Viva la Red-dog!

Recently, my sweet Red-dog has decided to live on the edge.  He's gotten pancreatitis, run off into the corn field only to find two girlfriends down the street, and has eaten his fair share of tissues, paper towels, and various other food and non-food items.

He's always had an affinity for Christmas Tree Cakes.  But, who doesn't?

His latest was a bit more dangerous -- an entire stick of all natural Boo-Boo Balm -- made of beeswax, tea tree oil, and various other all natural ingredients.

The dangerous thing about this, is tea tree oil is HIGHLY toxic to both dogs and humans.  I had no idea.  You think if you have something all natural in your home, that it is safe.  That simply isn't the case.  In fact, many all natural products are actually more dangerous because they are home-made and some of the levels of ingredients vary from item to item.  Also, many of them are toxic whereas the unnatural products to use on babies and children are purposefully made from products that are non-toxic, just in case they are ingested.  Because we all know babies like to eat things they shouldn't.

And babies in my home include the human and furry variety.

My three babies - Blue, Jackson, and Red.

The good news about the Boo-Boo Balm incident is that I caught Red in the act, preventing something fatal.  The bad news is that because this product was made from tea tree oil, it could have had a lot more effect than we initially thought.

The vet took blood work from Red the day of the incident and it showed that his liver enzyme levels were high.  He said this could be from the tea tree oil or maybe that something else is wrong.  So, we went back a week later to do fasting blood work.

We got the results back yesterday and his levels are still high.  This was not the news we wanted to hear.  Either the tea tree oil really did some damage, or something even worse is going on -- and the vet wouldn't elaborate on what worse means, which scares me even more.  They are going to put Red on medication for a bit and run some tests again in a month or so.  (At first it was 3 months, but we just didn't want to wait that long.)

All of this has made me think back and reminisce about the past six years of having Red.  How his droopy eyes and big ears drew us to him immediately.  How we were told that he had been beaten up by some bigger dogs before they rescued him and they thought he wouldn't like other dogs because of it.  (Boy were they wrong about that!)

He was so tiny!

With Daddy in "their" chair. 

                

How he ate the cover off my bible but didn't eat a single Word of God (he knew what was up), has chewed up countless pairs of shoes, ate my cookbooks (What? They tasted like bacon.), and even chewed up the molding around a door at the first apartment we lived in (it's amazing what you can do with spackle and a little creativity).

"Hey. How YOU doing?"

Born to be King!

"Who wants to pump some iron?"

Plain ridiculousness...

How he knew, before I knew, when I was pregnant both the first time and when I got pregnant with Jackson and would refuse to lay on my stomach. How he never left my side when I was miscarrying and let me use his fur to wipe my tears.

Momma's boy

Snuggle time

How much he has loved Jackson since the day we brought him home.  Red lets him pull his ears, play with his feet, and yank on his tail without as much as a grimace.  How protective he is of Jackson and gets in trouble for busting in Jackson's room at night, thus waking Jackson up, just because he wants to sleep in the same room as him. And, how Red will just about knock me over so that he is the first one to greet Jackson in the morning when I go to get him out of his crib.

Love at first sight!

He makes an excellent seat, too!

How he might be the jumpiest, loudest, much too friendly, and most annoying dog in the world at times - but that he will always be my first baby.  I wouldn't change a thing in the world about him.

He's only six years old and that is just not enough time for us to have with him.  So, Red - we need for you to get well and we need God to heal your liver so that we have at least another 10 years with you!

We love you Reddrick VonStufelstein Parsons!