Molly the killer

Warning: Non Abby Post ahead

Our lab Molly is a pansy. She's 60 pounds of sweet, nonthreatening dumb.

 I've seen this dog lose a street fight to a squirrel. Molly misread the squirrels body language and thought it wanted to be friends. She picked the squirrel up in her mouth and started to give a guided tour of our backyard. The squirrel, apparently disapproving of the itinerary, bit the hell out of Mollys mouth. Molly ran back into the house whimpering, disgraced and beaten.  My 60 pound dog got ran out of our backyard by some smug neighborhood squirrel. 

This dog is not as tough as she looks

We've been giving her a hard time about this ever since. 

"Oh, you're a big dog barking at those people in the street. Big tough dog.  You weren't  acting so tough that when the squirrel kicked your ass!" 

"Seriously, you're barking at that deer? That thing is like 800 squirrels. And it has horns. Seriously Molly. You're embarrassing us both."

We may have pushed her too far.

I was under the weather all weekend, oblivious to everything other than the pain in my head and the heating pad I was laying on. I was dozing on the couch when I heard Mary yelling out the back door.

"Nonononononono! Oh run run squirrel oh no she's going to get himmmmm no run squirrel you're almost ohhhhhh no!"

By the time I got to the backdoor the squirrel lay wounded in the neighbors yard and Molly was doing one of many victory laps. The squirrel got free, made it through the fence and crawled halfway up the tree before succumbing to her wounds and falling to the ground. It landed in our neighbors yard, dying.   I threw on some clothes, grabbed a trash bag and a shovel and walked around the block to the neighbors house.

Our neighbor is a sweet older woman. She lives alone and loves animals. Loves them. She lays out corn and sunflower seeds every day in the winter to feed the deer and squirrels. I'm nervous about what I'm walking into. 

She doesnt answer her door. A needed break. I head to the backyard to finish my quest and she greets me at the backdoor. She mumbles something about not wanting to answer the door because she wasn't put together but I think she was just reluctant to open the door for me. I look like hammered hell. I'm sweaty from the fever, I have mad scientist hair and Im carrying a shovel and black trash bag. I look like I just graduated from murder college. I could hear front doors locking as I walked down the street.

When I told her the reason for my visit she looked ill. I  hoped she would go back inside after I explained why I was in her backyard but she wanted to see. 

"So, ugh, there it is."

"Oh no, no no no. He was such a nice one. Ohhhh no. Such a playful friend."

Oof. I feel awful. Nice neighbor is upset by the death of this squirrel and I feel responsible. Also, its a damn cute squirrel, straight out of squirrel central casting. It would not surprise me if this squirrel was signed to be the third male lead in the live action Chip and Dale Rescue Ranger  movie.

The squirrel is still alive.

"So yeah, I didn't want to scare you by just coming into your backyard. And I didn't want it to suffer anymore or for you to have to deal with it so if you want to go"

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, uh, I guess I have to kill it?"

The reaction that got, the pain it brought my neighbor, was enough to make me briefly contemplate running a mostly dead street squirrel to the emergency vet. 

She kneeled down to pet the squirrel. I stood beside her with my shovel and trash bag, a sweaty,  disheveled squirrel grim reaper.

When I got home Molly met me at the door. She was thrilled. She won. Her good name was restored. She could not have been happier.  I went downstairs, my weekend of illness now a weekend of illness and accessory to squirrel murder. We pushed her too far.

Gilde Sanitarium

Abigail has been sick for the last week.What started as a cough progressed to a bad cough that then turned into a bad cough with an ear infection. The Tanks treads have come off and its taking us longer than we'd hoped to get rolling along.

I don't feel good. Mess with me and die.

The cough came on slow, a chirp she barely noticed. Two days later it was a roar, a malicious sound that was too big, too angry to be coming from her tiny body. She coughed until she threw up. She coughed herself awake at night. She coughed herself awake in the morning.

Waking up at night has been rough. She's been a great sleeper and we're now spoiled. We're no longer battle tested, sleep deprived parents. We're soft. She's slept so good for so long I don't know how to deal with waking up. It is killing us, slowly and painfully. I stood in front of the refrigerator at work for five minutes last week before I realized I originally went to the back to make copies. Two more weeks of this and there will be a lean cuisine jamming our fax machine.

The coughing spells that dont wake her up are somehow worse. An extended coughing fit at two in the morning that ends abruptly and leaves complete silence, that's the sort of thing that makes me break out in a cold sweat. I'm never able to go back to sleep when this happens. I have to sneak into the room, try and detect her breathing, then sneak out without waking her. Dumb, but the mind goes to ridiculous places at 3 in the morning. I imagine Abigail laying there like Mama Cass, furious that someone gave a ham sandwich to a baby with a chest cold.  Its asinine but I have to go see that she's ok.

The doctor ordered albuterol treatments to help with cough. I pictured an inhaler, a little tube we held up to her mouth twice a day that would cure her with no fuss, no fighting. What we actually received was a  machine that looks like its used to commit war crimes. Its a gas mask, vials of liquid and a machine that sounds like a large electrical generator at war with itself. When put together, the gas mask coughs out an ominous white smoke while the machine that powers it roars in the background.  Abigail is justifiably wary of this devil machine, I have to restrain her the entire time I'm gassing her. If I ever join a cult I have a catchy first bullet for my resume.

This is how Darth Vader started out

Two days later she's still fussy, still fighting her robot nurse and now running a temperature. The 101.7 degree temperature seemed high to me so we called after hours care. After listing Abigail's symptoms, the multiple doctors office visits and her current treatment the doctor yawned and advised to come in the morning. When I asked about Abigails temperature, about how high it should get I start to freak out, the doctor told me 105. 105! If I check her tomorrow and she's at 103 I'm throwing her in a cooler full of ice and redlining the civic all the way to the emergency room.

The third doctors visit that week revealed that her chest cold turned into an ear infection. Thankfully this treatment is bubblegum flavored antibiotics that she loves. Much easier than baby gassing.

I hope the ear infection is a childhood thing and I didn't curse her with my inner ear problems as this same thing happens to me every time I get sick.  Mary passed on her messed up toes, I possibly passed on my tiny eustachian tubes. I fear she may be cursed to a life of constant ear infections, dizziness and ill fitting shoes.

 Sorry sweetheart!

Bad genes and sick,still looking fabulous