fish hooks and a dumb dog.

ok friends, i promised crafts, recipes and baby bump.  let's just agree to start off slow here, because to be honest, i haven't done many crafty things in the last week.  we went camping over the weekend and now i have to cater to my "special" hurting puppy. 

we decided last minute to go camping last weekend, so we packed up and headed to camp mckinney at lake allatoona. we got there saturday afternoon and decided to stay til monday afternoon.  well for those of you who don't know, nature is kona's happy place. there's nowhere she would rather be than running through wooded areas, chasing squirrels and swimming in the lake. 
the first night we got the VERY last campsite and were amongst tons of people, so kona had to stay on her anchor leash.  the next night, since basically everyone left we got a lake-front site that was very private and big.  we let her roam free (in our sight of course). 

kona's heaven.

well monday morning we got up early and jon headed down to the lake to fish.  his phone was in the tent and i tried to sleep some more but realized that wasn't gonna happen.  i noticed jon had 2 missed calls from work and since it was a workday, i figured i'd let him know.  i decided to head down to go fish with him for a bit.  he set down the poles and took the phone call while i set up kona's anchor leash.  i turned around because i heard the poles moving and i see kona attached to one.  she has the line in her mouth and is frantically trying to get away from it.  i freak out and try to help her but she is so panicked that she breaks the line.  the bait on the end was catfish bait. it's about the size of a quarter, very stinky and clearly kona wanted to eat it.  what she didn't know was that a hook was inside the bait, which was attached to the line.  turns out when she snapped the line she swallowed the whole bait. eff. 

fishing. seems innocent right?

i start freaking out (typical) crying and in a panic knew we needed to take her to the hospital.  jon agrees and we jump in the truck and google the nearest animal hospital.  it takes us about 20 minutes to get there and kona seems pretty fine and normal the whole way there.  they did and x-ray and sure enough, there was the hook, lodged in her esophagus.  it didn't make it all the way to her stomach and was now located behind her heart. not good.  they send us to a different hospital that is able to perform an endoscopy. 

we get there and the surgeon gives us the death speech, about how anesthesia is basically controlled death, and how they aren't confident they will be able to remove the hook.  their goal was to use a camera with little pinchers on the end, put it down her throat, grab the hook, turn it, and pull it back out through the throat.  if they weren't able to do that, they were gonna try to push it into her stomach, turn it and pull it out through her throat.  if THAT didn't work, then we would need to "discuss our options".  another thing i don't wanna hear.  then they may have to cut her stomach open and basically that would cost us thousands of dollars.  again, i'm a wreck.  luckily, they called us about 30 minutes after we left and said they were able to remove the hook. THANK GOD! $1000 later...

the culprit.

we couldn't pick her up until 4 o'clock since she was still knocked out from the anesthesia.  apparently she doesn't react well to it, and when she wakes up she snaps into a panic and is really "odd".  it's been an interesting night and day with a sad, hurting puppy.  her throat has been traumatized so getting her to eat is quite a task.  we have 3 meds we have to give her for the next 10 days and she just walks around the house crying.  it breaks my heart and i hope she feels better soon.  and i also wish she wasn't such a dumb head.  but, truth is that we love this dumb head way too much and would pay thousands of dollars to save her life.  love you kone-head!

drugged dog. oh kona.