Page last updated on Saturday, March 31, 2007.
ADOPTED 2003
I thought I should update you all on Roy, Abbey (formerly Eppie or Ebony) and
Cocoa.
Roy (8 years) is at the moment stalking an indoor rubber plant as I type. We
have no idea why he does that. He
appears to be settling in quite well and his separation anxiety, while still
there, is at least less and less of a problem. He is a real charmer and
both Vicky and I think the world of this 8 year old pal. He is the most
dependable of the 3 as far as house training. Only problem now is a
recurring left eye infection, due to dry eye and his cherry eye repair I
suspect. We still have a huge medicine cabinet for dogs in our house as
you would expect.
Cocoa. (11 months) One can see why Cocoa was given up by a family with
small children. He is a regular jumping jack, something we are
working on to correct. Maybe he's a "Springer spaniel?" He
certainly acts out the part. We have also hired a trainer that comes by the
house periodically and helps guide us on how to get our little monster better
social habits. Slowly we are getting a handle on the many poops and pees
in the house, discovering through our vet that Cocoa was suffering from a very
bad urinary tract infection. I wonder how many other young rescue dogs might
suffer this same problem and folks don't realize it? Treatment has helped
diminish, although not quite eliminate, the problem. But then he is only
10 months old so he's still acting like a "puppy". We
think he is and will become a very good dog but he does need a lot of attention.
Cocoa loves to goad Abbey into having play fights. He will challenge her
and then run around the house at breakneck speed and dare her to catch
him. They get along quite well. Roy doesn't like the
roughhouse game with Cocoa and prefers to watch, something I hope the other two
younger ones will do as they age (so I can have some peace too).
Abbey (3 years) A stray found in Fredricksburg, VA. At the time of
adoption, 6/28/03, Gary W told me that she had an ear infection. Boy, did
she! For the past 4 months we have been battling this ear infection and it
just wouldn't quit. The odor was terrible, like rotting mushrooms. Very
sweet dog but for some reason she just couldn't shake this ear problem.
Our vet prescribed all the antibiotics and then decided to flush out the ear
with the dog asleep. Using limited equipment she took a video down the ear
canal and found that the ear membrane was broken and she was able to take out a
few what looked like grass seeds from the middle ear area. The video
indicated a mass in the inner ear which we feared might be a tumor. So our
next step was a visit to the Vet. Critical Care hospital outside Richmond on
Tuesday. We were glad we took Abbey over to Richmond because they have
much finer equipment. Guess what? They pulled out a fistful of grass
seeds and other grass debris out of the middle ear, as well as an inch long
"twig" that was lodged in the middle ear! This was the
"mass" that we had previously thought was a tumor. No cancer. No
wonder Abbey had an ear infection. I suspect some kid probably poked
something down her ear, broke the eardrum and that might have caused her to
"run off" and become a stray. Who knows? I'm just guessing. She might
have rubbed her head in the grass to relieve the pain and only made things
worse. We were amazed how well she tolerated the infection all these
months however. When you think she had the infection in June (possibly
even at the time when she was caught as a stray in May), to November 4, that is
a long time for anybody to have a massive infection in the ear. We are
lucky that this infection didn't enter into the brain and so far nothing
indicates this has happened.
Even so, we're doing follow up work on Abbey with our local vet in 2 weeks, and
there is the possibility that future ear surgery still might be required if they
didn't get everything out. Even so, we're happy at the outcome so far and
at least it wasn't cancer causing the problem. I'm just appalled at how much she
must have suffered in silence over these months until we finally found out what
was causing this.
Cheers.
Larry E
Charlottesville, VA