The Dog Days of Spring - Part 2, aka The Cone, The Calm and The Big Mystery

After losing Calvin having four dogs in the house was both daunting and exhilarating. There is nothing like four furry, panting bundles of love to greet you when coming home from, well, anywhere. Number four, Grapes, arrived on April 30, but on May 1 everything started to go a bit dark.

I came home from work and found on the floor what looked like red rose petals. David said the dogs must have brought a flower in (really?). But when I bent down to clean it up their feel was not of a botanical nature. Rather, it was gelatinous, bright red and smelled like metal. Someone had thrown up large drops of blood in the computer room-the question was who. While David and I looked around for more evidence, I heard the tell-tale sign of someone getting sick. I turned to see my little Baci projectile vomiting blood. It looked like some canine vampire-meets-sunlight moment and it scared the bejeezus out of me. Five minutes later we were on our way to Santa Fe (40 mins down the road) and the ER vet.

Now, I am the first to admit how spoiled I have been when it comes to my animals. For the most part, my animals never got sick; they lived, they died. Oh sure sometimes there was the occasional foxtail up the nose, a congenital defect that might shorten the life, or a broken tail , but never something with such sudden onset and violence as what Baci experienced that night.

The ER vet was terrific and pumped him with IV fluids, gave him pain meds and anti-emetics, she took ultrasounds and x-rays and gave him a gastro-protectant. Then she came out and gave me all sorts of possibilities, some more disturbing than others, but nothing definitive. They took blood several times and noted his chemistry changing, they did a urinalysis and it was normal. Finally, the next day they said we could take him home and they sent a tummy protectant with us and told us to give him an anti-heartburn medicine.So, that was it? The blood loss, the pain, the drama, the lack of sleep and $800 later nothing was determined? Ahh, medicine. The truth is, especially with animals who can't talk about what is going on inside them or for how long or what they might have eaten, etc., you just might never know what seems to come close to killing them. Rather, on May 2, just one month after losing our old man, we gratefully took our boy home and started him on a bland diet of boiled chicken and rice and hoped for the best. That was a Wednesday. On Friday I took Blue in for a check up and annual heartworm test, and came home, yet again, in tears.

Blue is our most active dog. He patrols the fence, hates our eastern neighbor, chases birds  (that are flying already) and generally moves all day long, until he sleeps. Last fall we stopped our yearly heartworm prevention in October as usual. (For those in more temperate climes, yes, all-year prevention was how I used to do it in CA, but here the mosquitoes die off  and we typically treated from April through October). We had, however, a long Indian summer and it was warm well into November, but I didn't think about it at all.During his well-check our vet was incredibly impressed with Blue; his weight, his coat, his eyes, his heart rate, etc. That is, until she came back in the room with a stunned look on her face. Blue was infected with heartworm. I got wobbly in the knees--we had done this to him.

Heartworm is a parasite carried and thoughtfully shared by mosquitoes. If a larvae-infected insect bites a dog, the infection enters the bloodstream where it starts to grow. As the worms get bigger they migrate to the heart and pulmonary system. Once mature, they start procreating and the anitgen and microfilariae (teeny larval worms) can be seen in blood tests. It takes about  six months for worms to mature and start repopulating in an animal. If left untreated, heartworm will kill a dog,  it is just a matter of when. Early on there may be no signs, followed later by a cough and intolerance to exercise, loss of appetite, weight loss, fainting, and so on...Also, in a slightly cruel twist, active dogs typically suffer more from the infection than do couch potatoes because their hearts are pumping blood faster and spreading the wealth. The good news with this infection is that it is very treatable-especially the sooner it is caught. The bad news is that the treatment is fairly brutal to the dog and very heart wrenching to the human.

When people treat heartworm preventatively on a month to month basis, they are attacking the microfiliriae in the bloodstream, thus preventing worms from reaching adulthood. Once a dog is considered "infected" the same medicine will not work. Now it is time to bring out the big guns, the chemo-therapy of adulticides--the immiticide. This drug is one of those, "kill the parasite before  you kill the host" types of things. Additionally, after the injection is made, the dog must remain calm for a month because as those little slimy bastardos die off, they can clump up and cause thrombosis in the dog--potentially killing him. As if that weren't enough to give you B-movie horror nightmares, when the die-off occurs, a bacteria, Wolbachia pipientis, is released and can harm the dog's platelets. So, the invaders' death throes leave a booby trap. Ahh, it is all so charming isn't it?

So where are we now? Well, Blue went to the vet and had extensive bloodwork and x-rays to "stage" the infection. Great news! He was classified at the lowest possible infection threshold of "one". Phew on that. OK, deep intramuscular injection of the poison stuff was given, along with a sedative because Blue is such a spaz. We pick him up with strict orders to keep him extremely calm for the next four weeks (suuuuuure); the first week being extra crucial (oh good grief). We also had an antibiotic (for that other bacteria), pain meds, prednisone for inflammation, and puppy prozac to help him remain calm (extremely confident now-yup). The Doc assured me that for the first couple of days Blue would feel not so hot and not want to do much. I was to give him pain meds for maybe a week and then start on the prozac..uh huh.

Blue after his first HW treatment--still a little "groggy" (read: stoned) from the morphine derivative.

THE NEXT MORNING Blue was up and wanting to chase his shadow...The next week, I thought sure I would throw a clot myself just trying to keep him calm. He never took any pain meds and we had to move from prozac to a sedative. By the time we finally got him to chill by about 50% (by giving double the dose the doc had prescribed, btw), the "crucial" week was over. Well all righty then. My question to myself was-if I have a superdog who is resistant to everything we give him-why didn't he just kill his own heartworms?! Kidding, of course...

During all this time (ha! a week), other things were happening as well. My guilt over having let this happen to Blue led me to crusade about the importance of HW testing and prevention. Turns out, that in this small town, it had never been an issue and most people I knew didn't treat it at all and if they did, it was like us, seasonally. Even my vet tested her dogs the day we found out about Blue. Blue was the second local case my vet had seen and in the two weeks since, at the time of this writing, two more have been diagnosed.

The other excitement in our days was Grapes.Not to be completely left out of the Lattin infirmary, Grapes had developed some sort of allergic reaction to, I don't know, New Mexico? It is impossible at this point to know but the result was that our poor newbie had licked herself nearly to the bone on her leg joints. So, of course off to the vet we went (hi-ho) and came home with antihistamines, a shot of dexamethisone (for the swelling) and some antibiotics. That was all well and good but several days later she was still trying to find her own bone marrow so now she sports a fashionable "cone of shame". A week later her sores are scabbed over and the redness is going away. While she is doomed to wear the cone until her sores are gone, she is better and clearly more comfortable (if a little embarrassed by her neckwear).

OK so 50 mg of acepromezine works to calm Blue + four antibiotics and 1/2 a prednisone per day- check. Two antihistamines twice daily seems to be working for Grapes' allergies (also the cone of shame is allowing her self-in"lickeded" wounds to heal) - check. The fluoxetene is working to chill Mei-Mei's desire for a coup d'etat over Blue's rank - check. Whatever hit Baci a few weeks back seems to be history-check. So aside from the strange looks at the grocery when I buy several packages of hot dogs in which to hide all this stuff, we are settling into a routine (knock on wood).

Several of my friends mentioned what awful luck I have had with my pets of late. I admit that it has been super stressful, ridiculously expensive (I am lobbying the vet for a "Lattin suite") and exhausting. Bad luck, though, not so much. If I had let Blue's exam go (which was tempting with the advent of the new dogs and all that went with them), he would have been much more ill. If I hadn't been home when Baci got so sick, he might not have lived. Even Grapes has the apparent sympathy of Mei-Mei lately and peace has abounded in the last few days. Nope, we are lucky. Blue is strong and he will come through this fine. My friends have had their dogs checked and are on preventative, so if even one was helped, then it was worthwhile. Baci seems to have had a one-off gastrointestinal issue, but we know what to look for, Grapes can at least sleep without waking with a start from some deep and awful itch, and Mei-Mei has never been as mellow.

Besides, these four-leggeds are our babies-what else could we do?


Now, where's the rum...

The Dog Days of Spring - Part 1

If you read my previous post, you got a hint about the importance, in my life, of companion dogs. In particular my last post was a chance for me to grieve "out loud" and remember a fallen friend and part of his story.

What a difference seven weeks makes.

Two weeks after we lost Calvin we met, on a whim (ok, maybe a slightly vodka-fueled whim), a dog in foster care named Willow. She was a Shar-pei who'd had a rough time of it, was super skinny, missing patches of hair from being infested with ticks, and was about to be taken back to the shelter from whence she would be trucked to Albuquerque with several other hopefuls to participate in an adoption fair. Well, since my friend didn't play fair by showing me Willow's pic and inviting her foster dad to bring her over, I also put the rule book way and called my husband to bring himself and my six-year old daughter over too. If I was going into this fray, I wasn't going alone. All was well, Willow was not particularly interested in any of us, but rather in sniffing every single inch of my friends' house. I thought "oh, another day saved, no new dog" when suddenly Willow sat perfectly still for my daughter while she pet her and then, the coup de gras; Willow came over to me and licked my face. I looked at the foster dad and asked him if he had paid the dog to do that. You see, I am a sucker for, 1) a sad story, 2) a cute face, and 3) almost any mammal. Nevertheless, we thanked them all and went home to discuss. "Sweet dog." "Yeah she seems young." "Did you see how she was with Nora?" "Really sweet dog." You get the drift. Our defenses, however, were still holding fast.

I arranged to meet the dog at the local dog park so she could meet our two. That would be the kicker - no way she would get along with the big guy and the cranky little man. To say I was mistaken wouldn't be quite fair to me. Actually she seemed to get along with all the dogs there that day. Time was ticking until she had to be back at the shelter, so David and I walked off to consider it all. We struggled. We thought she was darling, but were we ready for a third dog so very soon? The answer became clear when she came barreling across the park to be with us at the bench. Thirty minutes later we were at the shelter adopting, Mei-Mei. And yes, I had named her the night before when I met her--is that a problem?

So, back in the house with three dogs once again. OK. I did, however, break my cardinal rule concerning pets (and my stepsons will laugh if they ever read this)- I didn't do a shred of research on Shar-peis before we took her. For those of you, who like me, are new to the breed, here is the quick and dirty lowdown. Sharpies (my term) are smart, loyal, STUBBORN, independent, and strive to be the dominant dog (swell!). If planning to mix Sharpies with other dogs, do it when they are puppies so you can positively socialize them (sigh). They are fiercely loyal and may seem aggressive to strange people or dogs.  They also always make some kind of noise: snorts, snores, rumbles, this odd musical airy whine that sounds like a cross between Hannibal Lecter's hiss and and the opening clarinet notes from Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. They slurp, growl, bark, moan,  rumble and smack their considerable lips. Oh yeah, they are also, I believe from my extremely limited experience, as close to kissing a walrus as I will ever come.Oh my. Well, too late because we were in love.

Mei-Mei after a month of good food and lots of love.

And so began the Lattin Wars. Mei-Mei jumped the dominant dog (who has 20 pounds on her) every chance she got, even though the outcome was always  that she got the crap beat out of her. Now, before you imagine illegal dog-fighting in the living room, you must know that Mei only ever got little nips - lots of them, but little nonetheless. I kept a supply of antiseptic and cotton on hand and she healed remarkably well. Later, taking Mei-Mei to the vet and talking to her about the wars, I was told that Sharpies have remarkable healing abilities, I suppose because they were originally bred for fighting...although fighting what, I have no idea-dragons?

Jump ahead two weeks-yeah, I know, you thought this was months in the making didn't you? David, Nora and I are driving to the Albuquerque airport to pick up Tripod, my brother and sister-in-law's dog who was being shipped from the Yucatan to...us! Yes, I had agreed a few months back to take her if she didn't find a home. Turns out that, speaking extremely generally, the locals (not expats) don't have a fondness for "street dogs" (read: mutts). So Tripod's only real chance was to come to the States. Remember the three things above for which I am a sucker? Tripod had apparently been injured as a baby and tended to favor her rear leg, hence her name. But, new life seemed to demand a new name (and she has only favored the leg when it got cold-which, if you are from the Yucatan is probably 65 degrees). This time it was Nora's turn to name the pup and after looking at her mostly white fur with  spots on her skin below that looked purple, you guessed it (probably not) her name is now Grapes.

Grapes - and no, she doesn't have cataracts.

Grapes is the polar opposite of Mei-Mei. She is sweet, uber-affectionate, doesn't care who is dominant, BUT is not to be jumped by some lost/abandoned dog from northern new Mexico.After all, she is a street dog  from the homeland, baby! She too, has routed Mei-Mei without getting a scratch on her. Grapes sleeps with our six-year old, leans her face and entire body into us to be loved and is a little lady who loves to be with us and soft beds and cool grass.

And then there were four.. Blue has now found a kindred spirit in Mei-Mei who has just as much energy as he does and wants to play all the time. Mei is learning "no bite" because she tends to nibble on our bare feet when she wants to play. Baci, as the elder statesman, is pretty much left alone to wonder about the demise of his peaceful kingdom, and Grapes wants to cuddle and occasionally toss a pillow around. There are still the occasional tussles, but without blood and mostly to remind Mei-Mei that she is NOT the boss. Feeding time is the biggest challenge because of the mix of personalities and degrees of food aggressiveness. "Everybody done? Bowls up!". .

People laugh and look at me as if I am a bit insane taking on so much, but in truth, we can't imagine our lives without any of them at this point. Mei-Mei is my little squishy face (have you seen Shar-peis?) or drooly face if she has had a drink. My husband  loves Grapes so much that if he ever left me it would probably be for her. Blue has stepped up into Calvin's role and is growing into the handsome man of the house. And Baci, well he was, is, and will always be my little fella.

Things were moving along well when, for no apparent reason, Baci started vomiting blood, Blue was diagnosed with heart worm, and Grapes licked her skin almost to the bone in some places with the fervor of a zealot; all within two weeks.


Stay tuned for Part 2, aka The Cone, the Calm and the Big Mystery.