My dear sweet Wesley

Wesley has been a momma's boy from day one. He was the one that picked me out and told me he was coming home with me. I used to volunteer with an animal rescue group and would help out on Saturdays when they take the dogs to Petsmarts for people to see them and hopefully adopt them. One Saturday in December 03, a beautiful little brindle pit mix caught my eye so I took him out of his crate to walk around and play for a while. I eventually put him back so I could let another dog come out to get some exercise. Soon I noticed that wherever I went, Wesley would cram himself in the corner of his crate closest to me. Even though he was in his crate and I was many feet away, he was doing whatever he could to be as close as possible to me. So needless to say, we were both smitten. He was about 8 months old at the time and was named Wesley because he was found, skin and bones, living under cars in a parking lot on the Texas Wesleyan campus.

He continues to follow me around a lot, and it seems even more so now that I'm pregnant. I literally cannot go to the bathroom without him following me in there. And while Bella will usually spend most of the night on her bed on the floor, Wesley spends the whole night on the bed with us. And whenever Dave is gone a road trip, Wesley prefers to get under the covers to keep me company.

Wesley has also been our high-maintenance puppy. He's had the occasional major-minor emergencies: an infected and swollen gland in a very icky place, and who can forget when he stuck his nose a little too far under another dog's fence and had to get stitches. But the ongoing struggle has been his allergies. The poor guy will get a couple really bad ear infections a year due to them, not to mention the sores on his skin and all the scratching. So after years of special food and steroids, Dave and I finally bit the bullet and met with a doggy dermatologist today. He did a skin test to find out exactly what Wes is allergic to (oak and mesquite, for the record). Dr. Garfield was so great with Wesley. They started by giving him a "two-martini" sedative so that he would be cooperative. It was funny to watch the sedative take effect. First Wesley leaned his head on Dave's shoulder, then his feet started slowly giving out from under him. Next thing you knew he was lying on his side, totally carefree that he had just been shaved and given 37 small injections (he's showing off the test site in the picture above). So now that we know what he's allergic to, Dave and I will administer weekly shots to build up his immunity to the allergens and it will hopefully alleviate his symptoms and mean that he won't have to be as medicated. And he can go back to normal food and treats and rawhides. He's such a trooper.