Sad Tales and Sad News

Heyo, my fellow bloggers and followers! I’ve been missing for awhile now…rumor has it that a group of renegade African chickens took me captive. O_O

Actually, its been quite busy here. Several pets now, but we’ve had some bad experiences with our pets. Every single pet we’ve gotten so far has had something bad happen to it in the first few weeks or, in one case, months after we get them.

Example! Since we’ve moved into our house: Jax, the first puppy we got, a sweet little thing, got sick, didn’t eat for four days, and then died. A very sad day for us all. :P We now know what he contracted, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Second, our mongoose, on the same day Jax died, fell from some high place and hit her head, causing her eye to swell and her nose to bleed. The swelling went down and she seemed fine—until a few days later she that part of her was paralyzed. We thought it was probably brain damage. But, knowing mongooses, we hoped she’d regain her ability to walk and all that—her former owners once had a mongoose who managed to completely paralyze itself, but in a few days was just fine—and indeed she has. One of her legs is still stiff, but she’s able to climb in and out of her cage by herself now, eat a lot, and all that. Anyways, she’s mostly better.

We then got a puppy who seems part golden retriever (has the big brown liquid eyes and loves people) and named him Pippin. Actually, his story is rather strange. When we were having our tile laid, a tile layer handed us the excitable yellow scruff of a puppy the day Jax died, saying someone sent it. We fell in love with him immediately, but then the tile layer told my mom the dog was fifty dollars US. We got our last for five! We had to send the puppy back, and the owner came back for him. Actually, he gave it to the tile layer to sell for twenty five or thirty, but evidently the tile layer thought he should get twenty dollars in the bargain. The owner apologized and took the dog back with him.

A few days later, we still wanted that poor puppy who’d been so excited to see us. We asked around, and we ended up buying him for fifteen dollars (thirty dollars had been the typical ‘white’ price. If you’re white, you supposedly have a lot of money). We had a vet come and deworm him and give him a rabies shot. He wouldn’t eat for two days, but then began to eat with a large appetite.

 Then, a week or so later, we got two dogs from some Americans we know, some nice German Pointers. Their mother was HUGE, so we ended up getting two; a girl and a boy. The girl was mostly chocolate brown with a white belly and some white markings but a fully brown face. We named her Valli, after someone in America we know. She totally acted like her, too. The boy had a really dark brown face with long whiskers and a white stripe. He was mostly white on his body, except for a dark brown spot and a black spot on his back. His name was Stan, after Valli’s husband. They were both pretty stocky dogs.

Then came the disaster. Five days to a week after we got them, Valli got a round stomach one night after eating. We thought she’d just eaten a lot. Then, the next day, she was throwing up. We knew she probably had worms, because evidently, just after we got our puppies, all the other puppies in the litter got worms. Unfortunately, it was the weekend, so we couldn’t get medicine. Then, Stan got a round stomach and the next day began throwing up. We got medicine that day and gave it to them. They took it fine the first day, but then the next Stan couldn’t hold his down. Valli lasted a couple more days, never able to eat, and then one night started breathing bad. We knew she was going to die.

The next morning, she was breathing so loud we could hear her in the next room. I carried her outside, limp but still alive and breathing really loudly, to the sand in one corner of our yard. She would breath loudly for awhile, and then her breathing would be quiet, and then get louder. I knew what it was—the worms (Roundworm was what she had, and she became skinny because they ate any food we could get to her stomach—not that she would eat) were coming up her throat. They made it hard to breathe. And if the roundworm was too big…well, I won’t say anymore, but I’m sure you know what would happen.

My mom came out with Jake and Manny and prayed that Valli would go quickly. She was quiet through the entire prayer, and then started up again. She died a few moments later.

It was a horrible day, especially for Stan who could still walk around and was faring much better than her. He whined a lot, looking for his sister. He deteriorated rapidly after that day. He became so thin every bone was clear, and his eyes were sunken. We fed him milk with a spoon, and gave him deworming medicine. He couldn’t keep most of it down. We woke up this morning, two days after Valli’s death, thinking he would be dead. He was barely alive, couldn’t even move his head. The next time we checked on him, he was gone. He didn’t die like Vally did—no, he literally starved to death.

And so now we have three graves in our backyard, but still our list of animal mishaps continues. The night before Valli died, a dog came into our yard and attacked Pippin. Since we didn’t know if he had rabies or not, we’ve had to quarantine Pippin. Poor Pippin, he’s so very lonely. (The Liberians can’t really say ‘Pippin,’ and so it sounds like they say ‘Pinpin.’ The Adventures of Pinpin, eh?) We gave him deworming medicine, just in case, and he did have worms, though of a different sort and probably not half as dangerous. We’ll have to deworm him once a month to make sure.

THEN, we also have a little gray kitten that we’ve named Ninja (she’s totally ninja—she darts around the bed and pounces on our feet and books and hands…and pencils as we write). She did a very stupid thing the other day, on the day Valli died, methinks—she jumped off the top bunk, and we think she hit her head. Anyways, she had a seizure and freaked everyone out. She was extremely tired afterwards, but is now back to her mischievous, ninja self.

Ah, pouring out all my sorrows! Ha.

Tomorrow, I’m to teach a Liberian woman (she grew up in Minnesota, actually, so she has perfect American English) and some kids she’s bringing over how to draw. XD We’ll see how that goes.

Anyways, goodnight, my friends! I’d blog about so many more things—all the wonders of Africa, not all these Satanic things that are happening (really, its not normal—even for Africa—to have this many things happen to your pets. I’m sure Satan is involved) if I had time. Hopefully I shall blog more! I only had time to blog the saddest parts of my life right now. XD Next time shall be much better!

Oh, yes, and I’m doing One Year Adventure Novel.

G’bye! ;)

--Vrenith