Losing a Dog

Our little Soozzee has left us.  As I've described in several recent posts, she was suffering from a variety of ailments: deaf, blind in one eye and almost blind in the other, Addison's disease, arthritis, bladder stones, a thyroid condition, a skin condition, and worst of all, dementia.  Since my post last month, the dementia took more and more of a toll.  She got lost in the house pretty much all the time. She used to bark when she wanted us to get her down from the bed, but she stopped doing that.  We think she probably just forgot about barking.  Her inner GPS (the primary subject of my last post) got significantly worse.  She just seemed lost all the time.  She had often had trouble standing up and would stumble more on her walks.

Soozzee still had her happy moments, though.  She enjoyed parts of her walk: she'd stop and sniff at anything, even if she didn't know which way to go.  If we got out "the light" in the evening (a laser light that she has chased around the house since she was a little pup), she'd still pounce on it, but only for a minute and then she'd forget it was there.  And she liked to have some reassuring pettings.

But it was clear that she wasn't going to last long.  And on Saturday, April 6, that day came.  We did the morning walk and she kept going off the wrong way.  After getting back in the house, she wandered around lost, and while walking down the hall, she pooped without breaking stride.  The poor girl would never, ever, have pooped in her own house if she was at all aware.  The fact that she didn't know enough to control her own body was our signal that she was, to all intents and purposes, gone.

We called our vet, the Animal Hospital at Reems Creek, and made an appointment.  The people there have taken wonderful care of our dogs for almost 15 years and were almost as torn up about it as we were.  So just after noon last Saturday, they gave little Soozzee the injection and she passed away in my arms.

Good God, I wanted to die.

We're trying now to adjust to life post-dogs and, damn, it's hard.  For years, our lives have been largely structured around Soozzee and her sister Indy, who passed away a bit over a year ago.  At 9 am, it was time to wake up the dogs (yes, you read that right) and take 'em on their morning walk, then give 'em their meds.  Around noon, it was a ride in the car to take care of errands.  Around 4-5 pm, it was their evening walk and then dinner.  At about 7 pm, it was play time, usually with "the light".  Around 11 pm, one last time outside to do their business, take their evening meds, and off to bed.

Now, I'll be thinking "oh, it's 4 pm, gotta take Soozzee on her walk .... uh, damn ..."  It's a great big emptiness where Soozzee and her sister used to be.  Janis and I don't quite know how to fill it.  We'll get there, but it's going to take a while.  I still tear up over Indy's passing and that was well over a year ago, so it'll probably take at least another year or so to get over Soozzee.

I've been asked several times if we're going to get another dog.  No, we won't.  For one, it's unfair to any dog to be asked to fill in the hole left by another.  For another, there are things that we want to do, mainly travel, that were difficult or impossible with two dogs that were special needs.  And we just need to figure out life as empty-nesters.

Ever since I started writing this blog, there have been occasional posts about our two sweet Shih Tzus.  This is probably the final one.

Goodbye, little Soozzee.  You have my heart forever.

A Dog, Dementia, and Directions

I've posted before about my dog.  She's a sweet little Shih Tzu who's going on 16 years old.  For the past year or so, dementia has gradually been taking hold in her little brain.  She's not gone, not yet, but the dementia is slowly taking her capabilities.  One of them is her sense of direction.

Now, Soozzee has never been much of an outdoor dog.  She's always been a bed potato.  That's like a couch potato, only her happy place is our bed.  Walks are not something she looks forward to.  From middle-age on, she got more and more resistant to heading out.  Dragging her along on her leash wasn't fun for either of us.  So we got a dog stroller.  I put her in the stroller for the outbound trip, take her out to the farthest point, put her on the ground, and she will trot, or even run, back home.  And it got to where she seems to enjoy the outbound trip.  She'll stand there, looking forward, sniffing the air, taking it all in.  Then at some point she'll say "enough", and turn around in the stroller and start pawing at the back.  Time to head home, Dad.

Lately, though, dementia seems to be hitting her internal GPS.  After a stop to do her business, or just sniff, or whatever, she'll forget which way is home.  She'll look both ways and then head out in the wrong direction.  I'll turn her around, and she'll say "nope, home is THIS way", and head off in the wrong direction again.  This will happen over and over.  "C'mon, Soozzee, home is THAT way."  "No, Dad, it's THIS way."  "Soozzee, it's THAT way."  "No, THIS way."  Aaarrggh.

But I found a trick.  I put her back in the stroller and turn her around a couple of spins one way, then a spin the other way.  That seems to hit the reboot button on her inner GPS.  Then I head away from home for maybe 10-15 feet.  That's like the outbound leg for her, so when I put her down again, she heads off in the correct direction.  At a trot, tail up, heading for home.

Does it work all the time?  No.  But it usually does.  And sometimes I have to do it two or three times on a walk.  But a Dad's gotta do what a Dad's gotta do.

It's sad to see her slowly going downhill.  Her diminished capabilities mean that our social lives are very limited - we rarely get to go out to dinner, don't go to movies together anymore, and don't take trips.  Soozzee gets really stressed when she's left alone in the house now, and somebody has to be around to watch her when she wanders, or be there to give her her meds, or take her on the walks.  Sometimes she's a pain in the butt, sometimes she's funny, and sometimes she's frustrating.  But this old dog has earned every bit of consideration we can give her.  And I'm just happy she's still with us.

Living With an Old Dog, Part 2

Yes, it's been a month since my last post.  Life has gotten in the way, of course: a big day-job project, Christmas, New Year's, and a thousand other things.  One of those things is our dog, Soozzee.

You may remember a previous post from August of last year.  Soozzee had just turned 15.  She was pretty much deaf, was blind in one eye and almost blind in the other, and had a variety of ailments.  All that is still true, of course.  She's had Addison's disease for over a decade - an ailment that is deadly if not treated, but if treated (a pill a day and a shot every 4 weeks), is almost invisible.  She has dry-eye in both eyes, requiring medication twice a day.  She has a thyroid condition, requiring another pill a day.  She needs a Pepcid a day to keep her stomach settled.  She has two skin conditions: one that results in "old-dog bumps" all over her back, and another that results in skin flakes that need to be scraped down with a tick comb periodically.  She has two big stones in her bladder and possibly more forming in her kidney.  The vet doesn't want to cut the stones out due to her age, so Soozzee lives with them.  And because they seem to give her a good bit of pain every now and then, we give her some Gabapentin to help ease it.  Yeah, we spend a lot of money on the little girl every month.  And there's no Medicare for elderly dogs.

Since my last post, Soozzee's case of doggie dementia has gotten a bit worse.  I think it's exacerbated by not being able to see or hear much of anything anymore.  She gets lost in the house, or will sit or stand and just stare off into space.  She gets "the wanders" in the afternoon: around 2:30, she wakes up from her post-lunch nap and just ... wanders.  All over the house.  Bumps into things and stops.  Gets stuck behind a door.  Really, she needs one of us to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't get into too much of a problem.  Which means that one of us is wandering along with her, or nearby.  And she gets really, really spooked if we go off somewhere and leave her at home alone.

This dementia development has really put a damper on our out-of-the-house activities, both work and social.  Either Soozzee goes with us, or one of us stays home with her.  So: going out to a movie and dinner in Asheville?  Umm, nope, can't leave the Sooz for more than an hour.  A day trip somewhere?  Probably not, and only if we can take her along.  Fortunately, we can leave her in the parked car for a while since she doesn't freak out like she does if we leave her home - she seems to understand that we gotta come back to the car at some point.

When I go to the studio, Soozzee often goes with me.  But she doesn't just curl up on the couch and take a nap the whole time.  Nope, she'll go down for about an hour to maybe an hour and a half.  Then she wakes up and ... yep, she wanders.  I keep the doors to the outside closed, but she goes everywhere and, of course, it totally wrecks my concentration.  So I'll give up after a bit and head home, usually with a stop up at the church so she can do her happy run.

And that's the coolest thing.  Here she is, 15 1/2 years old, running across the grass like a puppy.  She can't see where she's going so I have to steer her, but she still gets that happy-dog smile.

There have been a few times over the past six months where I've thought she finally started her last downward spiral.  Each time, she's bounced back within a few days.  I'm so very, very thankful.  Yes, living with a dementia patient is hard, whether they have two legs or four.  But I'm happy to put up with it.  When she plants her butt up against my hip at night and starts snoring, it's all worthwhile.

Living with an Old Dog

My little Soozzee turned 15 years old last month.  She's been with us since she was a tiny pup.  To say that she owns my heart is both accurate and an understatement.  She's the sweetest little dog that was ever born.  Yes, I know, yours is too, but I'm absolutely certain that Soozzee is the queen.

But she's getting old and I'm acutely aware that her time with us is limited.  Over the past year, especially, her age is dragging her down.  Her walks are a bit shorter these days and much slower than they were a year ago.  Her hearing is pretty much gone.  She's totally blind in one eye and almost blind in the other.  She bumps into things around the house.  Her hair has gone from thick and honey-colored to thin and white.  She has old-dog skin bumps, bad skin flakes, and dry eye in both eyes.  Often when she stands in one place, one or more of her legs shake.  The dog formerly known as "Piglet" has to be hand-fed.  She's gone from a hefty 20 pounds to a thinner 16.8 and may not be done yet.  She used to chase The Light (a laser pointer) around the house every single evening.  Now, I'm not sure she can see it anymore, and she only does about a half lap around the house anyway.  She has always been a world-class nap-taker, but her nap times have increased to where she's only awake maybe two or three hours a day, spread over a 12-hour period.

Still, Soozzee is hanging in there.  She still has control of her bowels, thank God, so unlike some other older dogs, she doesn't need diapers.  When she hits her favorite field on her afternoon walk, she still likes to run.  True, what once was one long run is now a series of short and slow runs broken up with rest stops, but she runs.  She likes to go for her daily ride in the car.  She still pounces on The Light when she can see it.  She can rattle the windows with her snoring.  Occasionally we'll get a good tail wag, and every once in a while, the dog that rarely gave us slurps during her whole life will give us one.

I was an emotional wreck when we had to put her sister Indy down shortly after Christmas.  I know I'm going to be an even worse wreck when Soozzee goes.  It may not be that much longer.  But I'm going to treasure every moment I have with this little dog.

My Dog and Vestibular Disease

One of my dogs got hit with vestibular disease last week.  "Got hit" is the right term. She's recovering now, but this has been a very hard week on all of us.

Indy is a 14 1/2 year old Shih Tzu.  She has always been a bit of a tomboy, meaning she has always been active and ready to run and play.  On Tuesday evening last week, she was her normal self, chasing the laser light around the house at full speed, barking, pouncing, and having a great time.  When we went to bed around 11:30 she settled in to her bed.  About 1 am, though, I woke to a strange scrabbling noise.  Indy was flopping around on the floor next to her bed and then threw up.  I picked her up but she couldn't stand, couldn't control her movements, and looked like she was having a seizure.  I did what any responsible dad would do: I panicked.  Actually, I got dressed as fast as possible, wrapped her in a blanket, loaded her into the car, and headed to REACH, the emergency veterinarian for the Asheville area.

The staff at REACH was great, as they always have been for us in the past.  The doctor evaluated Indy with vestibular disease.  This is a sometimes-nasty condition that is not uncommon in older dogs.  It is not that well understood, but appears to be a condition in the inner ear or possibly the part of the brain that deals with balance.  The dogs basically suffer from vertigo.  In most dogs, they will have difficulty walking, have a head tilt, or suffer from nausea.  In Indy's case, it was really severe.  She would lie on her side, legs stiffly out, a panicked look in her eyes, and sometimes would try to roll over.  It appeared that anything to her left was like falling off the cliff, and "up" was somewhere over her right shoulder, no matter where her shoulder happened to be.  The doc gave her some medicine to treat the nausea and told me that the only thing to fix the vertigo was time.  Most dogs would see improvement in a couple of days, with recovery in about two weeks.  So back home we went.

As it turned out, Indy's recovery was much slower, probably due to the severity of the attack.  She showed almost no sign of improvement on Wednesday.  On Thursday, she was calmer, but still clearly suffering from vertigo and unable to even sit up.  On Friday, we took her to her regular vet, who had already read the report from REACH and confirmed the diagnosis of vestibular disease.  He was concerned about her lack of progress, though, and said we'd have to revisit Indy's situation in a few days.  If she wasn't improving by then, we should think about putting her down.  Worrisome, to say the least.

By this time, we were pretty exhausted from the 24/7 care.  She couldn't eat or drink normally, which meant we had to watch her closely and provide water and food when she was ready.  For water, we used a syringe to squirt it into her mouth while she lapped it up.  Our vet recommended baby food mixed with pumpkin from a can (just pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filler).  We used the beef baby food. The pumpkin provided Indy with fiber to help keep her system functioning.  She loved it.

Urinary events and bowel movements were very problematic since Indy couldn't stand and was extremely averse to soiling her bed or normal in-home environment.  We put puppy training pads on her bed, which required one of us (me) to sleep on the floor next to her bed so I could change the pad and clean her up when something happened.  Urinary events were generally accompanied by a good bit of wailing, not from pain but from distress.  Bowel movements were a different matter since she basically stopped them for a few days, which really worried us.

I mentioned 24/7 care.  To keep an eye on our patient, we made up a bed on the floor next to hers.  I've been sleeping there (correction: TRYING to sleep there) every night since this started.  Something happens every hour or two that requires us to do something: change pads/clean the dog after a urinary event, flip her over occasionally, give her water or food, console her when she whimpers, that sort of thing.  Janis and I have been tag-teaming: I take the nights, then she takes over early in the morning and I try to get a couple of hours of sleep in a real bed.  One or the other of us has been with Indy ever since this started.  It wears you out.

On Saturday evening, I had to take her back to REACH because she hadn't had a bowel movement in several days nor a urinary event in half a day.  She was miserable and we were worried that something more serious was going on internally.  We wound up seeing the same doc as the first time. After a thorough check, she reported that Indy's internals were functioning normally and that it was probably stress that kept things from coming out.  The doc was very concerned about Indy not being able to walk or even sit up, though.  She suggested giving Indy an acupuncture treatment to stimulate the muscles.  I thought, what the hell, sure, and so we did.

As it turned out, this was acupuncture augmented with electrical impulses.  Indy's reaction?  She went to sleep.  In the photo, I'm holding her head up and she's snoring.  The doc said we should see some improvement in 12-24 hours and sent us on our way again.

Sunday, though, was not a good day.  We saw no improvement at all.  In fact, by late in the day, I was starting to think about which day this week would be best for putting her down.

Monday, though, saw some changes.  Indy was able to sit up for the first time.  She did the normal dog head-shake, the kind where they're just getting the hair out of their eyes, which is not something you'd expect to see in a dog with vertigo.

Tuesday was better.  She sat up further, bracing herself on her front paws, although the rear legs were still immobile.

On Wednesday, Indy woke up with the attitude that she was sick and tired of lying around in her bed, and it was time to get up and go.  She had three self-initiated physical therapy sessions: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening.  Each session was longer than the last, and each was INTENSE.  This little girl worked her ass off.  And she continued into Thursday morning with a long session from 3-7 am.  Just wouldn't quit, even when I was trying to convince her to lie down and go to sleep, dammit.  The highlight, though, was that she was finally able to get her butt off the floor and actually stand up for a few seconds.  You have no idea how glad that sight made me!  You can see her determination in the photo:

Later on Thursday, she continued to make progress.  By the end of the day, she could actually walk about four feet or so.  It was a very crooked walk, but she was moving on her own.  She even got to her water bowl, where she drank, albeit with great difficulty.  Amazing stuff.

Now it's Friday morning and we have another milestone to report.  I took Indy and her sister Soozzee for their walk this morning.  No, we didn't make Indy walk - I put her into the doggie stroller and headed out.  A few minutes down the road, she started whining, so I put her on the grass, where she squatted and peed.  This was her first pee outside in over a week.  I put her back into the stroller and we went on a ways.  At a flat spot, I put her on the ground again and after stumbling around a bit, she actually had her first normal, outdoor poop since this all started.  Wow!  A normal poop and pee again!  Folks, we are movin' forward!

Speaking of pooping and peeing, until this morning, we have been using puppy training pads.  We're now changing over to doggie diapers.  She's mobile and we don't want to have to chase her around the house with the pads.  Actually, we're chasing her around the house anyway because she's like a toddler, bouncing off walls and furniture, and we are trying to prevent the hardest hits.  But after our experience this morning, the diapers are just a safety measure.  She may not need them very long.  We'll see.

If you're reading this because you're a friend of ours, it looks like Indy will be with us for a while longer.  Exactly how much movement she can regain still remains to be seen, but I am so encouraged by the unbelievable work that she has put into it.  I don't care if she's a bit wobbly for the rest of her life, at least she will be with us.

If you're reading this because you Google'd "vestibular disease" and landed here, it's probably because you have a dog or cat that's going through something similar.  It's a very scary time.  Vestibular disease hits hard and fast and the recovery process is all about time.  Somebody has to be with your pet 24/7 to provide them with water, food, change pads, and whatnot.  As they improve, your role changes from ICU nurse to physical therapist.  Fortunately for us, Indy is responding and recovering.  Most animals do; however, a few do not.  And sometimes what's initially diagnosed as vestibular disease can be something much more serious, like a brain tumor.  I hope that's not the case with you.  At any rate, this has been a very long post, and I hope it has provided some insight into how you might have to treat your dog or cat.

Meanwhile, I'm just happy that Indy is going to be with us for a while longer.

UPDATE - December 29

Unfortunately, things did not go well with our beautiful Indy.  Indy gradually was able to walk and even run, which gave us great hope.  However, she was able to do that by sheer force of will.  The vertigo never let up and, in fact, it gradually wore her down, both physically and in spirit.  After 15 days, she spent all her day lying on her side, occasionally struggling to do something, anything, but not having the strength to overcome the debilitating condition.  Our vet determined that it wasn't the milder form of vestibular disease, but almost certainly due to a tumor on the brain.  A fix is very delicate and iffy, with a long recovery.  So yesterday, rather than submit her to a long and painful process that had no guarantees of success, we took her in to the vet for the final time.  At 4 pm, she crossed over to the other side.

Good God, that hurts.

So if you're here because your dog may have vestibular disease, watch for the rate of improvement.  If Indy had the common kind, she would have improved significantly in the first 72 hours.  But she was one of the smaller percentage with more serious and permanent damage.  We lost our little girl.  I hope you don't lose yours.

Canine Crisis

We had a rough week. Indy, one of our two Shih Tzu's, had a health crisis that came out of the blue. She was fine Tuesday, but then overnight began acting a bit unusually. On Wednesday she was dragging a little bit and wouldn't eat. On Thursday, she had no energy, wouldn't eat, couldn't walk far without tiring, and late in the afternoon started shivering. I made an appointment with the vet for Friday.

Overnight I got one of the scariest moments of my life. In the middle of the night, she wanted to go out ... that's normal, but she went out and around the corner of the house and disappeared. And didn't come back. I got dressed and went out to find her. She was lying at the edge of the woods, looking out into forest, and didn't want to move. If you know animals, you know that sign: it's what they do when they know they're about to die. It was like a cold ice pick to my stomach. I picked her up, carried her back into the house, and put her on the bed. She went back to sleep, but I didn't - I kept checking her every few minutes just to make sure my little sweetheart was still breathing.

So Friday we got her into the vet. She was down to 12.5 pounds, from her previous 13.7 - a serious weight loss. They said she was severely dehydrated, so they hooked her up to an IV, ran some blood tests, and kept her overnight. The diagnosis: she has Addison's disease, which is a failure of the adrenal gland to produce all the right things it's supposed to produce. People get it, too: JFK, for one, so she's in illustrious company. Addison's is not curable, but it is treatable, so for the rest of her life she'll have to have a shot once a month and take a pill every day to restore the chemical balance that her adrenal gland isn't doing anymore.

On Saturday when we went to pick her up, she was much better - still a bit tired, but more active and interested in the world. Today was even better. Her appetite is still not up to speed, and her normally bouncy personality is a bit subdued. It's like she knows she had a close call and is still coming to grips with it. But she's playing with her ball, and this morning she found a bone on our walk and snuck it home when I wasn't looking. The picture above was taken on Saturday afternoon and you can see the purple Ace bandage on her front leg where the IV was.

I've often said that if anything ever happened to one of our dogs, they were gonna have to put me down as well. It's scary to come so close to losing one of your children, you know?