Shelbie.

This is our pup, Shelbie.  I shouldn't really say she's a pup, she's actually about 6 1/2 years old.  And she's not little.  She's a fairly big dog, but as mellow as can be.  She's a boxer/st. bernard/huskie- (we think).  She's kind, gentle, friendly, and completely harmless.  She knows some great tricks, and even lets the kids ride around on her back.  One of our cabin friends once told us that she has 'good manners'- and that is exactly right!

I wouldn't normally write a post about our dog...but we thought we were going to lose her last week,  and I decided that I needed to capture her in a post that we can look back on one day to remember how important she is to all of us.
Chad and I had Shelbie for 2 years before Eliott came along.  We spoiled her rotten and treated her like she was our 'kid'.  Ever since we've had kids we've realized that we've kind of just taken her for granted.

Until last week when she was too sick to get up and move.  We didn't know if she would make it through the night.  We were sad, and upset, and heart-broken about it. I was so worried about how we would tell the kids.  We were thinking the worst.  

We checked on her before we went to bed, and had her all covered up and cozy in her house.  We were both so worried about going out the next morning, and wondered how we'd find her.  We went to work that day, and both of us thought about her all day.  We couldn't get her in to the vet until later that day, and were just hoping she would make it that long.  My father-in-law had to pick her up and take her in since Chad and I wouldn't have been home in time.  I made arrangements for my brother-in-law to pick the kids up from daycare that day, because I honestly thought that we might be putting her down, and I didn't want them to be there to see that.

I was completely shocked when I walked into the clinic, and the vet told me she walked in all on her own!  I was so happy!!!  The vet did an exam on her and was noticing that her back hips were a little sore.  He also found that she had 4 porcupine quills embedded in her face, and had to remove them with forceps!  He then did some blood work on her, which gave us our answers.

She had lymes disease, along with another tick-borne illness called anaplasmosis.  We were actually pretty relieved to have some answers, and were happy that it is something we can cure.  He gave us 75 pills for her.  3 a day for 25 days, and he told us we'd have a new dog in 48 hours.  He was right!   She is running around like crazy- and the kids are enjoying every minute of it.

We realize that we can no longer take her for granted, and have been showering her with extra attention.  With the scare she put us through, we decided that we aren't going to leave her back from the cabin any more.  She has earned herself trips to the cabin all summer- We are just happy that she is still with us!