And Then the Dog Got Run Over

A more sober post this morning.
Our dog, that little white mutt that stinks so tremendously that he has to sit in the trunk of the car because we cannot support his funk while driving, suddenly crossed the street at 6:45 this morning, just as a car passed by.

 

Spike

There was a 'thunk', and then some yelping, and the dog was down. The owner of the car stopped, but it wasn’t his fault. The dog should have been leashed. We carried him to the door (it happened right in front of our building), but blood was pouring out of his mouth; He was rattling and groaning and snorting, couldn’t get up, and he let everything run.

And so there we stood (we, as in 'hubbie, housekeeper, old aunt, daughter and I', for the entire family had gone down to see once it happened. The only one able to sleep soundly through this entire ordeal, was,  of course, the teenager)

 

What to do now? Vets don’t open until 9:00 AM. Hospitals won’t take animals.  We carried him back up, laid him in his box, and sort of stood by to see what would happen. We had little hope. It looked like he was hemorrhaging. We all assumed that the rattle was a death rattle, and we were sort of expecting this sudden hiving of his little chest, some last attempt to breath, and then silence. The entire household, old aunt and housekeeper included,  was in tears.

The owner of the dog, my daughter, was terribly distraught. “I’ve had that dog half of my life,” she cried. And indeed, when you are ten, you can have a dog half your life.

 

Hubbie and I have each been through numerous pets, and we know; a dog or a cat does not live forever. They die, you get a new one, and life goes on. I once had a cat that got caught in the lawn mower. He survived.

My daughter had to go to school, I had to go to work, we could not bring him to the vet before 9 , and so hubbie got the job of ‘taking’ care of the dog. That was a bit of a euphemism. How much ‘care’ did he need? He was about to die.

 I was interviewed by a blogger last week, who asked me if I could describe what my blog was about. Well, it started out as a witness of changing times. The very first Arab Spring, as far as I am concerned. Then it sort of merged into some sort of link to the home front. It moved towards the direction of journalism, and I would publish my newspaper stories here, and then I would publish all that stuff that my newspaper couldn’t take. It’s been a photo blog at times, and a place to share funny things and adventures and things that would surprise me about this town. I’ve had times where I would write about the ‘old days’ in Lebanon, or how I like living here. I’ve tried to analyze why this place is so special, and I have reported on daily events in our family. But I cannot really pinpoint what this blog is all about. Everything and nothing really. Life, maybe.

You could call me a ‘housewife with a hobby’, except that I am not a housewife. I cannot even cook. Some people quilt, others paint, I blog. Writing is therapeutic, and in my case, and it helps me gather and organize my thoughts. But I digress. 

Spike, the dog, in better days

The dog?

Oh, well, he’s tougher than we thought. He’s still alive.
I think that when he saw the old aunt shed tears over him (yes, even the aunt was crying, the aunt that hates all animals with a vengeance that equals Russian Road Rage), he got a sudden breath of life.

He’s still at the animal hospital, apparently with a broken pelvic bone, a broken rib, a punctured lung and a serious concussion. He's holding on, responding, but there's nothing they can do but wait. If he makes it through the coming 24 hours, he'll live. 
If not, well, we'll deal with that when we get there.