Date: Aug 27, 2008 8:00 AM

Sally is home and doing well. She hates the NO LICK cone of dryness. She has to
wear this huge plastic cone to keep her from "playing" with the staples
in her hind leg, about 4 inches worth. I did trim about 2 inches so she could turn
around in the great crate.....she's learning to eat and drink with it on. We
took it off for about twenty minutes of close supervision and YUP, she has to have
it on when we're gone. Those darn staples are just too intriging for her to
leave them alone without constant reminders.

So now, she has a titanium implant in her knee. When David wrote the 4 figure check
at the vet's, I gasped. He shook his head. That was only the "balance
due" not the total. This dog better never get hit by a car, that's all
I can say. I do love Sally more than the Harley, but she's just a dog fer gosh
sakes!

Her drugs have worn off, except for the ones she gets every 8 and 12 hours. She
does not like the little white ones. They must taste pretty bitter. Unfortunately,
she learned all the peanut butter and cheese tricks when we were giving her motion-sickness
tablets. She can cheek and "return" meds with the best of them. Even
pill she's swallowed can be made to magically reappear.

Since she has to be confined for 6 weeks, we are going to get her some weight reduction
diet food. It will help her knee if she's a bit less hefty, plus she's
a lot less active and I don't want her putting on even more weight while she
lazes around the house. Riley is her main aerobics instructor, chasing and romping
around the yard for hours every day. I had worried about Vida taking Riley to her
apartment, that Sally might get fat when Riley left. Well, Riley's still here
and that's not the problem.......it may have been the cause.

David has fixed the steps that he chooses to blame for the accident that tore out
her ligiments. I just hope she can heal without infection or rejection. Yukon
gave the new steps his "boy dog blessing" this morning, which I promptly
stepped in....grr. He is so fired up about chasing this hard ball around the yard
that he has broken the skin on his ankles where he bats it with his front paws,
and still won't stop. I've put that toy up, until he heals. Riley keeps
trying to convince Yukon that she is also an interactive toy, but he prefers plastic
to fur. She sounds so ferosious, yet, he ignores her completely. They do tentative
romps in the house, where she bows, wagging, and he puts a paw on her back. Riley
whirls away and nips his cheeks, daring Yukon to chase her. The "big dummy"
just looks puzzled and puts another paw on her head. She keeps trying. (They do
not play unsupervised.)

Sally is back in her cone, back in her crate, fed, watered, and pill-filled. I
will dash home at lunch to let her walk on a leash for a few minutes. I am just
so happy to have her home...the shaved area of her flank proves that her stripes
are more than fur deep. Gotta go. KIM