Surgery Day

Today is Harley Weimeraner's birthday.  He is 11 today. I feel like the worst pet owner ever since I just dropped him off at the vet to have a ton of surgery on his birthday :( Poor guy, but it will be best for him in the long run.  At least that is what I am hoping.

Harley has so many fatty tumors it is almost hard to look at him.  For our Christmas card pictures I tried to use a sweater on him to disguise some of his bumps.  It didn't really work.  The tumors are just ugly to look at and not totally health threatening at this point.  The vet and I have been going with the motto if it ain't broke don't fix it.  The tumor on his chest is so large that the kids ask if Harley is having a baby.

But going back about 5 years ago he did need to have surgery. He had Mass Cell Tumors.  They were stage 2 and he had to have 2 surgeries.  The prognosis for Stage 2 is either they can be removed by surgery, or radiation. We went the surgery route and he has done great.

But he has a tumor on his foot that is just horrible and has to be taken off. It is going to be a huge problem if it opens up.  The other tumors he has will be a problem when they start to deteriorate.  Once they start breaking down there will be no way to fix them and he will have to be put down.  So today he is having a HUGE tumor removed off his chest, several smaller ones on this legs and side.  He has been as healthy and strong as an ox and I'm hoping once he is healed up it will mean more trips to the beach and hiking.  (since he can't do that now because of the tumors).

Here is a little story about Harley.

When we purchased our home we bought it from a woman who had recently had a divorce or separation.  The stories about her husband selling explosives for drugs and being wanted by just about every law enforcement jurisdiction for this and that made us nervous.  Our neighbors informed us that he would never give us any problems, he just got messed up with some things but we had nothing to worry about on the whole he was a good guy.  I was reassured that he wouldn't give us any problems, but in the back of my mind I worried about the bad people he was dealing with coming to find him.

So we were in our new house for a few months when one night there was banging on my front door.  I was home alone with Brady and Freddy was at work. I didn't want to answer the door because I wasn't expecting anyone. The banging got louder and louder and soon I could see flash lights all around my  house pointing in the windows, but when I looked out I couldn't see a person or a car.  I knew the house was surrounded, but by who?  Was it the drug dealers that the homeowner had dealings with before?  Maybe they didn't know he moved.  So I sat on the floor as the banging continued. I didn't have curtains up on most of the windows and I didn't have a phone in arms reach. I would have to cross infront of the windows with just Brady and be exposed to get the phone.  So I sat on the floor. 

The entire time this was happening Harley was barking like a wild crazy dog that only had one thought on his mind... to kill whoever was on the other side of that door.

Finally I broke down and with Brady in my arms (and Tiny in my belly). I raced through the Living Room grabbed my phone and squished down on the floor in the kitchen. Now I could see flashlights coming through each of the windows in the kitchen.  Harley was still barking. I called my husband, police and my parents.

It was raining that night and the police car that was coming to my house got in an accident at the intersection to my parents road. Which caused my father to be stuck and not able to move forward to get to my house. He didn't know the police car was responding to the call at my house. Finally he found an opening and drove through and raced to my house.  My husband was in route home too. 

After a while I realized if they had wanted to break in they would have done so already and that seemed to calm me down a little bit.  Harley wasn't giving up he was going to kill that person banging on my door.

After what seemed like forever (I think it was more like 45 minutes). The banging stopped (Harley didn't stop barking though).  The police were at our home, my father was at our home and Freddy was home.  I finally stood up and looked out the window to see the cops talking.  What the heck was going on! Did they catch who was at  my house? Did they get away?

It ends up it was the Sheriffs Department undercover. They were at our house to arrest the guy that lived there before us. Phew! It wasn't bad guys. It was good guys trying to get a bad guy.  I was so relieved, but still totally shaken.  I pet Harley on the head and told him it was okay and he backed off.  As I stepped out into the yard and saw the officers dressed all in black I was sure to tell them they just scared the crap out of me.  The first thing they said to me was "You have a good dog!"  They said they had a warrant to arrest the man that lived here before us and in the past they had issues when they came to arrest him.  They said this time they were not coming in this house with that dog.

Harley got a container of peanut butter that night. His favorite.

I know the next few weeks Harley isn't going to be feeling too good. So I'm planning a lot of quality time sitting with him next to the fire and knitting.  I am hoping by him having the surgery now means he will be all healed up for summer.

He's a good boy.

ps- we made sure that guy that lived here before add his address changed! he is still wanted, but we haven't seen him.