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DaRk AnGel : Why Home : November 2006 : Be Biting Truth.

Be Biting Truth.

Destiny has been gone about six months now. Yet even now I well up. And it is entering the time of the year where I really miss her. See Destiny did not like the cold. And at night she would snuggle up and lay lengthwise against me. It was like having my own electric blanket dog. Her body heat kept everything warm and comfy.

Sera, occasionally will touch me. But for the most part her spot is the bottom right of the king size bed. Jezebel usually goes to sleep with her buttocks next to my head and her head at the other side of the bed. This usually is ok, unless it is one of the nights she has gas.. Occasionally she will turn around and I will find her head on the pillow next to mine.

Bentley.. Has made no attempts to get on either the bed or the furniture. Which for me is OK !! He can easily take up half the king size bed. He really is huge. And he sleeps on the floor beside me. I think he realizes he is just too BIG!!

I have written in the past about how each of my dogs seems to have a trait of me that is the main part of their personality. Yet none of them have all of me.

Destiny was a very loving dog. She was the peacemaker. She was my friend. I believe that her ability to love is what she took from my character. She could senese emotions and was always very very gentle.

But….

The vet actually named Destiny. I had gone through a couple of names, and the last two Danes I had gotten died before three years of age. The vet looked at me one day after giving her her shots and said, "you are destined to have a healthy Dane." And that is how she was named.

Anyways, it was a jinx..

Destiny had periods of time, well three separate periods in her life where she put her own life in danger. She would become fixated on a sore and refuse to leave it alone. She would become totally obsessed with it.

When she was spayed she was six months old. Well Des was a happy puppy and really wagged her tail. In the run at the vets she got a small nick on the end of it from banging the tip of her tail against the fencing that the run was made out of. I would catch her gnawing at or licking at it and tell her to leave it alone. But the dot of a wound started getting larger. I tried taping it, she ripped the tape off. I taped it and saturated the outer tape with Tabasco. It did not deter her. I then got a huge cone collar.. She was just pliable enough to reach around and get the tip. Then I tried bitter apple spray. Nothing worked.

It was the day I was having new carpet put in. Destiny and all the dogs were locked in the pen. It was a long day and at 5 it was finally done. I went to the pen and opened the door and saw blood all over the floor. Then I saw her tail. She had chewed it to the bone for about 2 inches. There was the regular tail, then just 2 inches of bone.

I rushed her to the vets. He amputated the very end of her tail, sewed her up and we headed home. But never got there. She had ripped the stitches out before we got halfway. I headed back, he re-stitched her.

That weekend I watched her like a hawk. No baths, no seconds apart, and when I slept I wrapped her mouth with tape. And she would struggle until she got the tape off, but usually that exhausted her and she would finally sleep. Sunday evening she was asleep on the sofa. I snuck in and showered as fast as I could. But she was sly. I don't think she was even sleeping. At that point of my life I was well, so I drove her to the emergency vets.

I was frustrated. Why was she so obsessed in doing something that obviously was not good for her, but caused her pain?

That week I dropped her at the vets in the morning and would pick her up at night. We, the clinic staff and myself, both fought to get past this. By the time the following Friday rolled around, I was beginning to think we were over the hurdle. Five days so far and the vet said he would take the stitches out Tuesday. I watched her Saturday and she seemed disinterested. Sunday though.. Well she ripped the stitches out again and again damaged more of her tail. Back to the emergency vets.

Monday morning I laid into my vet. I informed him that all of this really began at his clinic. With her tail hitting his chain link fencing. I was angry. Not so much by the thousands of dollars spent at this point, but by my whole life being totally disrupted over the past few weeks. As I spoke to him, Des had already been taken to the back and as I chewed the vets ass out, a vet tech came up and informed us that Des had again gotten to her tail.

Again I am not talking about little nibbles here, but chunks of her own meat. We had two options. Put her down or amputate the tail. Then hope that the cone would be able to stop her from getting to the stub.

That didn't work.

Destiny was sly and sneaky. She would lull me into complacency and when I was sure she would not, when I turned for one second, she would. She could get anything off her mouth or head and she could reach the stub. As I said - it was a true obsession.

After more trips to the vets and after more sew ups and another inch or so amputated, I told the vet - here she is your problem. You get her well, this all began here and stormed off. I was sobbing as I left. Angry, frustrated, hurt..

Every now and then an animal comes along that has this problem. Most die because of their own actions. It is some kind of psychological disorder. And yes I had to have a dog with that disorder. The two Danes that had died young, one developed epilepsy after pulling a bird bath down onto her head, the other had his stomach twist and even though we saved him, he then developed wobblers. The former died in bed beside me during a seizure late one April night. That latter I finally had to put to sleep. Didi - whom I wrote about on Halloween, had never made a sound during her seizures. The night she died, well she was screaming during the seizure. It was horrible. Then it just stopped, she just stopped… Everything froze in that darkened room.

Ten days later I went to the vets. Destiny's stitches were out, and she seemingly was past that episode in her life. He had lined the cage with movers pads, and kept her sedated for 10 days.

Within a week Destiny somehow got a gash on her side. I was terrified. But she reacted to it normally. Then for four years, she got the usual doggy skins wounds and bobo's without caring about them. I was thankful that finally I had a normal healthy Dane. Life was good.

After all of my health problems resulted in my being home bound, I saw blood one day. A small part on the front of her right leg, somehow got scraped. And she was licking it. Well dogs do that. But within the hour I knew we were in for another round. That one lasted over a year. I tried wrapping her leg, we even put a cast on it, but the bottom of the cast rubbed a sore and she just changed places. It was a horrible time. I ordered and tried everything I could think of. After a year the vet conceded and did something I asked him to for months. He gave me injectible sedatives. It took two times to get her to finally stop. First time I kept her high for a week, and she had a thin covering of skin, and when I took her off of the drugs, she went right at it. The second time I kept her out for 20 days. The skin was thin. It was a crap shoot, but she left it alone.

It was not that she was out.. It was that she was high. I mean she could walk, eat, crap, drink.. But other than that slept a lot. And would stumble around and weave like a drunk.

There was one more episode. A third, a few years ago. This time she had an open sore on the pad of her right foot. A very bad spot. But I nipped it in the bud immediately. Once I sensed that it was another obsessive one, I drugged her out for 2 weeks. And since she had not done major damage, it healed quickly.

I always said that Destiny was the dog that received my loving nature. She really was a compassionate dog. I miss her.. That was the trait that she took from me.

And this evening as I sat and watched the birds, I thought about Des and this weird condition of hers.

Then I realized I caused it. That was a quality she got from me. No, I do not chew my wounds…

But I do at times let little things get to me so deeply that I do real foolish things. As I am doing now at this time of my life. The sleep thing continues. And tomorrow I will get up and battle it again.

Each in our own ways we worked to destroy ourselves. Destiny did it one way, I do it another. The end result is the same, time passes, life passes, and we lost all as it passed wrapped up in our own self defeating obsessions.

I am sorry Destiny…