Reuben came into my life when he was 9 weeks old. My
husband at that time is the one who picked his name. When Reuben
was playing at my feet, I asked my husband what
should we name him? He was working on a TV at the
time. He thought for a minute, I don't
know.......how about Reuben. So Reuben it was. It
just seemed to fit him.
Eleven days after Reuben became part of the family,
he woke me up in the middle of the night and he was
crying. He had thrown up in his crate. I comforted
him and cleaned out his create and put him back in.
When I got up at 6:00 in the morning, Reuben still
was not feeling well. I took him out to go potty and
he had diarrhea and it smelled really bad. I thought
to myself, OH NO it can not be. I paced the floor
till 8:30 when the vet opened and called him and
told him I had a sick puppy. He said bring him in.
After the vet checked him out...he confirmed my
fears.. it was Parvo.The vet said we can keep him
for several days and begin treatment, but we need
$350.00 up front. At that time I did not have it.
The vet said how about we do in-home treatment. I
will start him on antibiotics and you bring him in
every other day for intravenous fluids. It will be
rough and you will need to monitor him 24 hours. Can
you do it, I said yes I will do every thing that needs to
be done. I took my sick baby home and that was the
beginning of 3 months in fighting to keep him alive.
There was so many times I just did not think he was
going to pull through.
With lots of TLC and vet care, we were able to
pull him through. Reuben and I bonded very closely.
He would always be where I was following me from
room to room. He had become like my second hip. He
was my Ruby Tuesday dog, my big boy, my Reuben. As
Reuben grew so did our bond.
When we went out for walks, he loved to play with
sticks, he have me throw them and he bring them
back. He loved playing tug. He would grab one end
and kept trying to get me to take the other. He
would pull and pull until finally I could not hold
on and had to let go of the stick. He would dance
around and around with his stick. He was so proud.
No stick was ever to big for him. He even tried one
time to pick up a telephone pole, as he thought this
was a stick from heaven. |
