Really the best word to describe the past week or two is chaos.

Aphelion deadlines + Planning a wedding + Having a very sick puppy all at once.

About two weeks ago we decided to get another dog, we regularly checked various pounds and shelters. We eventually found a German shepherd puppy, which was rare in itself as shelters just about never have puppies around here.

We decided to get her, she was already spayed, and had been returned by her owner at some point. We got her checked up at our vet and it turned out that she was only about 2 months old, and being spayed that young is potentially fatal in itself. She also has a tattoo on her stomach for some reason, so it was needless to say she had already had a tough life. After the check-up we were told she had kennel cough (nothing really serious, but it's very contagious) as well as hookworms and tapeworms. We got her fixed up and on the way to recovery but after about 5 days her symptoms weren't getting any better.

Monday night we decided to take her to the emergency vet, as she was having a lot of trouble breathing. The emergency vets eventually told us that she most likely had distemper, which was heartbreaking as distemper is incredibly fatal, and the small chance that she would live through it she would likely have terrible neurological problems after 2-3 months of recovery.

That night was horrible. The day after we transferred her to our normal vet, where luckily he said that she likely had pneumonia and not distemper. Pneumonia in dogs is still pretty serious, especially for a puppy, but the fatality rate is around 5% or so... instead of 80%+. She seemed to be recovering quickly, over a few days we were able to take her back home, and all was good.

It turns out the strain of pneumonia going around is especially resistant however... and her symptoms are fluctuating and as Im writing this I'm preparing to go see our vet again.