It's a Girl!

A puppy, not a child, of course. Dave surprised me with her Saturday before last. We had a garage sale in the morning and afterwards Dave said he was going to run errands. A little over a hour later he placed a puppy on me while I was sleeping on the couch. My belated birthday gift! We named her Maggie Mae and she is the sweetest thing!

She had a bit of a cough when we got her which progressively got worse the first night we had her. The next day we went back to the puppy rescue to get some medicine. On Tuesday I took her to the vet for her first check up. As soon as I entered the vet they rushed me into a private room b/c I had a "sick" animal as they noted the second I walked in the door. The vet finally came to give her a check and after listening to her lungs she told me that Maggie didn't just have a cold, it was pneumonia. The prognosis wasn't good, she basically told me the worst case scenario and she totally left out any good outcome. She told me that Florida has a lemon law on rescue puppies, well you know what that was referring to...no way could I take her back!! Maggie was placed on a very strong antibiotic and I was ordered to give her steam treatments and then follow that up with coupage (pounding on the chest) 3 x a day. Normal puppy vaccinations were also discussed as well as heartworm and flea treatments. It was all overwhelming and a big blur once I heard the "pneumonia" word. We were finally escorted by the nurse to the front desk to pay our bill but once we got there the vet came out and told us to go back into the room aka "quarantine." I had to pay via the nurse running back and forth from the front desk to the quarantine. The staff was nice and all but after the diagnosis and being confined to the quarantine, I wasn't in the best of moods.

It is now a week later, after many steam and coupage treatments and lots of antibiotics Maggie health is improving. Dave is the official pill popper and I give the treatments. She is starting to act like a puppy! Running, playing, chewing, disobeying, all the typical puppy stuff. I am taking her back to the vet on Thursday for her recheck so we are praying the vet has a better prognosis for her this time.