Possumworld

Peaches has been so sweet and has fit in so well that sometimes I forget that she’s still a puppy and has only been here for 5 weeks.

Yesterday was one of those “puppy growing pain” kind of days. I had taken Shmoo for his rabies shot in the morning, leaving her home. She clearly didn’t like that very much. It set off a day of “events.”

First, on our return, she would not leave Shmoo alone. I’m sure he was tired and probably not feeling great from the shots, but he played with her anyway. When I say “played,” what I mean is wrestled and ran around the house almost non-stop the whole day. When they weren’t doing this, Peaches was barking at every noise in the street; there were a lot yesterday because the village workers were taking down the Christmas decorations. At one point, she must have drunk a lot of water then thrown it up in the one carpeted room in the house; JM’s office.

Also, if Shmoo wouldn’t play with her, she found OTHER things to do. This included stealing bits of kindling from next to the fireplace and chewing them up. Just as they were calming down, friends stopped by and got them started up again. I noticed that there was more chewed up wood on her toy cushion, along with my shoes and bits of chewed up candle wax. It was a mess, so I removed all the toys from the cushion and took it outside to shake it out. That was a mistake; when I brought it back and put it down she immediately peed on it! I guess she told me whose cushion that was! Unfortunately, because of the stuffing material, I couldn’t “save” it, so bye-bye cushion.

Everyone finally settled down after dinner. But at 2 am she started pacing and crying. At first I tried to ignore her, thinking she just wanted attention. But at around 3, it was clear she really meant it, so I took her out. BIG diarrhea; hello candle wax! I brought her back inside, but she definitely wanted back out, so I went back out with both dogs, as Shmoo also insisted on going out.

I stayed in bed, wide awake, the rest of the night until at 5:30 she wanted to go out yet again. JM and I decided we might as well get up; so we took them on their morning walk where she had 4 more bouts of diarrhea. The bakery wasn’t even open yet when we got back. Then as I was taking off my coat I heard “gak-gak-gak” noises and managed to rush her outside where she threw up some grass she’d eaten on the walk.

After that, she seemed to feel fine. I fed them their usual breakfast, but gave her pumpkin and some slippery elm that I keep for such occasions.

This morning, no one feels much like playing. They’ve both been pretty much sacked out except for a brief session of wrestling. JM and I are both feeling like zombies though.

We're angels

Ah, puppies!