School Update and Doggy Woes

The update I expected to post was about how wonderful things were going for Tehilla at school. So, I'll start with that.

School is amazing. Tehilla loves school. Loves loves loves! After the first day of school, Tehilla said, "Can I go to big girl school every day?"

The teachers are overly paranoid about Tehilla. They came to me on Day 3 and said, " We let her go out to the play-yard and we made her drink every 5 minutes but she kept sweating and looked flushed. Maybe she shouldn't be allowed to play outside?"

I said, "It's 32 degrees outside. That's normal to sweat. She needs to drink but not that much. It's good you're paying attention."

The teacher asked that we all sit down and I explain to them in more detail how to care for her. We are doing that tonight.

Now for the crazy that went on this weekend. Tehilla, in general, is getting a lot better with Sammy. She is being more gentle and handling her better.  Over Shabbat, we had our first sleepover guests and it overwhelmed Sammy.

Shabbat afternoon, Sammy was hurt accidentally by a kid. She growled and went to lay down. Tehilla went up to her face and started bugging the heck out of her and grabbed Sammy's face. Sammy jumped up and bit Tehilla around her eye.

We immediately applied pressure, but because Tehilla takes aspirin, the bleeding carried on for over an hour. I finally called the on call doctor who immediately referred us to the ER.

While gathering a bag to take to the hospital, the bleeding stopped. We weighed Tehilla's trauma of the hospital against the situation and decided not to take her to the ER and to follow up after Shabbat with the doctor for antibiotics.

An hour later, Tehilla was playing outside and she tripped and hit her same eye on the light fixture. The cut opened and it started bleeding again. That was that- we were going to the ER, even though it stopped bleeding after a half hour.

We got there and the staff was wonderful. They understood right away to give Tehilla space and not trigger any trauma. They were playful and let me handle everything, including cleaning her wound.

They assessed and felt the cut was clotting nicely and didn't need glue or stitches. We showed them Sammy's up-to-date immunization records. She is one shot shy of being fully vaccinated. They wanted an eye specialist to double check her eye to make sure that there was no damage.

We waited hours for the eye specialist who was kind and wonderful but needed the do a full examination of her eyes. While putting drops in to dilate her pupils, Tehilla freaked out and he had to pull on her eyelid. The cut wripped open and blood went all over. We got that bleeding under control. Her eye exam was completed and thank G-d, her eyes were perfectly fine. We got home at 1:00 am.

I'm grateful that in Israel there are strict protocols for dogs. It's unfortunate that we were on the wrong side of things. We were told to report to the Ministry of Health, 8:00 am to insure that Tehilla is fully vaccinated.

We showed up and were asked where our dog was. We said that we weren't aware we had to bring her. The woman explained that because she is not a vaccinated dog, the dog had to be quarantined for 10 days and we would be charged 2000 nis. I simply said, "No."

They called for the doctor and I explained that Sammy is vaccinated and is getting her last shot this week. I explained why Sammy was provoked and is a puppy and this completely is not her behavior. I explained that the dog is a therapy dog for my other child and provides emotional assistance. That taking Samny away would cause extreme distress for my kid. And that this wasn't a stray dog and there was no real threat.

The doctor calmly listened while I went all Momma Dog and said, "I understand what you are saying and it makes sense. These are our protocols. What you are saying is you don't want to open a file and that you are taking full responsibility. That you will watch your dog for 10 days and if anything comes up you will immediately seek medical attention."

I said, "Yes. That is what I'm saying."

She said, "Okay. Delay her shot by 10 days." She then told the woman in charge that we refuse to file.

Tehilla is home resting after barely getting any sleep. She is totally fine and did not pause for a second to snuggle and squeeze Sammy. We had a long talk about giving Sammy space and we will be holding off on sleepover guests for some time.

Whew!