Miss Daisy

Miss Daisy has never breathed easily. Ever since I picked her up out at that seed warehouse, after she was dumped along the road in extreme heat, deaf, sick and pregnant, she has had rough breathing issues. I've taken in her in several times over this. She has a flattened nose. Not from the abuse she likely endured from some lousy human being who tossed her like trash out on that searing country road. Heredity is to blame for flat nose. This causes her some of the issues.

Miss Daisy is deaf and sometimes loud, because she cannot hear to regulate her tone. Lately however, she's sounded raspy and hoarse. In times past, this has been due to stomach acid, most likely, the result of backed up hairballs and pressure on her gut.

I am worried this time it could be a different cause. She opens her mouth wide sometimes, like her jaw is hurting her. Sometimes it seems to lock open when she opens it so widely, just briefly. She is and always has been defensive of her mouth. I can't get a good look in. She's always been extremely difficult also with trimming her nails. I have to catch her drowsy, very drowsy and quickly trim two or three before she wakes to see what I'm up to.

She has what I term, a tight neck response to medicating. She tightens the skin on the back of her neck so that she cannot be held by the scruff to aid in getting medicine down her. She goes into backup mode to escape, which can throw me, too, arching her neck and back while doing snakelike backing and flipping manuevers. It is artful and effective.

I dread taking her to the vet. She's been to the vet a lot in her relatively short life. She was sick when that farmer found her, miraculously, in the the ditch out on that country road in 100 degree heat. She was hungry and very very thirsty. Her paw pads were burned from walking the scorching pavement. She still has nightmares about her life before me. Must have been a horror.

Here, she has been only a joy. She will charge around literally screaming in happiness. When she used to see my car pull into the driveway, at the shack in Corvallis, I could see her dancing around through the window, on the cat runs I'd made for the cats there, mouth moving in screams of delight that I was home.

Miss Daisy has always been an optimist, unapologetic about her love of life and everyone in it. She, too, is unapologetic about doing what she wants, sleeping when she wants and enjoying the luxery of naps to the fullest, without guilt. She loves racing around the house at full speed, chasing things, planting herself across my face or head nights, to utilize my body heat for her enjoyment, and entertaining visitors with her happy super friendly attitude.

She's been sleeping more lately, maybe she's lost some weight, too. Her problems still could be hairball caused. I hope they are. But she's going to the vet this week.