Twinky the (Super?) Dog

Pretty much everyone knows Twinky is our dog. He's a Morkie (Yorkie/Maltese mix). He's obnoxious and not super smart. He likes to hump his stuffed animal dog we call his "lady friend" and he has a specific purple toy he likes to play fetch with every day at the same times. He likes long walks and he has a hard time deciding when and where to poop. He pees a lot. He hates squirrels and the mail man. He's a jumper and believes everyone wants to love him so he jumps on people, shakes, and whines incessantly.

He is, hands down, worse than a newborn. I say it a lot that Twinky is the last dog I will ever own because he's just so much work. I'll stick to cats, thank you. I love Twinky, he's just a lot of work.

But sometimes I baby this dog because he's so doofy I can't help it.

On the weekends this dog wants a LOT of walks. He knows people are home to do it so every other hour this dog is patrolling the 'hood looking like a badass in his sweater or his bandanna from the groomers. He's literally the least threatening looking dog there is and nobody is scared of a dog in a sweater vest.

I mean, come on.

On Sunday though, neither kid wanted to walk Twinky so Matt begrudgingly did it and thank god.

We have a park right across the street from us that's usually pretty busy with kids but it takes up an entire city block (3/4 of that is just green grassy area and a few trees, but people use it to play football, frisbee, soccer, etc.). A lot of people bring their dogs there to play so it isn't unusual to see dogs here and to be honest, a lot of people around here walk their dog off leash and it drives me crazy. I have a fear of dogs and I really don't like being approached by a dog I'm not familiar with.

So Matt didn't think anything of it to see a dog at the park. Out of nowhere though, the dog at the park charged for Twinky and apparently Twinky never had time to turn around. Matt said it happened so fast but this dog had Twinky in his mouth.

Now, if this had been the kids walking the dog, Twinky 100% would be dead right now. It would have been traumatic for everyone there. Someone could have really gotten hurt.

Instead, Matt is a very take charge of a crisis person so he's physically fighting this dog and prying its mouth open to get Twinky out. Once Twinky was free, he took off and Matt couldn't chase him. Matt took this dog and located the owners who were super apologetic.

Meanwhile, I happened to be walking past the door and see Twinky shivering on our sidewalk and the gate open. I go out and call him in because I didn't want him to run, and I notice he's covered in mud. Annoyed, I have Olivia start drying him off with a towel. As she's doing that, she tells me he has blood on him. At this point, I have no idea what happened. So I start looking at the dog.

I see a little on his face and think he got cut on a stick or something, that happens. 

I see a dot on his ear and I think- weird. Not sure how that would happen. 

Then I see this and I think, alright- something happened. This didn't look that bad, I figured we could clean it and he'd be fine.

But then Matt comes home, relieved to see Twinky found his way home, and starts telling me what happened. He takes Twinky's collar and bandanna off and we see this. 

He's got a huge bite mark on the back of his neck. Matt starts really looking at it and realizes you can see "meat" (insert my gagging here because I can't deal with this kind of thing). Matt says he's got to get stitches and it'll get infected if we wait, so we start looking for an emergency vet. Thankfully, there was one local to us that was 24/7 on weekends so Matt took off for that at about 6. He calls me at 7:30 to tell me Twinky is going to live but he needs surgery because the muscle was separated from the skin (more gagging) and they have to put drains in, stitch other others, etc. The surgery would take about two hours, he needs blood work to make sure his organs could handle sedation, and oh yes- it's going to cost between $850-950.

Great. Seriously. Just great.

I tell Matt he's going to have to charge it because I don't have that kind of money, but I can't let my dog get sick and die with a hole in his neck.

So he hangs up and I wait at home. They didn't get home until almost 10:30 that night and my poor dog was high as a dog can get. He could hardly stand, they shaved his neck and ear and it's so gross, you guys. 

He actually has three drains (two on the back and on the side of the neck) and a ton of stitches. The dog took two big bites into him from different angles, probably trying to get a good grip. The vet said Twinky is pretty lucky to be alive because a couple of shakes would have done him in. He's got a bunch of medication for pain and antibiotics, we've got to put ointment on him and do the warm washcloth thing on him twice a day.

He can't go up or down stairs, so we have to carry him outside to pee. No collar for a long time. No walking for even longer. No leash or harness for a long time (like months) because his muscle is damaged. He has some trouble with crunchy food so we've got to a soft wet food for awhile. He can't shake, he likes to randomly shake his whole body but he can't do that for awhile. He can't play, no running, no humping the lady friend, and he can't lay in bed with anyone just to make sure his drains are OK. 

To say he's a sad sack is an understatement. He sleeps a LOT more than usual and sometimes when I pet him he whimpers and I feel terrible. His shaved ear doesn't really go down anymore. I'm not sure if that's a permanent thing or not. They didn't put stitches there because it's not a huge wound but it's a pretty bad cut. We're hoping he can have his drains taken out on Friday, but that's really depending on a certain level of healing so we aren't sure. I think stitches may be able to come out the week after? They need to be in 14 days, so we'll see.

The bill ended up being around $860 or something? I think the owners of the other dog are going to pay for it since it was their dog's fault. I really hope drain and stitch removal are in that price and not an added fee because the starting price to show up at the vet is $130 so yikes. I will say though, they were really great and Matt said they were very nice. They called us on Tuesday just to see how Twinky was doing, and I thought that was really nice of them.

I feel terrible for the dog and I wish there was more I could do for him. I took him out yesterday morning to pee and poop and he tried to run after a bird, then froze mid step because I think he hurt himself and he just walked back to me with his head down. It was pretty sad to see. We have to fight him to take his medicine but I think they do help, so that's something.

So just think good thoughts for Twinky the Dinky Dog. He's a hot mess for awhile.

Dogs masturbate. <-- life lesson.

So the other day I posted a short video on Instagram of Twinky essentially humping a stuffed dog. He is not neutered yet, but he will be once Christmas is over and I can afford it. But since we got him back in July, it actually hasn't been a problem. Once, months ago, he tried to hump this same dog and he clearly was inexperienced.

But now that he has gotten a little bigger, and clearly practices a lot when we are gone, things have come to a new low. Or high, depending on who you are in this house. The only thing I can be appreciative of is that at least he isn't humping our legs, it's just this particular stuffed dog.

OK- and he occasionally tries to sit on our only girl cat's face. Poor Lola has resorted to just laying there and taking it. It's like they are a married couple or something.

The worst part about this is trying to explain it to the kids. I think Olivia knows what's going on because she made the comment that it's a good thing the stuffed dog can't have puppies. I chose silence as the appropriate response here because anything else would have prompted a larger conversation about sex and reproduction than I was willing to have with an eight year old right now. Jackson response has been a bit more animated. The first time he saw it he just stared. The second time he saw it, he tried to take the stuffed dog away but Twinky growled at him so he dropped it. The third time he saw it he started crying and wondered why our dog was broken.

Keep in mind that all three of these times happened within one hour.

Twinky is a machine. But he's a sensitive machine because he will snuggle with the stuffed dog, lick it, hump it like mad, sometimes lick it again, and then walk away for awhile. Then he comes back with a vengeance.

Matt says we should discourage this but I say, if we take the stuffed animal away he'll start on our leg. I'd rather have a sex toy on the floor than be a sex toy.

Then someone who has a sibling of Twinky says that even after her dog was neutered, it has not slowed his roll. Basically- I believe my dog is a chronic mastubater.

Because why wouldn't he be??

Twinky.

I hope you don't think that just because I'm a Debbie Downer as of late I plan to bring you down as well. Oh no. I'll leave you with an update on the newest member of the Strand family.

Meet Twinky.

 Twinky (the dinky dog) (yes, he's named after a children's book) is a Morkie. (Yorkie/Maltese mix). He is super cute and cuddly. He lays on his back a lot so you can see his boy bits.

He chases cats, prefers cat toys over dog toys, really loves his stuffed monkey and likes to chew pillows if left on the ground.

 He is also called Piddle Pants because he will pee wherever the hell he wants to. Specifically, he will pee anywhere EXCEPT his wee wee pad. He likes to poop right under my desk as well as next to my reading chair in the front porch. And drag some chewed up pillow near it in case I didn't notice all of the pillow fluff before.

 He is most active in the morning and will play dead when he knows it's time for his before bed walk with Matt. And Matt looks hilarious walking this dog because the "walk" consists of Matt carrying him a few blocks first otherwise he will not go anywhere. So picture Matt, a grown ass man, carrying this tiny dog around and then saying, "GOOD JOB, Twinky!!" when he poops.

It's hilarious, people.

The kids love the dog. Olivia maybe a little bit more. I think Jackson is a little scared of him but clearly, Twinky loves Jackson. Like a lot. Follows him everywhere. And he looks EXACTLY like Jackson's beloved stuff animal dog who we call Doggie.

Having a dog over cats is HARD. The cats hate him. Mostly Lola because she's the only one with a tail and I think Twinky sees it as a moving toy. Batman and Stumpy don't really care so long as Twinky doesn't eat out of their food bowl because *god forbid* those cats have to live on their fat stores.

So as if we don't have enough happening at once in our house, we now have a dog.

We are officially insane.