The Stanky Dog

My hubby, five children and myself have always lived out in the sticks. We're country folk by nature born and raised. He comes from the foothills of North Carolina and I spent my youth in the Triad. Both of us grew up running around barefoot across gravel or grass, playing in creeks and ponds, and living a life of freedom in the beautiful country.

Last year we migrated to the city life....okay, so this "city" has only a couple of stoplights and a tiny population, but to us it's still a city. We have rules, like no burning our brush in the backyard, and there are neighbors close on either side. It has been a huge adjustment, but we love our new home and have been quite happy here.

One issue we did run into was that of what to do with our babies, two gorgeous chocolate labs, Sadie and Jumper. Sadie and Jumper have always been free, running and playing outside. In the summer they cooled off in the pond below the house, and in winter they rested at our doorstep unless it got really cold and then they happily tromped indoors and hung out with us where it was warm. But, with leash laws that accompany our "city" living, we wondered what to do. My mother-in-law has been keeping an eye on them back home for months now, as we struggled with whether we could stand to see them pinned outdoors in a lot, or if we should bring our two oxen inside with us. We finally decided to bring them in and let them finish out their lives resting on fuzzy pillows in front of a crackling fireplace.

Friday, we loaded them up and headed for their new home. They had been outdoors rambling for weeks and the smell was HORRIFIC! We cracked windows and dropped by Wally World for some smelly dog shampoo certain that it would eliminate the stench. Unfortunately, this did not work. We have tried everything to no avail and the smell was making it nearly unbearable to keep Sadie in the house. The smell was all hers. Jumper was fine but poor Sadie was nauseatingly stinky (or Stanky as we in the south prefer to say)!

Sadie has had issues with her ears for years. We have been taking her to the local vet back home and spent more money than you can imagine trying to clear her ears up. Ear Mites is what we were told plagued her, yet no medications ever cleared her ears. After all this time, she has been left with thickened ear flaps, and cauliflower like ears with little entrance into her ear canal. I scheduled an appointment with a vet close to our new home. We loaded Sadie up in the van, and headed off to the vet on Monday. The smell was so horrible that we rode in freezing cold weather with the windows down and heat pumpin'.

I am so frustrated! The vet said there were in fact NO MITES! All these years, we have trusted the advice of a vet who was misdiagnosing our precious doggie. The new vet (who is now my new BEST friend!) cultured her little ears and found that she was full of bacteria and yeast. We have started her on a regimin of antibiotics and sprays to hopefully get control of her poor ears. We're giving it two weeks. I'm heartbroken, because if this doesn't give her relief, we'll have to put her down. She's so sick and in so much pain. To top it off, I had the vet check a mass I found in her belly this week. She has breast cancer and it seems to have already spread.

I'm happy to report that the "stank" has left our home. The medications that the vet prescribed seem to have done something to fight her infection. She is a normal doggie now at least as far as the stink factor goes. Our goal is to make Miss Sadie feel better, to give her some relief, to let her live out what time she has left peacefully, by the fire, at our feet, and with lots of love.

**Oh and the tip of the day for those of you with a STANKY doggie roaming around your house comes straight from the vet. When I asked her how in the world I could stand the smell in our home for one more minute, she suggested opening up a bag of charcoal and putting it in the room where they're hanging out. The charcoal absorbs the odor. Give it a try. If your poor pooch is stankin' like mine was it'll be worth having a big ole bag of charcoal in the corner!