The Dog We Needed...

I'm not quite sure why I am writing a new entry after all this time, but i have had my pretty girl in my thoughts alot lately. I always knew that my wife and I started fostering white shepherds because of Panzer but last weekend we were watching an episode of the dog whisperer and cesar said something that i can't get out of my mind.

'You may not always get the dog you want but you always get the one you need'

This hit home in because it is extremely obvious (too me anyway) that although i still don't think its fair what happened to Panzer, I can now look at all the dogs in my family and realize how much of an impact Panzer had on their lives.
Rory was rescued a just in time to avoid being put down and is now playing in the snow up north.
Rysen was rescued on the day she was scheduled to be put down and is now slowly, with the help of Rocko, learning that humans are not all monsters.
Peyton was given a place to be comfortable and safe for the first time in his life, no matter how long it lasted.
Abbey learned to eat again, and is now able to live in comfort (and go for lots of car rides) since her skin conditions are under control
Kylie, well, Kylie is just living it up all around able to be her puppyish self.
Dakota, my dear lovable Dakota, she was the second foster and we got to see her go from breaking crates and cowering from us with heartworms and with no weight on her, to a dog that i still consider 'the one that got better' she was in bad shape, the vet visits and medicine and other trying times were very hard because they brought back horrible memories and feelings i had tried to forget. It's dumb but to this day, although we havent had to in awhile, i dont like taking urine or feces samples to vets because i did it too many times with Panzer and they always took just a little more hope away from me each time.
But Dakota got better! It was an amazing feeling and although i may not have the patience sometimes or the drive, my wife always has the drive, patience and the dedication that i can feed off of.
i will always love watching a dog get better.

I'm pretty sure ive lost my point, if i ever had one that is. Either way here is what ive come to realize.
Without Panzer we never would have learned so much about canine health and hundreds of ways to treat so many different ailments (by me i mean my wife although i like to think i know some :o)
Without Panzer we never would have fostered and it goes without out saying that some of the dogs we have brought into our home might never have made it to the families that love them so much right now.
Without Panzer we never would have gotten to meet Peyton whom through his problems led us to Jim, our trainer.
Without Panzer we would not have Sig or Jim to help us with Sig, and through that process we learned how to deal with behavioral problems of all kinds.

So although I would give anything to have her with us today, wearing her christmas bow instead of it adorning the top of our tree, I realize now that she was the dog we needed.

Happy Birthday to me!!!!

Happy 1 st birthday our dear little girl! We love and miss you. Sig is fullfilling your legacy of being a holy terror=) We hope you are having fun with all the other rainbow babies. Keep watch over all our babies now here! Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Panzer, Happy birthday to you!!

Love mom and dad
Rocko
Sig
Peyton-our foster
Dakota- our foster

Great Gesture.

We have been keeping panzers breeder up to date on all the happenings and when we called to let her know we had to put her down we asked her to let us know when she would have her next litter available because we would want a pup from her. She was sooo understanding and said she would not allow us to buy a pup from her again, she said that she was waiting for one of her females to go into heat and we would be the first called and we would have pick of the litter for free!
That is waay to generous because it was not her fault at all that panzer had the problems she did, it was just freak circumstances not breeding problems at all. We argued but she made it quite clear that we would not be paying her any money.

We will still try to give her something but we absolutely love her and all her dogs and could never thank her enough for her compassion and generousity. Not all people are that nice and we are lucky to have found her.

We will always Love and Miss you Panzer

Panzer
10/10/07 - 6/27/08

we had to cancel the ultra-sound because her itching got worse and the day after we did she started leaking consistanly and haveing her accidents and it was just time...It broke our hearts and was a terribly hard decision but we had to do what was best for panzer. She was in pain and we ended that for her. We buried her buy our pond in the shade of several pine trees with her pinkie, blanket, an empty bottle of mt. dew (we had bottles everywhere because it was one thing that she would chew on and get her mind off of itching) and of course an empty spray bottle of pet stain remover. I placed as a memorial the stone angel wings that she started carrying around the yard among large white stones over her grave and i know she will now rest peacefully.

When we were in the vet's office the nurses all came in with us and the vet and we were all giving her love and saying good by and crying and after she passed in her mommy's lap her bladder released and she peed on the vet's shoes. Normally, that would be sad but we all began a tearfull round of laughter because of course the last thing she would do of course is pee all over the man that was poking and prodding her the most and we all knew she would never have to worry about accidents again.

Panzer made a large wonderfull impression in many peoples lives and we would like to thank all who helped us through this whether with prayers, advice, or just listening to her story.

Love,

Paul and Alicia

our dog - rocko
our cats - petunia and forrest
our goats - beezle, baby, and lambchop
our rooster - colonel

it comes down to this...

ok panzer has an ultra-sound scheduled for friday where she will have another sterile urine sample taken, get the ultra-sound, and have someone look at her new itching/biting wounds that she has made and also do some sort of tests im assuming.

The itching/biting has gotten out of control, we started spraying her down with apple cider vinegar, dogs are supposedly dont like the taste
and it also moisturizes the skin. So we started that last night and she licked for a few hours....

We are considering canceling the ultra-sound on friday because even if the urinating is discovered to be caused by some sort of anatomical problem that our vet. can fix while he fixes her, we have to start all over with the skin problems.

She is not a happy pup and we have a decision to make, i guess.

Paul II

vet appointment 6/18/08

Well,

Today was the final urine culture to see if there was any bacteria left and to see if she would need an ultrasound or if we would try and figure out how to keep her bacteria free.

Unfortunately, the vet couldnt get a sample from her bladder, even after she was left there for an hour with water in a pen. Stubborn puppy. He said he was poking and trying to get some urine and she looked at him like "please dont poke me anymore" so he didnt.

It didnt really matter though because yesterday she unrinated three different times in her sleep, we could not stop her from chewing her legs (she had a nasty wound then it hurt her to chew so she chewed nasty wounds about and below it now), and she was obssesed with eating her poop (it becomes impossible to stop her when she doesnt feel good for some reason). So we were back at square one...two days after her anti-biotics finished.

The vet did another skin scrape and a skin impression and couldnt find a cause for the biting, but said shepherds are known to have a condition where they dont produce enough oil to keep their skin from drying out, its rare but panzer always defies the odds, in a bad way.

We have a ultra-sound scheduled for early morning next friday. Which means we will know for sure what abnormality is causing the bladder problems. But (always a stupid but) this wont tell us anything about the skin problem.

If anyone has had anything like this happen with their pets (the skin disease) i would love to hear about it and welcome opinions. We do know they are not hotspots fleas, ticks, or mites.

II

health update 6/13/08

i dont remember exactly where i left off in her biography and im too lazy to hit back on the browser because im on dial-up. So i guess i will start from the most recent.

the uber-antibiotic and last chance drug batral doesnt seem to of worked. Just like all her rounds of anti-biotics she did good at first with her leaking and peeing in hersleep, and then during the last week of treatment it gets bad again. This last week was no exception having 5 or 6 incidents (i feel bad calling them accidents because shes sleeping and house broken) of peeing in her sleep
She has also began chewing and biting herself again in earnest with the newest sore being her front leg :O( We (my wife) have even started cooking her ground venison and rice dinner marinated with fishy oil to help her skin (just in case its any sort of food allergy) and her treats have been replaced with meatballs. We are wondering if she is allergic to the rice now :O(
Back to the infections though. The vet said that in about a week he will culture her urine again to see if there is still any sort of infection. If there is then we have a choice to make that we have been going back and forth on our decision. Put our little girl down because it is mostly a anatomical disorder, or go through an ultra-sound (big money) and the inevitable surgery to follow.
Unbelievably our vet said if it is something he could fix (if we did the ultra-sound and it revealed something) that he would fix her up when he fixed her. Which you think would make our decision but there is also the problem that is making her even more miserable...the itching,scratching,biting :O(. We are torn in so many directions that we seem to be going crazy.

more to come...