Apple Of My Eye

He is Deuce as in "What the Deuce?" on Family Guy. He has become very much a "Momma's Boy" especially since Chubb passed away. He's 'Mydeucey'! This little guy has so much character and always brings a smile to my face. He has brought more joy and laughter into our lives than I can say. There is not one person who meets Deuce that disagrees, he absolutely thinks he is a Rottweiler; he is tough and rules the roost.

Life started out pretty tough for the Deuce-man. We got Deuce in July 2006 and by February 2007 (shortly after his first birthday), he was faced with major surgery. Calli and he were playing when she accidentally scratched his right eye with her nail. I didn't think much about it as he never yelped but little did I know the extreme pain he was enduring. A few hours went by and he seemed to be very needy, constantly by my side. I picked him up and put him on the bed for some snuggles where we both quickly dozed off for an afternoon nap. Deuce stirred and seemed to be in unbelievable pain and once I looked at his eye I had realized the damage done from the earlier fight. I rushed him to the vet, which seemed like an unbelievably long ride. The vet was amazing and she took us right away. She took one look at his eye and quickly diagnosed it as a melting ulcer, working like a flesh eating disease in his eye. Bacteria started to form in the scratch directly on his cornea. Patric took over at this point and rushed Deuce to the Emergency Clinic in the south part of Calgary. Examination was done by Dr. Christmas, a name we knew meant we were in good hands. They put some drops in his eye to stop the ulcer from continuing to eat through his eye but, at this point, the bacteria had eaten a hole right through his cornea. Dr. Christmas prepared us for the loss of his right eye as surgery would be performed the next morning. We were devastated, but were relieved at this point that Deuce was no longer in pain and that he would live. We also knew that a glass eye would be nothing to Deuce and that he would quickly adapt to a life of sight through one eye.

The next morning came (Patric had spent pretty much all night at the hospital) and, after thinking it through, Dr. Christmas had a change of heart and wanted to try and save Deucey's eye. He decided to try a procedure that involved graphing the skin from the outside of his eye and attaching it on top of his cornea to cover the hole in his eye. The results were amazing! We were told to never expect him to see much but that at least he had his eye. The recovery period time for Deuce was nothing; that little guy bounced back like nothing had ever happened. The biggest challenge was keeping his cone around his neck in one piece. Deuce figured out that banging his head against the wall in just such a way would crack the cone. I am telling you, we went through 6 cones in 10 days. Each time Dr.Christmas would just shake his head and laugh stating that, in all his years of performing surgery, he had never encountered such a character. This little man is a survivor and you would never know that he only has about 20 percent vision in his eye. Ironic, Deuce: one-eyed dog!

There will be many blogs about Deuce as there is never a dull moment and always so much to share when it comes to his antics. One I will share now relates to the title which has reminded me of something that is new for Deuce. Nighttime is always a painful ritual of letting the dogs out one more time before we settle in for bed. Usually quite comical with trying to get all three out; Calli is never eager and needs to be pushed out the door, Ramsay is usually stubborn and defiant, Deuce is usually pretty eager to pee one last time on each of his 50 trees in the yard. We have a couple of trees that have crab apples and with the fall weather, they are naturally falling to the ground. Well, Deuce thinks this is fantastic and makes for a perfect night time snack. He picks his apple and runs to the back door to be let in. He runs upstairs before anyone can notice the treasure, and before someone can take his prize away. Lifted onto the bed, he proceeds to taunt Ramsay with his 30 minute apple snack making alien noises and stopping long enough to ensure that Ramsay hasn't stopped paying attention to the event. Once he has completely eaten the apple, he then tries to figure out what to do with the stem as Ramsay continues to watch with jealousy. We figure he is trying to tie the stem into a knot with his tongue - he really does have talent.