To think about a year ago I was contemplating putting Sadie down due to her health. She could hardly stand up, we would have to support her with a towel and walk her outside to potty. Her hair was falling out in clumps and she stunk so fricking bad!! The poor girl was miserable!! This all developed in about 2 weeks time. At first we just thought it was some sort of reaction to changing food, or the fact that she was sneaking out into the duck area and eating their food. Sadie, if given the opportunity, will eat non stop. She is a bit of a pig. Lol.
It started with her back legs just giving out on her every once in a while. Then it got worse and worse. Maybe she pinched a nerve or something? Or tweaked he back when getting ran out of the duck area by our drake runner duck Brownie. We wanted to give her a little time to snap out of it but it didn’t seem to work that way. The first week wasn’t bad but that second week was terrible. Even a 3-4 days after going to the vet and taking meds. We were beginning to think that she wasn’t going to get any better and we felt so sorry for her, she was miserable.
They said she has a nerve issue called Wobblers Syndrome, and due to the puffyness in her face and her weight, they thought her thyroid was all out of whack. So we were sent home with a mild steroid, some pain meds, and a thyroid pill. Oh ya, and some antifungal shampoo to fight that stank!! I guess a crazy thyroid can cause excess yeast and that was the cause of her stank. I was having to give her a bath every 3 days. It should have been every other day but that just wasn’t happening. With her not being able to stay standing up and weighing 90 lbs this was quite a chore. I couldn’t do it outside because it was cold, so in the tub she lay. Constantly clogging the drain with mass amounts of hair.... I better stop I am starting to have flashbacks. Not only was she miserable this whole thing was making us miserable also. She developed some nasty sores on her sides, we assume was from all the excess yeast.
After about 5-6 days on the meds we saw her getting better. Little by little we started seeing a change. She started smelling better, able to stand up on her own, and able to walk to the end of the block with just a little support from a towel under her belly. Then she started getting up from laying down on her own. She just kept getting better and better. We were so happy for her and we saw life come back into her. She was wagging her tail again and barking when it was meal time. She always lets you know when it’s time to eat.
It’s been a year since all this happened and she is doing great!! Besides invading the duck area and sneaking an extra snack that consists of eggs and duck feed. We never had to close the gate until recently... she is back to her piggy style eating ways. She is completely off the steroid, taking the bare minimum pain pills and her thyroid medication. Her hair isn’t falling out and she smells good. Not to mention all those omegas from eating all those duck eggs sure helped her coat stay all shiny and nice.
Sadie is pretty much back to her old self again. Sneaking off to the cat-lady’s house to eat cat food when we let her out in the front yard. She even tries to chase after cats and squirrels. She isn’t as fast as she was but she sure the hell gives it her best. To think I was almost ready to take her in and have her put out of her misery.... I just kept putting it off for some reason. She is a 13 year old Labrador/Retriever mix and we are all so happy to see her quality of life back to where it was. She does tend to lay right in the middle of the kitchen which isn’t the best place when we are trying to make a meal but that is our Sadie 😉
Hive On
and
Have a Little
Hope
I love this post, Sadie is a beautiful dog and it is about hope, she looks like she's feeling hella good and happy posts like this are a refreshing break at times.
She is doing great!! I am not very good with words but if you could have seen her and smelled her... OMG!! It made me and my wife so sad. My wife had it real tough being home with her all day. My wife is a soldier and she has a hope filled heart. Her hope is what gave me hope. We are so happy to still have Sadie around, even if she does get in the way in the kitchen. 😉