Doggy Don't!

Poor Raya! Her day started out really good. My mom woke up at 8:30 am and took her for a walk at the park right by our house. I got up at 9:30 and played with Evi and had breakfast and talked to Marcelo. And then I got ready to get into the shower for church at 11:00 am. As I was about to get in, my mom walked in with Raya.

I immediately noticed a difference. When she shook, there wasn't the usual collar sound that accompanied her shake. I then noticed that her tags were missing!! Her tag circle was stretched to capacity and I instantly realized that my mom had attached her collar to the wrong circle, and when Raya had pulled against her leash, she had pulled the circle and the tags came off.

No worries. They were tags that can be replace for about $3.00. And I thought we could go to the park and look for them and have a good time there another day. My mom was gushing about how Raya was just so good, and how she loved the park and how she loves to take her because she's just a dream dog. I was very proud of my little girl just then. You always get happy when your kids are good for the babysitter.

So I got in the shower, and when I got out I got ready and started dressing Evita. Marcelo was getting ready and so was mom. It was about 10:49, and basically time to start climbing in the car to drive to church. As I'm dressing Evi, I look at Raya and she's rubbing her face and trying to rub her face on the leather couch. The leather couch? How can that be refreshing? Well, my question was soon answered when Raya looked up at me. This is what I saw:






























I'm sorry if you weren't prepared for that. You can imagine MY shock at seeing my little girl so altered. You can see they are all over her face, her muzzle, her legs and the top of her head. For a second, I thought that she had incurred a horrible case of mange overnight. Because dogs that are about to die from mange look just like that, with the skin all puffy and jacked up.

And then I noticed the individual bumps on the top of her head (see picture #4, it shows the bumps the best/worst) And I knew it was bees. I said to my mom, "What happened? Have you seen her?" She said that she didn't notice anything the whole time they were at the park. She said Raya hadn't cried the whole time. I asked where she was sitting at the park and she said she was over by the bathrooms. I happen to know that there is a bees nest living in one of the broken park benches there right by the bathroom. I asked my mom "were there bees there?" and she said, "Yes, there were bees. They didn't come near me, I hardly even noticed them. When would she have been attacked?"

I don't know what my mom was doing, I can only assume she was talking on the phone when what had to be 300 bees attacked my little girl. I was paralyzed. What to do? Take her to the doggie ER? I took her there the night she got hit by a car, and I know how expensive it is. I was pretty sure she wasn't allergic because she would probably already be dead by now if she were. But I didn't know if there would be any other problems in the future. I decided to call the ER (the doggie ER) and find out.

They (of course) suggested we should bring her right in. I told them that I didn't think that she was allergic, but what could happen in the future? She said that if we didn't bring her in, we should watch for signs of shock. I said we were about to go to church, and she asked if anyone could stay home with her during church. Marcelo, my hero, volunteered.

He gave her a soothing bath, and when I got home, this is what greeted me:


Yeah!! All better!! She was almost completely back to normal. Oh, I was so happy. Marcelo she was great during her bath and she was very happy to play with him the whole time. I was just glad her eyes weren't swollen shut.

I'm just going to apologize to Raya right now. Apparently my family is really hard on dogs. I'm just glad this story had a happy ending and that my dog isn't dead. SORRY RAYA!!!