Bubbles and Bananas

Ms. Bubbles had her follow-up appointment with her vet yesterday and she is healing well! She does still have to wear the bandage over the puncture wound in the back and the cone of shame. She is also still on antibiotics to continue to fight any bugs that might be lingering in her wounds but she is doing well!

The view during our walks

Happy girl in her cone of shame

As you know, I had to return her to the kennel last weekend after I moved into a month to month that does not allow dogs over 25 pounds. She hadn't seen Edge in about 6 weeks at that point and Edge had been in the kennel for 2 weeks. When I brought Bubbles in, I let her and Edge sniff each other through the fence of his kennel first. They were both wagging their tails, so I figured things would be fine.

I brought them both out into an open area of the kennel on their leashes and they did the normal circling each other to sniff the other one's butt. As soon as Edge turned to sniff Bubbles in her face, she growled at him. I separated them and things were fine for about a minute until Edge wanted to get in her face again and she growled at him. Poor Edge has been cooped up and just wanted to play with his sister...he was completely clueless as to why she would be so uptight! Of course Bubbles is still afraid of other dogs and Edge's hyper behavior didn't help.

To try to ease the situation, I had the kennel worker put Bubbles in a kennel and I took Edge for a walk to try to get him calmer. When we returned from the walk, I had the kennel worker take Edge from me and put him into a kennel and then try to move Bubbles into the same kennel to see how they responded to each other. I was thinking that maybe it was because I was there and Bubbles had been the only dog with me, so maybe a jealousy response...? But within 10 seconds of Bubbles being in the kennel with Edge, she growled at him again. So the kennel worker put Bubbles in her own kennel and to this day they are still in separate kennels.

So I go to the kennel every day to walk the dogs (separately) and then give Bubbles her medication and change her bandage. I suppose routine is good although I could do without the 30 minute drive (one way) to get to the kennel! :-)

Today a group of us went to the Talofofo Banana Festival to check things out. There were some baked goodies to be eaten, some plants to purchase, fruit juices to drink, and meat on a stick! Here are some pictures:

Plants for sale

Bananas!!

The many benefits of bananas

View of the beach near the festival

More of the beach

Free At Last!

I am out of the house!! YAY!! So this past week has been a lot of ups and downs. Murphy's law ruled the week but the one major good thing is that I am currently residing in a lovely three bedroom condo in a high rise that does not have a crappy landlord or attack dogs...in fact there is a security guard at the entrance of the parking lot.

Here's what happened...last Monday I heard from the leasing agent working with the landlord (who has been in Taiwan this whole time) that she would not let me out of the lease because she didn't want to pay the security deposit back. The stereotype I was unaware of until now...apparently the Chinese are all about the money and my landlord is Chinese (former landlord). No sympathy about the fact that Bubbles was attacked because the fence the landlord had in the yard was inadequate. I did seek legal counsel about this and according to Guam laws a dog being attacked is not enough of a reason to break a lease. If I had been attacked then it would be different but dogs don't count. The only thing JAG could do for me was to write a strongly worded letter to the landlord but I don't know how effective that would have been since they couldn't legally do anything to the landlord.

Seeing as how the landlord had already dragged things out, I didn't want to wait to see if the letter would work or not. She wouldn't have received it until April 18th at the earliest (when she returned from her trip) and then I could definitely see her waiting to respond and making me stay in the house for the entire month. I wanted out of the house now! So I told the leasing agent that I would forfeit my deposit if she let me out of the lease and gave me back my pet deposit....and that is what happened.

Then I was on the hunt for a place to move so I could get out quickly!! In the meantime, I had gone up to the kennel to visit Edge and see how he was faring. Those of you who have met Edge know that he tends to be a bit hyper. Evidently Edge was not happy being cooped up (no shock there)....his harness has been hanging on the fence that forms one wall of his kennel and he chewed it up so that it is now unusable. Excellent.

Wednesday rolled around and I had found a place I liked and went to put a deposit down. The deposit is supposed to be $500 and I used a credit card. First, the girl helping me accidentally charged $300 instead. So I signed for that and then they ran the card again for the remaining $200. The card declined. We thought maybe it was because they had just run the card, so they were going to try again later. I left to run errands and didn't really think anything of it. About an hour later I got a phone call from the Condo office saying that they made a mistake and accidentally refunded my card $300! LOL

So we tried to fix the problem but my card wasn't working. I finally called the credit card company only to find out that there had been a fraudulent charge on my card and they had frozen the account! Inconvenient but I am glad the company is on top of things like that. So we got the deposit issue all straightened out.

Then I got a call from the kennel where Edge is staying....they discovered that he has a tapeworm! He didn't get it here on Guam, apparently when the dogs had fleas back in November/December, he must have swallowed one. The vet said the tapeworms take months to develop. Luckily the treatment is a one time pill but I had to get one for Bubbles too because she also had fleas at the same time. Fabulous.

After all that hoopla, the move into the new place was easy and quick!! Jessica, Emilee, and Nikki helped me out and we were done in about an hour. They were awesome! Bubbles is now back in the kennel...unfortunately she could not come with me to the new place. They have a 25 pound weight limit on dogs but at least I know she is safe now.

The new place has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It's fully furnished, comes with a washer and dryer, and utilities are included along with internet and a land line phone. I am feeling like a normal person now and can finally sleep through the night without waking up because I am anxious/worried about getting out of the other place!  Here are some pictures of the new place:

Kitchen and living room

Kitchen

Awesome Jacuzzi tub!

View from my front door

The high rise

Pool and grounds

View from my balcony

View from my balcony 

Attack!

This past week has not been a good one. As you know, we had chosen a house in town to move into on April 1st. I had moved our stuff from the hotel in the morning and then went to pick up Bubbles from the kennel so that she had some time to check out the house before the movers came. We had movers bring some temporary furniture (couch, floor lamps, coffee table, dresser, etc.) and another set of movers brought out our unaccompanied baggage. Everything went great and I had started to unpack items that afternoon.

Around 5 I realized that it had been awhile since Bubbles had been out, so I took her to the front yard on her leash. For those of you who do not know Bubbles, she has a tendency to eat things that aren't necessarily food and I hadn't had a chance to inspect the yard, so I wanted to make sure she didn't get into anything she shouldn't. Sure enough there was a chicken egg in the yard that she was very interested in but I pulled her away before she could eat it. The neighbor's dogs were in their yard and at the fence separating our two yards; of course Bubbles wanted to go to the fence to sniff and say hi. We slowly walked to the fence; I didn't want her to lunge at them. As soon as we got to the fence, the dogs (two pit bulls) started barking at Bubbles and pushing at the fence. The crawled under the fence and began attacking Bubbles!!

I fell to the ground trying to protect Bubbles from the dogs and keep them off of her but I couldn't get them off. I was screaming for help and kept trying to protect her from the dogs. After about a minute the owner of the dogs came out but she's about 5 feet tall and there was no way she was going to be able to pull the dogs off, especially since they didn't have collars to grab. I kept prying their jaws off Bubbles but every time I got one off her they just bit her in another spot.

Two other neighbors came, one with a shovel and one with a rake, and they began beating the dogs to get them to stop. I don't know how long this went on but it felt like several minutes...it was probably less than five minutes. They finally got the dogs back to their yard and tied up with rope so they couldn't get loose again.

Poor Bubbles had several bites and puncture wounds, especially on her back. She could have been hurt much worse, they could have easily killed her, but she was definitely injured. The owner came back and was apologizing profusely while the other neighbor gave me directions to a nearby vet where I could take her to get checked out.

So it turns out that Guam does not have any emergency vet facilities on the island. I happened to get lucky and go to a vet that was open until 8pm (at this point it was almost 6pm and most vets are already closed). I did have to wait about an hour because the vet had other appointments that she was scheduled for already but she got in to see us and do a consultation. Bubbles ended up staying at the vet for two nights. She had to go on two types of IV antibiotics because the dogs here have a lot of germs in their mouths and bite wounds can become infected easily. They had to clean her up and clip her hair in a few areas to get a better look at the wounds.

This is the worst of the wounds right after the attack.

After getting Bubbles taken care of, the vet recommended I take myself to the emergency room to get my wounds looked at. Not that my wounds were serious, I had several scratches on my arms and legs and then a couple open wounds on my fingers from prying the dogs' jaws open. Luckily the wounds were all superficial, so I just had to clean them up with some antiseptic soap and put some antibiotic cream on them...no stitches needed.

Needless to say, I was very upset about the whole ordeal and did not want to go back to the house. I contacted my Realtor and told him about the attack. I also contacted Navy Housing so they would know about the attack as well. The landlord came to the house the next evening to apologize for the attack happening and said she would get the fence fixed and everything would be good (She's a Chinese woman and her English is a little broken). I told her that I did not want to stay at the house - I do not feel safe at the house and do not feel that it is safe for my dogs. I still had our other dog Edge coming onto the island and I didn't want a similar incident with him. The landlord didn't seem to want to hear what I was saying, she kept saying that once the fence was fixed, everything would be fine. (The fence is simply a chain link fence with no reinforcement on the bottom, so it was easy for the dogs to push at the bottom and crawl under. I have placed bricks at the base of the fence now to plug up any holes, but it is really just a temporary fix, the fence should be replaced with something much sturdier.)

After she left, I spoke to the owner of the two dogs, the husband, and he was also very apologetic. His dogs had never attacked another dog before, so he had no idea what prompted it. He also mentioned that he and his wife had just moved into their house about 2-3 months ago and before he moved in, he had asked the landlord (same woman, she owns both houses) to fix the fence. So now it's been 2-3 months that she has known the fence was an issue and it still hasn't been fixed or replaced!! That just made me even more convinced that I do not want to stay in the house.

Friday I spoke with Navy Housing again and found out that I have to get the landlord to sign a letter of release stating that she will release me from the lease on the house. My Realtor came to the house and took the letter of release to pass on to the leasing agent who works directly with the landlord. That evening I spoke with the leasing agent and he said he was having a hard time convincing her to let me out of the lease. Apparently she was very concerned about losing the money because she would have to give us back our deposit. Nice, huh? I reiterated my stance and stated that I absolutely did not feel safe in the house with my dog and did not want to stay there. I want to get out of the house as soon as I can. Later that evening he called me to let me know that he had convinced the landlord to sign the letter and he would email it to me once he received it.

The problem is that the landlord was scheduled to leave Guam on Sunday morning to go to Taiwan until April 18th. I was afraid she wouldn't sign it before leaving.....and apparently she didn't because it is now Monday morning here and I still haven't received the letter. I am really worried that she will try to screw me over by not signing the letter at all or by waiting to sign the letter. In the meantime, I found an apartment complex that allows dogs and does month to month leases for military families. The problem is that I cannot sign up for the apartment until I have that signed letter. Also, the apartment won't be available for about 1.5 weeks, so I will have to stay at the house until then....provided I get the letter.

So for the past few days I have been very stressed to say the least. I picked up Bubbles from the vet on Friday and she seems to be doing okay although she did not want to get out of the car when we got to the house. I can back into the carport so that she is completely hidden from the neighbor's yard and we can get into the house without the dogs seeing her. Now every time I take her outside, we have to go on the other side of the house, so she is out of view of the dogs. Poor thing is definitely more skittish now...the chickens in the yard startle her.

Bubbles is on two different antibiotics now and pain medication. The puncture wound in her back is the worst wound and has to be covered with gauze that has antimicrobial medicine on it and that has to be covered by an adhesive bandage which has to be changed every day. The neighbor who owns the dogs did pay the vet bill, so I am glad that I didn't have to fight about that at least. They have been very nice which is good. Here are pics of Bubbles now:

This is on her chest area.

This is on her side where she just had some bruising



Showing her bandage that she has to wear.



The puncture wound without the bandage.



As of now, I am still trying to get the letter of release so that I can make arrangements to get out of the house. In the meantime, Bubbles and I are trying to stay occupied and distracted. Yesterday she pushed the vertical blinds aside to look out the sliding glass door and saw the dogs in the neighbor's yard. She kinda growled and then came to where I was sitting....she was shaking! Poor thing definitely has PTSD. Hopefully the landlord signs the letter very soon and I will not have to worry about it anymore...keep your fingers crossed for us.