Stanley's Scary Story

During my blogging drought many things happened that caused me to think, "Oh, I must blog about this!". Our family furkids always provide a lot of funny stories to share, but this time it was quite scary and traumatic.

Stan is our Greyhound "grandson', who owns our son, The Writer and his wife, Sammy. He's been in the family for about four years now, so he's a "solid" Boston Family member.

Waiting for The Writer and Sammy

You may remember his early days with the clan as he adjusted to our ways, or rather we adjusted to his:

Stan the Man!

In April, Sammy and The Writer took some time off and headed back to our home state, Florida. The Maven was asked to watch after Stan in their absence. This has always gone smoothly before.

This time things took a scary turn as Mr. Stan decided to test the boundaries of his backyard retreat-something he's never done before. He slipped out unexpectedly and was missing for about 20 minutes before The Maven realized it!

She called us (1 hour away) in a panic. Panic for many reasons, Stanley is naive about traffic, the area of LA they all live in has a lot (I mean, a lot!) of traffic and well...he was out!

Leaving Animal Control

Fortunately our good family friends live right behind our kids, so The Maven called Mrs. Smith-Smith for help. Mrs. S-S and The Maven sprung into action armed with a leash, a pic of Stan and his adoption file.

We got into Mr T's truck and headed towards LA.

At the emergency vets

Time passed with many updates, but still no sightings or information about Stanley. I spent the ride composing a Craigslist ad and talking and texting with Stan's distressed parents who by this time had been told what was going on.

Home at last, recuperating in the backyard.

As we neared their neighborhood and swung our heads back and forth looking for a sign of him we got an update from The Maven and Mrs. S-S. Someone had given them the phone number to Animal Control and when they called they were told a Greyhound matching Stanley's description had been brought in....after being hit by a car.

The "nurses" supervising Stan's yard time.

Only people who have received this kind of news can understand the mixture of elation and fright this news brings.  We headed to Animal Control to meet The Maven and Mrs.S-S.

Expecting the worst, we were met with a "best case scenario". Yes, Stan had been hit, but there appeared to be no broken bones. He was extremely stressed, bloody and sore, but oh.....it could have been so much worse.

Long story short which included: an overnight stay at the Emergency Vet (because of course, this happened on a Sunday) for 24-hour observation;  the arrival of Mal-Pal (good friend of the Maven who was staying for a week); eventual release to go back home under 24/7 watch; TBL relocating up to LA for the week and conducting Japanese/English classes with Stan's assistance.

Quiet Teaching Assistant

We survived. Stanley was very bruised, had a torn trachea, punctured tongue. Medication was difficult to give because his tongue made it hard to eat, but he eventually could tolerate soft food in which we crushed up his pills. All in all a lucky dog. And lucky us.

Lessons learned:
 always check the gates. LA has an awesome Animal Control team which gives excellent trauma care to the animals brought in who are injured. Because we were able to identify Stan, he got further care to stabilize him before he was transferred (in Mr. T's truck) to the ER Vet. Micro-chipping your pets is a good idea-Stanley would have been ID'd quicker  (he can't wear tags as they fall off over his skinny head). Emergency Vets are really expensive (we knew this, but really? This much?).  Mrs. Smith-Smith is a cool cucumber during a crisis-Thanks Mrs. S-S!

Finally,
Stan's a great teaching assistant-nice and quiet and
 doesn't climb on my keyboard like my other TA does.

Phew!