Monday, August 22, 2005

Sad turn of events

I had to put Jodie, my 14 yr old corgi, to sleep on July 14th. She had been fighting kidney failure as you may know, and it had become too much for her.

Now Taylor, my 10 yr old lab, is having seizures which started this last Sunday. She is on meds to control them but it is likely a brain tumor. We are looking in to options for treatment/prognosis/etc right now. My feelings are that she will not be with me much longer either. We are going to see the neurologist in Santa Cruz tomorrow and maybe get a CT scan.

Hard to believe it is happening so close together. I'll send out an update when I know more.

Well, it was confirmed yesterday that my lab, Taylor, does have a brain tumor and it is not operable/treatable. We will just medicate to control the seizures and when they return make the hard decision then.

Then, to make things worse:

I came home Friday after work and as I was getting ready to lock my dogs in the house so I could Amanda's dog Angel, Angel broke through 2 gates and started a fight with Ekko. As I got Taylor in the house to safety and went back to rescue Ekko, TS was now in it with Angel and Ekko was on the border. I got Angel on the side yard and closed the gate but before I could get TS back in the house she body slammed the gate open and they were at it again. I tried to pick Angel up to get her out of reach but it didn't work so I steered them back towards the back fence. TS gave her a chance a few times to just let it go but she wouldn't and he would be back on her neck in an instant. I finally got them back by the fence/gate Angel had come through but I had to pick her up over my head to get over the fence. She tried to come right back through but I had my leg holding it. But since it has open bars TS stuck his nose through to snap at Angel and when he did that she clapped down on is upper jaw/nose. He was stuck in the bars and she would NOT release her grip so I had no choice but to try to pry her bite open. Once I got TS free her mouth shut on my left fingers. I finally found something I could wedge against the fence to keep her in long enough to get TS in the house.

Then I sat on the steps and had an asthma attack for a few minutes and went to check on my dogs and my hand. Right then Amanda came home and checked the dogs while I ran cold water on my hand. Ekko was fine, TS has a scraped up nose and a gash on his lip...and Angel is a MESS. She has a drain tube in her chest, stitches on her back right leg and possibly a damaged knee. And she STILL tried to get to them again yesterday!

We ran Angel to the vet Friday. I didn't want to go to emergency cause I didn't want a bite report filed. Amanda's EMT friend looked at it and said I could wait i I wanted to. So I did. Saturday I felt like I needed to make sure it was really OK so we went to urgent care and I told them I dropped a jack hammer on it. Nothing broken, infected though that quick.


Amanda broke her foot last night in softball. spent 2.5 hrs at Kaiser ER.

We have an appt today at 1pm with Trish King at the Marin Humane Society. She is evidently very successful with dog/dog aggression. So I'll be driving Angel hopping on three legs and Amanda hopping on 2 legs up to Marin today.

Thought I'd fill you in on how the meeting went with Trish King.

She said unfortunately her advice is to put her down. She said she is the quintessential fighting pit and a person of low moral character would be happy to have her. After hearing of how the fight played out, and that Angel still wants to return to it, she was convinced that she is a disaster waiting to happen.

She said a few things that drove it home for her were the fact that she was as injured as she was and kept fighting, that she let me reach in and pick her up repeatedly without turning on me, and the fact that she is one of the few dogs that noticed the dogs Trish had in her office on a large crate with a big blanket in front of it. Angel caught the sent right away and though she didn't lunge she kept her focus on that crate.

I just wanted everyone to know that we had to put Amanda's dog, Angel, down last night. I will be at the pet fair tomorrow but Amanda will not.

And then:
My little lab Taylor has gone off to play with her corgi buddy, Jodie as of this past Saturday. I hope we are done with this trend for a while...

3 comments:

  1. Wow. I just wanted to send you some hugs. So sorry.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh honey I am so sorry. I came across this from The Phantom Scribbler, and had to offer my condolences. Believe it or not, I've been there. I also was a HUGE foster person (having double digits at a time, often all Great Danes.. what a house!) and although I never had to put more than two of my own down within such a short period of time, I have been in position that I was putting down almost every dog that came through our home for one reason or another.
    I am so sorry that you lost your babies.
    Estelle

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi PK and Estelle-

    Thanks for the kind words. I haven't been checking comments lately so I missed these.

    Kate

    ReplyDelete