Jo(e)yless

Back before Chris was born, we worried that he might be allergic to the dog. We sort of joked that if it happened that way, we'd have to find someone to take the baby. It never crossed our minds with Alex, yet it seems that he is allergic to her.

When he was about 2 months he was coughing non stop for a few weeks and was eventually diagnosed with bronchiolitis and a touch of pneumonia. With some antibiotics he was able to breathe much better, but the cough never completely went away. He hasn't gone more than a day or two without coughing since. Supposedly it takes awhile for bronchiolitis to fully clear out, but this seems excessive.

A couple weeks ago, we noticed that he had a huge coughing fit in a house with a cat, and we started putting things together. It happened again last week in a different house, also with a cat. He is definitely allergic to cats.

We don't know 100% if he is allergic to Joey as well, but there is a fair amount to suggest that he is. We've been trying to keep the house extra clean, but it you know either of us, that's not going to be good enough. To make matters worse, it's been really cold lately, so we haven't been able to open up the house at all. On top of all that, at six months, he need to be on the ground all the time now to learn how to move himself around. We can't leave him on the rugs, or he starts coughing, and the floors are frigid.

So we've made the difficult decision to get Joey out of the house for awhile. Fortunately, she is a wonderful dog and there are many friends and family who would take her in, including Nonna who's just minutes away. The plan is to give it a month or two to see if Alex improves as the house clears of Joey dander. His reaction doesn't seem to be very severe, so we are optimistic, that given a chance to recover first, he'll be able to tolerate her eventually.

In the meantime we plan to visit her an take her for walks and hikes frequently. I'm not sure if I'm more depressed that we had to banish her or that she'll be taken care of better at her new home. Not to say we're bad parents to her, but she's dropped down the priority list an awful lot in the last two years, and she is going to get spoiled rotten for the next little bit.

I think Chris is still too young too really get it, but he knows where she is ("Nonna's house") and doesn't seem too upset about it. He also had a miniature broom and dust pan yesterday to help us clean up the Joey fur.

We are pretty upset and crossing or fingers that she'll be back with us soon. Hopefully she'll enjoy herself at Nonna's. We miss her already and it's been 1 day.