The tale of the three legged dog

Sorry for the time between posts, but I have been distracted elsewhere for the past few days.

One thing I have discovered about blogging is that I write about what's on my mind, at the moment I sit down at the keyboard. Because this blog is primarily about World of Warcraft, when other events in my life are dominating my thoughts I get torn between whether I should blog about non WoW things or not. The risk is that the majority of my readers are not overly interested in life away from Azeroth.

Because of this I tend to shy away from non WoW posts, but this does leave me without an outlet for my thoughts which I have come to rely upon, when other things are on my mind . So dear reader, indulge me as I post today on a topic that is not going to give any insight into gold making. Instead today I will talk about Tuvok and how she breaks my heart ever time I see her.
Tuvok is one of my dogs. I have mentioned them before - as Bree and Tuvok are where the name Breevok comes from.

Tuvok is my oldest dog. She is also the first dog that I ever actually was the parent of, having been a cat person my whole life. Currently Tuvok is unwell, with a torn cruciate ligament. The injury itself is non life threatening but I get emotional every time I see her hobbling around on three legs as we await the surgery that is just around the corner.

Tuvok is a lab/staffy cross with suspected bits and pieces from elsewhere. She arrived one day out of nowhere about 4 years ago. I was at work and received a text message saying "I want to buy a dog, put $1000 on the credit card". I laughed as I thought Cat was joking, but being a sensible male I transfered the cash just in case she wasn't.

It was lucky I did, as Cat wasnt joking and I arrived home to find a 16 week old young dog looking wide eyed at me.

Now I've nothing against dogs. When I grew up I lived on farms and throughout my life I've spent a lot of time with farm dogs. But I was a cat person. I always loved the aloofness of cats, their independence, their general contempt of everyone else but themselves. When Tuvok arrived we had four cats, and I to be honest I never really understood what the whole fuss was about.

I was wrong. I admit that. Dogs are the most amazing of animals - their loyalty and the sheer joy they display when they are around you is unlike anything I have every experienced. Much as I love my cats and adore each and every one of them, being knocked over at the door when you arrive home after a shit day at work really is the only way I've coped with some of the pressures of the past few months. Occasionally the cats greet your at the door and weave between your legs, but you know deep down that its because their food bowl is empty not because they are ecstatically pleased to see you.

It amazes me that I can pop out to the local dairy to grab some milk or a packet of smokes and when I return five minutes after I left, both dogs treat you as though you've been gone for week. But they do this without fail, and the reassurance this gives to a person is, for me, immensely important.

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Tuvok's name comes from the fact she's got funny ears and therefore is named after the Vulcan of the same name from ST:Voyager. I make no apologies for the geeky name, I have always been a huge fan of Star Trek, and Tuvok is a great name for a dog. Vok. Vokky. Tuvee. We call her all of them. And she always responds with a wag of her tail.

In the period immediately after she arrived, we went through a long drawn out period where Tuvok suffered horribly from demodectic mange. This illness is caused by a mite passed from mother to puppies when they suckle. It is very different from other forms of mange, as demodectic mange is not a sign of ill treatment of the dog in question, just a situation where a compromised immune system doesnt allow the dog to keep the mites in check. Until we had the illness correctly diagnosed (which only took 5 minutes once I found a vet with the correct knowledge), Tuvok went through stages where the mange became generalised and she suffered from baldness to huge parts of her body. These days she has the mange under control, and we only occasionally get flare ups.

Throughout the time when we were struggling to find answers, Tuvok never stopped loving us. Never once has she snarled or snapped at anyone as we took skin samples, blood samples or did allergy tests. She just sat and wagged her tail whilst the vets did what they had to do.

So now we face another health scare with Tuvok. A few weeks ago she would occasionally come in from the garden limping, but it would pass and you just think she'd stubbed her toe or something similar. Eventually the limp became worse and I decided to take her to see the vet. Issues with her cruciate ligament in her back leg has been diagnosed.

Now for around a week she has put no weight on the leg at all. Anti-inflammatory medicine has been unsuccessful and therefore we move into the arena of surgery. On Monday she will undergo a procedure know as an extracapsular repair to resolve the situation. Following that will be 8-12 weeks of re-cooperation with Tuvok being confined to a small area for much of the start of her recovery.

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Tuvok must have a bit of greyhound in her. She runs like a greyhound, she's skitty like a greyhound. Because of this, having a disability that stops her running distresses me. Tuvok loves to chase balls and run the full length of the section and back for no other reason than she can. When we walk her she has limitless energy. I remember a walk to took around the Waitakeres in West Auckland. Tuvok pulled on the leave for the entire 10km, uphill and down. Towards the end of the walk there were times that Tuvok pulled us up a last steep hillside to the carpark. As she stood by the car her tail wagged and she smiled happily. 

Five socnds after she jumped into the back seat she was asleep and slept the entire journey home.

This week, seeing her hop around on three legs hurts me immensely. I know that we are helping her, and in a few weeks everything will be back to normal. But for weeks she will be confined to a small bedroom, will need to be carried to the lawn to do her business. She won't be allowed to jump up on the bed or sofa. No more leaping at the door. 

Perhaps I'm just soft, but frankly I dont care. She's my dog and I love her, and it it makes my stomach turn every time I see her struggling to stand up. Roll on the next few weeks, although I know that throughout that Tuvok will still wag her tail every time she sees on of us and continue to smile happily every time she hears her name.

So yeah, its official that I'm a sook and soft to boot. But its OK, there must be balance in the world, so whilst I act all gooey at home, the opposite must happen elsewhere. Beware raid bosses and AH whores - Breevok is in the mood to rumble.