A Love Like No Other – Part 2

There is something about my love for Lucy that I can’t compare to any other dog I have ever owned. I understand the duress and long-term mourning I had with Duke given my adolescent hormones flowing through my body at the time.  When you’re 13 years old, anything emotional is going to feel 100 times more intense and last 5 years longer than usual.

My loss of Doyle was my first loss of a beloved dog as an adult and it didn’t seem fair he was gone so young. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t deserve to dies so early and while I still mourn him, it’s not like I cry every time I think of him. (though sometimes when I pull up video of him running in the snow I will).

And while I love Princess and I will be completely besides myself when she’s gone, I feel really good that we’ve gotten to take care of her in her twilight years.  It hasn’t been without struggle.  This past year, her eating has declined so she’s lost a lot of weight.  It’s OK to see the ribs on a greyhound but it’s not OK when their pelvic bones are pronounced. So we’ve had to come up with some creative ideas to make her eat.

First, we added water to her food to make a “gravy”. That worked for about 4 weeks. Then we added more wet food but she would just eat that and leave the kibble alone. Finally, we thought we’d add a Tbsp of melted bacon fat to the kibble and stir it around before putting the wet food on top and that seems to have done the trick! Her appetite is back and she began eating all her food again, but that only lasted a month or so and we’re back to begging her to eat.  She’s missing meals and losing weight all over again.

The thing is, Princess had a family she loved very much and I believe she still missed them when we adopted her.  We were told her “mom” had an accident that required her to have a full-time care giver and the care giver wasn’t interested in taking care of dogs so that’s why she went back to the rescue.  Based on the national greyhound database, we know she was adopted early and never raced so if the person who was injured was her first adopter, she had loved Princess for almost 8 years. It was obvious she was in a home where she ruled the roost as getting on the furniture wasn’t even a question to her, nor could we get her to stop.

There are times now, that she seems confused – like she will wake up from a nap and look around like she expects to be someplace else. Or she just starts whining for no reason.  At 12, she may be experiencing some sort of Dementia or doggy Alzheimer’s disease. At other times she seems sharp and as affectionate as we can expect her to be, rubbing her nose under my arm pit (no clue why, but this is something she’s always done) or getting excited for the nightly walk.

But whatever it may be, in my adult life I cannot say I’ve loved a dog as much as I love Lucy.

A Love Like No Other

It was the summer of ’81. I was 13 years old and returning from a week of church camp to find my beloved Duke, the dog of my youth was gone and I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.  My dad explained that while I was at camp, Duke, my faithful pure-bred Collie, my sweet best friend that would hike to the top of the hill of our 10 acres and be my pillow while I read my latest summer book from the library, had gotten in a fight with a skunk and my parents couldn’t afford what it would cost to quarantine him for 3 weeks to make sure he didn’t have rabies so they had put him down. Without a goodbye from me. Without a last pet or hug or even a swatch of his hair.

I cried for months. Truth be told I was still crying periodically when I thought of him into my sophomore year when Duke’s mom, Heidi, died of a stroke. I was so sad still that I was really pissed off at my parents my junior year when they brought Brutus home. Our new Doberman puppy. Stupid dog ate my underwear, chewed my curtains and destroyed the dust-ruffle around my bed and I don’t know how many pairs of shoes he ate. But still, eventually he grew on me and that’s when I knew I really was a dog person though I thought I was a cat person.

I’m not going to go into detail here, but as an adult I had a couple of dog adoption failures that made me think that perhaps I wasn’t someone who could own a dog. One dog had so many issues my now ex, took her to the pound while I was at work and they put her down before I could get her back and another one had separation anxiety  and over protectiveness so extreme I was afraid she was going to hurt one of my young daughter’s friends. These situations were traumatic enough that I was afraid, no – that’s not a strong enough word, I was petrified to try adopting a dog again.

But one day the hubs and I started talking about having a dog. He had a coworker who had an Italian Greyhound and the owner was moving to Hawaii and wanted to adopt it out.  I met the dog but she was 12, neurotic and because of my past experiences, I wasn’t interested. However, for some reason I started researching greyhounds. Specifically retired racers and became intrigued.

Rescued greyhounds who come off the track are vetted, spayed and neutered, housebroken and ready for adoption before they are made available. They work with small yards and are like giant cats sleeping A LOT! Perfect for a home where both adults work full time.  So, we started looking into greyhounds and ended up adopting our first grey, Doyle.

Doyle was amazing and pretty much perfect for the first time greyhound adopting family. Unlike other greys, he was VERY social. He LOVED people and he loved showing how well he ran!  We’d take him to the dog park and it was an amazing sight. He’d run circle after circle only to stop and meet the other people along the way.  Like most greyhounds, Doyle wasn’t interested in other dogs – unless they were running and then – he was racing them! But he sure did love his people!!!  He spoiled us for greyhounds. He endured their breed to us and we were so happy with our choice to adopt him, and the rescue he came from that we wanted to give back so we decided to become fosters.

Our first foster, was a brindled female grey who had never raced. Her name was Danielle. She had no clue that dogs weren’t allowed on the furniture (something Doyle was very aware of) so she made herself at home on our snuggle sofa in the front room. Danielle was surrendered to the rescue at age 8 because her owner had been injured and could no longer care for her. She was aloof and not interested in playing with Doyle, but she was quiet and comfortable in our home (as long as she was on the furniture) so we enjoyed fostering her.

About 3 weeks in, I got an email that the rescue thought they had a home for Danielle. By this time, she and Doyle had started playing together.  We really enjoyed her aloof cat-like ways and weren’t sure we wanted to give her back, so I wrote the rescue back  and told them that was fine but that we had grown accustomed to her. We understood if we couldn’t but if they would see kindly, might we adopt her instead.  The rescue responded humorously that they had a term for people like us “failed fosters” and that they’d be by Monday with the adoption papers.  We were thrilled!  We didn’t plan on being a two dog, two cat house but sometimes  you can’t plan these things.  The girls loved both dogs and were excited for the addition.

My husband’s ex’s name is Danielle so that name seemed inappropriate so we renamed her “Princess” based on the way she carries herself.  The name fits and everyone who meets her agrees.

When you adopt a greyhound,  you are told the major cause of death is bone cancer. If you can get them past about 7 years, you’re in the clear.  Doyle was 4 when we adopted him. He turned 8 July 2010 so we felt confident we were in the clear of bone cancer. Princess was 8 in April of 2010 and we adopted her in May.  By August of 2010 we found out Doyle had Lymphoma and by November he was gone.  I hadn’t felt that type of devastation since I lost Duke almost 30 years earlier.

Special Needs / Special Therapies

We have friends with deaf dogs, blind dogs, even one that is blind and deaf, dogs with only two legs, and paralyzed dogs that can’t go to the bathroom on their own.  Each one of these dogs require a unique focus and amount of attention. Each one has their own zest and love of life and their own significant challenges. For each one of these, when you meet them you know it must be hard work to adopt them and dedicate your life to the appropriate care that they will need for the rest of their life. Having Lucy this past year and a half makes me respect these wonderful, compassionate, caring people even more for their devotion and determination to give their pup the best life possible.

Now Lucy certainly isn’t the most handicapped dog out there, and other than her one wonky leg most of her physical abnormalities aren’t that noticeable unless you’ve spent significant time with her. Only when you see her standing and look at her whole body do you realize that her front legs because of being bent and tucked cause them to be  much lower than her back legs so that her butt is up higher by more than an inch putting pressure on the middle of her spine. Only until you see the way her spine kind of slithers side to side when she walks would you realize the pressure she puts on her spine and understand the arthritis that had already begun to form before she was a year old. Only when you watch her run would you notice her bounding isn’t anything like a normal dogs and it’s more of a ba-rump, ba-rump kind of goofy stride. Only if you sit with her on your lap and rub her head would you realize her skull is malformed and she has a significant under bite. Only when you closely examine her feet do you notice she has extraordinary elongated toes (monkey feet, Dr. Shaw calls them) that have stretched to help keep her balance. Only when you see her try to sit on a floor that is smooth, like tile or linoleum do you realize her paws do not have the proper resistance to help keep her from slipping around and her pelvis can’t quite touch the ground to give her additional balance because her legs and hamstrings are too tight. And only when we took her to a specialist did we realize that even things as small as joints and tendons don’t all work right or aren’t as flexible as they should be.

Based on Dr. Shaw’s evaluation, Lucy had her deformities but had also experienced some sort of traumatic injury very young as there were appearances of green stick fractures in her back legs.  Maybe because they were weak to begin with.  Maybe because she was dropped or abused. We will never know for certain. Aside from these injuries, Dr. Shaw definitely thought that the spin abnormalities, malformed pelvis and shortness in the legs were probably congenital.

There are places on Lucy’s body that are supposed to be flexible, like her ankles, knees and hips that aren’t, and places that aren’t supposed to be flexible, like the middle of her feet, that are.  She has been compensating for these issues for some time and IS probably in some level of discomfort and pain.  Her feet were very sensitive to touch and she did not like them to be touched at all due to over-stimulated nerves.  In addition to this she has over stimulated nerves in other places of her body like the center of her spine.

There are several places that her tendons have stretched because the muscles have not done what they are supposed to do.  Her right front ankle is one example of that.  Several muscles are under developed.  She has scoliosis in her spine (we knew about that) and there are a couple places where if she doesn’t have arthritis now, she will soon because it is bone against bone.  Throughout her body her bones are underdeveloped.  Dr. Shaw called them “chicken bones”.  And there are several joints that are in weird places or don’t work properly, like her knees.

We started her on a regular pain medication regimen.  This will help control her basic pain and will help her relax enough while we provide her therapy.  We are also adding daily consumption of cod liver oil.  A monthly injection of a plant-based supplement to lubricate her joints was prescribed, one we could do right at home. Additionally we were trained in daily exercises, stretches and a massage routine.  There were about 15 different techniques we would use to help her begin to be more flexible and help put some of her tendons back in place as well as to help the weaker muscles get stronger.

She also received 9, one hour sessions of “Pulsed Signal Therapy” which would help strengthen her bones and increase density right away since they were so week.  She was measured for soft braces for her back legs that would help her use her knees properly and increase the muscles in her quads and hamstrings.  We were referred to another specialist to cast her front leg for a hard splint to support the bending joint.

Dr. Shaw wanted to see her every three weeks for re-checks, plus start water treadmill therapy as soon as the “PST” was complete.

All of this was quite overwhelming emotionally and well, quite honestly, financially. We were committed to Lucy and helping her have the best life possible but now we were faced with the fact that her monthly expenses added with our monthly expenses might not be something we could afford. What we did know is we love Lucy and would do our best to give her the best “we” could possible give.

The Crazy Things That Happen in the Petco Parking Lot

It was March. We made it a habit to take Lucy to various places in town to socialize her. This included the local Petco store where we bought our cat food and Princess’s wet food.  As Lucy is on a very specialized diet we get her food at a lovely local pet store All Natural Pet Supply. We love it there, but I digress.

So this one day in March, we took Lucy with us to Petco and as we are walking in, an older woman with two small dogs looked at me in disgust and said “Why don’t you do something about her legs, it’s cruel of you to leave them like that”. I replied that we had taken her to various vets and they said nothing could be done. She told me that was a lie, that she raises dogs and if we would have done something sooner, “that poor dog wouldn’t have to suffer” and she walked off in a huff.  Well, there were a lot of things I wanted to say to her but I was dumbfounded.  She didn’t know us, she didn’t know Lucy’s story, yet she took it upon herself to judge us as bad pet parents because Lucy’s legs are messed up.

That encounter weighed on me for days. I began questioning myself constantly.  Were we doing enough? Should we find an orthopedic specialist even though we had already taken her to an orthopedic surgeon? Was there some other kind of specialist we should be looking into?  Rob told me to let it go and ignore “that crazy woman”. Lucy was happy, growing, and we were doing enough, but I couldn’t let it go.

So, I reached out to yet another local rescue who specializes in special needs dogs. The difference is, this rescue takes in these needy dogs to keep for as long as they have left. Some are hospice, others not. But I knew they take their dogs to a veterinarian that specializes in physical therapy. So I found out about Back on Track and scheduled an appointment for Lucy.  They are in such high demand our appointment was 8 weeks away so now we just had to wait.  In the meantime, I had previously started a Facebook page for Lucy by request of a few people who followed her when she was at the first rescue, so I updated her “friends’ with our plans to go to Dr. Shaw. We received lots of encouragement and support. That made me feel a little better but I was also getting nervous about what Dr. Shaw might think about our sweet Lucy’s condition. We had only had this pup for a short time, but I adored her so much already I had to make sure we were doing everything in our power to have her with us and healthy and happy as long as possible.

Getting to Know You

Within just a couple of days Lucy started to try to play with Princess.  Princess wasn’t so sure she wanted to be buddies yet, but Lucy tried.

We began taking Lucy on short walks when we walked Princess. We found that while she was shy for a couple weeks, she LOVED children.  We put her on an all fish, grain-free diet that was high in protein because her muscle  mass was so low.

Even though she was vetted by the rescue’s vet, we took her to our vet so they’d have a file on her and also to get a second opinion. We wanted to do whatever we could to ensure we gave her the best chance in life. The vet had the X-Rays before she even came into the room and as she stepped in, she said “where in the world is the crazy beast that these X-Rays belong to?”

Her assessment of Lucy was pretty much the same as the other vet. Every leg a different length, malformed pelvis, scoliosis, joint issues, malformed feet, you get the idea. Surgery can’t “fix” anything. A brace may be of help, but no guarantees. She recommended a glucosamine and chondroiton supplement to help with the joints and that was that.  We took her home and continued with what we were doing.

Lucy couldn’t get on the couch like Princess, so I made it a nightly habit to sit on the floor with a blanket so she’d sit between my legs.  I’d massage her feet and scratch her crooked head and shoulders and that’s how we’d spend the evenings.  It really didn’t take too long for Lucy to start to come out of her shell. What started as a timid, cautious dog turned into the dog who loved everyone.  If we took her for a walk and there were people in the park, we better be prepared that she’d want to visit! And if there were kids in the mix, GAME OVER, she wouldn’t be budging until they came over and acknowledged her.

She started playing with me in the back yard, hard play.  She’d charge me like a bull and she was definitely getting stronger. It makes me laugh so hard, to this day, when she runs across the hard at me her saggy jowls flapping as she runs.  I’ve yet to get a decent video but one of these days…

My husband had a pet-friendly work environment so Lucy got to go to work with him quite a few times. She loved the attention and everyone who meets her loves her. Whatever happened in her past, she has transitioned into the most adoring, lovable dog I have ever met. And it’s kind of funny because I think she expects everyone is going to love her too – even the non-dog lovers.

Everything was going great and we were sure we were giving Lucy the best life possible until an unfortunate encounter with a very unpleasant woman one day in late March 2013.

 

Our “Gotcha” Story

I never intended to adopt a special needs dog.  In fact, when we stumbled upon Lucy we hadn’t even been talking about adding a dog to our family. Our almost 11 year old greyhound, Princess, was fine as an only dog and we had talked about keeping it that way until she passed as she comes by her name “Princess” quite naturally.

A friend had shared a link to the Facebook page of a local in-home rescue that specializes in special needs dogs and I had been following them for a couple of months when a picture of Lucy appeared. They thought she was a Rhodesian Ridgeback with dwarfism but didn’t know the extent of her issues. I thought she was adorable so I began to send emails to the rescue. As it was about Christmas, we arranged a meeting at rescue so they could meet us and see how Lucy responded to us.  There were two other parties also interested in her and meeting her as well. My husband begrudgingly accepted the begging and pleading if myself and our girls to go meet Lucy, who was called “Padden” at the time because she was found at the side of a local road “Padden Parkway”.

Upon meeting “Padden” it was clear she was a little timid, but she did come over to each of us for belly rubs and petting. Her tail wagged the entire time and she loved interacting with us with her toys. She had one significantly bent leg, severely under developed back legs and no endurance to stand on her back legs for any length of time. The rescue was going to be taking her to their vet on New Year’s Eve morning to see the extent of her troubles and if there were a possibility of a surgical correction, which they were willing to pay for before adopting her out. Would we like to be at that appointment? I said absolutely!

On the morning of the 31st, we were getting ready for a New Year’s Eve bunco party and “E”, our youngest and I headed over to the veterinary office. It was snowing all morning and seemed to be picking up as we waited which put us in a festive mood. The vet took X-Rays and diagnosed her with Hypertrophic Osteodystorphy and or Premature Physeal Closure.  Could be dwarfism, however, there isn’t a lot of information or physical markers for dwarfism in animals because usually they’re euthanized so there isn’t anything conclusive with any of the diagnosis, only in the ramifications. Some growth plates stopped growing at different times than others on the same bone.  That caused some of the twisting.  Some bones were too short. Her pelvis is not curved appropriate. Her back legs didn’t fully develop and at 8 to 10 months old, she already had arthritis in her spine. Basically, she was one hot mess and surgery wasn’t an option.

We were also told that because of her abnormalities, there could be internal issues too although her blood tests came back normal. There is no way to know if she’ll have the normal life-span of a dog of the same breed(s) because of this risk of internal issues (think kidney deformities or liver function issues, the types of things that don’t kill immediately but can over time). If we adopted this dog, we’d have to understand she may only live and have a quality life for as little as 2-3 years. On the other hand, she could live a normal and mostly healthy life for 8-9 years. There were no guesses and no guarantees. Were we sure we still wanted to adopt her? “E” and I answered emphatically that we were.

We left the vets office with plans for the rescue to bring Padden over for a home visit. I was already calling her Lucy in my mind. I knew she was ours and though I was a bit nervous about her prognosis, I also knew that whatever time she had we’d love her and give her a good home.

At the home visit, the rescue told us they were willing for us to take her right then and there.  I wasn’t so sure that was a good idea as we were having 8 people over for the evening and she was so shy.  I didn’t want to stress her out on her first day in our home. They thought it would be fine so we signed the papers, wrote the check, let them microchip her and say their goodbyes.  We officially had a new family member!