Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Where We Are – Barks and Bytes

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On January 19th at an exam to remove a dead tooth, our vet discovered that Sampson had a heart murmur and an irregular heartbeat. Subsequent X-rays and Ultrasounds could not determine the cause of the irregular heartbeat, but they did find a nodule/mass on one of his adrenal glands. We were told the nodule/mass could be benign or something sinister. The recommendation was to recheck the adrenal in 1 to 2 months.

To compound the situation, a week later Sampson did a partial tear on his ‘good’ leg. I say, ‘good’ because to me it seemed like he never really walked well after that ACL surgery. In fact, I’m not entirely convinced his poor recovery from surgery didn’t aid in the partial tearing in the other leg, but I’m not a vet. Many, many dogs have ACL tears and surgery for repairs and recover well. Sampson just wasn’t one of them.

We did a lot of soul searching about how we were going to treat Sampson. The two major issues for us were the nodule/mass on the adrenal and the ACL tear.

Of course the heart issues are concerning, but the murmur is faint and the irregularity in the heartbeat is mild, so our focus turned to the other issues.

We decided not to do surgery on the ACL. First, we aren’t even sure they can DO surgery because of the irregular heartbeat and second, based on his experience with the first ACL surgery, well it’s just not something we want to put him through again.

We have a good plan in place to treat it conservatively. Some traditional medications, along with some supplements, acupuncture, short slow walks and physical therapy.

We made our decision based on his age, his previous experience with surgery and we also considered what was going on with that adrenal.

Speaking of the adrenal…

The treatment for a malignant mass on the adrenal is to remove it. From what my vet said, the only way to tell if it is cancerous is to remove it.

Hubby and I decided we didn’t want to put Sampson through abdominal surgery at his age, especially if it wasn’t going to significantly extend his life. Our thought process is, if this is the beginning of the end for Sampson, we don’t want his days to be filled with tests, treatments, missed meals and days away from home. We want his time left with us to be spent keeping his life as normal as possible.

Golden Lab

Missed meals and tests? That doesn’t sound appealing to me.

After many, many telephone consultations with the team of veterinarians at our clinic, we rescheduled his ultrasound for yesterday.

I’m going to tell you something here and some of you may laugh, and that’s okay. I’ve said it before, we are all on our own journey and we all have our own beliefs. If you don’t agree with mine, I’m okay with that.

So here it is.

I prayed over Sampson. I placed one hand on his stomach and I had one hand open and raised and I prayed for healing. While I was doing, I heard very clearly in my mind, “The adrenal is healed.” I said thank you and considered it a done deal.

I told the vet techs this story yesterday and told them they were going to be surprised when they saw the results of the ultrasound.

When I spoke to our vet yesterday afternoon she told me the nodule/mass hadn’t changed, and that the ultrasoundographer didn’t find anything alarming on the ultrasound.

I believe I pounded the roof of my car and said, “Yes, yes! I knew it.”

Then she told me, the next thing would be a blood test that could check for cancer. I then told her what Hubby and I had decided and that I didn’t think we’d be doing that test.

Yes, it might be the best $100 we ever spent if it ruled out cancer, but if it didn’t, I know I’d obsess over it and I’d be stressed, which in turn would make Sampson stressed, and that’s not beneficial to anyone, especially if we are not going to treat it anyway. Besides, you know if you dig long and far enough, you’re bound to find something!

I told her if that opinion changed after I talked to the Hubs, I’d let her know.

I talked to Hubby and we are both in agreement. We will not be pursuing the adrenal.

So that’s where we’re at. We will be working on helping Sampson heal his ACL tear conservatively and not be worrying about that adrenal gland.

Disclaimer:  I am not a veterinarian, the decisions we have made are made after much soul searching, and consultations with our Vet team. If you are facing decisions regarding your pet, you should consult your own Veterinarian.

All that being said, I have stayed at the Holiday Inn a number of times and can highly recommend them.

 

Heart Like a Dog

Welcome to Thursday’s Barks and Bytes Blog hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog. We hope you will grab a badge from one of our websites and join us.


The Sweatshirt Incident – Barks and Bytes

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I mentioned in my last post that we had frigid temperatures this past weekend.

I’d read somewhere that your pets should only be outside as long as you can stand it yourself, and they should be dressed the same way you are.

It was below zero on Saturday and I knew damn well that Delilah wouldn’t wear the snowsuit and balaclava (to that I had one for her to begin with) so somewhere in the gray matter I call my brain, I had the bright idea to use one of my sweatshirts as a coat for the dog.

I slipped it over her head, and rolled up the sleeves. It actually fit her fairly well, you can see in the below photo that the bottom of the sweatshirt hit right at the end of her but. I couldn’t adjust her harness enough to fit it over the sweatshirt, so I used Sampson’s harness and it worked perfectly.

I think the ultimate insult was when I put her boots on.  I practically had to drag her outside. She was either embarrassed or totally pissed off. (It’s hard to tell sometimes with that one.)

You think it's cute. I don't, you better watch your back when you're sleeping.

Pissed off. Definitely pissed off.  You think it’s cute. I don’t. You better watch your back when you’re sleeping.

She walked so slowly next to me, I had to keep encouraging her to keep up. Then she’d try to move a little faster and she’d trip a little on the boot. I was a good Mama and stifled my amusement so as not to piss her off further.

After her walk it was Sampson’s turn. His walks are shorter but I still thought he should wear the sweatshirt, so I put it on him. Since he’s a bit bigger than Delilah, his harness fit over the sweatshirt too.

I can see why House Elves have an aversion to this.

I can see why House Elves have an aversion to this.

I checked it to make sure it wasn’t covering his penis and out the door we went.

My first mistake was thinking that Sampson needed a sweatshirt. He truly loves the cold and was so happy and excited to be outside, I had to keep slowing him down.

My second mistake was not taking into account where the sweatshirt would fall when he was standing up.

You see where this is going?

Two houses up we stopped so Sampson could tinkle. He lifted his leg and I bent down to make sure the sweatshirt was working the way I’d intended it to.

I knew he was peeing, but I couldn’t see it.

Then there was a drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

He was peeing in the band of the sweatshirt!

Shit!

Suddenly, the pee stream made it past the band of the sweat shirt and it looked like a balloon filled with liquid with about 15 pinholes in it. Pee was streaming out everywhere!

Sampson was oblivious to the sudden warmth on his belly, but I knew I had to get that sweatshirt off because it was so cold I didn’t want him walking with a block of urine bouncing against his stomach or worse, have the sweatshirt freeze to his skin.

Since his ACL injuries, Sampson can’t just stand around. Typically he lies down, or if he HAS to, he’ll sit.

I had to make sure I had some control on him, because I needed to remove the harness in order to remove the sweatshirt, so in this instance, he sat. Once he was secure and I knew he wasn’t taking off on me, I then had to remove  the sweatshirt without getting dog piss all over me or him.

Of course, once I got it off, I still had to carry it home. Thankfully his walks are shorter than Delilah’s.

The next day, Delilah wore the sweatshirt WITHOUT the boots and Sampson…well let’s just say, Sampson went commando.:-)

It's better without the boots, not much better, but better.

It’s better without the boots, not much better, but better. You can rest easy again.

 

Heart Like a Dog

Welcome to Thursday’s Barks and Bytes Blog hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog. We hope you will grab a badge from one of our websites and join us.



I Hope He Poops In The House – Barks and Bytes

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I really don’t want every single post I write to be about Sampson and his struggles with a partial ACL tear or his adrenal glands. (I’m pretty sure you don’t either!)

I’m going to do my best NOT to do that. But as most of you know, typically people talk about what they know and the situations that impact their lives. And when you have an ill or injured pet, that is definitely life impacting.

Even though you may have an ill or injured pet, there are still instances where you can find humor. Hell, I can pretty much find humor in most situations. It may not always be nice, or politically correct, but you can bet your ass I’m laughing about it.

Sometimes if I’m really non-PC, I’m only laughing on the inside, but I’m still laughing.

Sampson did a partial ACL tear on a Tuesday. On that miserable walk out of the park, my sweet, sweet boy managed to take a dump.

And THAT was the last one he took, for over 36 hours.

As we hit the 24 hour mark, I placed a call to the vet. The last thing I needed was for the damn dog to get impacted with poop on top of everything else he had going on.

The vet suggested some pumpkin as a natural way to get the process going and explained that sometimes when we have an injury, it takes our systems a little bit of time to ‘reset’ themselves.

Not to mention, (I thought), the dog isn’t getting out and walking to help move things along.

Wednesday night as I snuggled with Sampson I said to Hubby, “I hope he poops in the house tomorrow.”

It’s okay really.  With the raw diet, the poop is very hard and is easy to pick up.  A shot of disinfectant on the floor and you’d never even know it happened. 😉 (Well YOU would, because I would tell you and then if you came to my house, you’d be like, “Where was it? Remember Patty, don’t sit on HER floor.”)

The vet had said to keep Sampson’s potty breaks to five to seven minutes only two or three times per day.

Immediately after his injury we were confining him to our yard.

No wonder he wouldn’t poop.

So Thursday morning I thought, well why can’t his five to seven minutes be outside the yard? I leashed him up, set the timer on my phone for three minutes and very slowly and carefully we set out.

Well lo and behold, he pooped! I was so excited I shot Hubby a text. And his response made me LAUGH.  Check it out.

Funny text

 

I told you we could find the humor in most situations.

Another thing that happened was both funny and sad.

Sampson hasn’t been coming to bed with me a lot lately. I’m not sure if he hates us helping him up on the bed or what (maybe it’s time to put the mattress back on the floor) but he’s spent a lot of nights in the living room.

Saturday night was one of those nights. He was stretched out in front of the fireplace and I said good night and we went to bed.

Somewhere around 1:00 am Delilah barked and jumped off the bed. This isn’t so unusual unto itself because she does do this randomly. I don’t know why. Maybe she has a dream or maybe she just likes to fuck with my REM cycle, but if you’ve ever been startled awake, you know what I mean.

What WAS different this time was that she ran down the hall and into the living room, barking the whole way.

It wasn’t a holy shit, there’s somebody in the house bark, it was more like, run, run, woof, run, run, woof.

Once I was pretty sure there was no-one in the house, I followed her, only to find her standing in front of Sampson who was still lying right where I’d left him.

Once Hubby and I were on the scene, she left and went back to bed. In Hubby’s spot. (She’s evil that one.)

So there I was at 1:00 am wondering why the hell she woke me up and if something was terribly wrong with Sampson. Hubby rubbed his ear (Sampson’s not his own, I mean what would the point of that be?) And Sampson smiled, but he didn’t move.

Hubby went back to bed and I started to go myself and then I thought, what if something’s really wrong?

I tried coaxing Sampson up, but he wouldn’t move, so I grabbed a pillow and a blanket and laid down on the floor with my hand under his head. I knew he wasn’t in distress or pain because he was very calm and he wasn’t panting or exhibiting any other signs to indicate something was wrong.

It took me a while, but after about an hour or so I calmed down enough to start to fall asleep.

You can see the spot just above his knee where they shaved him for the Ultrasound.

Then he got up and moved to a dog bed.

I guess Delilah’s not the only one who likes to mess with my sleep cycle.

Do you find humor in hard situations? Are you like me, sometimes just laughing to yourself?

Heart Like a Dog

Welcome to Thursday’s Barks and Bytes Blog hop hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog. We hope you will grab a badge from one of our websites and join us.



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