Ochenta

After we lost Sophie, Carmen became really depressed.  She just wasn't herself.  I never thought that she and Sophie were great buddies but they were together all the time, so I'm sure it was an adjustment for her.  Greg and I decided that we would look for an adult whippet, preferably female, between 5 and 10 years old to add to the family.  I put in an application with Whippet Rescue and put the word out in the whippet community that we were looking.  

Several dogs came available in rescue during this time, but none of them fit our criteria.  Of course, we needed one that was at least willing to ignore the cats.  There are a lot of non-cat-safe whippets out there.

In November, Ramona Bradley, the breeder of both Carmen & Sophie, got in touch with me on Facebook and said she had a 8-year-old female that she'd like to re-home.  She said Ochenta was really sweet and needed more attention than she was getting with them.  She hadn't spent a lot of time living in the house (just in their dog room), so she needed to get used to being a house dog.  She hadn't spent time living with cats either, so we weren't sure how that would go. We agreed to give her a try.

November 24th, I brought Ochenta home.  It's always a challenge to bring in a new pet, but she did remarkably well.  She was very interested in the cats at first.  Mostly I think she wanted to get close enough to check them out, not eat them.  Neither cat thought much of this idea and would run off when she got too close.  That, naturally, made her want to chase them.  Cleo was mostly disdainful.  Zinger decided to make a stand and started putting himself in her path and puffing himself up to three times his normal size.  He could only make his stand for so long, though.  As soon as Ochenta got close enough to sniff him, his nerve would break and he'd run off.  They are still working on an acceptance of each other.  She tries not to chase him and he tries not to run.

Ochenta is 8 years old. Her registered name is Dreams Ochenta's Lady.  Her dam is one of Sophie's litter-mates, Cinder (more formally known as Dreams Burnin Down the House, RCh).  Her sire is Bravo (more formally known as Vitesse A Winter's Tale, RCh, SORC, CC, CM).  She looks a lot like her daddy.

Her name comes from the two black spots on her left side and the one black spot on her right side.  When you look down on her from above, it looks like she has an 80 on her.  Ochenta is Spanish for 80. We also call her Ted.  Based on this voice mail translation from Vonage (love how these voice things are translated sometimes): "Hello this is Cathy calling from ms.-tanya-on-the(?) Hospital. Just calling to remind you know Ted has an appointment tomorrow evening at five thirty. Come in for her preop blood work. If you have any questions feel free to give us a call. Our number here is 3608921500. Thank you." 

Ms.-Tanya-On-The(?) Hospital translates to East Padden Animal Hospital, just in case you wondered.


So we've had her just about a month now. She fits right in and I love her to pieces.  She's very sweet, wants to please, and is a hugger and a snuggler.  She is half again as large as Carmen, weighing in at 36 pounds.  She's taller, wider and heavier than Carmen and has no idea of her size.  She's like a bull in a china shop and runs over stuff all the time.  She is a very happy dog, too.  Always wagging her tail and smiling at you.

She came to us with very dirty teeth and horrible, horrible breath.  I took her in to have her teeth cleaned last week and she came out with 27 less teeth (they have 42) and a $2,000 vet bill.  Her teeth were in really bad shape and she had to have a bunch of them removed because they were rotting or the gum and bone were wearing away.

She's doing great now.  Seems to be back to normal as far as I can tell!

I'm sure there will be more posts about her in the future.