Reports on the after-effects, Saturday & Sunday, starting with Sidney:

Jack & I spent the night on Friday night and LILLY was very happy to see Jack. He's getting to be a grumpy old man and didn't want to play, but her tail was up and wagging for the first time. On Saturday morning, Jack showed LILLY how to get in the car and traveled with them over to where the trap was set. We took a nice long walk together and then loaded the trap into my van.

In the meantime, Melissa had gotten a call from someone who found an Airedale wandering around the streets and she has a full house, so I said I would foster her. The finder brought "CURLIE SUE" to John & Jeanne's house and I think that was the breakthrough for LILLY. The three Airedales had a little sparring session and ran around the house checking things out. I think that this made LILLY finally feel that the house was an okay place to be. I didn't want LILLY to feel abandoned when we left, so John, Jeanne & LILLY got in their car at the same time as Jack, CURLIE SUE & I got into ours and we all drove off together.

From Jeanne:

We can't thank you enough for what you did for us and for LILLY and for SW Airedale rescue.

The going-for-a-drive idea was an excellent one. Got her mind off your departure. I wanted to say a proper goodbye to you but felt it would create a stressful situation for LILLY and felt it best to drive away before she realized what was going on.

She wandered around the house a bit when we returned and is currently sleeping in the bath you used. She followed me in there when I needed to use the facilities and plopped down and I just left her there. I just check on her periodically to see that she's not devouring the bath mat. John decided he'd go run some errands and leave us girls to spend time together but I am leaving it up to her to make the first move since she's "caved up" in that bath and seems content and relaxed. Will tell you, even tho she whined a bit after we got back from the ride, she was following John and me around the house and her tail wasn't hugging her backside. Hooray!!!!

Good luck with that new CURLIE SUE. She's a cutie but after watching her display her dominance over LILLY, I am in total agreement that if we fostered CURLIE, she and LILLY would be at each other constantly and that's not what we're after here. Again. . . thank you so much for all your efforts. You are amazing and so appreciated.

We just got back from a 50-minute walk during which LILLY met one of our neighbor's dogs and her manners were impeccable. She had lots of sniffs and places to check out on the walk and by the time we got back the little cutie was walking slowly. She hasn't had to go since early this morning and hasn't eaten anything except some string cheese but she seems to be doing better. Just is somewhat energy-depleted. Her tail was out, not up, but out during the walk and she seemed relaxed which is very encouraging.

We just got back from our morning walk, a bit different, but still within the neighborhood. She slept in her crate last night, whined/barked one time around 2:30 a.m. so John took her outside thinking she had to go since she hasn't done any more business since yesterday morning. . . but no, just drank more of the pool. Her tail isn't quite so tucked anymore which makes me very happy. Tonight we'll take her back over to the lot to see Mookie, Fronzi and Jack & Peggy and repeat the walk we took with you.

LILLY ate some partially-cooked chicken and all of her dry food last night and just now had a bit of the dry food. I'll give her some more of the chicken when we go outside in a few minutes to read the paper and have my coffee. John is off on a bike ride and we've decided that for a while, I'm going to take her out on all walks, feed her, etc. The only time John gets involved is in the middle of the night since he can go back to sleep as if he'd never been awakened and I'm the opposite. After she woke us at 2:30 to go outside she went back into her crate and then about 3:00 she whined again so I got up and came out to the chair and slept beside her. She immediately went to sleep and stayed that way until about 5:00 when John got up to get ready for his ride. She just needed some company. Think we're making progress.

Well . . . our sweet little LILLY spent two stints in the crate this afterooon. We came back after going to PetSmart and spent some time with her before going out again. All of which she just kind of napped in her crate, door open, then when we were gone, crate was closed. She pooped when we took her out before taking off on an errand about 2:30 p.m. and the stool was moderately liquid. I thought. . . great. . . we're on the road to recovery as I am noticing that she is pretty lethargic but chalked that up to her diarrhea and stress.

We took her for a walk this evening over in Tapestry Canyon with Mookie, Fronzie (the dogs), Jack & Peggy (the humans.) LILLY got into the car with the up up up command, then string cheese reward + a hearty good girl and disembarked inside the garage beautifully, lots of "good girls for her efforts". She experienced a very liquid diarrhea after meeting up with Fronzie, Mookie and another neighbor's eight-week-old Sharpei. Mookie, Fronzie & LILLY got along fine. Walk was uneventfrul except for the diarrhea episode. On return to the house, I gave her more string cheese with a Pepto Bismol tablet inserted into the cheese. She is now out on another walk with John (I'm beat so relinquished my responsibility to him).

I am going to make an appointment with the vet for early this week (I hope). Want to get her diarrhea cleared up if possible and get her Maricopa license/tags and then get her into doggie day care.

I do think her tummy is giving her fits . . . more reason to get her to the vet, especially since she may have eaten tin foil or plastic wrap at one of the construction sites during her recent three-day foray. Funny. . . we try to balance the stimuli with the need for activity to keep her from being bored, but given her stress level, it's hard to find a happy medium so don't know if the diarrhea is stress-related or environmental/food-related. We are planning to put her crate in our room tonight so she can sleep in there with us. She's watching us more and more, tail in the tentative, hey . . . I'll tuck it if you look at me, mode, but she is definitely interacting more and more.

Sidney explains:

[The reason that John is having Jeanne do all the walking, feeding, etc., is that LILLY is very suspicious of Jeanne because she is the one who tracked her down and had to tackle her before she went over the wall. I feel so fortunate that LILLY has parents with such great instincts.]

On 23 September, Jeanne writes:

I will be taking LILLY to the vet in about 45 minutes and am concerned as there was blood in her very liquid diarrhea this morning. It seems that everything she eats goes right through her but she is eating and has put some weight back on. Taking a stool sample to the vet. Let's just hope it's something that is easily treatable. I will ask him to do the second test for ehrlichia and explain that one of the dogs does have it, etc.

And a little bit later . . .

We just got back from the vet's office. LILLY's stool sample showed a severe case of clostridia/clostridium and she is now on an antibiotic for seven days that should help clear out the bacteria in her gut and also do double duty on some festering cactus spine wounds (I wondered if some were working their way out of her body and apparently they are . . . vet was able to remove some from between her pads that we couldn't find.)

He wants her to take Heartgard beginning next month once a month (even though I thought heart worm wasn't a problem here . . . what's your take on this?). He spent a lot of time going over her, feeling her all over, checking her tummy and rectum. She is not running a fever.

There were several dogs at the vets that she socialized with and I so enjoyed seeing that tail up and wagging. We did have a blood sample drawn for the heavy-duty ehrlichia test and the results should be back tomorrow afternoon.

All in all, LILLY did remarkably well and is now crashed beside me on the rug below the kitchen sink. We will walk her later on and hopefully wear her out as she kept us awake last night . . . waking us either wanting to go out or moving around in her crate. I finally got up at 4:30 and took her for a walk. Just got to get this diarrhea under control . . . it's so bad it's like gelatin. Since her gut is so messed up, I really do wonder if she ate some spoiled food at one of the job sites over in the canyon, and the stress isn't helping either.

So . . . that's how the vet visit went. And guess what . . . she weighs 50 pounds so I've managed to get some weight back on her even with all the problems she's been experiencing. I can feel the difference in her body when I rub her, but wow . . . she's just about where she should be weight-wise . . . he'd like to see a couple more pounds on her.

And she is little by little becoming bonded with us . . . but I just think we'll have to give LILLY a year or more to fully realize that she has a permanent home.

[Clostridium: A species of bacteria called Clostridium perfringens is an extremely common cause of colitis in dogs. C. perfringens causes inflammation of the colon by producing a toxic substance called an enterotoxin. This toxin acts directly on the colon mucosa, causes the escape of fluid and salts (also called electrolytes), and results in decreased movement, which produces diarrhea.]