Playing A Little Catch Up

 I've been remiss here, failing to update as frequently as I should. Time has flown by and with it pieces of our hearts. This pic of Abbie and Luna was one of the last of the two of them together as a few days later, we freed our precious Big Sister from her pain and suffering and treated her with the love she had so freely given to us for years. As June, 2012 came to a close, Abbie began to noticeable feel bad, moping about and losing her once notorious appetite. By the first days of July, we could no longer hope it was just a passing but and on our way back from Universal Studios, where we had taken the Gobelets as part of their vacation, we stopped at the vet to see what was the matter. X-rays showed an enormous renal mass that was displacing her gut, leaving her no room for food or water, and no doubt giving her much pain. Oddly enough, it was in an area that Luna had been sniffing on her for months. Surely she knew before the rest of us that her sister's days were coming to a close.

When I saw the size of the mass on x-ray, I knew immediately that it was inoperable, and the next days would be our last with our Sunshine Girl. Our hearts were broken wide open once again. We thought at the time that we might have a couple of weeks remaining to spoil her and love her and say our goodbyes, and we were trying to come to grips with how we might know when the time was right to ease her suffering if it came to that. People who have been there always say that "you will know," but we had our doubts until the morning of July 8th when we woke up and knew--just as surely as we knew that she loved us beyond measure. We knew we did not want to take her anywhere but wanted to have her take her last breath at home surrounded by the sights and smells that she loved, cuddled in the arms of the three beings who loved her most. It was Sunday, though, and I wasn't sure if I could find someone at the last minute to help us with our task. In swooped the angel Dr. Barbara Welsch with A Compassionate Way. Dr. Welsch was once a fully practicing veterinarian, but now she counsels veterinarians with professional burnout and those stricken with grief, and in her night and weekend hours, she delivers the sick from their suffering. Marc had his doubts about her, worrying that she might be too "touchy, feely" since she was a counselor. He was very worried that she would try to counsel him through his grief. I can honestly say, however, that had I told someone exactly how I wanted things to be handled, I could not have chosen such a perfect experience. Dr. Welsch was nothing short of amazing. She was loving and kind and explained in all the right places while being quiet in all the right ones, too. She humored Luna's curiosity and protective nature, letting her sniff each and every thing she used. She let us cry and sob and pet and love. She let us talk and sing in her ear. She let us be a family in our home saying goodbye to a piece of our heart.

The good Micheal Williams from Cherished Memories pet crematory in Gainesville had been prearranged to arrive at an appropriate time, and he was neither a moment late nor a moment early. Again, he was a blessing in our time of heartbreak, and we are thankful for him and his services.

 After that rather heartwrenching story, I thought this fun, happy picture a necessity.

 One of my favorite pictures of me...ever. How boring my workouts would be without my Luna Tuna!

 She's had this ball for no less than two years now. We have a new one that is just like it was when it was new, but she'll have nothing to do with it. This ball is her woobie. A couple of weeks ago, on one of the coldest days this year, she was playing outside as we prepared the motor home for our upcoming trip, and she got distracted and left her ball somewhere. None of us noticed until about 11:30 at night when she started to throw a complete FIT--on the bed, off the bed, in the living room, in the bedroom.  We couldn't figure out what had her so distressed. Then Marc asked where her ball was. That was it! We opened the door and told her to go get it, so she went outside then immediately back in. She had no idea where her ball was, and she was getting increasingly upset about it. As a result, so were we. Without it, none of us would get any rest that night. Forty-five of my traipsing around outside in pajamas, a robe, a toboggan and Marc's combat boots later, Marc (clad in sweat pants, a fleece, and flip-flops) found her ball right where she'd left it--at the end of the trail where no doubt some evil squirrel had lured her from it. I wish I could have captured on camera the look of relief on her face when she ran to pick it up.

 I snapped this pic of Luna running with her friends (or is it her arch nemeses? We're not quite sure.) today. I wish I had a nickle for every time she and these two had run along this fence.

In preparation for the next step in our lives, I took Miss Luni Tunes to the vet today. She checked out mostly fine, though her blood work won't be back until tomorrow. Her heartworm test was negative. Her physical was great. She did, however, test positive for erlichiosis. Dr. Jones said that most dogs in Florida do, and it likely just means that she was exposed and her body fought it off. Unless she exhibits the symptoms of bruising or nosebleeds, we'll just tuck the knowledge in our pockets for future use. She was such a good girl while she was there. At three years, 3 1/2 months, she continues to grow up week by week.

Glucosamine and Fish Oil

We've been giving the girls glucosamine/chondroitin supplements and fish oil since Luna's one year X-rays. Though the X-rays didn't show anything requiring surgery, they did show some very early joint changes--what would be osteoarthritis in humans but is called dysplasia in dogs. Dr. Greene didn't recommend any intervention beyond these daily supplements as a form of preventative. Since Luna is asymptomatic, we, of course, haven't noticed a difference in her activity. Abbie, however, has benefited greatly from them. She actually RUNS--not lopes or trots, but gallops--now. It is a beautiful thing to watch, and I'll do my best to catch it on film. Today was an absolutely gorgeous January day, so we spent much of it outside. I didn't catch them running, but I did get a few good shots.

Check up.

61.5#
We had a check up today with Dr. Green. All was well, and he says we're growing just fine. Turns out Luna is just going to be a small shepherd. What she lacks in size, she makes up for in moxie, though. :) Turns out she's pretty protective of her mom and her big sister. Honestly, it wouldn't hurt to get her socialized a bit better. I think maybe we'll work on that.

Waiting for the vet.

Just hanging out the other day...

Recurrence

Tuesday, July 6, 2010
A few weeks ago Marc noticed that Luna's dermoid was back, that yet again she had hair growing from her left eyeball. We, us and the vet, hoped--believed even--that Dr. Brown had been able to get all the aberrant cells, but just enough were left behind to bring a recurrence and that is what we had. Right away I made a followup appointment, and we scheduled surgery for two days later on June 30th. On our first appointment, Luna was such a good girl. We had to wait for about 45 minutes before Dr. Brown was ready for us. While we were waiting, several people came into the waiting room. Each time, Luna barked. At first, she barked for several minutes before I was able to quiet her. With each visitor, though, she quieted more easily, eventually only barking a couple of times to let them know who was boss. When we finally made it back to the exam room, she continued to do well. She was very afraid, but she didn't offer to bite at the vet's assistant or the vet, and she didn't act crazy, just wary. She even took a treat when it was offered. After seeing the new hair, Dr. Brown confirmed we needed another surgery, and we scheduled it for two days later. When we got to Orange Park on the 30th, Luna weighed 49 pounds on their scale, but I think that was a little light. Leaving her at the Orange Park office almost broke my heart because she begged me not to leave her, cowered between my legs. About 3 hours later, they called me to let me know she was ready (I had gone to get my hair cut in the meantime). Even though, I was already on my way, I still had to wait 30 incredibly long minutes to see her. She was quite anxious when she did finally come out, scrambling to get to me, to get out, to get into the truck, to get home. She whined all the way. It was heartbreaking.

We are now 6 days out from the surgery, and the eye, though initially quite swollen, is looking better, appears to be healing. We are putting drops in her eyes several times per day and giving her a pill twice a day. She doesn't seem to mind. We mind, though, because we want so desperately for her to be well and happy and free of vet visits for a while.

In this top picture, you can just see the shaved area on her right front foot where they tried to place an IV. I'm guessing that they weren't able to get it, though, because she also had a similar area on her back foot (lower pic), a less common place to put an IV.

Luna and Abbie were standing close together last week and it suddenly occurred to me that Little Sister had outgrown Big. Luna's back now stands an inch or two above Abbie's. This top picture is from July 2nd. The picture below it is from a couple of months ago.

Again, a couple of months apart with Abbie lying down in the bottom picture...

Luna goes out with me when I do my workouts. Here she has a little one all her own. :)

Elbows and Hips

Sunday, May 16, 2010
44#
I have all these great pictures just waiting to be edited. For three weeks now I've been avoiding doing a post in hopes of getting them finished for posting here. Instead, I have decided that, as with many things in life, I should forget about making everything just perfect and focus instead on just making. So here goes...
Honestly, things have been cruising along pretty steadily with little news to report until this week. We went to see Dr. Green for our six month check on Monday since Big Sister was going to get her annual exam. Luna was a handful on this trip, barking in her big girl voice at people in the office and returning with her hackles raised after being taken to get a stool sample (can't say I much blame her for that one). When they raised Abbie up onto the mechanical table, Luna was none too happy with the proceedings. She sniffed and whined and raised up onto the table so she could see. Generally, she was just one serious handful. Dr. Green noted my frustration and talked at length with me about some ways to help modify her behaviors and promised me that he would find some literature for me to read and maybe even be able to find a trainer for us to work with. Luna's being a good and polite citizen is very important to me, so I don't want to drop the ball on this one. Then we scheduled a visit for this past Friday for Little Sister to be lightly sedated and have x-rays of her hips and elbows. While we can't OFA certify her until she is two, the most important thing to Marc and me is her well-being and living as pain-free as possible. In order to do everything we can to ensure that, we wanted to get x-rays as early as possible. That way, we could intervene if necessary. Luna's elbows are perfect right now, and her hips are good. The pelvic bones and hip bones are formed well, but Dr. Green did express a small amount of concern about some incongruency in the way the femur fit into the acetabulum and is going to discuss the films with radiology at UF to make sure it's okay. We're going to be optimistic that it is. When we went back for the x-rays, he also confirmed that Abbie's labs looked great, so we now officially have two beautiful bills of health.

On our way home...

Spay or Neuter, Please

Somewhere around 20, 000 dogs and cats enter animal shelters each and every day. About 10,000 dogs and cats are euthanized in shelters each and every day. As much as I might want to stop that, to bring all those animals home and show them loving care, I cannot. You cannot. No one person can. If each person does his or her part, however, by spaying and neutering their pets and encouraging others to do the same, we can help prevent animals from filling all those shelters.
Luna's spay was completed last Thursday, March 5th, and she has recovered well. They actually also did an umbilical hernia repair while they had her anaesthetized. The jury is still out on whether that repair was successful. Her surgical incision has a pucker in it right over the hernia site, and since I don't want to apply pressure to her belly (that would just be mean), I can't tell if the pucker is just in the closure or if it's actually the hernia's continued presence. Frankly, I'm gonna be a little miffed if it's still there. I really don't want to have to put her under again.

By the way, I do recognize that another way to prevent the overfilling of shelters and help those animals is to adopt from a shelter or to take in a rescue from another source. Big Sister, and her big sister, Chelsea, both came to us that way, and both have loved us immeasurably. We debated long and hard about getting a purebred this time around, and about getting a puppy versus a grown rescue. This time, we came to the conclusion that this was the route we needed to go. Again, we were granted a precious gift, and Luna's circumstances brought all of us together. In the future, though, we wouldn't hesitate to adopt another rescue. Please consider this if you're pondering a pet.

Luna loves to lie next to her big sister, and she's actually learning to do so without completely driving Abbie nuts. Today was a good day, with much less harassment than usual.

We have an appointment with a dog trainer Wednesday to try to help us communicate better with the wee one. Abbie will be going this time around, too, in hopes of our learning a way to keep Luna from biting at her,pulling her hair and otherwise harassing her. I also hope to work on the "come" command and on heeling. I'm sure we'll come away with lots of homework. :)

Ears & Eyes

The last couple of days have been fairly momentous ones in Luna's world. Yesterday her right ear decided to stay up indefinitely (no doubt until the indecisiveness of teething ears kick in), staying up all day long. Since she was on such a roll, she decided to put a couple new skills in her hat, too, and she and Dad mastered "sit" and "down" over the course of the day. We've now added that to her requirements to get a treat when she goes outside to potty.

My getting a picture of the lopsided ears while I could turned out to be a good thing when we woke up today to BOTH ears standing straight up. So she wore her new eardo to the opthalmologist today to have her dermoid removed.


T.L. met me at work when I got off this morning, and we headed to Orange Park to get her surgery done by Dr. Daniel Brown at the Animal Eye Clinic. Having started out her trip with T.L., who is still a little new to her, she was nervous starting out, and about 3/4 of the way there, she barfed EVERYWHERE, mostly down my right leg.

Waiting to see Dr. Brown.

On our way home.

There for a minute, I thought T.L. was going to follow suit. We made it to the vet, though, without further incident. We got there early enough that she, T.L. and I were able to sit there for a while and calm down before we met with the Dr. Brown for a minute. I was very impressed with his kindness and how observant and astute he seemed to be, so when I left her in his care, I was not nearly as nervous as I was before we got there. I went to shower and nap while she was put fully under and her dermoid removed. The procedure didn't take long, and they called me about 1pm to let me know Luna would be ready about 2:30. Dr. Brown saw us when we got there to let me know that everything went well but they had to remove more tissue than anticipated, and as a result, Luna had an external stitch that they did not anticipate. Now she is saddled with this lovely cone for not 1 or 2 but for the next 9 days. She'll also be getting ointment to the eye every 6 hours and anti-inflammatories and antibiotics twice a day. Dr. Brown gave Luna a little Valium just before we left to help her not get as nauseated on the trip home. The trade off was a stoned Luna on the way home. When she wasn't sleeping, she was whining and unhappy, then seriously drunk when we got home. Having recovered from the sedative, she is now doing well except for being quite irritated with the cone, banging it against the wall and pulling at it with her front paws in an effort to remove it. It's going to be a long 9 days.

Our First Vet Appointment

The girls and I have had quite a day today with a trip to Gainesville to PetCo, a trip to the vet, and a trip to visit friends. When we got to the vet's office, we were informed that he was in an emergency surgery and our appointment would have to be bumped back by a couple of hours. This was okay with us, though, because we had already been considering a drive to PetCo for some goodies. Big Sister stayed in the cool car while I took Luna inside to pick out some treats, get some Big Sister food, get some ID tags engraved, and find some more comfortable diapers for the Big Sister. Frankly, I didn't think I could handle both puppies at the same time, and I wanted to be able to concentrate on Luna's first social experience. She was a little afraid, but handled herself nicely. Initially I carried her, but when I finally put her down, she handled being on the leash nicely and was slightly shy around the strangers, not aggressive or over ebullient. Abbie handled being in the car well and was lying down calmly when we got back.

By the time we finished at the pet store, we had just enough time to get to the vet for our rescheduled appointment. We needed Abbie to be seen to get her claws clipped and have a small mass on her face examined which turned out to be essentially a sebaceous cyst--no big deal. And Luna, of course, was there for an introduction, another set of vaccinations, to be microchipped and for a referral to an ophthalmologist. Dr. Clint Greene at Hilltop Animal Hospital said that Luna has a great bill of health with the exception of her dermoid which we will remove in a few weeks, and a very small umbilical hernia which will be repaired when she gets spayed. Her hips had no click or evidence of dysplasia, and we'll continue to keep an eye on them and on her elbows which apparently can also have some issues in GSD's. Big Sister and I were very proud of Luna. She never flinched, not even once, and never offered to bite. She even walked well on her leash the whole time.

Dr. Greene and Mario check out the baby girl.

After our vet appointment, we dropped Abbie off with Dad and headed to Miss Pam's house to visit Beefy (Miss Pam's French bulldog) and Miss Pam's family. We had hoped Lulu the shih tzu would be there too, but she was out. Luna did well, acting politely and pottying only outside. As a matter of fact, we've had only one itty-bitty accident in the last three days. We've had a big, big day!