Nikki the Rottweiler

Normally I’d save a post like this for an ampuversary date like 6 months, but the news is so good that I just didn’t feel like waiting that extra week to share.

Today was Nikki’s quarterly checkup with Dr. Pyne for chest X-rays and other “cancer detecting” work. The way this works is we have to drop Nikki off early in the morning, and then pick her up in the evening. They do this so Dr. Pyne doesn’t have to rush any of the work and so it’s more convenient for us. Nikki loves the ride to Banfield, and loves to show-off once she gets inside the store (We have to get there before PetSmart opens, so she gets a nice catered-to feeling when they let us in and the store is empty..

Today Nikki practically jumped out of the truck when we arrived at the store and ran to the door. Then she spent a fair amount of time checking out all of the displays. If you didn’t know she had only 3 legs and saw her from the “good” side, you’d not know that you were looking at a Tripawd. She’s moving around that well….

Well, to make the long story short, here’s a full-chest X-Ray of Nikki taken today:

The almost unfortunate thing is that even though I have to veterinary training, I can read these pretty good at this point. What you’re looking at here is a FANTASTICALLY CLEAR picture! No mets, no signs of anything abnormal, and basically an absolutely CLEAR set of lungs and other organs. This means that at this point we still see no signs of cancer showing up in other parts of Nikki’s body.

Her next checkup is in late September! She’s almost getting to a “healthy dog” routine!

Meet Tilley

We all miss Buddy of course, but sometimes things have the strangest way of working out. Today I was sitting in a meeting at work when Mary sent me an email with the subject, “Awwwwwwwwwwww”. (I’ll bet you can guess what’s coming next). Anyway, as it turns out there’s a couple that live up the road from us who are Active Duty Army and are being relocated to Ft. Hood. Well, for those that don’t know, most Federal installations (Army bases are certainly Federal installations) do not allow Rottweiler’s. Unfortunately for this family, they were having to move from off-site housing into on-post housing, which meant that they could not take their dog. They have a beautiful year-plus old Rottie named Tilley that was going to have to stay behind. Long story short, after meeting with them and Tilley this evening, we have a new member of the Malone household. Meet Tilley:

Tilley is getting adjusted to life in the house, and Nikki and Sasha both seem to have accepted her already. I guess we’re back to a 3 Rottweiler family!

Today is the day! It started with me getting up early and taking the dogs out.. They of course didn’t get treats this morning because Nikki wasn’t allowed food, and of course it wouldn’t be right to treat the others.. They didn’t seem to mind too much, I think  they knew something was up. I know that Nikki knew something was up, because she was much more attentive to me and playful than she usually is in the mornings. (She’s always attentive, but this morning she was clinging and playing around like crazy)

After my early phone meeting, Mary and I loaded Nikki into the Tahoe (ok, that’s an understatement, she FLEW into the back and then immediately went forward and jumped into the drivers seat) and headed out to Banfield. We got her all checked in, and then it came time to say goodbye. This is where things got tough… Nikki did NOT want to go in the back with the tech, so I had to walk her to the door and coax her in… We took a bunch of pictures (I’m at the office right now and the camera is home, so will have to post them later) so we’ve got the process all documented…

Then the waiting began…. I had to head into the office after dropping Mary back at home.. This was around 8am…

The process for Nikki was to begin with full chest X-Rays to make sure that there were no mets in her lungs and that everything was OK… Knowing that Dr. Pyne was planning on starting that around 9 or so, I was dreading that phone call starting from about 10… The call never came, and Mary finally couldn’t stand it anymore and called around 3.. Everything was clear, and Nikki is currently in surgery! She’s doing fine, and everything is going exactly to plan!!!

I have another hour here in the office, then I’ll head home and we’ll wait impatiently for that call telling us that we can pick our BabyDog up… But, I thought I would put a quick update out here as to where we were at this moment… WOO HOO!