Sophie's World

3:00 PM (Central time): It's been a while since we posted, and we've been busy! As Randall mentioned in our last post, we took the girls to Lubbock last week for some check-ups. We started at the dentist, where both girls were very good patients. We set up appointments for both girls in July. Lizzy will be having a consultation with the orthodontist (no surprise there), and Sophie will need to get a few fillings. She has some minor holes in some of her front teeth (he didn't call them cavities), and they want to fill those to get her used to the process. One of her molars has a larger defect that will require filling but is more involved, and they thought doing the smaller filling first will help her feel comfortable later.

After lunch that day, Sophie had her monthly blood test. All her blood counts looked good, but the doctor was concerned that Sophie has continued to have headaches. She ordered a sinus x-ray, and it turns out that Sophie had a sinus infection. She's been on Augmentin since Wednesday and seems to be feeling better. Anyhow, we spent the rest of the day in Lubbock, shopping and enjoying ourselves. It felt like a Saturday in the middle of the week!

This weekend, it was Randall's turn to feel crummy. He spent Saturday in bed with a fever and sort throat. He managed to preach on Sunday morning, but his throat was on fire. He went to an urgent care clinic after church, and the lab was closed but the doctor though it looked enough like strep to prescribe antibiotics. He says he's feeling better today.

But here's the big news. I think we've been adopted by a dog (and we are cat people!). On Sunday morning when we pulled out of the driveway to go to church, we thought Sophie was using her active imagination when she said there was a puppy in the driveway. When we came home from church (3 hours later) to grab the other car, lo and behold, Sophie was right. There was a little dog laying on a pile of pine needles, sitting there, looking around. I thought to myself that it must have been injured to sit in the same spot for so long, but we had to head out so I couldn't check it out.

While we were out, we bought some dog food so we could at least feed it if it was still there. We came home, and the dog wasn't in the spot anymore, but she showed up at the side of the house not long after. I poured some food and water for her, and she ate every bit. I also noticed she was holding her leg up and had some healing sores, along with a black mark on her back. It looked to me like she had been hit by a car (but not recently). I poured some more food, petted her, made a little bed out a blanket for her on our porch, and tried to comfort her. She was right there this morning (has slowed down on the food), and whined at the front door all morning long (she seem to think we should let her in). She is incredibly gentle and sweet (can you tell where this is going?).

We took her to the vet this morning, and we have more information. The dog is a female, with a yellowish-red spotchy coat), about one year old and looks like a red heeler/Australian shepherd mix but with floppy ears, about 28 pounds. Although she appears to be somewhat neglected (underweight, broken teeth), her blood and fecal tests came back looking great (no parasites). She is either pregnant or in heat. But the worst thing is that she has a dislocated hip. The surgery is pretty costly, but we are going to do it anyhow. We can't bear to have the dog put to sleep. He said he's going to talk to some local rescue groups about maybe getting us some help.

We have really fallen for this sweet little dog (we think we're going to call her Butterscotch), so we'll see how things go. We need to figure out how to prepare our lives and our household for a dog!