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Topics - Rajas Mom

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General Board for Big Dogs with Big Paws / Mourning Bo
« on: July 31, 2009, 11:20:08 pm »
I feel like a doggy mom failure.  We started 2009 with 3 dogs, knowing we had to put one down.  She died in a horrible way before we made the final decision and I experienced a lot of guilt and shame over that.

Two weeks ago today Bo, our Lab and the only dog we raised from a pup, became ill.  I left the vet call up to my husband (they have Saturday hours), but as he was still drinking water and eating minimally we both agreed to wait and see.  Raja gives us so many scares like this (and our vet is great about phone consults and with these positive things in place it's generally agreed to take the wait and see approach).

By late Saturday he wasn't drinking water and his walking was off.  We rushed him to the emergency vet where he quickly continued to decline while testing was done.  In the end it was Addison's Disease and his kidneys were failing and there was suspected heart damage.  We had to make a very quick decision on the spot and put him to sleep. 

The vet was actually great and really stopped us from making the "do anything" rash decision as our credit card was in our hands.  I'll never forget his words, "This isn't like we had hoped, a dog that just ate something, do a surgery, pay a couple of thousand dollars and be done with it, it's going to cost a lot more than that even to find out if he can survive and the other costs will continue forever."

We picked up his ashes today.  We are now a one dog family.  :'(


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Remembering those no longer with us. / Shadow Died Unexpectedly
« on: February 06, 2009, 11:29:17 pm »
Shadow, our old 15-18 year old rescued mutt (coming up on our 7 year adoption anniversary) passed away. She likely died on Tuesday, 2/03/09, but we failed to notice. I worked late until ten, came home and wrote a paper,slept four hours, went to work at 6am. Shan called me the next morning to say he had found her, while realizing he couldn't remember seeing her around the night before.

She was old, suffering, and a pain in the @ss. We have been seriously talking about putting her down for some time. But we loved her. I feel a lot of guilt now because of how much we complained about her. In addition to that, the way she died shames me...

Several months ago Shan installed a cat door in our laundry room door in the basement. This provided our cat an opportunity to have an unmolested litter-box and cat food dish and a chance to get away from the bigger dogs. Shadow didn't fit when we installed it, but she's been eating less and less over the past few months (and our talks of putting her down have increased). Eventually she started squeezing through.

About a month ago, she became stuck in our sump-pump, totally wrapped around and it was some effort to get her out. We made plans to buy a lid (it's VERY small sub-pump hole and occupied mostly by the sump-pump, how she even got in there...) and even brought it up again this week as we had plans to go to the home improvement store.

Shan came home the night of, and again, looking back, doesn't recall seeing her. I was in no mind for dogs, petted the ones jumping at me, and went to work.  We always said Shadow was more cat than dog, not shocking when she lies low. She has become so incontinent and unable to do stairs or cold weather that we've just being leaving pads for her to pee on, she spends most of her time in the basement (as does my husband, our other living room is down there).

He woke up, realized something was off, and found her inside the sump-pump. He thinks she may have broken her neck from the fall. We're very sad, although mine keeps coming in waves. I'm a late bloomer when it comes to grief. It usually hits me after everyone else is over theirs, so they can look at me and say WTH is wrong with HER?

I still feel like such a bad pet owner! My mom really helped (who knows how weird/quirky Shadow is, or rather was (still hard to say that) - you should see the photos I have of her walking lap around the rim of my mom's pool in her better days. At any moment she could have fallen, and likely would have drowned(sad irony), but nothing, other than locking her inside the house would deter her. Every time we went there she would just go around and around and around and around, her own tightrope act!

My mom, who knows where/how my sump-pump is located (not especially dangerous and/or sticking out) said, "I don't have a lid on mine, and yours is so small...!" Less guilt, but so sad. I just hate to think about her suffering. Everyone keeps telling me maybe it was meant to be as most know how hard we've been struggling with the decision to put her down... but no one deserves to go out like that! I really hope she broke her neck (rather than drowning). I'm thinking that was the case and telling myself it was instant, as Shan would have heard her yelps/barks if she was just stuck again (for a 14 pound dog - likely more around 12 pounds when she went - she had the bark of a BIG dog and can wake a neighborhood). I never was a big fan of small dogs, but she was certainly no yippy little thing and could give it to the best of them in her prime.

The sadness continues to come in waves.  Especially as we cleaned up her pee pads in the basement today (many also known as our expensive rugs, boy did she ever love peeing on rugs).  I felt especially bad last night when we finally made that trip to the home improvement store and bought several rugs while we were there realizing we could finally have them again.  It almost felt like we were celebrating (we weren't, but less mopping will be nice).

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Saint Bernard General Discussions / Escape Artists
« on: August 06, 2008, 08:01:05 pm »
Scootergirl's most recent thread made me relive horror stories.  The most recent was a couple of Sunday mornings ago.  I got out of bed, let the dogs out and lounged around.  My husband's friend came over and I thought it was odd that they didn't start barking at him, but figured that my husband had them in the basement with him and they just managed to miss out on the action.

Until my husband came upstairs and a walked outside with his friend.  And noticed that Raja was across the street drinking out of a neighbors bird bath.  Bo was long gone and the gate was wide open.  After 30 minutes of searching I discovered that one of my neighbors had put them in their backyard's for safe keeping - they called me over.  Bo had just had a bath and his tags weren't on - scary!

Still no idea how the gate got open.  I'm thinking that clever Raja figured a clever way to do the deed.  We are now locking it.

So, what are your escape stories?

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When we adopted Raja at 9 months of age she had lead a fairly sad life.  Her previous owner had gone through a separation shortly after adopting her (I know him, and feel sad about his situation) and began living the single life.  Hence, Raja ended up in a crate a lot.  He had young kids, and she is great with them, but...

We shortly after discovered that Raja occasionally takes an intermittent dislike to certain people.  For example, my cousins came to visit one day.  She was fine.  Happy and smiley as usually.  Suddenly, she began to growl at one of my 10 year old twin cousins (the one who would smell nothing like an animal as he as horrible allergies).  Another day, we were on our way to the pet store to try to socialize her more and stopped to get gas.  She began growling fiercely at woman at the pump next to us.  She managed to hop out of the car and my husband had to use all of his strength to restrain her (I probably wouldn't have been able to to it).  We ended up leaving her in the car when we got to the pet store (despite having other past successful trips, we didn't want to put other dogs and owners at risk).

She has not recently shown any problems, and we try to have people come over as when we invite them in, she is receptive (way too much so probably).  The problem currently lies in that none of our friends are dog lovers, without along 140 pounds of slobbery dog love.  My best friend, who tries, breaks out in rash where Raja's slobber hits her.  Ideas?  We are planning on getting her into another Obedience class (she knows her commands, but they don't seem to work when this aggression comes over her).

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Medical Conditions & Diseases / Hygroma - Need Reassurance!
« on: June 02, 2008, 05:37:07 pm »
About a month ago Raja developed (overnight) a hygroma on her front elbow the size of a tennis ball.  We, not knowing what it was, took her to the vet and then set out to learn all of the wonderful things that there are to learn about them.

Problem?  It seemed to be shrinking some, but then last week we had to take a trip up North and my husband's mother dog sat for us.  Now it's back to being the size of a tennis ball.  Currently we are doing a light compression wrap (key word being light, anything else cuts off her circulation as evidenced by her leg swelling) and providing her with a human elbow brace (which fits very nicely).

Not only do we have all hardwood floors and tile, but we also have a huge cement patio outside that Raja loves to flop on and/or play with the ever hyper Bo on.  Hence, despite adding padded area rugs, etc. nothing seems to help.  She rarely lies on her beds now that it has gotten warmer.  Because of this, I've resorted to crating her several hours a day, as it seems to be the only way I can keep Bo off of her (and her from slamming/flopping on the floor).

Questions:

I know that this is a long process... How long?  Should I start seeing any improvement soon?

Would DoggLeggs really be worth it? 

I've read a few things about possible helpful ointments, does anyone here have experience with them?

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