The Cost of Love ....

Been a sad, difficult time for too many dogs lately and lots of people are stepping up to try to help them and their people get through it.

Lots of people have been facing tough times without the support of the larger dog community too - getting through expensive vet bills by going into debt, tapping on family and friends or digging deep into savings that had been set aside for other things.

It's been an expensive start to 2014 so far around here ... and Sampson  just ate the show budget for the year (literally he ate a blue kong that broke into pieces just large enough to get stuck in his stomach AND his intestine - because, really, why would anything be simple with our dogs?).

happy boy - run run run 

We were so very very fortunate to be able to simply say do it when surgery looked like the best answer. I was 95 % sure he was blocked somewhere (violent puking from 4 am to 8 am produced 2 of the Kong pieces but didn't bring him great relief) so we didn't drive to either Ottawa or Toronto for ultrasound or scoping  that would be best practise if I had been doubtful about the block. We went ahead with exploratory surgery. Good thing. Sammo was well and truly blocked,. (Why do anything in half measure eh?).

Surgery was finished quite late in the day so the clinic convinced me to transfer him to emergency care for monitoring - which I would generally recommend to anybody. It was good to develop a first hand relationship with both the closest clinic and the emerg clinic but it would have been better had it been a something a little less serious.

a happier winter day 

I was my usual high maintenance self. Staff at both clinics were great and understanding, actually they all seemed to think I was pretty funny too. I think they might remember me. In fact I was told that my level of high maintenance was bearable because I was funny.

Sam went into surgery relatively quickly. Apparently people often have dogs that are sick for days before people ok exploratory surgery. I suppose his producing chunks of Kong was a good thing to encourage us to move ahead with getting the rest out. However, a sick dog is probably a little more sensible than Sam was at the emerg clinic. He got out of his lovely floor heated pen in the middle of the night, pulling his catheter partially  out and  filling his leg with enough fluid he looked pretty stocked up.

even on leash mr sniffer still loves to smell stuff 

He quickly developed a foolproof method to remove his cone as well - he slammed his face to floor and used both paws to hold the hood down and yanked his head out - again, and again and again. So we went with a spray to prevent too much licking.

He developed some funky bumps along his belly - so he gets extra drugs for more time - because, you know, there is nothing any of us would rather do than ensure compliance with doctor's orders.


He is now BORED. REALLY BORED. I am terrified about how to ease him back to fitness. This is not a dog that knows the meaning of take it easy. Luckily he is not a huge house play dog so has been content to eat yummy treats and lounge on the couch. We've both been taking him out in the car too so he can watch the world go by at least. That's helping a bit.

PS - this dog with potentially terminal kidney disease when he arrived had, and let me quote,  "PERFECT" pre-surgery blood work - sometimes one celebrates the little things ;)