How We All Survived...Why the stress

The visit of 2 adorable puppies presented itself as stressful, but we used several tools to do our best to make sure everyone (dogs and humans) survived.  Before I share what we did, I think it would be helpful to know why it was a potential disaster.

During the previous visit from my in laws, when they only had 1 puppy, Padme was damaged twice.  Padme is our senior Rat Terrier/Chihuahua mix.  She weighs a whopping 5.5lbs, has typical sight and hearing loss for her age and can be cranky at times.  When she is cranky she can quickly get herself into trouble.  Her tiny frame does not stop her from telling off another dog, but if they don't listen she doesn't have much ground to stand on.  

The first attack during the previous visit was by Molly.  Molly has her confidence issues, too.  What we think happened is one of the girls (Molly or Padme) were sleeping on the couch when the other girl (Molly or Padme) jumped on the couch where the slumbering one had been.  That caused a quick fight and Padme had a bite wound to her eye area.  I was not home at the time and no one else had seen the incident.  When I returned home I was shocked to see Padme's face and rushed her to our vet.  It was very close to her eye.

Later in the day the second attack occurred.  It was a combination of a cone to prevent Padme from rubbing her face and a highly aroused Curly.  Curly had become aroused by playing outside with the hose.  He really gets a kick out of chasing the water sprayed around the backyard.  He is also not a fan of other dogs in cones, because if they run into him it hurts.  This combination of high arousal and seeing Padme in the cone outside triggered him to go after her.  It still bothers me knowing my darling Curly could do that to little Padme.  He caused a tear of her skin in the neck area.  To say it was horrible is an understatement.  Off to the ER vet for staples.

It's been months since this all took place.  The fact that I know how our dogs are, know about arousal and stress made it that much harder for me to recover.  I sobbed every time I looked at poor Padme's injuries.  She actually taught me a valuable lesson on our way to the ER vet. As my husband drove us there, I holding Padme, she just looked out the window like we were on a fun ride.  What?  Here she had an open wound on her face and now neck, but her focus was on her love of going for a ride.  Looking at her perspective has helped me move on since she moved on so quickly.

Next, management, exercise and more management.