Rabies Challenge Trials!!!

I've been keeping my eyes on the latest news regarding vaccination frequency for animals, especially in light of what happened to Teddy. Well, enough money has been raised through grassroots efforts to begin a Rabies Challenge Study. There will be two studies, one for 5 years, one for 7 years and both will be focused on proving once and for all that rabies vaccinations have long-term duration of immunity. This means that the government will then be able to lengthen mandated revaccination intervals.

In a lot of states the Rabies vaccine is required every year for both dogs and cats. In some states, like New York, boosters are required every three years. But under studies done by Ronald Shultz at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, serological studies have shown rabies titer counts have levels known to give immunity seven years after vaccination. However, his studies are not enough to prove the matter. There has to be an official study, done over several years, before the government will listen.

While the funds have been raised to start the trials, money will be needed to carry the study through to its seven year completion. If you want to help, go to this site:

http://www.rabieschallengefund.org

Please help prevent other dogs and cats from suffering the effects of over-vaccination!!

Teddy and I thank you for supporting this very important study.

One year anniversary of your death

Hey Puppa.

I realised a few nights ago that you predicted who would come after, I just didn't put the pieces together until much, much later. Shortly after your death one year ago today, I dreamed that you were sitting beside me in a convertible car. As I pulled the car onto the road, I saw a black and white chihuahua sitting on the side of the road. It felt like you were telling me that's how you'd come back, maybe.

So in the days that followed, I spent a lot of time browsing petfinder and various other rescue sites. I had no intention of adopting again, I was just curious to see if there really was a black and white chihuahua out there, as per your hint in the dream. Turns out that black and white isn't really a chihuahua breed colour, as I had zero luck finding any. That is, until the day I saw a very uniquely coloured dog on Petfinder.

The shelter had named him 'Spook'. He had very distinct markings and while the description said he was chocolate, the pictures showed he was black and white. He had very light coloured eyes and the shelter described him as a chihuahua, though I knew he wasn't. I couldn't imagine that the lady who ran the place (I spoke with her by email and asked her to send some more pictures) didn't know the difference between a chihuahua and this considerably larger dog. He was small in comparison to, say, a chow, but he wasn't a small breed dog.

I decided to go have a look at him. He was about three hours west of us, in the mountains, and it took your papa some convincing to drive that far just to see this dog. I just wanted to look at him and see what other dogs were there, as well as get away for a while.

We got there and as we were walking back to his cage, we passed an elderly cream-coloured chihuahua. The poor old guy caught my attention. Turns out he hadn't been neutered and the shelter wouldn't release him until after his surgery and recovery, which would take another three weeks. So we walked on back to the cage where 'Spook' was. Here was this wiggling, non-stop pup, so excited to see us!

I was really surprised at how young he was--only about 6 months old, plus he really was a deep auburn colour, not the black and white that he'd been in the pictures. No, he wasn't a chihuahua, either. (We found out later he was a Basenji.) Your papa took to him right away, so the shelter lady took us to an empty room and brought 'Spook' back to spend some time with us. I immediately thought 'No way' as this wild boy bounced around the room. Your papa tried to get him to sit and when 'Spook's' butt grazed the floor (by accident, I think), he said "Look! He sat for me!"

I could tell they were going to get on well and the next thing I knew (against my better judgement), we had signed papers and were taking this wild thing home with us. He was not you, Teddly baby.

But over the days and weeks that followed, it turned out that his crazed energy at the shelter had been due to the extreme lack of exercise he'd gotten there. With considerable exercise (read: day care) and some discipline, it turned out that underneath all the crazy energy was a gentleman. A very Teddly-esque gentleman, surprising given his young age, a time when most puppies are wild.

While Alex (as we renamed him) is neither a chihuahua nor black and white, it seems that you were right, Teddles. I can't say that he's you, but I can see where he's got some of your traits. And he loves his min-pin big sister, Saradevi, very much. In fact, she's picked up some of Scoopy's bad habits, so it's a little haunting. I called her 'Scoopy' just the other day. It stopped me in my tracks.

Funny how things turn out. You took something of mine with you when you died--I can no longer hear the 'Call' to adopt, nor do I have the maternal feelings for animals that I used to. Yet thanks to your papa, Saradevi and Alex are now part of the family.

I will continue to hope for a sign from you, some dream, some sighting of you in the form I knew. If Alex and 'Devi are the ones to carry the message, then so be it. I will take what I can get. Just know that I have not forgotten you and never will. I love you with all my heart, baby boy.

Love,
mum

Hey Puppa Bear. Today we had to take Saradevi to that place. You know which one I mean. She got bitten or stung in the mouth and her face started swelling up. Your papa talked about how you also had a swollen face on a couple of occasions. Crazy min-pins...always getting into something.

When 'Devi came home her leg was wrapped in a pink bandage, exactly like yours was the night you came home from that place, the night before you died. I watched her walk across the living room and it hurt because I didn't see her. I saw you.

I've long since stopped wondering if the grief is ever going to leave. It isn't.

While we were at that place someone brought in a doberman pinscher who was in pretty bad shape. She could barely stand up. I thought about what the animal communicator said about you wanting to come back as a doberman. Maybe you should come back as something that doesn't die.

Death is the root of all suffering. If what we've always been told about the afterlife doesn't turn out to be true and death is really like snuffing out a candle flame, then I won't have to worry about looking for you in heaven or in the next incarnation. I'll go wherever those candle flames go and never be subject to grief or pain ever again.

I love you, Teddly. Spirit in heaven, urn beside my pillow or gone forever.

Love,
mum

Dear Teddles,

Hi there, it's mum. I miss you so much, baby. Your death has really hit me hard. I thought I knew where all puppies go when they pass away, but now I'm more in the dark than ever about the truth of the afterlife. The trauma of your last moments, your fear, are memories that haunt me and I feel like I bear the karma for the way you went. I want you to come back to me in my dreams, to give me a sign in my waking hours...something, anything to prove to me that you--your soul, your spirit--still exist, somewhere, in some form.

As for your physical body, your ashes are in a pewter urn, along with the froggie you loved so much. I keep the urn at the head of the bed, wrapped in a blanket. You loved to sleep on the bed and I can't bear to think of you on a shelf. It doesn't feel right. Sometimes I hold the urn close, to warm you. I know, it's irrational. You can't feel my arms and where you are now, there's neither cold nor hot. But I feel like I have to do these things. You are gone, but all my love for you is still here and it has no where to go. What else can I do? So in the mornings, before I go to work, I make sure the blanket is tucked around you. In the evenings when I lay down to sleep, I sometimes reach out to put my palm against the urn, in hopes that maybe you'll visit me in my dream. From time to time I take out the ashes (they are in a clear bag) and I look at them, trying to reconcile the calcified matter with the baby boy I used to hold in my arms, whose face I used to kiss.

Nothing seems real.

I'd cared for animals literally my whole life and your death ended that. My heart is too broken and tired to consider adopting again. Every one of my babies has taken a piece of my heart with them when they died and there are only a few fragments left now. One friend told me she thought I'd have another dog by the end of the next year, but she doesn't understand me or the situation. People are well-meaning, but sometimes they say hurtful things. If you'd been human, she wouldn't have said it.

Is Rainbow Bridge real? In a way I wish it was. But if reincarnation is real, then I'd want you and all my other babies to come back and be with me again. What's true? Who knows? I've read the Rainbow Bridge poem and it brings me to tears every single time I read it. I still can't figure out why. The notion that you are running through flowery fields, with all the Frosty Paws and peanut butter you could ever want and a magical Mr. Froggie that never had to be washed or thrown away, is a beautiful thought. If it were true, why would I cry? The thought should bring me joy! But it doesn't. I weep like it's October 21st and you're breathing your last in my arms.

I confess, Puppa, I'm confused. There's so much pain, my faith has been thoroughly shaken and I'm missing you so much. Please, please, please. If you still exist out there, please come back and communicate with me. Let me know that you are okay and that you forgive me. I still love you, Puppa. More than bees love flowers, more than blue loves the sky. And I always, always will.

Love furever,
mum

Puppa came home to us on Oct 20th. His breathing had gotten worse and there seemed to be nothing anyone could do about it. His odds of making it through surgery were not good. All he could do once he got home was pretty much stay in one spot, resting, trying to breathe, though the sound was noisy, like something was broken in his chest. With shattered hearts and vanquished spirits we took him for his final trip on Oct 21st.

In one last refusal, the vet would not give us an oral sedative for Puppa so that he would be sleepy when we reached the office and therefore wouldn't panic (like he normally did when going to the doctor). Instead, she gave him a heavy tranquiliser shot to calm him when he got there, but it didn't matter. He freaked right out during the injection and what was left of my heart imploded. I wanted him to experience only peace, but it seems that fortune never favoured our family.

Within a matter of minutes his eyes grew wide, and he grew slack and unable to move. The vet gave the lethal injection and our baby left us forever. May Puppa and God forgive us.

Today our hearts and our house are empty. Completely and forever empty.

Update # 4, 5, something

Puppa's papa talked with the vet when she called a few minutes ago. The vet saw nothing in the x-rays, save for some scarring in his lung lobe (which the radiologist had noted two weeks ago in the old set of x-rays). She listened to his chest (he is panting again) and heard wheezing on both ends of his airway, so based on this, she thinks he has laryngeal paralysis. She said surgery ($2000) could cure the upper part, but nothing could be done for the lower part of his airway. This is not even taking into account the fact that he has been on pred for the last couple of weeks and therefore is not a good candidate for surgery.

So here is a short list of the things it has been suggested he has:
-lung cancer
-pneumonia
-fungal infection
-congestive heart failure
-laryngeal paralysis
-steroid-induced cushing's disease
-hypothyroidism

We are bringing him home tonight.

Oh, and the vet just called back again. She says that she was doing an exam on him and found a hard knot in his neck and said it was probably cancerous. She says she can't biopsy it and that it looks like this is the end for him. She offered to leave the catheter in his arm in case we "wanted to put him down tomorrow". I told Puppa's papa to tell them to take the catheter OUT. I won't have him here with that thing in his arm, when we haven't even decided. It may be foregone conclusion to her, but Puppa is not her baby boy.

This will probably be the last update tonight. It's been a long, long day.

Busy day.

Another update. The vet called and said that she saw nothing in the ultrasound, no tumours, no lesions, but she still wanted to do another set of x-rays for $120 (I am Jack's total lack of surprise), as she suspected he might have pneumonia/bronchitis or some other lung-related issue. I wondered what the point would be, as she already had $200 worth of x-rays. She said that by not authorising further testing, we were tying her hands. I explained to her that we are not wealthy people and could she not just treat him for pneumonia/bronchitis? She said that would be a shot in the dark and I noted that the last year and a half had been one test shot after another into the dark.

She said that all the money spent last year was for the staff to evaluate something other than his coughing and she said she needed the x-rays to evaluate his coughing. She felt that the coughing and what he had last year were two separate things and to properly figure out what he had, we should authorise the x-rays and then proceed with either a bronchoscopy or a CT scan. As for the lack of results in the ultrasound, she said she never wanted to do the ultrasound and that she'd told us both that. What she had said was that she didn't want to do the ultrasound until she had taken another set of x-rays. She never said 'I don't think an ultrasound would be a good idea' or 'I don't want to do an ultrasound'. But we've gotten used to being told that it's our faults that Puppa isn't getting better, that we are responsible for the lack of answers about his condition.

There is no end to this madness. There is literally no end to the amount of money we could toss into their coffers. Meanwhile Puppa sits and waits. His breathing has apparently been stable all day and I want nothing more than to bring him home. Right now. Right this second.

Well, vet #12 called and said she was so busy, she didn't have time to call vet #8, nor did she think she'd have a chance to. SO...she said she could go ahead and do the ultrasound without taking more x-rays. =) She said if she sees something in the ultrasound, she can take a sample of whatever it is and send it to a pathologist for around $160. If they have to sedate Puppa, that will cost an additional $55, though she said she didn't think that would be necessary, because he'd been so well behaved. So over the last 24 hours we've racked up another $1000 bill.

Prospective adopters should take note. Even though our situation may be extreme, this sort of thing can happen to any dog. The best cure is prevention, so do the research to give your baby the BEST nutrition, exercise and care. For some people that's a RAW diet and no vaccines (a route we will be taking, should we ever adopt again). For others, it's homepathic care and unique foods like the kind Innova provides. Educate yourself on the options and what's best for your baby.

Back to news on Puppa...he's done very well today. We were informed that he hadn't really been coughing and he was breathing normally, very stable. If a night in an oxygen tent can bring him that much relief, I wish we had one here! But hopefully this ultrasound and sampling will bring some sort of conclusive answer about his condition.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and good wishes. We return much Love and Appreciation for your lovingkindness towards our baby boy. He is our world.

Love,
Teddly's mum

Hi, Teddly's mum here. Another update. Teddly was removed from the oxygen tent and has been breathing normally on his own, which is good. Since we wrote last night, two more vets have involved themselves in his case, bringing the total number of vets he's seen to 12. We are pretty frustrated this morning. We determined that we wanted to have an ultrasound done of his chest, to see what was going on in there. But the internist (vet #12) wants to examine Teddy's x-rays before doing the ultrasound and wants to charge us $98 for the privilege. We don't see the point in having yet ANOTHER vet look at the x-rays, but she made it pretty clear that the only way we would be able to have the ultrasound done is if we paid her the $98. That may not sound like much, but the oxygen therapy he got last night, combined with the cost of the ultrasound already has the bill at $600, and we are NOT wealthy people. Thank God for credit. In fact, we're still paying on Puppa's bills from last year and Asia's bills from September.

Finding someone else who has an ultrasound machine is difficult, as Teddles is at the local emergency/specialist clinic, which serves as the 'go-to' place for difficult cases, and this clinic has all the special diagnostic equipment.

She tried to justify her fee by saying that veterinary care was expensive and I pointed out that we knew vet care was expensive--we'd spent thousands of dollars at that facility last year and not one vet could figure out what was wrong with our boy. She had the gall to tell me that the reason they couldn't determine what was wrong was that we had not spent the money to have further, expensive testing done. So basically it's our fault that they don't know what's wrong with him. I hope Teddy can forgive us for not being filthy rich like the vets who have examined him.

Incidentally, while we were waiting in the emergency room last night, another woman mentioned that when her dog had fallen ill, she had paid for lots of expensive tests. The test results all indicated her dog was normal, so the vets hadn't been able to determine what was wrong with her dog either. Talk about a racket!!! If there are really this many dogs who are stumping the veterinary medical community, then it would seem veterinary medicine hasn't advanced very much in the last 100 years, despite expensive new equipment and loads of powerful drugs.

This is not to say there aren't good vets out there, it's just that we haven't met any.

And while I've written this, we've gotten another call from the clinic. The vet looked at the x-rays and said that she couldn't see any sort of mass. You heard me right. Now she wants to charge us $150 or so for another set of x-rays. She said that without knowing what she was looking for, she wouldn't be able to do the ultrasound correctly. I have a call in for her to contact vet #8, who is the one who saw the lesion and confirmed it in a consult with a radiologist.

If there was ever a time we needed Ganesha, it would be now.

Oct 19th: Update on Puppa

Hi everyone. Teddly's mum here. Tonight our baby had a panting spell that wouldn't stop. We tried to soothe him, but it was clear he was in distress. I checked his colouring and it looked okay, but the fact that he couldn't stop panting was enough to trigger alarm. It was rather late, so we took him to the emergency clinic. They took him back and after about an hour (seems the hour long wait is in included in the office visit charge ;) they came to get us. They had put him in an oxygen tent and said that he could have one of several different illnesses. I flat out told them we weren't there to get a diagnosis, we were there to stabilise his condition. I couldn't bear yet another round of 'guess the illness'. The vet (#9 for those who are keeping count) understood completely. She took us back to see our baby. He was wide eyed, but calm. His breathing was much easier and I nearly started crying, so strong was my joy to see him at ease. He actually looked relieved. How could we have not thought to give him oxygen therapy before now?! We just left him for an overnight stay. The doctor is going to slowly wean him off the oxygen and see how he does. Tomorrow we will probably get an ultrasound done, to look for any other tumours, evidence of lungworms and/or heart issues.

We don't know what the next few days hold, but we know that for the first time in a long time our baby is breathing easier. He has some relief from the awful coughing and panting that have plagued him for the last couple of weeks. He will be able to get some real rest tonight. For this we are grateful to God and to each of you for the many prayers that have been lifted up for Puppa. When we got home, we checked Puppa's inbox and found a message from Little Bit, who said that she had added him to the Prayer Group in the forums. It touched my heart so deeply, I burst into tears and couldn't finish reading the letter to Puppa's papa. The love that Puppa's Dogster friends have shown to him mean the world to all of us. With such powerful intercessors as Little Bit, Zoe and all Puppa's Dogster friends, surely miraculous things will happen.

Love,
Teddly's mum