rest. They can't watch TV or ring bells for attention. It's just lying there watching me work and glancing at the occasional cat that will venture near enough to sniff the vet smell. She refused the chew stick until I stuck it in a can of forbidden Fancy Feast cod and sole dinner, and then she got a little excited and chewed for awhile until she realized it was not really made of cat food but rawhide. Oh, well, thank goodness dogs like to sleep.

I'm still waiting on recommendations from my computer expert Ryan as to what to do about my play computer.