Our Scary Night

So, this is our female Boxer - GINGER - Her A.K.C. name is Duchess of Gingerbread Starks. We got her when she was 9 weeks old and Daley was 3 weeks old. Ginger will be 10 years old on June 23rd and she still is in really good health for such an old girl. See Boxer's tend to die on average at about 10 years old, so we feel blessed to see her still so peppy after all these years. She has had 4 litter's of pups which makes her grand total of 22 babies in all. She was such a good Mommy. She was attentive and loving to each and every one. She has been the best dog ever, because she is so protective of all of us. She loves the kids like they are her own, seriously. Daley and her grew up together and the boys were so little when we got her that we can't remember a time when Ginger wasn't a part of our family. Now that she is older we realize that she is getting that much closer to passing away. I find myself checking on her to make sure she is breathing whenever she is sleeping in the back yard.

So now that I have told you a little bit about her I will tell our about what happened tonight that scared the pee out of me (literally).

Devin's brother Bryce has a Boxer named Sadie and he asked us to keep her at our house until he finds a place to live. When Bryce brought Sadie she was in heat so I thought it would be even better because then Yoda (our male Boxer) and Sadie could breed and have puppies. Well at first the dogs all seemed to be getting along great, which I was relieved about, because Ginger is The Alpha Female in her "Pack" so I was more concerned that Ginger would show Sadie who was boss right from the beginning and then Sadie would fall into line with the others and Ginger could remain QUEEN of all of them. Well day 2 and Sadie attacks Ginger and we managed to quickly pull them apart, but not with out some small bites on Ginger's ear and leg. The cuts were not bad, but it was scary to see her so freaked out.

We called Bryce and told him he needed to find another place for Sadie, because we didn't want anything worse to happen. After a few hours Bryce called Dev and told him that he couldn't find anyone to take her in and that he would just have to get rid of her. I was so sad and didn't want to see Sadie just taken away, so Dev and I talked and decided to just keep Ginger and Sadie apart for now until Sadie's heat was over and then maybe she would not be as aggresive. This routine worked until tonight.

Dylan is in charge of taking care of the dogs. We had a system that Dyl was to follow so that we would avoid the two of them having any contact with each other. Dylan was making a switch between dogs needing to go potty and dogs needing to be inside when it happened...Ginger got loose during the exchange and Sadie went off the deep end. She grabbed a hold of Ginger's head and neck and just shook her and shook her. I was upstairs and as soon as I heard the growling I ran downstairs to get them apart. It seemed like forever, but it was only like 20 seconds. Dylan was screaming at Sadie and then just screaming out of fear. I tried to grab Sadie's collar, but she was shaking so hard that I couldn't get a good grip on it, plus I was a little scared she was going to turn around and bite me for getting in the way. I finally got a hold of her collar and yanked her up and she released Ginger. After dragging Sadie into the spare bedroom and shutting the door I went to see how hurt Ginger was.

Devin had grabbed her up and was sitting on the couch checking her out. We found 3 bites on her left ear and they were bleeding somewhat so I got a wet towel and applied some pressure so the bleeding would stop. I was shaking like a leaf as was everyone else. After my blood pressure came down I was able to think more clearly and got some q-tips and hydrogen peroxide to clean her wounds. I figured since she can't lick her ears it would be fine to clean the wounds. She is doing fine, but poor Dylan is pretty shaken up. He is blaming himself for what happened, because he made an error during the switching. I told him that it was an accident and told him that Ginger would be fine.

This was so scary, but luckily she is okay.

We Love You Ginger!!