Introducing Otto

After years and years of talking, we finally went for it and got a dog. We just love him. We started off by trying to adopt a dog from a woman who seems to rescue them as a side hobby. Noble work, but she was an odd duck, and never seemed too interested talking to us. After a couple of visits, we left feeling dejected. We halfheartedly agreed to stop by the pound on the way home--having been there before, we knew that it's a spot for dogs that are either really big or really old.

I was totally drawn to this little Lhasa apso that looked like a living mop. But next to her was a scrawny black chihuahua that Aaron absolutely fell in love with. Don't get me wrong, I love a good, non-yippy chihuahua, but this guy was a little bigger than I usually like, and SO trembly and jittery. But the mop dog was 10 years old...so sad that older dogs get left behind like that, but for our first pet it didn't seem like a good idea. And the more I looked at the chihuahua, the more I was into him.

So we took the little guy home, and now his name is Otto. He doesn't seem to speak English, as he comes from an Eastern European (or something) family that dropped him off at the shelter the day before. Must have been a traumatic 24 hours for him, but he came home with us.

I know! (his eyes aren't blue, the just photograph that way. It's like canine red eye.)

I took him to the vet this morning and discovered that he has...an infected anal gland. Oh yes. His anal glands got impacted and infected, so they had lance it (all together now, ewwwwwwwww). We finally got him home in the afternoon, all doped up with the pathetic plastic cone around his neck. Poor fella. All he's done tonight is sleep and throw up. Only once, but it was quite nasty. He's back asleep now, so let's hope it all wears off by tomorrow, and his butt heals nicely.