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This happened in January 2008. |
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I meant to write earlier, but am just crawling out from under the
rock that was January. Early in the month a terrible bacteria got the dogs, causing extremely bloody vomit and rectal bleeding coming in 15-20 minute intervals. First Gabe got sick on the 2nd, then JoJo on the 9th, with Grace and Zeke one after the other on the 11th and 12th. For a week I was giving 15 shots a day because they couldn't keep food, or pills, down. We believe that Kolby had it in mid December but not to the severity of the others. The symptoms were awful for all of them, but JoJo was hit hardest. I took him to our vet on the 9th, the morning after an evening of symptoms. He received injections of fluids, pepcid and sulphasalozine (antibiotic). The next morning at 6 a.m. he was convulsing, had lost all fluids, had almost no potassium left, and shortly thereafter went into a coma. Our vet is wonderful. He met me early that morning at the animal hospital and stayed all night with JoJo. We visited around 7pm and gave him persmission to autopsy should JoJo pass in the night. By now three of the dogs had been effected, most certainly two more would get it, and we had no idea what was causing it. I felt like I was walking into a dark tunnel. Later I realized how deeply upset Dr. Sager had been during all of this. Here he had a pack of dogs who were all coming down with the same symptoms (something was irritating the lining of the intestines terribly) and none of the tests nor x-rays gave an indication of what was causing it. Lab samples could take weeks to produce something. And now one of the dogs was in a coma and possibly brain dead. He reported the occurance to the Mass. State Veterinarian, called other local vets, and checked w/ a colleague at Tufts but no one had reported this kind of incident. The fact that they got ill, one after the other with periods from weeks to days in between, indicated that it was bacterial and not viral. Poison is almost an impossible cause for a variety of reasons - including a foot of hard packed snow cover - and no poisons in our house. The dogs seemed to be getting it from each other. The next evening we took Gracie into the animal hospital because she had started to show symptoms. JoJo remained in a coma. Dr. Sager was still unable to determine what was making the dogs so sick, and not sure which antibiotic was going to cure them. JoJo was on a drip of an antiobiotic that targeted the brain, but this was not the appropriate antiobiotic to stop the intestinal bleeding. Chris was sitting in an examining room, holding Gracie while she was on a drip IV, and finally broke down when Dr. Sager told us that there was the possibilty that, if we could not figure out what was going on, or at least how to treat it, that all the dogs could be compromised. We took Gracie home and started giving injections every 8 hours to the dogs. A long story short - JoJo came out of the coma - but with horrific neurological symptoms including agressive behavior, lack of coordination and blindness (to what degree we could not be sure). I went from crying over the thought that he would die, to possibly having to make a decision to put him down because he did not come out of the coma, to possibly having to put him down because he was so neurologically compromised that he would have a terrible quality of life. In the end I didn't know which was the worse choice to have to make. I can say now that, since we brought him home on the 16th, his recovery seems like a miracle. I was completely unprepared for Gracie's and Kolby's recations to him when I brought him into the house. They attacked him. He was so sick that some canine instinct must have kicked in, and they tried to eliminate him from the pack. I was horrified. Very slowly (and with separation from his mother and aunt) he started to progress. Then, a week later, he was back at the vet's for an infected anal gland. His body was so weak he could hardly stand and when touched, he screamed in pain. Thank goodness for doggie sedatives. Today, happily, we have a healthy pack again. We still do not know what caused this, as the lab results have been inconclusive. We do know that it is responsive to ampicillin. Gabe had completed a 10 day course of sulphasalozine and seemed well recovered for a week, and then came down with symptoms again. Ampicillin finally cleared up the bleeding in all the dogs. JoJo is a very happy little guy and just last week started playing with the other dogs - a real milestone. His sight seems almost normal, although we understand that dogs with limited vision adjust by using other senses to find their way around. Clearly something happened to his brain because, to our delight, he has forgotten that before he was ill he would not come into the house with the pack - we always had to go retrieve him from the yard. Now, he follows us in, and is learning to use the stairs much more indpendently than before. So, that was January. February is looking much, much brighter. Warmly, Ruth |