08.05.10

August 4-5th

Posted in News at 03:34 by nikki

July has been a busy but more than that a very sad and depressing month. I’m sorry for not updating in the meantime not sure if I’ll be updating often during the next week either since we are still quite busy before Rúnar goes back to work next week. His holidays have gone by way too fast. We have little Töfra Tinni Alexander here for the week and are babysitting him, trying to do as much training with him as we can as well as just the normal work around the house, garden, traveling back and forth to Reykjavík for certain things, building a whelping box, taking the dogs out for walks and trying to just spend some time together. The road crew has been on holidays for a week now so we have some peace and quiet so are enjoying that while we can. They have a whole lot left to do so no doubt when Rúnar goes back to work and the puppies are born there will be lots of noise around again, I hope Hófi won’t be too stressed by it.

I was in Reykjavík at the doctor on Tuesday to re-evaluate my disability, it’s usually done once a year or every two years. We visited my old friend Palli and his partner while we were there. I haven’t seen him in so many years, I just talk to him on Facebook these days so it was fun to be able to see him. I was at an on call doctor on Friday because of terrible pains I’ve been having in my ribs at the spot that I bruised while the litter was small and I never got it checked. These pains came the night before we took Skella to the vets and had to put her to sleep, her and Klói were taking turns trying to ease my pain by laying sprawled across the sore spot like Klói always does. It was strange to see Skella do that as well and I felt so close to her, she was so sweet and I will admit that her cuddling is something that always put a smile on my face, she put her whole being into it and she would put her head on our shoulder and wrap her front paws around our necks. I’ve never had a dog that was so lovable when it came to cuddles. Knowing me there could be a connection to my health and her health as my emotions and “sixth sense” always gives me physical symptoms. The doctor doesn’t believe that there is anything wrong with my ribs but I have a chest ex-ray today and lungs as well just to make sure. He feels maybe it’s a problem that again is connected to stress, so we’re trying to take care of my health a bit too while Rúnar can drive me around without having to take off work.

So long story short, my health hasn’t been the best, my nerves shot, my vision very bad while I had the most stress around here due to all that was going on in the street, the dogs fighting etc. When I was getting moments of “total blindness” (so blurry I couldn’t see with pain as well) I got very worried, I hadn’t experienced moments like that for so long at a time before. However the eye doctor told me when I went to visit him a little while ago that it was nothing serious just fluid that collects in the bottom of the lens that causes it and when it drains that is why everything goes blurry and flashes, I have to take his word for it. He mentioned at the time that it would no doubt be worse under stress and that I was supposed to take care of myself because at the moment I am lucky my eyes are healthy and don’t have any damage from it. He didn’t expect that to happen although many do get damage (sometimes the cornea rips or separates or something) from this condition he said. I’ve been trying to rest up for the coming litter”s” (not quite sure about Birta yet, don’t think she is pregnant but there might be one in there waiting to surprise us). Hófí doesn’t look too fat so no doubt she also has reabsorbed part of the litter. We’ll see but she definitely has a couple in there. I have started to feel movement so that’s always exciting. Fate might have made it so that we only have one litter at the moment and if that is the case I am pretty sure we will mate Birta at her next season back to Stefnir since we really want to see puppies from the two of them and so does Stefanía.

The reason for the problems we had a few weeks ago with fights (which was strange to me and caused me so much worry and anxiety) is so clear to us today and it makes us very angry at ourselves for being so blind to the signs. We always make sure we tell our students to check on the health of a dog if their temperament or behaviour changes suddenly but we didn’t think of doing that ourselves with poor Skella. What with my own health and Frigg’s health being what it was at the same time (she had a swollen face due to the infected tooth that we can’t remove without a long operation under anesthesia and so opt to not do it) we didn’t think that Skella’s change in behaviour was anything other than the fact that there was so much going on both in the household, outside with the road crew as well as the other two being pregnant and hormonal changes in them causing them to be grumpy and my anxiety at an all time high because of the stress of the environment and it always seems to channel through to the dogs as well.

Many of my Facebook friends already know what happened and I thought it’s about time to write something here for those without Facebook. Frigg’s infection cleared up with antibiotics but our dear Skella had to be put to sleep on the 27th of July. It was a very very hard thing to do with such a young dog (she was almost 7 yrs). She had developed a tumour in her abdomen, for awhile she had been sensitive and would not allow us to touch that area, would growl and nip (which was not like her gentle nature towards us) and she had been growling at Klói for trying to sniff her there too. Since we noticed Klói sniffing her we wondered if something was up but we were engulfed in our other problems. We don’t know if it was already starting before she had the pups or not and maybe the reason that she had some troubles with the litter and bleeding afterwards. Maybe if we would have had the money to spay her at the time as we were supposed to do then we might have caught it sooner. We can always second guess ourselves but in the end we have to believe that it was just her time to say goodbye, that her lessons had been taught and that we will meet again one day.

Here are a few photos of how our little cutie pie cuddled with us the last days. She would spend most of her time in the other room or the hall by herself. Again not like her and then would come out climb onto the couch with either Rúnar or myself and would just lay across us and hug us. But at the same time with an expression in her eyes not much unlike the expression we saw in Freyja near the end, as if they were asking for something that we couldn’t understand.

The only thing we know is that she was in pain and has been for some time and it was taking a tole on her as well as the rest of the household. It is a well known fact that she came to us with some barking problems but what we see from photos and remember after her passing is that she had been so much better for the longest time (probably a whole year) after training but suddenly seemed to get worse than she was when she came to us first and the neighbours were not as understanding anymore. Even the TTouchs that used to calm her were not helping anymore. She was anxious all day and night, now scared of most things in the environment and had been developing that fear for a few weeks or months, she had stopped enjoying the walks and would just get out of the car and be very stressed then lay down and chew grass until we left. She wouldn’t even follow us and the other dogs and at times just run in the opposite direction as if in confusion, wouldn’t come when called anymore and that was not the Skella we knew, she was almost glued to us on walks just a few short months earlier. There were so many signs and we are devastated that she is gone so young. We have to think that we probably couldn’t have done anything because we do not believe that surgery is the answer when it comes to dogs with cancer because we’ve seen young dogs as well as old dogs suffer more after surgery without having much added time to their lives. There is no chemotherapy for dogs in Iceland. No doubt in some cases surgery can help temporarily but we tend to think that it’s better to give them quality of life and that is not measured in years. We hope that Skella enjoyed her life with us. We know she has a lot of people who loved her.

She had quite a few “new beginnings” in her short life moving from many different homes for reasons usually not of her doing and lived through stress most dogs don’t have to endure, the body is not always built to tolerate so much stress in one lifetime. We miss her so much and it is strange, it was so sudden although we had contemplated the past few weeks a new home for her because of the change in behaviour we felt maybe a single dog home would be better because we thought it was because of something we were doing wrong. We were not sure it was right to put her yet again in a new home and it seems fate intercepted before we could make a decision like that and we are happy for her sake that she wasn’t placed with strangers for the last days of her life. We are waiting to be able to pick up her ashes and she will be buried or scattered by her first owner (who loved her dearly but her life situation changed) over the farm she grew up on and we know she will be happy with that.

I don’t know if others see the change in her expression and her eyes in the newest photos but we saw it and had been talking about it. These photos are taken on the way to the vets and it didn’t matter how much Klói tried to get her to play with him she just lay there eating grass with a very stressed look in her eyes.  She was beautiful and sweet right to the last moments, she fell asleep peacefully in the arms of Rúnar who she totally adored in this life.

Rest in peace dear Skella you only were able to grace us with your loving presence for a year and a half but have left behind a few loving treasures of yourself along with all the lessons you taught us that will help us as well as others in future. Lessons we wish had of already been learned before you arrived but that now give your life true meaning to us, you will never be forgotten.

We took the other dogs for a walk the next day, it was strange to not have our little black sheep but the dogs seem to always live in the moment and had a great time as usual. The weather has been so nice off and on, we are actually getting some summer weather which I’m so thankful for since we are not able to get away to a warmer climate. Here are some photos from that walk. I tried to put in a gallery but for some reason it wouldn’t work right so I’m sorry if you have to scroll down too much on this update, hope you enjoy the photos though.

A cute one of Klói and Hófi even though it’s a little off center

Birta drying off after her dip in the water.

On a positive note we had a wonderful visit last Saturday with Laila from Toronto who owns a grandpuppy of ours and spent an awesome day together which helped so much to take our minds off of the sorrow of the previous days. We took her to meet Brynhildur as well so a lovely day was had. She stayed for supper and we insisted she cook the organic veggies we had bought which was a great idea because the supper was SOOO good. At just before midnight we decided to drive her home and took Klói for a walk on the mountain on the way. It was a bit too cold so we didn’t walk too far but she found it neat that it wasn’t so dark (although we found it too dark since we’re used to the brighter nights) and we walked on the carpet of moss in a lava field. I swear having her here was like having a long lost sister or even my mom with me, I got the feeling we’ve known each other forever. So seldom you actually meet people who you have that much of a connection with from the first meeting. She got to meet the dogs and they all liked her too so were pretty well behaved although a bit bratty at times which is just typical them.

Summer has flown by so quickly and now that the nights are dark we know that soon the cold and wind will be back. We must try to enjoy the last good days of summer weather while we can. I might try to upload a few more photos and updates before I forget especially some photos of little Tinni who is just the sweetest guy and so much like his mom and his dad that it is heartwarming to get to know him a bit better again now that he is older. I’ll put in a bunch more photos soon but now it’s going on 4 a.m. and I have to get up to go for my ex-rays so need to get some sleep.

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