A Visit to the Vet

My mum and pop took me to see my vet last week.  My mum usually takes me so I was surprised that my pop went along, too.

I like going to see this new vet because I get big, long, thick pretzels with peanut butter or cheeze whiz on them.  Oh, yum!  I don't pay too much attention to what they're doing when I'm licking the good stuff off the pretzel.

They didn't hurt me even though they put needles in me and took stuff out of me, in my neck and the big lump on my thigh.  And then the lump started bleeding and my mum was alarmed, but the vet and the other person took care of it all.  And I just kept licking the cheeze whiz off another pretzel. 

Mum and pop looked a little worried but I felt just fine.  Then we left and came home and they gave me lots of hugs.

I don't know what that was about but I sure love those pretzels with stuff on them.

-Hannah.

P.S.  If you want to know, I'm not wearing a muzzle.  It's a Gentle Leader collar.  It's supposed to keep me from pulling but sometimes I pull when I'm wearing it.  There's so much to sniff!


Nancy here:
Hannah was scheduled to have surgery last Wednesday to have her teeth cleaned and have a mass removed from her thigh.  When the vets did a pre-surgery exam they decided the better course was to do blood work for her kidney values and take samples from the lump on her thigh and from her lymph nodes to send for testing.  They -- and we -- have health concerns for Hannah.

One Thing I Wish I'd Taught Hannah

Hannah in January, 2017

Hannah, nearly 13, has lost her hearing.  Most sounds escape her attention thought she will usually respond to a loud clap of the hands or the beeping of a smoke alarm.  No knocks at the door, no thunder, no sirens disturb her days nor her naps.  She lives in a silent world.

I sometimes think she misses hearing our voices.  I've always talked to Hannah to explain where we're going, what's going to happen next, who's coming over, to tell her what I'm doing, etc.  In the car I let her know when a left turn or a right turn was coming so she could adjust her balance, and she always did.  Some people think dogs don't understand but I'm certain Hannah understood a lot of what I said.   

When she first arrived as a rescue girl I taught her hand signs at the same time I taught voice commands.  It wasn't a purposeful decision, just something that seemed to add interest to her life.  She knows both the voice commands and hand signs for sit, down, stay, come, and wait.  (She's an Airedale so, of course, she's not always reliable, but she knows them and usually does as asked.)

But now that she's deaf, I realize I neglected to teach her a hand sign for Good Dog! or Good Girl!  I don't know what it would have looked like but I believe she misses hearing those exuberant words.  Even though she's deaf I still talk to her.  "What a good girl you are, Hannah!"  Or, "What a great job you just did."  She gets plenty of pets to go along with the "good girl" but I sense that she misses hearing it.  I wish I'd taught her a hand sign so she could know when we say it.  Even more I wish Hannah could still hear.

What a great, good, dear girl Hannah is!

--Hannah's mum.

Airedale Pooper Scooper

My mum is always on the look-out for Airedales everywhere she goes.

She found this cute Airedale  . . .

on the tag of this pooper scooper. 

We are the cutest dogs but why would they put 

one of us on a tag for a pooper scooper?

By the way, Mum didn't buy one.

Hannah.