Happy Birthday Tess!
She’s reached the ripe old age of two, as of last Saturday. I’m late posting because I’m the worst mama ever, but she celebrated with cake.
Alright, if I’m being honest, I have no idea when she turns two. That’s the nature of rescues. We just have no idea. The vet can give us an estimate of how old they think she is, but there’s no telling. Last year, when I took her to the vet the day after rescuing her pregnant-ass off the side of the road, the vet said they were doubtful if she was even a year old yet, which made me sad. How hard must her life have been to not only get shot (yes, there’s a bullet in her back), living on the street, and get knocked up all before her first birthday.
Everyone deserves a birthday, and I decided to make Tess a year old upon her adoption into the Rekemeyer family by giving her the birthday of January 9, 2019. I also really like numbers in patterns, so that looks like 1.9.19 (Beau’s is 5.15.15).
It’s not a birthday without a personalized, dog-friendly cake from Three Dog Bakery. Tess devoured her part, and no she did not eat the whole thing by herself. She definitely got the biggest slice, but everyone else got a slice too. Beau took her slice and ran so she could enjoy it in solitude. Knight carried his around the house with a prideful prance. Duke laid on the ground and ate it upside down with confused enthusiasm. Bear was terrified of the thing in his bowl and ran away howling. Makeda enjoyed her piece and Bear’s with optimistic bewilderment. The puppies don’t get people food or anything other than dog treats and their special food, so it’s always funny on the rare instance they get something out of their norm.
Tess has been full of surprises from the moment I brought her home. Carrying a host of problems and a shockingly large litter, she has been the sweetest problem raiser I’ve ever encountered. Luckily, the problems and surprises have not been behavior or attitude things, they’ve all been her tiny body doing funky things or due to her previously homeless predicament.
Of course, we couldn’t enjoy her birthday without a memorable hiccup. Due to health reasons and concerns from our various veterinary health professionals and specialists, the 2020 dog additions have not been fixed yet.
Tess went into heat a month and a half ago. Every precaution was taken to prevent another unwanted pregnancy—not that I don’t love every single one of her puppies. No more babies! When I say, every precaution, I mean, everything physically possible was done to ensure there would be no incestual babies in my house. That being said, I rounded the corner one day to find Bear—the youngest, biggest, and most sexually aggressive puppy—attempting intimate relations with his mom through the bars of her kennel…. I guess where there’s a will, there’s an awkward attempt. If it weren’t so completely distressing, the effort would have been very comical to watch play out. I did not, however, watch it play out. Being a cock block has always been one of my many talents, and this mama stepped in right away.
The likelihood Tess wound up with children once again through the kennel was highly unlikely, and I talked my anxiety demon down for a good month and a half. Then a week ago, I was laying in bed with Tess on my face (because where else, in a king sized bed, would she possibly want to settle?) and noticed her nipples and boobies were starting to engorge. Fuck… I took her to the vet for a pregnancy test as soon as they could get me in, which was an incredibly stressful 27 hours of researching second trimester dog pregnancy signs, googling Texas’ doggy abortion laws (yes, that’s a real thing), and crying about the fact that I let this poor little thing down.
After spending $629, I found out Tessa is a big fat liar.
She’s experiencing a false pregnancy. Thankfully there are no father-brothers or a grandma-mother in my house; yes, that felt as dirty to type as I’m sure it did to read. Suffice to say the vet and all the staff had a good laugh at the thought of Bear trying to canoodle through the bars of a kennel.
No babies. Tess is completely fine and a very happy two year old. She’s just hormonal and continues to surprise me in expensive, inventive, and stressful ways. Once she’s heartworm negative (we find out in April), we’re yanking that overachieving uterus.
bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna + Tessa
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