 Photo Comments Sex: Female Weight: 26-50 lbs
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Leave a bone for Pogo 111995 {In Memory}
Doggie Dynamics:
| | | | | | | | | Energy | | | | | | Intelligence | | | | | | Friendliness | | | | | | Playfulness | | | | | | Disposition | | | |
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Quick Bio:
Birthday:
November 3rd 1995
Likes:
Belly rubs
Pet-Peeves:
Being ignored
Favorite Toy:
Anything she can pick up and carry someplace else for further investigation
Favorite Food:
Organic (i.e., made primarily of carbon atoms)
Favorite Walk:
Walk? Can't we go in the car?
Best Tricks:
Heel, sit
Arrival Story:
Found her when she was a four month old puppy. Someone had literally thrown her away at a dumpster. She was malnourished, had mange, fleas, ear mites, and worms. Several people shook their heads sadly that someone could throw away a puppy. Then they drove away. I couldn't leave her, but as soon as I got her home and started treating her various ailments, she came down with a parvo-like illness. After I pulled her through that, I started searching for a permanent home for her, not realizing she had already found it.
Bio:
Pogo was solidly built and very strong. She once picked up my father's cement shovel in her jaws and walked away with it! In addition to the listed breeds, which are best guesses, she was probably part German Shepherd, part Chow Chow, and part several other different kinds of hound.
In August 2006, Pogo had trouble finishing a walk. Her back legs lost strength; I had to carry her home over half a mile, mostly uphill. Days later she apparently had a seizure. The vet diagnosed her with epilepsy. He gave me medication, including a shot to bring her out of a seizure if it went on for very long. But I was unsure of this diagnosis. I started paying attention to when she had her seizures, and noticed that they always seemed to have something to do with eating--either her dinner was overdue, or she had eaten two hours before--things like that.
I pestered the vet with this information until he did a battery of tests. He found Pogo didn't have epilepsy, she had an insulinoma. That's a cancerous lesion of the pancreas.
He told me insulinoma is fatal, that she would live maybe six months, and that the thing to do was to control her symptoms with prednisone as long as possible. I got a second opinion from a holistic vet, who thought surgery to remove the tumor might prolong her life, though since the cancer had certainly metastasized before it was even discovered, surgery wouldn't cure her.
The surgery was horribly expensive--I took her to the veterinary surgery facility at Auburn University--but she handled it like a trooper and bounced back very fast. The surgery took place in November 2006. For a full year afterward, Pogo received a very minimal dose of prednisone (along with a homeopathic, some traditional Chinese medicine, and something called Cell Advance, all prescribed by the holistic vet) and went right back to her normal life. Except for a single bad episode in July 2007, you'd never have known anything was wrong. I thought the July episode was "it"; she suddenly had no energy, wouldn't eat, and developed diarrhea. But a steroid shot got her back on her feet, and she picked right back up with her life--digging for chipmunks, getting belly rubs, and devouring every tiny cherry that her favorite wild cherry tree dropped.
Then in late November 2007, she developed minor Cushing's disease-like symptoms, as a side effect of the prednisone she had been taking for so long. They were not serious symptoms; more like a warning of what was to come. It was as though the symptoms were a signal to her. She suddenly quit eating. All she wanted to do was curl up near me and snooze, so I got permission to work from home. The vet tried another steroid injection, but it had no effect. Pogo's entire attitude was, "Okay, that's it, I'm done here. Thanks for all the cookies."
On December 3, 2007, I had the vet come to my house and euthanize her. Her body is buried, with her favorite cushion, under her wild cherry tree.
As for the rest of her? I don't know, nor does anybody else, no matter how confidently they may assert their beliefs. But Pogo knows, now, more than any of you reading this.
And though I don't know, I know what I think: I have been planning to move across country for some months now. When Pogo took a bad turn in July, I told a friend that I thought perhaps it was because Pogo didn't want to make the move. The friend, who is a lot more psychic than I am, said that was nonsense; Pogo wanted to go, too. When she got so sick in November, I again wondered if she was, in a sense, refusing to make the move. Now, somehow, I don't think that was it at all.
I think she just decided she wanted to go on ahead.
Forums Motto:
Me! Me! Pet me!
The Groups I'm In:
10 YEARS OR OVER??? DOGS or CATS
I've Been On Dogster Since:
| May 28th 2006 |
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More than 5 years! |
Rosette, Star and Special Gift History
Dogster Id:
320689
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