Heartbreaker

I need to print a retraction.  Remember the time I admitted that just maybe I love one dog a teensy bit more than the other?  I have to exercise the law of take-backs.  It seems I misjudged myself.

The pitiful looking little guy to the left got sick a few weeks back.

I had already gone to bed for the night, but when Mark brought the dogs in from their evening walk, I woke up to the sound of fits and fits of sneezes.  I jumped out of bed and went into the other room to see what was going on, and there was little Milo, sneezing violently and uncontrollably, and it looked pretty painful.  I picked him up, chunk that he is, and tried to calm him down.  He eventually went to sleep, but  I was worried when the fits started again the next morning, so I decided to come home at lunch and check on him.  Things weren't looking any better, so I called the vet and made an appointment.   I was maybe a wee bit over-concerned (I just might have called the vet back to beg for an earlier appointment), and I kept having to remind myself that he was in fact a dog, and not my child.  

The kicker came when I took him out to do his business.  He tried to sniff around for a spot, which of course reactivated the crazy sneezing, and my normally rambunctious and slightly insane dog just gave up on trying to potty and curled up on the grass at the end of his leash.  He laid his head on the ground and looked up at me with the saddest eyes you have ever seen.  And then, it happened....my heart broke into 182 pieces.  I tried to keep him still and calm the rest of the day, and he snuggled up and gave me sad puppy dog eyes and rested his little chin on my leg.  When we finally got to the vet, they flushed his nose with saline, which didn't immediately work, but eventually solved the problem.  Apparently my little explorer had sniffed something right up his nose and it had gotten stuck.  I hear that happens to two year old humans fairly frequently too.

A day later, he was back to his usual antics, stealing socks, bullying his brother, eating anything that would fit in his mouth faster than you can see what it was, and generally creating mischief and insanity in our home.  But I have to admit, I was happy to have Crazy Milo back.  I'd be just as heartbroken to lose that dog as I would be to lose his calm, gentle counterpart.  I think my jig is up.

(All photos in the post were taken by the lovely Amelia D)