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Likes: Eating, going for car rides, eating, wading in the river/ocean, eating, running on the beach, hanging with her best boyfriend, "Brutus"
Pet-Peeves: Sharing with my brothers and sisters, not getting ALL the attention, being asked to move
Favorite Toy: Plush toys, anything that squeaks and particularly anything that can be ripped apart and destroyed, while making a large mess
Favorite Food: How can I possibly pick just one favorite????
Favorite Walk: The beach, the Willamette River, the neighborhood, the dog park (!)
Best Tricks: High Fives, Wait For It, Where's the Squirelly?
Arrival Story: I came to the Oregon Humane Society as a near-death, 3 week old baby. The story was that a woman had found me in her barn dumped with my eight other siblings and my doggie mom and that I seemed sick and had a large lump on my chest that needed to be checked out. My human mom volunteers there and observed the situation--she says I actually looked dead, I was so lifeless. My soon-to-be mom and Auntie Karin and Uncle Joe took me to the Dog Exam room and shaved my little chest--it appeared that someone had stabbed me in the chest with a pitchfork or the like and I had a huge abcess over my heart. The shelter was closing for the night so I spent the night there and went to one of the nice vets who does pro bono work for the shelter the next morning. My human mom told me she decided she wanted to foster me until I was well enough to be adopted, but after she picked me up at the vet a few days later, and took intensive care of me for a month and a half after that, said she couldn't bear to part with her little monkey (that's me!). I became my mom's first "foster failure"!
Bio: Apple is a diva and if she was a singer, she'd be Diana Ross, with her attitude. She's spoiled rotten and we love her dearly, but she clearly rules our other four dogs. She's incredibly smart and equally stubborn, but Apple and mom have a very special, unbreakable bond.
Apple's big loves in life are to "lounge" around the house, go sailing with her parents, go camping with her whole family, vacation with the fam and obsesses over squirrels and trees (because that's where they live). This dog has mastered leisure!
Forums Motto: I'm Ready for My Closeup, Mr. DeMille
I've Been On Dogster Since:
Our beloved daughter, Apple, passed away at 1:20am on Nov. 9th.
I haven't been able to bring myself to write anything about this until now. Thanks to all her special virtual doggie friends on Dogster for the kind messages.
Apple didn't suffer long--she became noticably lethargic (and increasingly so each day) for about 2 weeks prior to her passing. We began bringing her to the vet every couple of days and calling them nearly every day as her condition worsened. We found her platelets were low and were dropping by the day. She was getting different injections and x-rays and all sorts of tests, but nothing made a difference.
I realized on Monday, Nov. 7th, that she was failing fast--I called the vet first thing in the morning and went in to work just to get my computer. The doctor called me back there and told me that they believed they saw a mass on her spleen from the x-rays they'd taken the day before and that I needed to rush her to a certain specialist who'd cleared her schedule for Apple to give an emergency ultrasound. I was shocked and devastated. Maybe I was in denial all those days...who knows?
I drove about 100mph to get her x-rays and pick her up and take her to the specialist. Once we arrived, she collapsed and bolstered with a shot of adrenaline, I managed to carry my 65 lb. girl through the parking lot and into the clinic. There, the vet techs immediately set to work on getting her vitals--she had a 105 degree fever and no blood pressure. They spent the next couple of hours stabilizing her and then we devised a plan of a deluge of tests, x-rays, ultrasound, aspirations, etc. to figure out the problem--she had so many things going wrong suddenly, but nothing clear as to what the problem was--the ultrasound did not show a mass on her spleen, but did show other abnormalities.
My husband and I stayed there until the hospital closed and the plan was to hospitalize her for 2 days, then get her in for an MRI. I gave her a quick hug and kiss goodbye (which my husband captured on his camera phone in case I missed her that night), and we went home for the evening. I really thought I would see her the next morning. The doctor called us at 1:30am that night to tell us the sad news.
My heart broke that moment and I still don't know how I'll ever be OK again without her. Though we still have our 4 other dogs and 3 cats, the connection I had with Appley was unlike any I've ever had, or will ever have again. We shared a brain, I swear.
We learned that Apple had an agressive carcinoma of the spleen and liver, but what caused her death that night (and no/low blood pressure) was a condition called DCI or DIC (I can't remember). It weakened all the membranes in her body and she was slowly but steadily bleeding to death at the capilliary level--so nothing could be detected with x-rays or ultrasounds. The condition was a result of the cancer.
Apple would have turned 7 years old on Dec. 15th...she was taken far too soon, but I'm so blessed that I got to be her mom. I will love her forever.
We came home to a very scary situation last week, on the evening of March 30th.
Apple was just fine and normal at 7:30pm, but when we came home from a concert at 12:30am, we found her collapsed, completely out of it, not able to stand or walk, and with a very high fever.
We took her to the local emergency animal hospital and had to hospitalize her overnight and into the next day. After several different tests, X-rays, etc., it was diagnosed that she'd had cluster seizures which left her dazed and caused her temperature to spike to 106.5 degrees.
She is slowly recovering, but her back legs have not been working right and she is falling down all the time now. We're pretty much either seeing or talking to our vet everyday now--she's on Phenobarbital for seizure control, but her back legs not working right is a mystery. The vet thinks she may have started at too high a dose so we're backing down a bit to see if she improves in the next few days.
It is just heartbreaking to see her starting to accept and remember that her back legs aren't cooperating--she has stopped trying to follow me everywhere I go in the house and just lays on her bed and cries while Bean and Dorian wrestle and play in the living room in front of her. Normally she'd be joining in the hoopla and fun.
If the dosage doesn't seem to be the cause, we'll be seeing a neurologist and getting an MRI...and then from there, we hope to get some answers and see what else we can do to help her.
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