Hello readers! Our special needs anipal this week is Lucy, the sisfur of @Dixie_Belle. Her mama Elizabeth is going to tell her story, as Lucy herself has a jaw injury that makes it difficult for her to chat.

Hello Elizabeth, and welcome to The Anipal Times! Could you please tell our readers how Lucy came to be Dixie’s sisfur?

Dixie’s older brother Max passed away during Thanksgiving break, the same weekend I was diagnosed with cancer.  The house was just too quiet with only Dixie, so even while facing surgery/chemo/radiation, I knew I needed another furbaby.  I found Lucy on Petfinder.com just before Christmas, and the rescue group agreed to hold her for me over the chaos of the holidays. She had to wait not just because it’s a difficult time to join a family amidst regular holiday stress but that was also when my first rounds of radiation were scheduled to start. I gave her a pink blankie as a gift, so that it could come with her to our home with her scent already on it, to ease the transition.

She joined us just after New Year’s. I knew she only had one eye and vision problems. The right eye was removed a little over a year ago because the infection was very bad. She has depth perception problems because of that, which means that she can’t tell if she’s jumping off a cliff or just stepping of a curb. The only heights she deals well with are ones she knows very well, such as the living room sofa. She’s also reluctant to cross different surfaces because they look like they might be a drop off, like when a floor changes from carpet to tile. She’ll also run into things like the bed when she’s going quickly because she doesn’t realize how close they are.

Oh, poor Lucy! One of my human grannies is blind in one eye, and she has trouble with steps and curbs too because she can’t tell how high they are. How do Lucy and Dixie get on? I believe Dixie is a bit of a Queen Bee, MOL!

On the first day she was home, she immediately became best friends with her new sisfur Dixie, which isn’t easy for most dogs to do. Dixie is quite the royal princess (diva attitude) but somehow she was willing to let Lucy into her life. Dixie took up a shepherding role, almost as if she knew about Lucy’s vision issues. She keeps Lucy away from the drop off down to the creek in the park where they go for daily walks and Dixie also makes sure that she’s between Lucy and the traffic on the walk back home.

How wonderful of Dixie to do that for her sisfur! Could you tell us about Lucy’s jaw problems? I believe that came as a bit of a shock.

On the second day she was home, the vet surprised us by telling us that Lucy’s jaw was broken in three places! I had noticed her mouth was a little crooked and that her tongue was always out but she showed no signs of being in pain, so I was completely shocked. I attributed her difficulty eating to the stress of moving. She went through three different surgeries to correct it but in the end it could only be partly fixed. The damage had just been there for too long without proper help. The way the jaw is broken looks like it may be due to a fall, which traces it back to her vision issue. The bottom jaw is completely detached from the top, so it’s nearly impossible for her to shut her mouth or hold in her tongue. The lower jaw is held together with a series of wires, like a kid with braces.

She can only eat canned food, the ground up kind that’s been watered down, and no chunks because she can’t chew up the bits.  She does like to chew on a brush handle, probably as a way to exercise her cheek muscles, but she can’t do it for long.

Have Lucy’s health problems affected her personality at all?

Her personality is happy and bubbly. She is SO happy and kissy! Her entire attitude toward life is one big smile and trotting across the room into ANYBODY’s arms to kiss kiss kiss them! She’s constantly by my side and her personality is a welcome break to Dixie’s prima donna attitude. I don’t know how I would have made it through the chemo without her smiles and kisses.

In her free time, she loves to sun bathe and hide Dixie’s toy sheep (a #PawPawty present). She’s very sneaky about hiding things around the house like pens and socks. She seems to gather them under my bed like it’s a den and her personal treasure stash. Oh, and she loved the snow last winter! She happily hopped into snow much taller than she was and her only “temper tantrum” was when I had to make her come in out of the snow!

Thank you Elizabeth – I’m glad to learn that Lucy doesn’t let her problems hold her back from enjoying life to the full!

All photos provided by Elizabeth Applegate

Tagged as: @Dixie_Belle, blind dogs, jaw injuries in dogs, Lucy, partially-sighted dogs