Meet Maggie

The newest member of our family - Maggie! They tell us she's a collie mix, about 3 years old. We adopted her from an animal rescue group here. They finally caught her after watching her roam along a state highway for about 6 months; she was heartworm positive - they treated her for it and she's now healthy again. She's very shy. For the first 3-4 days we had her, she wouldn't let Greg or I approach her. But from day 1 she's loved the girls. Meredith was the one that went out to bring her in when she wouldn't come when us 'big' people called her. By the 4th day, she was approaching Greg and I though, and let us pet her and put a leash on her without any problems. She's pretty calm, knows how to walk on a leash very well, but doesn't do sit or down so well... The rescue group said she was someone's family dog b/c she was already spayed when they found her (too bad they didn't know that until the vet went in to fix her!).

We traveled to visit my family last weekend, and since we'd only had Maggie a few days and she was finally getting used to us, we took her with us rather than boarding her. That didn't go as smoothly as we'd planned... She did great in the car, and seemed okay when we got there Friday night, but when we got out of the car and that entire first night - we couldn't get her to pee! Long walk in the woodsy areas. Nothing. So off to bed. The next morning - long walk again. Nothing. Drive to grassy area. Nothing. Walk on nature trail. Nothing. Hmmm... how long can she hold it? By Saturday night I was getting kind of worried because she still hadn't gone. How big was this dog's bladder?? More long walks. Nothing. Drive to different grassy area frequented by dogs. Nothing. Nature trail. Nothing. So we tried tying her up to a tree thinking maybe she wanted a little privacy! About three minutes after we all came inside, I hear her collar making lots of loud noise in the carport - she was standing on the back step. Chewed through her leash. (guess we know now how she became a stray?? but thankfully she didn't run away!) Monday we called a local vet who got us in first thing. We arrived at 9:15 and the vet tech started asking us questions as she weighed Maggie. Then a man comes from a back room wearing... a knee length navy blue bath robe w/ a white t-shirt underneath and some brown slippers. Yup - it's the vet! (did I mention my parents live in a retirement community?) He told us that she had been peeing or she wouldn't still be alive, but he'd do some x-rays to start figuring out what was wrong. About 10 minutes later he came back to tell us she had a lot of soreness and stiffness in her back from her neck to her hips - probably from the heartworm treatment she had (he said they give shots of medication into their lumbar and it's quite painful). This pain was causing her body to give its attention there, and her digestive system had slowed down causing her to be really "backed up"... anyways, lots of little things and combining that w/ getting a new home and then going to a new place - she was nervous on top of all that. So he treated her digestive system issues and gave her a laser treatment to relieve her back pain. We picked her up a few hours later and headed home. She still didn't pee on the way home, but as soon as we got home and let her in the back yard she ran to the corner and squated for about 3 minutes!

So I guess we'll keep her! :) She's nice and calm inside, and likes to run and have fun outside. She had a LOT of fur when we got her, but we took her to be shaved after a few days to cut down on shedding. She seems to like her new 'do, especially in this heat!