Real estate is mostly what we do, it's not always who we are and sometimes it isn't what we write about. This morning it's about a Big Mouth Boy named Rambler.
Rambler loves, loves, loves to bark and he's great at it. I'll bet he can bark 360 barks per minute...makes us crazy, we don't usually let him get to 20 seconds let alone a full minute. Barking must make him feel good or he might just have a lot to say. He always looks joyful during bark time, tail wagging while he holds court and how often have we felt like banging our heads against the wall until the ringing of our ears would drown out the bark? Then, we look at the face...malice free and completely perplexed at why we crave silence sometimes. I know he pities us for not being able to notice the squirrel climbing a tree a mile down the road or the motorcycle cruising on the Parkway or the leaves dancing in the wind...afterall, these are completely bark-worthy occurances.
A few days ago, Rambler started barking to go back outside for an additional final finals. Then, even though he got the final finals...by morning he had wet his sleeping quarters...something he has never, ever done in his almost twelve years. He also started consuming immense quantities of water and not being quite so hungry.
Our Big Mouth Boy went to the Animal Hospital of Waynesville yesterday and visited with Dr. Jenny Gibson. He had a great visit, loved the attention and got a senior panel for bloodwork and urinalysis - the second one this year. We should get the results today but I have to tell you that we are both so distracted by not knowing what's wrong that we are very eager to get the results. You can't fix something until you know what's wrong.
For now we're letting him sleep outside in the huge pen with several fluffy blankies and large bowls of water so that he doesn't have to feel stress in addition to not feeling well. This way he can drink what he wants and not worry about messing up his quarters.
The silence is overwhelming...who'd have ever thought that the relief from the Big Mouth Boy's barking would be no relief at all? He obviously feels terrible and to us, this came on suddenly. Leslie mentioned yesterday that dog are so stoic that often by the time they let you know something is wrong, they can be very sick. I know without even asking that anyone reading this will be sending white light to our Big Mouth Boy for a simple solution and a speedy recovery. We have no neighbors, we can handle the barking...we just want him to feel better.
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