All Creatures Great and Small

Sweet Pea, our dog, is a treasure. This summer, with Jamelah in Ann Arbor for school and me home dog sitting, she has been more of a challenge. But we have managed.

She has always loved water. She is great fun if you have a hose and she loves, loves, loves having you throw snowballs at her and trying to catch them in her mouth. We think that from all these water games, she got a yeast infection in her ears. It was nasty. We had to clean her hears and put medicine in them. It took both of us working together to get the job done. She just wasn't happy with having us dig around in her ears. We did learn that cotton balls worked much better than Q-tips, but that wasn't until after a few times of unnecessary struggle.

We stopped playing water games. I guess we should have just gone and bought her a swim cap, but good luck trying to get that on her head, let alone over her ears. She is resistant to all Jamelah's attemps to "dress her up" in ridiculous getups just for 'photo ops'.

Despite our efforts she still has trouble with her ears every once in a while. We can tell because she will start shaking her head like she is trying very hard to dislodge something inside of it. It's a concern because we know she is uncomfortable. We are quickly allerted to her problem by the head shaking because it is also very noisy due to the tags attached to the collar around her neck.

Recently she would, from time to time, have a good head shaking time although not enough to concern us. The other night I was awakened either from a bathroom urge or the sound of Sweet Pea shaking her head repeatedly. I went to check on her after taking care of the bathroom business. She was standing in her crate shaking her head again and again. I opened the door to let her out and see if her ear was just stuck (it does sometimes) and she was trying to get the wrinkle out of it.

I gently patted her head, while making sure her ears were properly aligned. No problem there. She was shaking her head again, almost violently. Between shakes she would give me this woeful "help me" look. I decided maybe she just needed to sleep the rest of the night on the couch and said "Couch", but she turned and walked into the living room, turned stood in the door, shook her head some more and turned that baleful look full force on me.

I didn't know what to do to help her. There was just me and it usually took two of us to work on her ears. But, since neither of us would be getting any sleep unless someone did something, I decided to give it a go on my own. I got the cotton balls, sat down in the chair at the desk and called her over to me. She came right over, looked straight up at me and waited for me to help her. This was a surprise. But I did my best, I went in and dried her ears the best I could and waited to see if that would help. She had stood quietly all during the time I worked on her ears. This was a first.

It helped, but she was still having problems. I knew that I had done all that I could do, so put her back in her crate and hoped she would be able to get some sleep... that I would get some sleep too. It was now 4am. I crawled back in bed and listened. Every few minutes she would shake her head again.

I was completely at a loss and then realized I could pray for her. So I asked God to send an angel and help our Sweet Pea. Of course I got one of those "what, are you, crazy? God is NOT going to bother to help that dog!" But I remembered that song... "All creatures Great and Small" although I couldn't remember all the words I sang quietly, knowing that God sees the sparrow fall and knows so He would care about our Sweet Pea.

She made a low growly noise then quiet whimpers... then the head shaking stopped, and then, all was quiet. She had been ministered to. Two days later and she is still not shaking her head, but does scratch it with her foot which makes me think she is still having some problem there. We will check it out carefully this weekend when Jamelah is home.

But, this I know, God did care for our Sweet Pea and He did send an angel to minister to her. Yep! He did. And that's all I've got to say about that.