Puppy sniffles

I stayed home sick yesterday with a cold I caught from my new puppy, which he apparently caught from the air conditioners. He was taken from his mama at around four weeks, which is way too young, so he hasn't learned a lot of the social norms (like, quit biting my hand) or gained the usual immunities puppies get from staying with their mom and littermates until at least eight weeks.

I had passed him at the pet store a few times but I was looking for a girl dog, which the owner said he had and kept promising to bring, but never did. After maybe ten days in the pet shop, this guy already had fleas and was covered in flies. The temperature outside was hitting 100 degrees regularly and there was no AC in the store, which was about the size of a walk-in closet. He wasn't barking, he was just sitting there, being chewed on by bugs, having to pee and poop in his cage, and looking really sad. So I took him.

He is going to be kind of a frou-frou looking dog, I think, as he is already really fluffy so I thought he needed a tough guy name. I thought to give him a sort of Mafioso street tough kind of name and considered Knuckles and Meatball but settled on Whisky. The name has the advantage of not only describing his coloring, but also being at the end of the military alphabet, from which trainers, etc. get the name for the lead dog in a pack, the Alpha dog. A lot of dog training is convincing the dog you're the Alpha, the one in charge, so hopefully having a name from the end of the alphabet will help Whisky respect my authority (insert South Park impersonation here). Though maybe I'm giving him too much credit, assuming he'll follow my alphabet reasoning and obey me.

Whisky and I both caught colds yesterday. Don't know if I got mine from him, he got his from me, or we both got sick from running the AC all the time (someone told me last week it got up to 114 degrees...is that even possible?!). He was sneezing a lot and couldn't smell where his food or newspapers were (he's actually been paper trained since I got him since had to go on the papers his cage at the shop). I tried to call the vet but he wasn't in the office. Later in the evening he started this hacking, wheezing cough that would end in a choking sound and some foamy (clear) phlegm would come up. The choking and spitting lasted all night and he sounded like he was in a lot of pain. I was really scared it was going to get worse and he'd stop breathing but it stayed at that level of stuffy-nosed discomfort and occasional choking panic (me panicking, not him so much).

I finally got through to the vet around 12 and the vet tech told me the doctor would be in a half hour. So I quickly showered, gathered up his "waiting in the vet's office" items (a towel at the bottom of my gym bag, extra towel to wipe his nose, little rawhide chew toy to gnaw on and hamster-cage-drip-on-demand-water-bottle, and headed to the vet's office for what turned into a 3 hour wait with 9 other dogs, 2 cats, and a creepy guy who had an I-don't-know-what in a basket (a severed head perhaps? A picnic lunch for two?).

I was glad I had brought him into the doctor because although I fully expected a "first time mom" lecture about how I don't need to bring him to see the doc for every little thing, the vet actually gave him two shots (antibiotic and anti-inflammatant to make his breathing easier) and said he definitely wanted to see him again tomorrow to check on him. He is so calm and relaxed at the vet, mildly interested in other dogs but generally sleepy in my gym bag, and happy to be on my lap for hours on end. The only moment where he broke his cool was when the vet needed to check his temperature...which vets do NOT do by putting a thermometer under the tongue, if you know what I mean. He made a sound and a facial expression that was pretty much exactly, "WHAT?!" Poor baby.

I am sorry this post is so short and comes after so many weeks. I was super depressed there for awhile after Thomas and Galleta left and I've been super busy in the week since I got Whisky and now I am sick and have a sick puppy to pamper. Off to take some more Dayquil!