Tasha

It has been a crazy few days here!

On Thursday, Blake heard about a ton of problems that his aunt, uncle and cousins are going through right now. Part of these problems mean that they will be moving in with his grandmother, and can't keep all their dogs because she would be over the limit for dogs. Blake was asked if we would adopt their a sweet 4 year old husky, and he in turn asked me, and we felt like it would be the right choice for us and our family.

We had been thinking about getting a second dog for a long time, wanting to get another dog for Roxie to play with, but we had decided that we weren't going to do that until after the adoption because we would have to update our home study. However, as it has taken a while to get the call, we are almost at the point were we have to do our yearly update with them anyways, so it isn't a big deal.

As soon as we met her today, we felt an immediate connection that this was our dog, meant to be part of our family. She was licking us, and wagging her tail, and just so precious I don't even have words to convey the emotions that we felt as we met her for the first time.

All this is in spite of her right eye. It got injured (recently, we think) and when we first heard about her (Thursday), we were told that it would get better. As of yesterday, we heard it was getting worse, and were asked if we still wanted her if she needed major work or couldn't see out of that eye ever again. We had already had her enter our hearts, and no matter what it took, we felt she was our dog, and just like we would for Roxie, we will take care of all her vet needs.

Anyways, so today, we met his grandmother halfway, and got Tasha in the car, and brought her to Blake's mom's house (she drove us to the halfway point) and she got along great with their dog, a miniature schnauzer. This is probably due to the fact that for the last year she has lived with two other little dogs. After seeing them play and get along so well, we had great hope for her getting along with our friendly dog.

On our way home, we called our vet so that she could get that eye checked out, as well as everything else. The vet had an opening, but it was so close to the time we were leaving his mom's house, that we didn't have time to head home first.

So to the vet we went. It has been quite an experience filling out information about a dog that we have so little information about and have only owned for a few hours, and thus can't even say if she is acting "normally." The vet started checking her, and said that she looks healthy, and is a good weight, but that the eye looks really bad, and needs to be checked by an eye specialist as soon as possible. Our vet was completely not kidding about that either, as they called a local specialist for us to see if they could take Tasha in immediately after we left the vet. They were able to take her in, but if we were still there after 4:00, the visit would cost an extra $500 (it was about 3:00 at the time). Funny thing is that during the examination, the power shut out at our vet's and in the surrounding area because of today's storm, but she was still able to check what she needed.

So... to the eye specialist we went. More paperwork with questions that I didn't know how to answer, and I ended up leaving a lot blank. After a thorough examination, we got the sad news. Tasha's right eye is no longer responding... at all. She can't see anything out of it and it doesn't seem like she has been able to for a while. It is however causing her pain, and thus, it needs to come out, and the sooner the better. Her surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, and the biggest concern now is that if her lack of vision in that eye was not caused by an injury, but by an existing problem, it could possibly spread to her other eye, and she could potentially become completely blind. Hopefully it is just one, and she will lead a normal life after recovering after surgery.

On our way home, we stopped by Petco to pick up a few things that we needed for her, like a leash, and a collar among other things.

We finally made it home with our new dog, and were very hopeful for her reaction to Roxie. Unfortunately, whether it is because of her injury (which Roxie kept trying to lick), the fact that Roxie is her size, or because here is a crazy dog that just keeps running, Tasha is not a big fan of Roxie at the moment (she was much better with my in-law's dog). She keeps doing little warning growls at Roxie if she tries to get too close, she did not run and play with her, and the biggest growl was when Roxie tried to come near to me while I was petting Tasha. I told her no, and made her back off a little bit, purposely pet Roxie, and then pet Tasha again. We are trying really hard to follow what we have read about how to establish dominance in the house.

After everyone's dinner (except that Tasha didn't eat), we took the two dogs for a walk together, and that time seemed to be good for them. Totally peaceful, and a lot of close interactions to smell together.

When we got back, I felt like there was less growling... but this is probably also because Tasha was obviously worn out, and spent a lot of time sleeping near me, and actually Roxie is sleeping fairly close to Tasha too.

She comes with a lot of challenges (besides the eye stuff), like the fact that Siberian Huskies need a lot of grooming, a lot of walks, and she appears to not respond to anything we say besides her name (which she does recognize). But in spite of every challenge she brings, we feel like she is already part of our family, and are extremely happy that she is here. I bet it is a lot like how we will feel when our child comes home to us from Ghana- comes with a lot of challenges, but meant to be in our home, and we are still happy that they are with us.