Misery Makes a Decision

This has been a crazy time and I couldn't write about it as happening fast, and making me too sad to write about it.

Petie Pie was the start of it all. The little stinker got into the barn by body slamming the door hard enough to bend the inside lock while I was in the barn. I caught him, but not before a few unsuccessful and very painful dirt dives and also not before he killed a beautiful Cochin Rooster.

After that I wanted him to be placed in another foster home - but no one had room so we changed the locks on the barn door and figured the barn pets were safe. But they were not. Several days later, Petie and another dog dug under the barnyard fence and killed four chickens and a turkey.

Petie went to another home. The other dog with him was placed in an adoptive home and I hoped things would settle down at Dogrush. And, for a few days, things did settle. I had time to decide/realise that I have way to much on my plate here. Fostering is wearing me out and making me bitter, where it once made me happy and seemed to give purpose to my life. SO: (big announcement here) Dogrush Ranch is closing it's doors to foster dogs. Returns, of course will always be welcome back and we will still have the dogs that we dog sit for, so I imagine that it will take a while for the dog population to decline here. But decline it will.

Then Cammie died. I can't tell you how headspinningly blindsided I was. I had an idea that he was feeling poorly, but he went out to the field with his buddies for three days in a row, then just didn't seem hungry at night. Well, he wasn't hungry because he was bloated and full of fluid. He had bladder stones and couldn't pee. This went on until he died.

Here is the worst part. It is a HORRIBLE way to die, and he never made a peep. The vet told me that usually sheep cry and scream and kick at their stomachs and are just miserable when this happens. In fact, after the necropsy ( I HAD to know what happened,) the vet seemed really upset with me b/c ( I think) he thought I let my beautiful sheepie boy suffer until he died. But, I didn't know and Cam didn't let on.

So, life goes on here at Dogrush, with (hopefully soon) fewer dogs and no more death for a while. I am not afraid of death, but I really have a hard time with causing it - even if only through ignorance or lack of experience or just plain making a mistake.

There is a lot of happy stuff to write about but I will save it for tomorrow - PROMISE!