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A Day in The Life of a Mean Boy

I am blessed

Stanley has not been doing very well since our last entry. Oh he is still the sweet adorable little dog you will ever see, but his health is failing. Mostly due to all the inbreeding. We always knew that at some point in time it would catch up to him, and it has. About a year ago, we noticed that he started to limp on his front right leg. We thought that maybe he had some sort of soft tissue injury, and took him to the vet. His Dr as well thought that maybe he had jumped off the sofa and landed wrong. Gave him some anti-inflamatory meds, and sent him home. He appeard to do much better after a couple of weeks, and life went back to normal. Until right after Thanksgiving, we had family over and he was so excited when he heard the door bell ring, and went running to the front door, and all of a sudden both his back legs gave out on him and he was dragging his bottom. It was so shocking I didn't know what to do. But then as quickly as it started, it was over, and he was back up and mobile again. Then one day the first week of December, went I got home from work, I noticed that he was limping again, I asked Joe (Poppy) if he had been limping when he got home from work, and he said no, that Stanley was fine. As the evening wore on, the limping got worse and worse, by ten PM Stanley appeared to be completly paralyzed in both back legs and his front right leg. He was down and wouldn't even try to get up. First thing in the morning we rushed him to the Vets, and she said that she thought that he had some sort of spinal injury, most likely a herniated disk, and unfortunatly she did not have the ability to fix him, so she sent us to a specialist in Phoenix. We got to Phoenix about three hours later, and the news that we were givin was devastating. They really felt that Stanley had one maybe two herniated disks in his neck, the worst possiable place. They also said that because he has a particially collasped trachea his chances of surviving surgery were not very good., They said that they could do all the testing to the tune of about $4000.00 to find out exactly where the bad disk was located, then if we choose to do the surgery they gave us a rough estimate of anywhere from a total of $8000.00 to $10,000.00. I was crushed, as much as I wanted to do it, I just didn't have that kind of money. Plus there was no way of knowing is he would even survive the surgery. They then suggest4ed that we could try something different, we could put him on a really aggressive Prednisone treatment. The Dr said that he has seen cases where dogs do real well on the Pred, and others that don't. I thought what the heck, it was worth a shot, just so long as I knew that Stanley wasn't in any pain. I couldn't bear to have him in any pain. The Dr assured me that he definatly wasn't in pain, if he was we would definatly know it. The next 6 weeks were awfull, I sat up with this little dog night after night, looking into those sorrowful eyes, questioning myself as to whether or not I had done the right thing. I had to mannually express his little bladder, I had to help him poop, hold up his back end so he wouldn't mess himself. He was so very good, he was still eating really well, he was drinking pplenty of water, he was a fighter, and slowly but surely, he regained the use of his back legs, and finally his front leg. The DR's in Phoenix didn't want to treat him anymore because they didn't think that the predisone treatment was good for him. So I sat down with my local Dr, and between the two of us we decided that we were going to reduce the pred to a very small dose, and see how well he does. We will have his blood checked every 6 months to see how his liver and kidneys are doing, and we will just love him each and every day for the wonderful messed up little dog that he is.

That has been a year ago, and I must say that Stanley amazes me. The summers were really hard, because it is so very hot here in Yuma, and we have a doggie door so the dogs can come and go into the back yard as they please, but with Stanley, we are fearful that one day he will go outside and won't be able to get back in the house where it is cool and will succumb to the heat. So we kennel him during the day while we are at work, and let him out when we are home so that we can watch him. Initially he put on a lot of weight, and every time we went to the Dr's "I" was the one that got in trouble. We have always had that "communal" food bowl that they could graze out of when ever they wanted, and we were just dumb enough to think that all of them were getting to eat well, but quickly learned that
Stanley was getting more than his fair share. So now Stanley gets fed seperatly from the others, 1/4 cup of diet kibble twice a day, and we have even changed the communal food bowl. While Stanley is feeding seperatly from the others, the others have their own bowls as well, and before we leave for work, we pick up the bowls. Then repeat the process in the afternoon. Stanley is still my little stuffed sausage, he is still happy, and he is still walking just fine. We know that the problem is still there, and we know at some point in time that disk or disks will rupture, but in the mean time he is on .025mg of pred once a day, all of his blood work is coming out fine. and we just take it one day at a time, love him one day at a time.

It is so unbelievably frustrating to know that there is treatment out there for these little guys, but the cost is so out of reach. I checked into some aid, and there is aid out there, but I have a job, I have a house, but I am not by any means a wealthy woman, I didn't qualify for it. With today's ecomomy they way that it is, and is was so much worse last year, I was watching my life savings wither away everyday. The choice I made was so very painful. The good thing that came out of it was that I have always loved my pets, but now I love them differently, I never take it for granted that tomorrow something devastating may happen and I won't have them any more.

It Taste Just Like Chicken!

I don't get it! It's summer time, it's hot, and the crickets are out in force. Mom get's all bent out of shape because they get in the house. So being the good guy that I am, I thought I was helping by being a cricket wrangler. I just catch the little buggers pull their legs off, and leave them to flop around on the floor. Now mom feels bad for them because they can't walk any more. I thought I was just making it easier for her to catch them, and as a bonus I get to snack on cricket legs!! They do taste like chicken!

It's About Doggone Time!

I'm over a year old now, and my people Momma has just now gotten around to posting some new pictures of me! I grew up and cleaned up real well. Especially considering how my life began. No more worms, no more scaly skin, and best of all my coat has grown in really nice. You can actually see a little of the long coat that my birth mom had.
I do have a problem with my tongue though. I was born with a short lower jaw, so my tongue hangs out most of the time. Sometimes it hangs out the side of my mouth, sometimes it hangs down to my chim, but I don't like it when I take a nap, and it's hangin out, and it dries out and sticks to my blankie,but it is pretty cute if I do say so myself. But I also have to really work hard to live up to my Mean Boy title. The older I get though the harder it is. Being a Mean Boy is hard work. Mean Boys are not supposed to like to be cuddled and kissed on, but if the truth be known, I have been paying a lot of attention to all the lovin that my sister Clarissa gets from mom, and it looks pretty good, so I will allow Mom to kiss and cuddle on me, but only at night because then I am tired, and I really like the cuddling. But you wait til the morning, I'm all over it!!!