Takara's 2nd Birthday

With all of the recent excitement and changes in our lives I realized today that I had forgotten to post about Takara's 2nd Birthday.

Yes, that's right folks, out little Squishy turned 2 on February 22nd. Our little family has been through quite a bit in the past year and Takara has had to overcome some difficulties of her own in the short 2 years that she has been here.

Here's a brief recap:

4 Months Old: Just two short weeks after bringing Takara home I took her out for a walk to begin the process of leash training. While on our walk she did what most puppies do, began being stubborn about being on a leash. In the midst of her stubbornness she darted between my legs as I was taking a step. Before I had a chance to dodge, my back foot caught her rear right leg fracturing it just above the knee. Needless to say I was devastated. After seeing the local vet my roommate, Brendan, drove Takara and I to the CSU vet hospital in Fort Collins to see the orthopedic specialist and have surgery to repair her leg. The surgery was a complete success and 6 months later she was back to being a happy healthy puppy.

1 Year, 7 months Old: Max, Takara and I moved into our beautiful new home in Erie at the end of August 2008. While taking care of Brian and Aileen's cat Serious, we brought Takara over to play in their back yard not yet having one of our own. Towards the end of our visit Max and I were outside rough housing with Takara when something terrible happened causing her a great amount of pain causing her to lash out at me biting my right arm. While trying to release my arm from her mouth she bit down on my left hand causing quite a bit of damage to my ring finger. In the ruccus, Max also took a bite trying to figure out what was going on with her. Long story short, many extraordinary neighbors came to help us. One which took Max to the hospital, stayed with us until we were patched up and drove us home.

The following day we immediately took Takara to the local vet to try and figure out what was going on. Knowing that she is not a vicious animal, there had to be a very real reason for what had happened. As it turns out Takara's perviously injured knee did not heal like it should which had been causing her to wear down the cartilage under her knee cap and because she was out of commission during her critical growth period, the groove which holds the knee cap into place was far too shallow to keep it where it needed to be, allowing it to slide from side to side. The vet promptly sent us back to CSU to have the orthopedic surgion take a look at it. The results of his findings were the cause of a second surgery to fix the mis-aligned, damaged knee.

I had an appointent with an orthopedic doc myselft to assess the damage to my left ring finger. No surgery was needed as the ER docs did a fantastic job patching me up and with time my finger would be back to normal.

The Happy Ending: Nearly 6 months after the incident Takara and I are fully healed and doing very well. While it took some time for Takara and I to heal our relationship, we are now closer than ever. She brings a lot of joy into our lives and I thank the many close friends and family members who helped support us during the past months.

I am happy to say that Takara and I have done a lot of growth recently. She does not have to be crated any longer and can be trusted to roam around the house while we are gone. And I have rediscovered the things that bring me happiness.