Dog Update
Just so I don’t leave you hanging about the dog…
Friday was a really bad day. I went to see him in the morning – he was still not doing well, getting worse. He looked horrible. I looked in his face and silently pleaded with him to hang on and get better. I talked to the vet over the phone in the afternoon and he suggested one last treatment before we gave up. All along we were treating his problems like they were ulcers – except the medication that should have worked simply wasn’t working. If it wasn’t ulcers – the other options it could be was cancer or inflammatory disease. He suggested giving him steroids to see if it helped.
A few hours later, I stopped in to see him. I brought the kids with me because I wasn’t sure if they were ever going to see him again, and I was getting ready to tell them to say goodbye to him. But when they brought him out, they put him on the floor, and he ran over to us, wagging his tail. Before he was shaking non-stop (most likely from pain), but he was hardly shaking at all – this was only hours after they started him on the new treatment. I couldn’t believe my eyes. We took him outside so he could pee, he did, then pulled towards the car like he wanted to go HOME. This is not the behavior of a dog that is giving up!
The next morning he looked even better. They told me if everything continued as is, he could come home that night. I couldn’t believe it! The dog had literally come back from the dead. That night I brought him (and about a dozen medications LOL!) home and he’s pretty much back to his old self now.
I’ve been told this is not a “cure” – his stomach is diseased. What this buys us is some more time with him. Whether it’s cancer or inflammatory disease, the steroids will eventually stop working. In the meantime, we are so glad to have him back with us for however long we can keep him. I still don’t know how I’m going to cope when the eventuality comes. He’s like my daemon / animal spirit. He’s always by my side and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to say goodbye to him.
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- Dog Appreciation » The Working Mom - [...] just really happy I still have my doggie. (As you can tell by his regular position in photos, he’s…
My name is Jennifer and The Working Mom is my online journal. I'm very bad about updating it regularly. I like writing, but not as much as I 
So glad to hear he is doing better and is back home again! Hope that the fix, even if it isn’t a cure, helps give him many long, happy years with you guys!
I hope your dog pull through this and is with you for a while longer. It is amazing how attached you get to pets.
We were adopted by a stray Terrier/Chihuahua mix that was abandoned when she was about 6 months old. We were not looking for a dog but how could we say no. She is now our 4th kid.
Last fall she ruptured a disc in her back and we thought we were going to have to put her down. The vet said that we should give her 4 weeks to see if a cortisone shot would let her recover. She could not walk and had to be carried outside and helped to do her business. She was also mean and would bite when she was not heavily medicated for pain. It tore us up. As week 4 approached we were sick. Then one day she got up off her pallet and walked over and barked at me. She is still not 100% and we have to try and make sure she does not do it again but 9 months later she is still doing great.
We tease our mutt that she must have a cat somewhere in her linage. She is aloof, not affectionate at all and is scared of anything that makes a sound. She also does not come when you call her unless you have food. She will look at you and continue about what she was doing before. Acts just like mosts cats I have known.