The Skinny on the Skinnies

For those who didn't see on Sunday, we have a pair of bitty fosters joining Bast's shenanigans. Although there have been some hiccups as everyone figures out whose spot on the couch belongs to whom, Bast has been very curious about our new ladies.

Look, you can pee all over this and no one gets mad...

Our girls, like Bast, have some issues. They're wee, starved sisters who are guessed to be around mid content wolfdogs - so, a bit higher than Bast is. With as thin as they are, at times they look WAY more wolfy than Bast does....

Slinky stinky girls.

But other times they just look like skinny little deer.

Today, we took the girls to the vet to see where they stand on their health. Because of their weak bone growth, we were worried about them having canine Rickets, however the vet thinks things aren't as bad as that. We will have to wait until next month to do X-rays to check on their bone formation.

What we did find out this time was bad enough, sadly. Zelda, the flop-eared girl in the second picture weighs 23 pounds and her sister Midna tipped the scales at a whopping 20.3 pounds. To compare, another woofer we know who is their same age weighs 65 pounds...

So we need a LOT of good food around here.

Midna, the sweet little slinky girl, had an unfortunate surprise for us, as well. Her previous owners told me that she had a cut on her side from trying to escape her crate, but told me it was mostly healed. We shaved the fur back today and were greeted by an absolutely unreal stench...

This was the "mostly healed" cut. After washing away the pus, the vet said that at the very least, there is some good granulation on it and that if kept clean, it should heal over quickly.

Now Midna has her own very stylish cone of shame. We think she should be a martini for Halloween.

If you wondered if they could get more pathetic, the answer is yes.

We have a long road to go with these girls, and I can't help but feel a little bit of déja vu - it's like the last year and a half never happened and I'm right back in the trenches with Bast. The fearfulness, the neglect, the hunger... How can this have happened again?

Today, the girls needed to be alone for a few hours while I went to work. Absolutely routine, absolutely harmless... and it absolutely terrified me. Bast has been so good about being okay in the backyard that I've forgotten what it's like to be actually nauseous with worry over a sneaky, broken dog.

I sat on the bus taking me back to my car, fuming over its slow progress and feeling my fear in my stomach like I'd swallowed a cup of peach pits. What are they doing? Are they still in the yard? Are they okay? What if they get out? What if they get hurt? Can't this bus go any faster? I bet they're hungry...

Bursting through my back door to see them - all of them, Bastas and Grendel, too - in place, intact, and ecstatic to see me unwound all of that fear in the time it took me to get showered in doggy kisses.

I know that we have months and months of stress, fear, and worry ahead of us. I know the girls are a terrific amount of work and will probably break my heart over and over again, wear me down physically and emotionally, but they're here now, and they're happy, and we're going to get them healthy.

And that's worth a few gray hairs on my head.