We mentioned before that when the first girl first saw Kylie she thought that she was an old dog who had had a rough life and she wanted to bring her home so we could give her a big party for whatever life she had left. Then we found out Kylie was still a puppy! They said she was approximately eight months old and we totally didn’t believe them – until she started exhibiting some very puppy-like behavioral issues. For example, she peed everywhere!
So after about six days of potty-training with poor results, the first girl, who was Kylie’s official adopter, said she couldn’t take it and she was taking Kylie back. The shelter offered a seven day warranty of sorts so that if things didn’t go well you could take back your adopted pet with no questions asked, and she was prepared to send Kylie packing. So girl 2 stepped in and said she would accept all responsibility for the little pisser! This included cleaning up after all the “mistakes” that were made until Kylie was successfully housebroken as well as making sure that the housebreaking actually did happen. So the deal was done, there was even an official title transfer.
The truth was revealed by girl 1 much later, that it had nothing to do with the pee pee babykylie5problems. She had quickly begun to feel way to attached to the little bean head (another favorite nickname), and was feeling a very vulnerable sense of dread about eventually having to go through exactly what we’re going through now having lost our sunshine. 🙁 In retrospect, a very reasonable reaction. And in the end she wasn’t spared the devastation and despair of the loss of the little monster. But she got to share in every day of the wonderful insanity that was the Life of Kylie, which neither girl would trade for anything in the world.

Another near miss came a few months later when Kylie, seemed to have forgotten that she had been successfully potty trained not long after that first week. All it took in the end was a few days of putting diapers on her end (actual human baby diapers), and the humiliation did the trick. Boy would she be pissed, no pun intended, about us telling the entire internet about that! Anyway, Kylie had started peeing everywhere again – her favorite target was comforters! And she was getting threatened.. “cut it out or you’re back on the streets!” (We know, more bad parenting.) But we decided maybe there’s something wrong, maybe we should have her checked out, maybe she’s got some sort of kidney or bladder disorder. But what did the vet find? Heartworms!!
Holy crap! Do heartworms cause a dog to pee on the floor? No, they don’t, it was completely unrelated – but thank god Kylie had started peeing on the floor or we never would have found them. And she never should have had them but again, we were VERY BAD parents! We let a vet convince us that since she was going to be an indoor dog she didn’t need a preventative. Hello! It’s hawaii! Mosquitoes are present everywhere and anywhere all year round! Much like louisianna, pretty much any dog not treated for heartworms will end up with heartworms. So Kylie had to undergo heartworm treatment which is basically like chemo, which is literally poisoning your dog in order to kill the worms. It’s very dangerous and we were so scared we were going to lose her.
Obviously, Kylie came out fine but man those first few months were rough for all of us! It’s amazing to think of what almost never was, how much we would have missed.
We were so lucky!