Man’s Best Friend
Dates: July of 2012 through September of 2012
Date Published: 12/21/2012
Dates: July of 2012 through September of 2012
Date Published: 12/21/2012
You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
In my last recap, I wrote about the one “official” hike I attempted while on a break from hiking. Prior to that, I wrote about the break from November of 2011 to July of 2012 and mentioned additional “details” which caused me to take another break from July to October. I’ll write about that now and promise that this will be the last recap about breaks. After this, we’ll get into the hiking every weekend recaps.
Before I begin, I want to take a minute and remind you that this blog is intended to be an open book of…well, of me. I’ve already discussed my personal failures during those late months of 2011 and early months of 2012, but I wanted to take a few moments here to talk about my failures as a dog owner. The truth is that Roscoe is a big part of my hiking routine and, without him; hiking just wouldn’t be the same. So, I feel like he has earned a post for himself here.
Those of you who are dog people know that there is no greater love you will receive than the love from your dog. Jaci once made a joke on Facebook that Roscoe was her “life” and that I’m “just some guy that the state of New York says (she is) married to.” Most people would take offense to that. But, I find it to be hilarious because of the truth behind it. I don’t doubt Jaci’s love for me…not for one second…and I don’t think she doubts my love for her. But, our love for Roscoe goes far beyond what we share together. And, we’ve told each other that so this won’t come as a surprise to her. And, really, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I would argue that the love one receives from their dog is the closest thing they can get to unconditional love, other than from God. So, when you fail as a dog owner, it leaves you feeling empty and helpless inside. All he wants to give me is love…and I failed him. Probably on more than one occasion…but one particular scenario will stick with me forever.
I imagine the pain felt when you fail as a dog owner is similar to failing as a parent (assuming, of course, that you are a parent who wants nothing but the best for your children…and not a parent who doesn’t care about their kids and never should have been a parent in the first place). But, I am not a parent. So, it is impossible for me to compare raising a dog and raising a child. I won’t even try.
Roscoe is a very good boy. Very good. When we first got him as a seven month old puppy, there was a lot of work to do. But, in a way, I looked forward to that because I didn’t want a boring dog that just lay around all day. I wanted to have that “stupid” dog that would make me laugh when I needed a pick-me-up (I’ve often said there is nothing quite like coming home to a wagging tail after a bad at work). I wanted a dog that would keep me on my toes by never knowing what he would do next. And, Roscoe more than meets those criteria.
Roscoe is a very smart boy. Very smart. So smart, in fact, that he figured out how to do several tricks early on. My family gives me credit for working with him, but I can only take half of the credit. He is smart enough to make the jump from doing one trick to two…two tricks to three…and three tricks to “I don’t know what you want from me so I’m going to do every trick you taught me in succession and hope that you give me a treat for one of them”. It looks even more hilarious than it sounds…I assure you.
Roscoe is a very strong boy. Very strong. The fact that this dog survived long enough to even make the trip from the shelter in Louisiana to our home in Connecticut is a miracle. For starters, he was one of a litter of puppies who were unwanted…and were surrendered to a high kill shelter. How anyone can do that is terrible to me…but that is a topic for another day. I refuse to focus too much on the negative here. Instead, I will give praise to Jennifer Pessnell and her group of angels at Paws of NELA and our local angels over at The Chi Society in Glastonbury for saving his life and bringing him into ours. The team from Paws of NELA found him, pulled him from the shelter, and gave him a foster home until we were fortunate enough to find him through The Chi Society’s website. Almost immediately, after Paws of NELA pulled him from the shelter, his life was again in danger when he came down with Parvovirus. Parvo, as it is known, is a disease that is all too common in shelter dogs. You can read more about it on the web, but for the sake of this recap, just know that (without treatment) it is fatal. So, you get the point, this dog went through more in his first few months of life than any of us will go through in a lifetime.
We got Roscoe in April of 2011 and, almost immediately, we realized he was trouble. On the transport car from Louisiana to Jackson, MS; he kept scrapping with one of the other dogs…prompting the lady who was driving him to say “whoever ends up with Roscoe will have their hands full”. Spot on.
The Labrador retriever is a natural chewer…I guess really all dogs are. But, I find it funny in labs because they were bred to carry ducks and other game fowl in their mouth back to their owners, without destroying them. So, why then, do they destroy everything you own by chewing it to death? Roscoe is absolutely no exception here. If we left anything on the ground (or within close proximity to the ground) while we weren’t home, he would get into it. Thankfully, he was very good around electrical cords. But…aside from that…if he could chew it, he would. And, if he could swallow it, he would. We thought for a long time we had corrected the majority of his chewing. We stopped buying toys with stuffing and kept a close eye on him whenever he was chewing any of his toys that we deemed “questionable”. Then come the day in July of 2012 when we took our eyes off of him for a few minutes...and he chewed off the end of one of his Kong toys and swallowed it.
In hindsight, we should have made him swallow peroxide so he would have thrown up whatever he did swallow. But, at the time, we weren’t 100% sure that he even swallowed anything. Over the next few days he began to vomit in small amounts. But, he never stopped going #2 so we were positive he wasn’t obstructed. Then, one morning, he threw up all of his breakfast. We didn’t know it at the time, but the next few months were going to be a living hell.
We called the vet and I brought him in for what I thought would be a quick X-Ray and confirmation that there wasn’t any obstruction. When I got there, the vet said she wanted to keep him there for observation and she would call if anything changed. I left to head back home and get ready for work. I didn’t even make it home before I got the call from her saying that there was definitely an obstruction…and she had to cut him open to go in and get it.
Our vet was awesome throughout the process but it is very frustrating to see your dog in pain and know that you can’t do anything to make it better. I picked him up the following morning, brought him home (I was able to work from home that day), and watched him walk around the house for the next 12 hours. He tried to lay down several times. But, after a few seconds, he would jump right back up as if someone had poked him in the stomach. Eventually, we brought him back to the vet so she could give him a shot of morphine (we used this only as a last resort) and he finally slept…but, all told, he was up for something like 24 hours straight. And, once he did finally fall asleep, he was only down for about 20 minutes before he was back up. Brutal.
We developed a system for sleeping in which we took shifts. When we first got him, I said it would be a good way to prepare for children…but I never imagined it would literally be like having a child. Eventually, we got his stitches out and he was on his way to recovery. We even went on one full walk, after about three weeks of short walks only to go potty. Unfortunately, a couple of days after getting back to full strength, we noticed a large bump on his flank. A few days after that, his ears (normally floppy) felt like they were filled with water.
We took him to the emergency vet that night and found that his platelet count (which should be between 180,000 and 200,000) was down to 7,000. And, that if he had cut himself in the middle of the night, he could have bled to death right there in the bed. The lump we had noticed a few days earlier: the vet theorized Roscoe had bumped into something which caused him to start bleeding internally.
We never did find out exactly what caused the bump or the fluid ears. But, the vet thinks it was a reaction to the medication he was taking post-surgery. Regardless of the cause, we had to put him on Prednisone in order to get his platelet count back up. Two pills in the morning with breakfast, two pills at night with dinner.
The scariest part, for me, was the side effects of the steroid. For the majority of the time he was taking the pills, it was like owning a different dog. He slept a lot, didn’t really want to go on walks, left a lot of slack in the leash when we did (where he was a bit of a “puller” before the pills), and he was even afraid to walk down certain side streets in our neighborhood. Our big, strong boy was broken.
Some time passed, and with a positive blood test we were able to drop him down to a pill and a half in the morning and a pill and half at night. Still more positive results…so, we dropped to one pill in the morning and one at night. Still more positive results…half a pill in the morning and half a pill at night. You get the point. In order to make sure his body was making new platelets naturally (the way that it should), we had to slowly back off the dose. More importantly than the blood test results, was that our boy slowly started to show signs of returning to the perpetual puppy he was before this setback.
At the time of this publishing, he has been pill free for a few months…and he is back to being his old self. As you know, we eventually started hiking again. And, we have been able to push our walks back up to the longer distances. Although, it is cold at night now so we probably don’t go as far as he would like. But, it’s a good thing that he WANTS to do more. He is finally showing all of the signs of a full recovery. So, there is a happy ending to this story. It was a miserable few months but our little fighter pulled through it. Those summer days where we thought we would lose him are now long gone. And, for that, we are thankful...
In my last recap, I wrote about the one “official” hike I attempted while on a break from hiking. Prior to that, I wrote about the break from November of 2011 to July of 2012 and mentioned additional “details” which caused me to take another break from July to October. I’ll write about that now and promise that this will be the last recap about breaks. After this, we’ll get into the hiking every weekend recaps.
Before I begin, I want to take a minute and remind you that this blog is intended to be an open book of…well, of me. I’ve already discussed my personal failures during those late months of 2011 and early months of 2012, but I wanted to take a few moments here to talk about my failures as a dog owner. The truth is that Roscoe is a big part of my hiking routine and, without him; hiking just wouldn’t be the same. So, I feel like he has earned a post for himself here.
Those of you who are dog people know that there is no greater love you will receive than the love from your dog. Jaci once made a joke on Facebook that Roscoe was her “life” and that I’m “just some guy that the state of New York says (she is) married to.” Most people would take offense to that. But, I find it to be hilarious because of the truth behind it. I don’t doubt Jaci’s love for me…not for one second…and I don’t think she doubts my love for her. But, our love for Roscoe goes far beyond what we share together. And, we’ve told each other that so this won’t come as a surprise to her. And, really, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I would argue that the love one receives from their dog is the closest thing they can get to unconditional love, other than from God. So, when you fail as a dog owner, it leaves you feeling empty and helpless inside. All he wants to give me is love…and I failed him. Probably on more than one occasion…but one particular scenario will stick with me forever.
I imagine the pain felt when you fail as a dog owner is similar to failing as a parent (assuming, of course, that you are a parent who wants nothing but the best for your children…and not a parent who doesn’t care about their kids and never should have been a parent in the first place). But, I am not a parent. So, it is impossible for me to compare raising a dog and raising a child. I won’t even try.
Roscoe is a very good boy. Very good. When we first got him as a seven month old puppy, there was a lot of work to do. But, in a way, I looked forward to that because I didn’t want a boring dog that just lay around all day. I wanted to have that “stupid” dog that would make me laugh when I needed a pick-me-up (I’ve often said there is nothing quite like coming home to a wagging tail after a bad at work). I wanted a dog that would keep me on my toes by never knowing what he would do next. And, Roscoe more than meets those criteria.
Roscoe is a very smart boy. Very smart. So smart, in fact, that he figured out how to do several tricks early on. My family gives me credit for working with him, but I can only take half of the credit. He is smart enough to make the jump from doing one trick to two…two tricks to three…and three tricks to “I don’t know what you want from me so I’m going to do every trick you taught me in succession and hope that you give me a treat for one of them”. It looks even more hilarious than it sounds…I assure you.
Roscoe is a very strong boy. Very strong. The fact that this dog survived long enough to even make the trip from the shelter in Louisiana to our home in Connecticut is a miracle. For starters, he was one of a litter of puppies who were unwanted…and were surrendered to a high kill shelter. How anyone can do that is terrible to me…but that is a topic for another day. I refuse to focus too much on the negative here. Instead, I will give praise to Jennifer Pessnell and her group of angels at Paws of NELA and our local angels over at The Chi Society in Glastonbury for saving his life and bringing him into ours. The team from Paws of NELA found him, pulled him from the shelter, and gave him a foster home until we were fortunate enough to find him through The Chi Society’s website. Almost immediately, after Paws of NELA pulled him from the shelter, his life was again in danger when he came down with Parvovirus. Parvo, as it is known, is a disease that is all too common in shelter dogs. You can read more about it on the web, but for the sake of this recap, just know that (without treatment) it is fatal. So, you get the point, this dog went through more in his first few months of life than any of us will go through in a lifetime.
We got Roscoe in April of 2011 and, almost immediately, we realized he was trouble. On the transport car from Louisiana to Jackson, MS; he kept scrapping with one of the other dogs…prompting the lady who was driving him to say “whoever ends up with Roscoe will have their hands full”. Spot on.
The Labrador retriever is a natural chewer…I guess really all dogs are. But, I find it funny in labs because they were bred to carry ducks and other game fowl in their mouth back to their owners, without destroying them. So, why then, do they destroy everything you own by chewing it to death? Roscoe is absolutely no exception here. If we left anything on the ground (or within close proximity to the ground) while we weren’t home, he would get into it. Thankfully, he was very good around electrical cords. But…aside from that…if he could chew it, he would. And, if he could swallow it, he would. We thought for a long time we had corrected the majority of his chewing. We stopped buying toys with stuffing and kept a close eye on him whenever he was chewing any of his toys that we deemed “questionable”. Then come the day in July of 2012 when we took our eyes off of him for a few minutes...and he chewed off the end of one of his Kong toys and swallowed it.
In hindsight, we should have made him swallow peroxide so he would have thrown up whatever he did swallow. But, at the time, we weren’t 100% sure that he even swallowed anything. Over the next few days he began to vomit in small amounts. But, he never stopped going #2 so we were positive he wasn’t obstructed. Then, one morning, he threw up all of his breakfast. We didn’t know it at the time, but the next few months were going to be a living hell.
We called the vet and I brought him in for what I thought would be a quick X-Ray and confirmation that there wasn’t any obstruction. When I got there, the vet said she wanted to keep him there for observation and she would call if anything changed. I left to head back home and get ready for work. I didn’t even make it home before I got the call from her saying that there was definitely an obstruction…and she had to cut him open to go in and get it.
Our vet was awesome throughout the process but it is very frustrating to see your dog in pain and know that you can’t do anything to make it better. I picked him up the following morning, brought him home (I was able to work from home that day), and watched him walk around the house for the next 12 hours. He tried to lay down several times. But, after a few seconds, he would jump right back up as if someone had poked him in the stomach. Eventually, we brought him back to the vet so she could give him a shot of morphine (we used this only as a last resort) and he finally slept…but, all told, he was up for something like 24 hours straight. And, once he did finally fall asleep, he was only down for about 20 minutes before he was back up. Brutal.
We developed a system for sleeping in which we took shifts. When we first got him, I said it would be a good way to prepare for children…but I never imagined it would literally be like having a child. Eventually, we got his stitches out and he was on his way to recovery. We even went on one full walk, after about three weeks of short walks only to go potty. Unfortunately, a couple of days after getting back to full strength, we noticed a large bump on his flank. A few days after that, his ears (normally floppy) felt like they were filled with water.
We took him to the emergency vet that night and found that his platelet count (which should be between 180,000 and 200,000) was down to 7,000. And, that if he had cut himself in the middle of the night, he could have bled to death right there in the bed. The lump we had noticed a few days earlier: the vet theorized Roscoe had bumped into something which caused him to start bleeding internally.
We never did find out exactly what caused the bump or the fluid ears. But, the vet thinks it was a reaction to the medication he was taking post-surgery. Regardless of the cause, we had to put him on Prednisone in order to get his platelet count back up. Two pills in the morning with breakfast, two pills at night with dinner.
The scariest part, for me, was the side effects of the steroid. For the majority of the time he was taking the pills, it was like owning a different dog. He slept a lot, didn’t really want to go on walks, left a lot of slack in the leash when we did (where he was a bit of a “puller” before the pills), and he was even afraid to walk down certain side streets in our neighborhood. Our big, strong boy was broken.
Some time passed, and with a positive blood test we were able to drop him down to a pill and a half in the morning and a pill and half at night. Still more positive results…so, we dropped to one pill in the morning and one at night. Still more positive results…half a pill in the morning and half a pill at night. You get the point. In order to make sure his body was making new platelets naturally (the way that it should), we had to slowly back off the dose. More importantly than the blood test results, was that our boy slowly started to show signs of returning to the perpetual puppy he was before this setback.
At the time of this publishing, he has been pill free for a few months…and he is back to being his old self. As you know, we eventually started hiking again. And, we have been able to push our walks back up to the longer distances. Although, it is cold at night now so we probably don’t go as far as he would like. But, it’s a good thing that he WANTS to do more. He is finally showing all of the signs of a full recovery. So, there is a happy ending to this story. It was a miserable few months but our little fighter pulled through it. Those summer days where we thought we would lose him are now long gone. And, for that, we are thankful...