Oh, Dear.

So, Ripley officially has auto-immune polyarthritis. It is an auto-immune disease not unlike lupus but in Ripley's case, when her body decides to attack itself, it focuses on the joints. She is on steroids and the hope is that this is her one and only bout. It isn't genetic. It is just bad luck. Given that she also had an ectopic ureter (another stroke of bad luck), this is not the world's luckiest pup.

While in the hospital, they had to tap her joints they were so swollen. Later that day, she looked like this...

Happy to see her Mama but clearly NOT OK. My poor girl. She is home now. She will be on steroids, antibiotics and pain killers for awhile. She is not her normal nutty, chaotic, full of energy self- she is about 40% of that. It makes me terribly sad. To see her so not full of life... That being said- she is LOVING her new home cooked diet! Of course, the steroids increase her appetite so maybe not but I think it is just the magic with which I boil a chicken that has hooked her. Hee hee.

Among the hardest parts, vainly enough, is that in order to tap her joints, they had to shave her legs. They did it for its medical benefit and not at all for look. Yesterday, some old Greek lady walking by, asked me- "why I put socks on dog?". I wanted to shove a baklava up her ass. (Spanakopita in her pie hole?)

Anyway, nowadays, Ripley looks like this...

I think I especially like how someone must have hit her side with the shavers because there was no procedure done there and the shaving doesn't go to the skin...

If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny.

So, that is our crazy scoop. The plague that I have had for almost a week seems to be going away and that's great 'cause I was going to start stealing some of Ripley's antibiotics soon!

In the meantime, I watch her breathe a lot and try to remember we need to take this recovery slow.

And I gotta boil more chicken!