One week after emergency surgery & doing good

hi thanks for all of the rosettes everyone! one week later and doing good. no problems eating & enjoying the wet food & cooked venison meals. incision is looking great- no redness or swelling & all staples intact. They gave up on trying to crate me after the first day when I broke out of the crate twice. I even got to go for a car ride to the hardware store today! With a few diet changes & changes around the house hopefully we won't have to worry about bloat/GDV again. We're going to get smaller, more frequent meals w/ less dry food & more wet food & cooked meat. Mom bought some pro-biotics (dry bacteria) & some yogurt to add to my food to help w/ digestion (strawberry yougurt on venison just ruins it, but I don't have a choice). Food bowls are lowered to the floor- before, they were up, but new research says to lower them. And we're not allowed to eat any grass at all, ever again (unless we can sneak some when mom's not looking). Because I am a blood donor dog we got 60 - 75% off of the emergency vet bill! Surgery was estimated at $3,000-$5,000 & it ended up being $1,300 instead. Mom says that I'm worth every penny but the discount really helped. If there's a blood donor program in your area you should check it out. Hope that you are all enjoying the end of summer.

Twisted Stomach/GDV

Hi all - This is Olley's mom Jenny. Olley is recovering from emergency surgery - his stomach twisted on Saturday night, a very deadly situation. Luckily we caught it early & it looks like he wil be OK. I just want to warn everyone about the warning signs. He was vomiting (nothing coming out), wimpering & turning in circles (like he couldn't get comfortable/was in pain). At first we thought that maybe he had been stung in the mouth by a bee. Then after 2-3 minutes Steve (his poppa) noticed that his belly was bloated. Immediately I knew his stomach was twisted & we knew that if he was not at the vet in an hour he would be dead. We threw him in the truck & being a city girl I drove faster than I have ever driven on a gravel road in my life. Even though we just moved to the country, we know the location of the emergency vet well (Chase has had 2 knee replacement surgeries) & we were there in 30 minutes. Doc said that his stomach was so stuffed w/ reeds (we have really tall grasses at our new house) that even when they cut a hole in his stomach to get them out they couldn't & had to leave some of them in there. Doc said without the surgery the dog only has 2-4 hours & the faster you can get them operated in the better their chance of survival. Luckily Olley's stomach had minimal bruising & his spleen looked OK. His stomach is now sewn to the abdomen to help prevent it from happening again. Now he is crated & on forced bed rest for two weeks or more while his stomach & very very large incision heals. While some people think this only happens in very large dogs (great danes & Weims), the vet says that he's seen it in all breeds. We were only aware of it because we have 2 weimaraners (a breed that has a higher occurance of GDV) & because it happened to our friend's dog (a Great Dane). I hope that you all will never need any of this information, but if you dog is trying to throw up w/ very little coming out please take them to the vet immediately to be checked out.
We had hoped to report about what a great time we were all having at the new house in the country. Hopefully Olley will be back to running in the big yard sometime in a few months

I'm a "Blood hound" !

Right before Christmas my momma's mom's dog Stella passed away. It was not expected, she was only 7- her spleen ruptured & when they took it out they also found cancer inside her so they made the difficult decision to let her cross to the rainbow bridge. We will miss Stella - we would stay at her house and play with her every holiday & everytime we went to visit grandma in Chicago.

On a more pawsitive note, yesterday I had my first official doggie blood donation! It was a little bit scared, but just because I thought Momma was going to leave me there. Back in May I had my blood type checked & I was approved to be a potential donor because I'm A-. First they took blood from my leg because they have to send it away to the lab to check & make sure it's disease free. They already did this once before but lost my results & had to do it again. Then they vet was gonna check me over but we kinda skipped that part because he was too busy helping other sick animals. The appointment to donate was at 7:30 but we didn't get out of there until after 10 pm because of all of the emergencies they were having at the ER. A cat came in that got hit by a car & then right after that they brought in a 13 yr old dog that was run over in her own driveway by her own person! Ouch! Don't worry, they said that she would need surgery Monday to fix a broken leg but that she would probably be OK. All you people drivers out there need to make sure your pup is in the car with you & going where you're going that way you can't run them over. Anyways, they were suppose to sedate me to take the edge off, but they kinda skipped that part too. They took me in back & took the donation- but I was freaking out because a person was using that scary vacuum machine in the same area where I was while they were trying to get the blood! Momma didn't get to watch but it took a long time - hopefully next time they can do it in a quiet private room with no scary vacuum machines & some drugs to make me a little bit sleepy. I'm fine now though & I got good cookin' (wet food) for dinner last night & a cool blue doggie blood donor bandana to hide the spot on my neck that they had to shave. They said that they will need more donors to keep a good supply on hand - I have to wait 2 months before donating again. My brothers might try to donate soon though.

Tag Game - I've been tagged!

Well, I've been tagged by both Nina #289115 & Domino #482250 -
so here it goes!

The Rules
(Hint: Copy and paste the rules so you don't have to type them again):

Each player starts with seven random facts about themselves. Dogs who are tagged, need to post in their diary the rules and their 7 pawsome facts. Then choose 7 dogs to tag and list their names. Don’t forget to bark them a pmail that they have been tagged and to read your diary, or, send them a fun Rosette announcing they've been Tagged!


7 facts about me:

1. I have a name tatooed in my ear! He he he - I have a tatoo and my parent's
don't even have any!

2. I have one brown ear & one spotted ear!

3. I don't like thunder or fireworks, they scare me a little.

4. Chase and I like to chase each other & wrestle.

5. I was a stray and adopted from the local dog pound. I still like to wander at
times so that's why momma & poppa are finishing the fence in our yard.

6. My name Olley - was inspired by the orphan Oliver Twist, since I was an
orphan too.

7. I dream all the time when I sleep.

Here are my 7 tagged pals:

Duece - 353836
Denali - 326280
Stella - 327402
Frankie - 397531
Fraggle - 397536
Henry - 339437
Sherman - 339456

The Switcharoo

My brothers and I had to stay at a kennel all last weekend because apparently dogs are not allowed to attend weddings. I've stayed at that kennel before- it's not that bad. Chase and I were in one kennel and then Harper had his own kennel right next to ours. Well, this time I decided to be sneaky and pull a trick on the kennel workers. Every morning they would come into the kennels and I would be in Harper's kennel instead of with Chase. At first they were really confused and kept putting me back into the kennel with Chase. I'd stay with Chase all day and then the next morning they would find me in with Harper again. Ha Ha Ha. They have underestimated my escape artist skills! The kennel fence is chain link and comes all the way to the ground, but I found a way to get under it. I lay on my side and use my big nose to push on the bottom of the fence and use my front paws to pull me under it. I'm not skinny so they just couldn't believe that I was able to get under it! Mom and dad were not surprised- my fence in our back yard is 6 ft tall and has a poles across the bottom to stop me from doing it at home. I'll be back at that kennel again next weekend because big dogs can't fly on airplanes for vacations either- so I'll probably do the old switcharoo trick next weekend too!

2 Hours of Freedom

This morning after mom went to work my brothers and I escaped from our kennel in the back yard. As I am the mastermind behind our escape attempts- I noticed that the gate wasn't latched properly and let us out. It was so much fun roaming free throughout the neighborhood. Luckily we live in a quiet neighborhood where there aren't many cars. Chase and I took off to check out the bike trail and woods. Harper didn't want to walk that far so he just went over to the neighbor's house and started looking into their windows. Well then the neighbor's dogs starting barking at Harper and she noticed that we were all out. The nice neighbor lady chained Harper to our deck because he refused to go back into the kennel. Then she called Chase and I and we came running back home because we knew that was where we belong. She locked us back in the kennel and called our poppa to come home from work and put Harper away. Harper is really big and really stubborn and doesn't listen to anyone but poppa. I thought we would get in trouble, but we didn't. After work we got to go to the dog park and run and play some more. Today was a really fun day and I'm really tired!

Today is my birthday!

Momma says that today is my birthday- it's really actually the 3rd anniversary of when my momma and poppa sprung me from the dog pound. I am around 4 years old now. I'm so glad that they came to the city pound that I was in to look for another dog. Momma says that I actually chose them-when they took me into the waiting room so that they could pet me I just sat in front of them and wagged my tail and I kept putting my paw on poppa's knee. I was in really bad shape because I had been roaming the countryside for who knows how long- I really like to run. Momma and Poppa took good care of me and momma says that I'm the best behaved- my brothers like to get into trouble, but I never do. I hope that all of my friends in the pound were also able to find some good people to live with. I wish that more people would go to a pound or animal shelter to look for another pet- there are lots of great animals out there waiting for new homes. Because it's my birthday I think I'll ask for extra treats tonight!