What a week…well absent week I should say. I wish my “absentee” excuse was that I was out doing crazy fun things with Savannah or that it’s because I am sooo busy on a super secret project…but the truth is I’m just bummed out. Last week Andy and I got some really sad news about our little guy Teddy.
So here’s the long story…over the past month I’ve noticed that our little guy had developed a cough. I thought nothing of it since he has had major bouts with allergies in the past, but then I gave him a bath. He did his usual frisky boy, “go crazy”, running up and down the hall and he started coughing uncontrollable. So intense that he fainted, it took him a while to regain strength in his body. Needless to say this was incredible scary, but again I didn’t connect the cough as educing this “seizure like” experience. Finally my mom urged my to take him to the vet, thinking that he might have kennel cough and what they found was quite severe. Overtime one of his heart valves has degenerated which caused a murmur and his heart to enlarge. His heart is now 3 times the normal size and the result is that it’s crushing his tracheae. His heart his basically suffocating him. His vet and cardiologist (yes my dog now has a cardiologist) are all very methodical about the diagnosis saying with medication he could live a long time….but it’s just not keeping me motivated. Terms like stage 3 Heart Failure (it only goes up to 4) and moderate to severe tracheal collapse…just make the reality of it all very present. I feel like I’ve been morning the future loss of my special guy for the past week.
Teddy has been such a gift to our family. Just under 4 years ago we rescued him from a local agency that found him on a kill list in California. I mean look at this face, who could ever pass up this guy…
We loved Teddy instantly, and it took him and our other dog LeBron only a few days to get adjusted to a cozy life, just the four of us.
But shortly after he arrived to our house this little guy took a turn for the worst and after a very expensive trip to the Doggie Dermatologist we discovered that he is severely allergic to Humans, after 3 months of human injection therapy he was almost cured.
Fast forward 5 month…Savannah was born and we were very skeptical of how our 2 dogs would react to the new baby. And to all of our surprise Teddy, the rescue dog, that we still didn’t know a ton about quickly became Savannah’s guard dog, he was with me for the midnight feedings, and was always an active participant in tummy time. As torturous as a two year old can be to a dog…he truly loves her.
Our little LeBron…did not fare so well…my amazing parents adopted him and he now lives in paradise where every day is stay away camp. He even learned how to ride a motorcycle this summer. Andy likes to say “LeBron decided to take his talents elsewhere”. Having Teddy around certainly made that loss much less difficult on me.
Although bringing a dog home that you have no medical history on can be a gamble and we prove this theory correct….I’ll NEVER regret rescuing Teddy as I think it was fate that he found us. Me a crazy dog woman who goes to any means to give her doggies an amazing quality of life and Andy who just knows how to say “yes dear”. If another family had rescued him I wonder if he would have gotten the medical care that he needed, or the unconditional love that we give him…and although his time with us will be shorter than any of us expected…I know we gave him some amazing years. He’s had a wild life; he grew up with abuse, roamed the streets of California, lived on puppy death row and now is King of our Castle! This little guy is living in the lap of luxury, well excluding his vegan diet, he basically gets what ever he wants.
I just wanted to share with you all, as I’m finding it hard to be motivated to project and then when it comes down to writing…I just don’t feel like being cleaver or interesting. Loosing a family pet is always so difficult…but I am lucky in life to only have this as my concern. When I think about how sad the loss of a pet is for me…my heart aches for every one with sick family members and children. I know this hasn’t been the lightest of subjects and I do try to keep things light…but hey sometimes life just throws a curve ball. Keep Teddy in your thoughts and hopefully with his medication he can stay with us for a while longer.