So my first duty station and I had so much to learn! Our two main reasons we were there was to care for the 8 Military Working Dogs on the island and 2 others on a nearby island. We also were a full-service vet clinic for military owned pets. I met some amazing people, most I sadly have not kept in touch with. One I am married to :) I adopted a Boonie Dog and she is happily living a carefree life back in the States with me. She is older and has her own issues now but considering her start in life, her twilight years she has deserved.
This Chara a few years ago.
Sister Mary saying good-bye to Chara before the pup gets on a plane
Chara came into our clinic as an emergency hit-by-car. She had ruptured her bladder and thankfully little else. She had some lacerations on her hind legs but nothing serious and nothing broken. We knew if she made it through the bladder repair she would have a good chance. 8 hours later, my amazing "boss" had repaired her bladder but she would still need to be observed for a few weeks so I practically lived in that clinic, taking her for walks (they got longer as she got better and stronger), changing IVs in the first few days and cleaning her cage (but when the lights went out the sleeping bag came out and she got to sleep with me on that most nights.) When it came time for the owner to pay up she could not afford it. This was a case of "my heart is bigger than my wallet" but the sad truth was we would have had to put her down after all that work. Chara's vet bill came to around $250. We wrote the surgery off as training, and charged everything "at cost" but $250 is hard to come up with when you have so many other dogs and cats and every other pet imaginable so I was already attached. I paid her vet bill and I adopted the dog. She is sleeping in the next room as I write this. Guam is rabies free so I had to pay just her flight and a night in Hawaii because animals cannot fly as cargo for more than 18 hours straight.
That was one of the GOOD things that happened on Guam. I got to ride was another. I found a barn that would let me exercise a couple of her horses and from there she got me in touch with another guy that also had a couple of horses that I could help exercise. So what is better than meandering down a road next to a beach on an island, on HORSEBACK? I had the time of my life. I was riding, I was taking my dog hiking and more often than not getting lost, I was taking care of some wonderful Working Dogs. I found a roller hockey team to play on! I met a guy that loved doing all the things I like to do. Things were great. Click..click..that shoulder again..and sometimes with painful twinges now.
Pat - the guy that let me ride his horses. He was a good friend too. That is a horse trailer behind him!!
So I got it looked at..and it wasn't good. I had nerve impingement which the horse kick was blamed for but now that I can look back on it I really don't think the horse kick had anything to do with it. Regardless of what was at fault, I had to go for surgery and it was my first in a long line of them.
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