Atta girl, Poochie!

My SIL works for Greenpeace. She spends about 3-4 months on a boat and then is paid for time off equal to the amount of time she spends on. She returned a few weeks ago from her first paid cruise. Before that she was a volunteer working for a recommendation to be hired.

She has a cute little dog named Poochie. She's a Sky Terrier, the same kind as Poochie the First, the dog she and Baba had growing up. He had to be put to sleep right before our first trip here with the Boss so I never got to meet him. I heard he practically walked on water though. He took himself outside to go to the bathroom. If there was a car anywhere around (other than the multitude parked up and down the street) he didn't go. He just waited until later. He wasn't about to risk an ill-fated trip across the street.

When SIL returned from her trip last month she found that Poochie was paralyzed. She had been taken to the vet, who had given medicine for stomach pain, thinking that was the problem. Huh?! No wonder he's not the vet SIL normally takes her to. Geez!

She took her to their regular vet and he said that she'd been struck by a car or something similar. But everyone swears up and down that she wasn't hit by a car. She did have a similar issue a while back but SIL was here and caught it in time and she never got this bad. But since the people taking care of her didn't know about it and weren't staying at the house, just going by to feed her and take her out, they weren't paying enough attention to know what was wrong.

She's paralyzed and incontinent. When we'd go and visit her we'd see her lying on the old mattress in the bathroom floor, looking pretty miserable. BUT...SIL has started putting her in diapers and she's like a new dog.

She *runs* around the house and *runs* to the door when the bell rings. She moves those front legs super fast and just drags those useless things in the back around. SIL shaved her back half to make cleaning her easier so she looks really odd from the waist back so I try to just look her in those big, beautiful, brown eyes and blow her kisses.

The Peanuts love to love on her and she's perfectly happy to take it.

SIL is looking at making her a little wheel chair to make getting around easier on her knees, which are getting scraped up a bit from dragging on the floor. The problem she's facing now is who will care for her while she's on her next trip. If I didn't already have a dog (who doesn't like Poochie) and a cat (Poochie hates cats) and 3 kids (who love everything with four legs and fur), that would be one thing. But caring for an incontinent dog just isn't something I can add to my plate. Even if she is cute as a bug's ear.