So the last week of January, following my flu, I started to get daily horrible headaches. They happened multiple times a day and they became more and more intense. On Friday, 2/1, I tried to call Paul's new doctor to get an appointment. They told me they are not accepting new patients! I asked if they would make an exception since my husband is a patient. They took down the info and told me they would contact me if they accepted me. It is now Tuesday and I have not heard back so I assume the answer is no. I guess I should have called a long time ago when I was first referred to him, but I dread going to the dr and I never thought that he would not be accepting new patients, especially since Paul just saw him for the first time a couple of weeks ago. On Saturday, I had another horrible headache early in the morning. I ended up going to the ER. They did a CT scan and it came back normal. They concluded that these are tension headaches. They prescribed me some medicine and so far it has been helping...I have avoided any major headaches. The test will be when I stop taking the medicine, but since I broke that cyle of daily headaches I am hopeful that they won't get that bad again. Somehow, though, I need to control my stress. I have no idea how I am going to do that.
Sunday, Paul and Nathan took the dogs for a walk. Our dogs were on a leash, but a smaller dog who was not on a leash came running up to Bella. Bella went into defense mode and attacked the dog. She had it in her mouth shaking it all around. She would not listen to Paul to drop the dog. He had to physically get her to let go of the dog. It was traumatic for Paul. We ended up going to Petsmart and talking to some people, particularly one of their dog trainers. Our dog was not at fault. She was leashed, the other dog was not and that dog approached her. Furthermore, it could have been an isolated incident considering she had the disadvantage of being leashed when the other dog was not. Still, it concerns us because we want to make sure she does not do this kind of thing again and that she never hurts any of us. Nathan is often times picking on the dogs, but so far Bella has been really great with him. Tulla seems more scared and often tries to get away from him because she is afraid he will hurt her. So, we signed up for dog training at Petsmart, starting next Sunday, 2/10. A friend of mine who works with dogs is worried about this trainer, particularly because she is talking about using a muzzle at first. I hope this training does not backfire and actually make Bella more aggressive. We are at least hoping that training will help us to get Bella to listen to us because right now she does not listen very well. She seems like a great dog and I know moving in with a new family is an adjustment for us all so we are hopeful that this will all work out. We really do not want to have to get rid of Bella and separate her and Tulla. We also do not want Tulla to ever turn on Nathan because the trainer is telling us that it is usually the timid, scared ones who become more aggressive when provoked. I don't know how much stock I put in that considering Tulla has much the same personality as Nina. Nathan picked on Nina, too, but Nina never hurt Nathan and was a great dog her whole life with us.
We found out that Bella and Tulla are not up to date on their shots like the previous owners told us. Thus, we are getting them exams and vaccinations this Saturday, 2/9. I also looked up Tulla's profile on petfinder.com and they have her listed as a shepherd/pit bull mix. I think the previous owners were afraid to tell us that she was part pit bull. It is probably a good thing because after taking Tulla home we realize that she is a real sweatheart. She is timid and scared, though.
To make matters worse, the trainer mentioned that Petsmart Hotel will not take a dog who does not get along with other dogs and they do not take pit bulls. So, when we go to Chicago in May we may have a challenge with their boarding. Hopefully, training with Bella will help her and we can get her to interact well with other dogs. As for Tulla, we will just not mention to Petsmart Hotel that she may be part pit bull because to be completely honest we are not sure exactly what kind of mix she is. Our other alternative is to find another boarding place and the trainer has recommended two or three different ones. However, they will probably still have to be evaluated by those boarders before they accept them.
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