June 17, 1994

What better way to begin the next set of 500 posts? (i.e. this is HofG post #501)

Born in a puppy mill in Nebraska, moved to Kansas within a few weeks, shipped to a mall pet store in Fairview Park, OH.

Purchased by humans actually visiting pug breeders all day; unhappy with the breeders, the humans then stopped at every pet store on the way home in search of the elusive pug.

8:50pm, 10 minutes before closing, a particularly non-Puggish fluffy white snowball who constantly gnawed on our fingers won our hearts and came home.

Best.  Dog.  Ever.

Happy 15th birthday, Sam!!!!

Maxie Gordon. Hooligan.

Nothing is safe under the tree. Nothing. Chewable heroin, um, I mean, Snausages were the most sought-after treat to tear open while the humans were away. She would not be deterred.


Immediately upon this garish discovery, the most common nickname for Maxie is uttered with contempt and maybe just a little bit of pride: Maxie Damn Doodle.....

The ballad of Maxie Damn Doodle

The year was 1997 in August in the tiny podunk town of Ramseur, NC. Hey, Sam's 3 years old. Let's get another puppy.

A farm in the North Carolina country yielded an addition to our little family: Maxie.

Otherwise known as Maxie Doodle, Maxie Damn Doodle, Doodlebug, Fatty, Lunchbox, or the infamous Elmer...since she was almost glue.

Awwww, look at how she waits for us in the barn while the other puppies in the pack race around to the other side. She remembers us. (Little did we know that she was (seriously) mentally retarded and did not have the pack instinct inherent in dogs.)

She was an impossibility to potty train, as instinctually dogs do not mess where they nest. So overnight in the little box just big enough for her to sleep in, she would pee and poop and lay in it all night.

She would run away, race around our house and the neighbor's in our new development's construction zone and return hours later covered in burrs and what we call those "spiny nuts".

She would be submissive and roll over and pee the minute you tried to pick her up off the couch. We spayed her early with exploratory surgery to see if she just wasn't hooked together correctly resulting in her awful urinary habits.

She was impossible to train. She could not be taught. She was a disaster. Our couch was ruined. Our carpeting was ruined.

If we gave her up, she would be beaten and or euthanized for her retardation. We were at a serious crossroads. Open crying and weeping were included as we discussed what to do with this little black retarded dog.

The clincher: it was time to order her an embroidered Christmas stocking with her name on it from Lands' End. This is the final decision. This stocking would determine her continued inclusion in our family.

We kept her.

Now, looking back, Maxie has been one of the sweetest dogs we have ever had. She turned 11 years old yesterday, and still acts like a puppy. She plays with her toys with reckless abandon. She wrestles with Sam. She is our little bruiser. She is Sam's protector. She is an avid hunter of squirrel and bird and rabbit. And she is bionic with two rebuilt ACL's in her hind legs from her Maxie-esque behavior.

A common theme when we look into her deep faraway eyes and experience her carefree happy-go-lucky temperament: "It's always good in Maxie's world."

Happy birthday, Tubby Bitch!

The curious non-story of Buster the Pug.

It was July 1994. We lived in relative sin in Bedford, OH. We planned on getting ourselves a dog.

He was to be a pug. Buster the Pug.

We made an appointment to visit a pug breeder south of us close to Akron. We traveled down after lunch on a sunny Saturday to see the mother and make a deposit.

It was awful.

The pregnant mother looked ragged, was in the middle of a pack of other misbehaved dogs, and was generally harassed by all the other dogs this "breeder" had around. Um, no thanks.

So in the age before cell phones and the internets, we glanced through the newspaper with our road map and saw if we could find a pug from another breeder. Nothing.

So, on our way back northward we hit up every pet store and mall we could find to locate our elusive future pug named Buster. Nothing. No dice.

Backtrack 6 weeks to June 17, 1994. Somewhere in Nebraska a particularly bright snow white Lhasa Apso is born on a puppy farm and soon thereafter transferred to a puppy farm distributor in Kansas. Shortly after that, this particular dog is sold to a retail outlet and ends up far away at a pet store in a mall in Fairview Park, OH.

Back to that Saturday in July, Chris and Kimberly have been shopping for hours to no avail. Finally, in a last ditch effort, we end up at Westgate Mall in Fairview Park, OH. Far away from Akron and quite a haul from our eastside digs in Bedford. The store closes at 9:00pm. We enter at 8:30pm.

There he was. Not a pug. Not by a longshot. But a snow white fluffball in a cage with a hospital bracelet around his neck. Breed? Lhasa Apso.

We take him out. We bring him into a little cubby to pet and play with him. He bites us. He gnaws on our fingers. He chews on Kimberly's purse.

So logically, we take him.

It's 10 minutes before the store and the mall closes and we are buying a dog (and bowl and food and treats and toys and leash) from high school kids at a mall on the westside of Cleveland.

"Sidney". We'll name him Sidney.

In an epiphany in the car in the parking lot, Kimberly exclaims:

"Sam. We'll name him Sam."

Happy 14th birthday, Samuel J. Buttinski. June 17, 1994 was a wonderful day: the day the best dog anyone could ever hope for was born.

Ouchie.

We had neglected to mention that our stoic patient is indeed home (surgery Monday, home Wednesday) and doing quite well. Weight-bearing is occurring and twice daily walks for physical therapy seem to be agreeable. A follow-up appointment is scheduled for this Tuesday, so hopefully those stitches will come out.

"Bionic Maxie" as the vet techs call her is doing just fine.

On athletes and ACL's

We have a purple martin birdhouse on a tall 30-foot telescoping pole in the backyard. We also have a variety of vermin who live in and around our backyard: i.e. bunnies underneath our shed and squirrels in our trees. Sam and Maxie so enjoy chasing these creatures in hopes of catching them for our dinner...to no avail. The rodents know juuuuust when they need to run away under our fence and not get caught.

One brazen squirrel has taken it upon him/her/itself to completely destroy our neighbor's patio furniture cushions. We've seen the thing scurry across our yard with a mouthful of foam and stuffing. But where did he/she/it go with it?

Sections of our purple martin house innards (room sections and walls) have been seen thrown about the backyard lately. Perplexing. It seems that the squirrel has taken it upon him/her/itself to move in to the purple martin house. Pretty bold to scurry up a metal pole 30 feet into the air to make one's new home.

So one Friday, Maxie and Sam tear off from the back door to net them some squirrel meat for our evening dinner. Kimberly calls them in, and Maxie is limping. No weight on her rear right leg. Crap. NOW what did she do? By Saturday morning, she continues to refuse to put any weight on her leg, so Kimberly took her to the vet. Guess what? Torn ACL.

You've got to be kidding us.

In 2004, she tore her left rear ACL during the athletic process of falling ass first off the ottoman and twisting funny. So at least in 2008 she tore her other one in the act of hunting lower mammals on the food chain.

Monday morning Chris drops Maxie off at the vet for her procedure. They call Kimberly during the day to keep us updated: anesthesia is fine; surgery went fine; she woke up just fine. Kimberly was able to visit with her tonight and Maxie is doing AOK, albeit a bit drowsy. She'll stay the night and (hopefully) come home Tuesday night.

Maxie bounces back quite well after all her procedures and surgeries, so her recovery will go just fine. In fact, in 2004 Maxie was our vet's first patient during a "new" ligament repair procedure that he just learned at a conference: no immobilization of the leg with a different type of surgery. She performed splendidly then, so this time we're expecting the same.

Sam on the other hand, is a basketcase without her and will be a whining white puffball all night long for us. For as much as they "fight" and argue as "brother and sister", when they are separated they are miserable without their respective partner in crime.

So to recap, in the first 2+ months of 2008, we've had Sam's expensive bladder surgery and now Maxie's expensive ACL surgery. Ahhhh...to own older dogs where "pet insurance" was not an available option when they were still puppies.

Treatise on subcutaneous fluid and jagged stones.

In the 13 1/2 years we have had Sam in our family, we have obviously grown to know his quirks and idiosyncracies by heart. So it was with an odd sense of concern that 2 weeks or so ago we made a vet appointment with the symptoms of excessive whininess and "he's just not right". Sam's a "talker", lacking in the quiet "Lhasa Zen Buddhism" department that his vet Dr. Doub teases him about. So when his talking had become markedly more pronounced, we were quite concerned.

A bit of urinalysis and x-ray revealed the presence of a cluster of bladder stones in the poor guy's innards. Time to prep for a cystotomy.

Monday, January 21st, Chris drops him off at the vet for a front right leg catheter insertion and a day of fluids. (Then it's the task of occupying both himself and Maxie to prevent them from going nuts without Sam in the house. Not easy.) We bring him home and the vet says in her report that he managed to pull it out, so they'll just give him another on surgery day Tuesday the 22nd.

Monday night back home, and the little man is all tuckered out on the chair-and-a-half from his day of excitement. Time to go o-u-t-s-i-d-e before bedtime, and he doesn't want to get up. What? Bypassing a trip to his outer domain to peruse his kingdom infested with lowly squirrels, birds, and bunnies? Not like him. So he finally jumps off the chair and lands awkwardly. He doesn't want to put any weight on his right leg. And damn if it doesn't "look" funny too. Crap. It looks broken or dislocated. He won't put any weight on it and he's whimpering. It's close to 11pm and surgery is in the morning. What to do?

We make a late-night trip to Carolina Veterinary Specialists, the emergency clinic vets who literally saved his life in February 2002 when he experienced his spinal cord infarct. His rear legs are already quite weak from the "stroke", so an injured front leg would only compound his ambulatory hiccups. It appears that a bolus of fluid had in fact seeped outside of the vein and underneath the skin, inflamming his knee and radiating upwards to his axillary region. Between the swelling and him pulling his leg inward it looked deformed. Poor guy. Luckily nothing was broken, so it's just pain meds and a night of rest.

...except that the homegoing hydromorphone they gave him really FREAKED him out and scared him. He did not like losing control over his psyche. Panting was a side effect, but little did we know that each and every pant would be accompanied by a high-pitched squeal and crying. It was like staying up with youir druggie friend who dropped the blue acid instead of the red acid. Made for a night of literally zero sleep. Well, I shouldn't say that. Between 3am and 6am Chris got a good 10 minutes dozing each hour. 8 hours at Walgreens was an over-caffeinated smorgasbord of stimulants to say the least. And to think, the doggie emergency room gave us a syringe of Buprenex to squirt under his tongue overnight for pain relief if needed. Yikes, not after his experience with the Dilaudid!

Tuesday morning comes and Sam is still weak and disoriented and cannot stand on his own. Shit. Another x-ray at the vet's pre-op shows the stones have migrated dangerously close to his urethtral parts, and dislodging them from there would NOT be fun for ANYBODY involved. Will we have to tank the surgery because of his leg?

By lunchtime, the vet reports that he's up to standing and on his leash is pulling the techs outside "towards the taxi stand" telling them it's time to go home. Not so fast little buddy. Surgery is on.

After work today, Chris and Kimberly made their way to the vet's to visit with the post-op patient. Sam was sitting up and groggy, but he was more alert than we were frankly expecting. We stayed and petted Sam for about a half-hour before leaving to let him rest. Maxie, freaking out in her own right because Sam hasn't been basically been around for the better part of two days, gave us the third degree when we arrived home.

The surgery went well. The removed stones were remarkably jagged and rough. A residual fetal tubule that once connected to the umblilicus was removed. His teeth were cleaned while he was under. He'll come home Wednesday afternoon with some antibiotics and just Tramadol for pain. No Dilaudid. No Buprenex. And most importantly, no painful stones jiggling around in his lower abdomen.

Wednesday and a full complement of Gordons under one roof cannot get here soon enough!

Never a dull moment in the House of Gordon.