Skippy

After about four days of having Lucky around, it became increasingly clear that I was growing too attached to the little guy. My parents decided to step in and get another dog. Not just any dog, however. They got Lucky's brother, Skippy.

Now, I know you're probably getting all these nice warm fuzzy feelings about how kind both my parents are for not only thinking of me (finally) and being kind enough to seek out and adopt Lucky's brother. But before that feel-good feeling takes over you entirely, there's something you should know first.

Skip has been experiencing several major health problems.

When he was adopted, the Humane Society recommended that he be taken home immediately. He was suffering from what is known as Kennel Kough. Basically, it's similar to the Kindergarten Flu. You put a lot of dogs in one place, one of them comes in sick, and then the whole building is sneezing and coughing like crazy. Some dogs are better resistant to it, some are not.

Because of how highly contagious he was, we had to separate Skip and Lucky from each other until they got better. Over that time, we noticed more problems coming up. Skippy seems to have a bum leg sometimes, to which we are not sure what it may or may not be. Because he is sick, the vet cannot determine if it is a side effect from the virus he has or if he may have canine arthritis. He's only a year old, but that's still young enough to get it in dogs.

To complicate things even more, we've been doing a lot of back and forth between the quarantine area of my room where Skippy is and the "clean" zone where Lucky is. Lucky evidently caught something from this, but it's minor compared to how bad it was when we first brought Skippy home.

Recently, we were able to get Skippy healthy enough to reintroduce him to his brother. Apparently, three weeks apart is enough time for kin to become strangers. All this morning, there has been growling and nipping at tuffs of fur as Lucky is trying to reclaim his territory of the living room as well as our affection and general attention towards him. Skip will growl back, but it is in defence. Lucky wants to be the alpha. We're going to have to fix that, because we thought the two of them would get along better. They are brothers.

For now, we are keeping an eye on them and only interfering when needed. Lucky is learning how to share the hard way by being shooed off from areas of the living room Skippy wants to sit or lay down on, and I'm keeping an eye on Skippy's walking ability to make sure it has nothing to do with canine arthritis.

As much as I love these little guys, this is just complicating my life more so than I need right now. But, for what it is worth, whenever I'm with either of these mixed mutts, I'm able to forget about my problems. That is until they start exhibiting their own problems that sends me into a worried state similar to that of a mother who lost her child in the playground.