gretchen, originally uploaded by estacey.

this is what i like to call "crunch week"

gotta finish up a bunch of stuff for tonight's class... this field experience log stuff.

have to do this huge powerpoint project and all my OTHER field experience log stuff by sunday for my other education course.

also by sunday i have to take my math final. ha ha ha. so unprepared for that. SO UNPREPARED, and that is an understatement.

uhhhh... yeah.

we didn't go to key west this weekend. long story. basically, we have seen gretchey and maggie fight twice. once when we had company over. it was kinda scary; i separated them. we decided it was them trying to figure out who was alpha.. so far it's been gretchey.. she humps both the boy dogs and is the toughest and fastest doggy.

well, they fought again thursday night, when gretchey growled at her over a toy. it ended when maggie got terrified and came and jumped on me. only afterwards, gretchey's chin was bleeding. just a tiny bit, but still. whenever gretchey and the boys fight, it's not for real.. never to draw blood. it's always playing. i called chris in to clean it off while maggie huddled on my chest, still scared... chris found another wound on gretchey's neck/back from earlier in the day (it appeared). it was deep.. and smelly. we took her into the ER... they sedated her and flushed the wound, sutured another cut, put a drain in the big puncture wound, and now she's been wearing a cone around her head ever since.

i guess maggie doesn't know what play fighting is. in retrospect, she did have little scabs on her head when she came to our house.. and this lady at work said that her pound puppies have really possessive over toys and treats. i am guessing that since there was so little in the shelter.. i only saw one tennis ball in the enclosure, just one bed, communal dishes... and maggie was pretty skinny.. i dunno. but she obviously fought there, even though she is sweet as can be and pretty scared of the other dogs.

also, gretchey and buddy gang up on her. they chase her around the outside, barkind and barking and barking. she ends up crouched down and scared. before i realized she actually hurt gretchey, i was HOPING she'd stick up for herself. just, you know.. not go this far.

two minutes after they fought, maggie and gretchey were licking each other's faces, so i guess there are no hard feelings, but we have had to instill some rules. gretchey is inside today, until she gets her drain and cone off tonight, then maggie will have to stay crated while we're gone during the day from now on. once we see there are no instances of fighting - or getting close to it - while we're there for a while, we can start leaving them outside together, unattended. if everyone's still safe for a while, then everyone can be outside together again, alone, all day.

i feel bad for maggie, having to be in the crate all day, but there is really nothing else we can do. if this were long-term, we could maybe block off half the backyard or something, but hopefully it won't be...

i was really worried thursday and friday, but it's turned out to not be so bad. we just don't leave them all alone outside at the same time. that just means they're all inside most of the time, or maggie or gretchey comes inside. :) gretchey AND maggie slept inside on sunday night with us.. it was quite cute.

anyway, enough of my doggy babble. back to work!

¶ 11:42 AM