Even though Maggie has died, I am not without canine companionship. I still have Marty who came with a story and a history. She has been with us about a year and a half now. She is very loyal to me and stays with me 24/7 when allowed. Because she cries nonstop when I leave, I try to oblige her. She has her own spot in the Suburban and loves to go for rides.
Marty came here bleeding from her bowels. Large-sized dry dog food arrived with her which helped me understand why she was so very thin. She could not eat it easily because she has very few teeth. That's why her tongue sticks out most of the time. We have her on soft foods, and she soon was at a healthy weight with a shiny coat.
She has nightmares that terrify her and give me a good scare at night. When she has these nightmares, she will run around the bed and sometimes jump on top of me while she is shrieking. I wake up fast when it happens! She has also run right off of the bed to land hard on the floor. Thankfully, she is not having those horrific dreams as often as she was.
Marty is hard of hearing which has grown worse since we've had her. She also has cataracts which limit her vision. She sometimes barks at our family members until she knows who they are. She can see better peripherally than she can straight ahead.
She is 12.5 years old. She sleeps deeply, so someone arriving home can surprise her and set her to barking until she realizes who it is. I am very fond of Marty, but since she sleeps 90% of the time, she is not a lot of company.
Sometimes we will find another home for a dog we take in and get back to health. Marty will try to bite, but she can't really leave a mark because of her lack of teeth. She's a little harder to understand and live with than most dogs. Because she has had such a rough go with things and because I understand her, I decided early on she would live out her life here with our family.
She lived most of her life in a tiny crate, so living on our farm is a big change for her. She loves a hike! Especially somewhere new! That is when she comes to life and wants to keep going and going even when she is tripping over vines and branches she can't see well. She resists a little when it is time to turn around and go back to the car. We have to keep an eye on her because she will "get into her nose" and fall behind. Her enthusiasm for hiking makes me want to keep going.
When Marty arrived, there was so much bright red blood coming from her bowels I thought she was going to soon die! Lots of love and nutrition turned things around for her. She still has her idiosyncrasies, but she has been a fun little package to open layer by layer. She's a sweetheart if you can look through her weird little ways developed from her former living conditions.
