Carrera (and Twerp)

Carrera is the newest addition to our family (below). So that makes Pam, Mike, Chiaroscuro (Scuro), Ra, Uluru (Ru), and Carrera. We found her at the Great Dane Rescue of Charlotte which is near North Lake Mall. They had named her Flurry, and she was there with her sister Wrinkles (named for her wrinkly face). Her paperwork says she is a Chinese Shar Pei which I could see for her sister but not at all for her. We are guessing that her mom might have been part Shar Pei (She might be half Chinese like me!), and she is just a mutt just like me. She is extremely sweet and gentle (opposed to Ru who is sweet and crazy). She is a little timid, but she is getting more bounce in her step every day. We took her to the vet today and found out she has whip worms. The vet treated her, but they say that it is hard to get rid of the eggs once they are in your yard so the chance of reinfection is high. Hopefully we caught it in time. Mike de-pooped the yard today. Generally, the vet said that the whip worms shouldn't be that serious - just more of a nuisance.

She is a great dog! She loves to walk on the leash - without pulling (much). She doesn't chase around the cats. She is a little bit of a guard dog - she barked at the lawn guy next door but doesn't bark at the neighbors. She hasn't had any accidents in the house. She growls at Ru when he isn't using his manners but otherwise is very well-mannered. She eats very slowly which we aren't used to. I had to put a Beggin' Strip mixed in her food to get her to eat.

The worse mishap we have had so far is really our fault. We still have some injured ducks and a pre-teen duck in the corner of our yard. We fenced it off where the dogs couldn't really get in but Twerp (our pre-teen) could get out. Twerp is a gutsy little guy, so while the dogs were outside, I was in the garage cleaning the litter boxes, and Mike was cooking dinner, Twerp ran out into the backyard lawn. Carrera was very interested in this, so we picked up Twerp in her mouth. Thank God, Mike happened to see this, so he ran outside and chased her down. Poor things. It scared Mike, Twerp, and Carrera half to death. We examined Twerp. He only seemed to have one small pin point of blood on his back near is Twerpy little wing. It has been 2-3 days, and he is running around just like ever - we are praying he doesn't have any internal injuries or infections. We went right out and got a mesh fence to zip tie to the border fence so that Twerp (Blue-Duck and Speckled-Head) can't get out of the corner of the yard. We are keeping a much closer eye on them now.

At first, we were going to name her Quarry as in a "marble quarry" because 1) it rhymed with Flurry (her original name) and 2) her coat looks very much like white marble with gray marbling. We even got her a tag. However, it didn't stick. (Mike's mom started calling her Cory and in general it wasn't very easy to say. Plus, she didn't really know her name as Flurry anyway.) So, her name is now Carrera after Carrera marble which comes from the Carrera quarries - and is the classic white and gray marble. Not officially, it is also because when Mike sold his Boxster S he wanted to get a Carrera but we got an XTerra instead. Now he can say that he finally got the Carrera he wanted. Maybe if we get a Porsche Carrera we could name it "Dog" or "Mutt."

She has learned how to chew a raw hide, but she still isn't quite sure of the concept of toys. She now knows "sit" and "shake," but she is still working on "lay down." She is quite the shaking machine though. If you have a treat, she dances with both of her paws trying to give them to you so she can get the treat. Very cute.

So that is Carrera's story so far.


CarreraRu 006
Originally uploaded by pamela_j_karr