Digging to China..

So I'm at the dogpark....and the dogpark near me is pretty plain. It's a grass retangle where all size dogs can run around in. I've been to way better but this one is the closest. As my dog gets older he just likes to go out there sniff the dogs and dig. He's a digger. I know some folks hate a dog that digs but I do my best to cover it when he's done. I've been going to this particular dogpark for about a year now. No problems. I made friends with the folks there and things have been fine. Well today I headed there and it was pretty dead. Still early enough in the day most folks aren't home yet. A small group of men and a few others sprinkled around the yard. I start my walk around as my dog runs into the field to start digging. I stop and watch him from the sidelines. Ready for him to get his fill so I can cover it and we can carry on with our day when I see one of the men from the group pointing at my dog to me. Yes I see him. I look at him and say yes I know. He's a digger.. that's just what he does. Another guys from the group yells to me (mind you these 3 guys were all the way on the other side of the park) Can you stop your dog from digging to China? all rudely. I've already had a bad day with the worker's comp doctors telling me about my hand so I get a bit bent out of shape over him yelling at me especially across the whole damn park. These guys know me. We actually all used to hang out in the circle last summer and watch our dogs play. He keeps yelling at me telling me I should know better since I'm a dog walker. OMG, at this point I blew a fuse. I threw my hands up in the air and told him what an asshole he was and if he had any decency he would have been nice and came over to me to talk about it. I was planning on covering the hole when my dog was done and I don't appreciate his rudeness. I also mention to him there are plenty of other holes in the park that my dog didn't do and he needs to get off his high horse. After saying that I had my dog stop and I leased him and left. Left the damn hole just the way it is. F this place and the rude ass people. You don't have to be rude. Two of the guys actually have dogs a lot of folks don't really like and they both knows how it feels to be yelled at there. Shame on them for being a dogpark bullys. Shame Shame. They should know better.

2 more weeks...

I couldn't believe it when the workers comp
doctor said that to me. I miss my dogs! I want to work! Yes yes I'm
sure this is rare to hear and most people are more than happy to sit at
home and still get paid but honestly I'm havingwithdrawals . Luckily,
my friend and fellow coworker called me up to let me know he and his
girl were going away for the weekend so I jumped on theopportunity to hang out with my favorite pup.. besides my own, Moose. His freakin
' adorable and so sweet. I'm so bummed he can't come to work with Chris
anymore. I miss seeing him out there. The dog is just as sweet as can
be so I told Chris no problem and I'd stop by today and tomorrow and
take him for a walk and chill with him for a bit. So he doesn't get
lonely. I couldn't be happier to do it. Moose does the cutest thing..
he tries to walk himself with the leash.. lord, I miss being around
dogs and I need to return soon.

It's a shame pits get such a bad wrap. A lot of them are very sweet. It's kinda like what you put into your children is what you get.. dogs.. the same thing. I agree a pit isn't a beginners dog but I do think they make wonderful loyal pets.

The Aftermath...

On Fridays I have my normal usual sweet Palo Alto pack. They are seriously the best. There is no yelling for them to stay with the group. There is no fighting (usually). You just get to enjoy being out there. That is until you get two intact males together in the same group. Most dog people know if you put unneutered males together there is more chance of aggression. Well as you can imagine this didn't go over well.

One of the unneutered dogs is an older lab named Johnny. He is gorgeous and I believe his owners haven't fixed him yet because they plan on breeding him. He has been part of my group for awhile. His owners send him numberous times through out the week. He's never really starts anything with the other dogs. He is always ahead of my pack. Which is good.. no one to stand in his way. The second unneutered dog is an 8 month old pit named Hendrix. He is a puppy.. he does puppy things. He is a ball of energy and very very VERY playful with everyone. Completely non-aggressive. He bows to the other dogs..if he gets growled at by anyone he leaves them alone. That I found to be very reassuring. What you don't need is a pit who stands up for himself.

So a week before last friday I had them in my group. Hendrix went up to Johnny as he made his rounds and got growled at which was fine. The rest of the walk Hendrix steered clear of Johnny and there were no issues. Last friday Hendrix and myself didn't get so lucky. It seemed Johnny was alittle pissed to see Hendrix return to his group and while Hendrix was oblivious to Johnny's attitude made his rounds through out my group saying hi and seeing who he could intise to play with him. He ran right up to Johnny and that was the end of that. Johnny started attacking Hendrix. Full on getting on top of him and going at it. Hendrix, poor Hendrix was scared and frightened and tried getting away which is where it involved me. Hendrix ran right for me for protection. Right under my legs which wasn't good because I had another mellow dog beside me that doesn't like drama and gets aggressive when it gets near her. So before I know it I have 3 dogs under me and fangs are flying. I knew I didn't want to be in the middle of this battle so I ran out of it which actually puts the attention on me and gets the dogs to stop and wonder what the hell I'm running around for. On my way out Johnny managed to get me once in the hand. I looked down at my hand with surprise. He got me so good and before the blood came I was abled to get a good look at the inside of my hand, nerves and all which really REALLY grossed me out.

This is where the fun begins.. So I call the office tell them I got hurt and I'm bleeding all over the place. I'm sure in their head they think eh, she has a little bite. I mean we do work with dogs and sometimes they get into little scuffles and most of us if you work there long enough and enough days will have one of those days and get injured. So I'm not mad about how things are handled. I feel guilty so I tell them I'm fine and I can continue the walk. There is no need to come out or for me to head back and get in everyones way. It's not life I broke a leg or something. So I'm bleeding and putting pressure on my hand and my fellow coworkers are calling and checking in on me. This all happened at the beginning of the walk so I have to hike 5 miles. I bet getting that heart pumping and trying to stop the bleeding wasn't the best of ideas of mine but it was nice to be out there with my pack thinking about things. So I made it finally back to the pens where my coworkers loaded all my dogs up for me and we examined my injury. It was bad. I called the office again and so did my coworkers to tell them I need to go see a doctor becauses this bite is going to need stitches. My boss apparently was stressin' out when I told him about my bite earlier and had to leave the office for a bit so I was mostly dealing with the office assistant Shelly. We decided I would start doing my drop offs and meet my boss, Sean along my route so he could take over and I could head to the ER. We finally met up at 4:30 and I got to the ER at 5. So that's about 6.5 hours after the incident happened and I'm still bleeding. The real fun began.. I sat there at San Mateo Medical Center for 8 hours.. 5 in the front and 3 in the back on a bed in the hallway waiting to be seen. My mom joined me about 6 hours into it after hearing I was still there and no closer to getting out of there. We sat together and chatted. Even an intern gave me a bag lunch that was in the frig after hearing me tell my mom how hunger I was. I hadn't eaten since breakfast so as you can imagine.. the loss of blood and lack of food for the day had me feeling a bit wozzy. 1am.. I finally get my hand looked at for the first time since being there. yes yes.. to no surprise I needed stitches.. let's get on with it folks.. let's go let's go let's go. I swear this place is slow. The reason I still have a possible infection 6 days laters might have something to do with the time frame I was working with here and the lack of treatment. 8 stitches later and some antiobitics I'm ready to head home at 2am. I wish my mom well and thank her for staying with me and drive home then off to bed. On the drive home I call and leave my boss a message.. I'm fine, 8 stitches and meds...I'm off to bed and he'll see me Monday at work ready to go.

Sunday... the nurse calls to check up on me. I tell her I'm not feeling well... she tells me to come on in AGAIN. How I didn't want to go back to that hell hole but I did. I call my mom and tell her where I'm headed.. she heads over as well to be a mom. I love when she does this. I get put in the back fast this time. I start getting sicker and sicker. My body aches..I have a fever..My arm hurts (the one I got the injury on)... I have numbness in my hand.. I look ghostly white..I'm miserable and I'm kinda afraid something might be seriously wrong . A mean doctor comes in with an attitude and tells me it's anxiety and nothing more. Sends me home with vics, motrin, and some anxiety meds. Hmm.. well I'm sure she is right..I guess..I am kinda worried about my job and the numbness in my hand. She also gives me a doctor's note telling my work I won't be working for a week.. GREAT. I'm sure my work will really be loving me now. I get home call my boss and break the news. He comes over with a bit of an attiude not the best call with my mom being with me and gets upset with me. My mom returns with telling him all the things he has done wrong with handling this issue.. like lawsuit shit.. wow.. okay.. please mom don't make them hate me.. it's a small company and I have to work here after I'm better..I WANT to work here..I love my job.

As for this week..workers comp has gotten ahold of me and sent me to one of their doctors who has since told me I will not be returning for another 2 weeks.. 3 weeks and no work wow I guess it is kinda serious.. I'm sad and miss my dogs.

How it all works....

I guess I should give you some background. I work for an off leash dog walking company. I'm not one of those independent dogwalkers
who uses her own vehicle to transport the dogs around. My company
provides us each morning with a list of dogs from a certain area (they
cover the Peninsula areas- all the way fromLos Altos Hills to the Half
Moon Bay Area.. some days it can be a very long day) then we hop into
the work van and go and pick them up. The packs pretty much don't vary
from week to week. Maybe a dog here and there but they usually stay
pretty much stay the same. Our pick ups take around 2 hours give or
take then all the dog walkers (there are about 5 of us each day out
there) head off to the private property (750 acres) to do an off leash hike
with our pack of pooches for a few hours. Working for this company
means 9 hour days give or take. It's not meant for the weak by no
means!lol.

I absolutely love love my job. I love dogs. I love being outside. It's the office poltics
that kind of ruin it for me. Most days I can't complain. A problem here
and there that's expected but when it rains it pours. I've decided I
need a place to share my thoughts and feelings. A place to share my
funny moments as well as my frustrations.