A Farewell to My "Chocolate Moose"



On Wednesday October 23, 2013 I said my teary goodbyes to yet another of my best friends - my "Chocolate Moose" Browni. His death was sudden and unexpected, apparently a heart attack, and it ripped me to my soul. I'm just thankful that it was relatively quick. It didn't make it any easier, but was a good thing for him.

Browni was a Chocolate Lab who entered into my life in November, 2005 when he was placed with me as a difficult to place foster dog. I have no idea how old he really was, but his paperwork said he was about a year old. He seemed older in some ways, but he was a playful pup most days. I adopted him in January 2006 and I know he's had a great life with me and the rest of the gang. He had a special spot for my daughter Tina, and enjoyed a short visit with her early this summer after not seeing her in almost 4 years after we left Ontario and moved to Nova Scotia.

Browni has been having a difficult time lately. He had eye surgery this year after injuring one of his eyes on one of his rare (now) "jaunts" into the woods. We think he may have gone looking for Thunder (our Bernese Mountain Dog who left us a year ago due to a mast cell tumour that spread to his vital organs and brain. Browni's ACL joint was acting up and he had a growth on his chest. In July he had a his booster shots and a check-up and was doing fine. I had made an appointment to have the growth on his chest looked at, but we had cancelled it when the girl's were spayed, opting to wait until they were all healed and well again.

We have been running back and forth to the vet with them between taking them in to be spayed, going to pick them up, taking them back again after Baie-Leigh's near death experience. Then they had infections, so we were back again. Each time, Browni sadly waited at home while the girls got to go for a drive with us. I've also been going for physiotherapy on my right shoulder twice a week, we went out to see the Irish Rovers on Sunday, etc. Anyhow, we were pretty sure he felt like he was missing out on something fun, so on Tuesday night we took them all for a drive. Browni LOVED going in the car and he was so excited when I asked him if he wanted to go for a ride!

On Monday, Browni was outside with Neil, I and the girls and Annie had an old red t-shirt of Neil's that she likes to play with. Browni snatched it out of her mouth and ran around the yard like a spunky pup! They played tug of war with it a bit and he was really happy! Wednesday we picked up some large marrow bones for the "kids" at the grocery store and he was in his glory. We haven't had them for a long time because they would upset Thunder's tummy so I know Browni just loved his special treat.

He wanted to go out when he was finished with getting all the marrow from his bone so I let him out. I told him firmly "Stay in that yard!" because he had actually left on Sunday morning before breakfast (which was very, very unusual nowadays) and was gone quite a long time. Anyhow, he was still pretty stiff and sore from his little trek on Sunday even by Wednesday, plus he'd had that lovely treat of a marrow bone before supper, and then he was laying in the sun on the back porch while Neil was doing chicken chores so I didn't think he'd go anywhere. Once again he proved me wrong and disappeared for about 45 minutes.

When Browni came home he was wet all over. I assume he went over to the lake for a swim. I didn't condone it, but I understood. After all, he is a Labrador Retriever! All the geese are stopping over as they head south and it IS very tempting! When he came home he just walked up to the back patio doors as if he'd been here the whole time. I shut him into the laundry room because he was so wet, and I admit, I ignored him for awhile because I was ticked off that he left the yard and didn't come when I called him.

 



He seemed uncomfortable in there, which was evident by some groaning and struggling to find a good place to lay down. I thought it was from his little jaunt. I let him join us again near supper time. He ate his supper, then he was hanging around in the kitchen as I finished making supper for Neil and I. We happen to hold "fire drills" in our home for the dogs. When the smoke alarm goes off they race to the back door. After we shut the alarm off and tell them it's okay they are allowed to leave the back door area and are rewarded for going to the door and staying there. Well, when I opened the oven, the heat set off the alarm. The girls jumped up and ran to the back door, but last night Browni just didn't seem to want to go. I made him get up and go anyhow, assuming he was stiff and sore from his two jaunts over the past few days. When we ended the drill we rewarded the "kids" with raw carrots, which they love, and they help make their breath sweet after eating the marrow bones.

Usually after supper Browni goes upstairs and sleeps on our bed. On Wednesday night he didn't. Instead, he stayed close to me. Neil and I ate supper in the family room while we watched a show we had taped. Part way through supper Browni cried out as he laid on the floor between me and the fireplace. The girls ran to him but I could tell it was serious, so I pushed them away from him and Neil took them to the laundry room. I don't know how, but I knew right away he was dying. I started to cry and I said, "Oh, Browni!" He wagged his tail twice and then he was gone. We pet him and talked to him and he did let out one more breath about 30 seconds later and that was it.

I felt so horrible that I had shut him into the laundry room, but in retrospect I know he probably spent his last days exactly how he'd want to. He had had some playtime recently, had 2 long runs, had a swim, went for a drive, had a marrow bone, ate supper, had a carrot, was close to us all, and died with us all there as he laid in the warmth of the fireplace. I know it was a good way to go and Neil said he obviously heard my voice as he died, which is why he wagged his tail. Once we got over the shock of the situation we allowed the girls in to sniff and say their goodbyes before removing him from the house. We will take him to the vet in the morning to be taken care of.

I love every one of my pets deeply, but Browni was special. He didn't trust or bond easily, but he was deeply bonded to us... unless he wanted to go for a run! He overcame so much since joining our family and it was such a special treat to know he lived a good life. If I hadn't kept him he would have been euthanized because until I worked with him he was food aggressive, suffered from severe separation anxiety. When I took him in he ran away several times a day if given an opportunity, fought with other dogs, stole food, tore apart people's garbage, counter surfed by actually climbing onto the counters, escaped cages by ripping them apart, fought being groomed, had to be medicated to trim his nails or leave him more than 1 minute and more. After awhile he was still a bit anxious when you trimmed his nails, but other than that, he was a great dog with few hang-ups. He could be boarded and groomed with no problems, left alone with no stress, etc.

 



Browni will be in our hearts and minds for the rest of our lives. He brought many laughs and fun to our days, loved to moan and groan while getting a cuddle or scratch and became an incredibly obedient boy. (Well, except the odd running away incident, or the day he and Thunder got into the flour... or when he and Thunder ate all the bulbs for my garden!) He was a great dog and I am so glad I was the one who rescued him from the life he was living and became the one he trusted and loved so very much!

Browni was my moose... my Chocolate Moose... a ruffian, yet a gentleman. I will miss him so much!



Goodbye my sweet boy. We WILL meet again....



Terrible Week!

This week has been HORRID!!! This is a long story so be prepared to set awhile! Let me start by filling in those who don't know with a little background information.

We have 3 large dogs in our lives that we love dearly. Browni is our senior citizen - a very old Chocolate Lab that I had taken in as a difficult to place foster dog in 2005. He suffered from extreme separation anxiety, was a fear biter, fought with other dogs, acted food aggressive and oh, boy, was he ever a runaway! I worked hard with him and other than an occasional "jaunt" just to let me know he CAN do it from time to time, he has none of his original issues today. Of course, because of his age, he pays for his jaunts dearly for many days afterwards so they are becoming few and far between. I ended up adopting him in 2006 as it became clear that he couldn't go through the trauma of being moved again and we haven't regretted that decision. Well, okay, maybe the day he and Thunder got into a 25 lb. bag of flour when we were out.... :)

Baie-Leigh is our beautiful blonde bombshell. She is a gorgeous cream coloured Golden Retriever that we were fortunate enough to obtain from Kyon Kennels in Ontario. She was born on Dec. 23rd, 2011 and came to us here in Nova Scotia in February 2012. Baie-Leigh is a very loving, silly, playful and exceptionally bright gal. She is especially gentle with children, cats and even our newly hatched chicks. We keep our chicks in the house for at least 3 weeks after they hatch and it's not unusual to see Baie-Leigh laying on the floor with a couple of chicks sitting on top of her or pecking at her toes.

Up until early October 2012 we also had an incredible Bernese Mountain Dog named Thunder. Thunder was born in January 2005 and was one of the most loving and faithful dogs we have ever seen. Sadly, he was diagnosed with a mast cell tumour. It was at the base of his tail and was inoperable. It gradually spread throughout his body and there was some brain involvement as well. He and Baie-Leigh became fast friends and companions so when we finally said goodbye to Thunder she suffered greatly, as did Browni. Browni retreated to an upstairs bedroom and only came down for meals. Baie-Leigh would lay down in front of the patio doors looking towards the driveway and sigh loudly for hours on end.

Well, we had decided that we weren't going to add another dog into our lives at this point in time. However, when you are used to a 140 lb. lug at your feet wherever you go, or sprawled out in front of the fireplace you really find an emptiness in your heart and home when he's gone. :) Between our own sense of loss and seeing the reaction of the other two dogs we began to look for a new addition to our family almost immediately. Finally our pack was completed when found our little (HA!) Annie. Her father is an Irish Setter and her mother is a sweet-tempered, easy-going cream Golden Retriever so she is officially a Golden-Irish. We found her at Graystone Kennels in Italy Cross, NS. She was born on Sept. 23, 2012 and came to us on Remembrance Day that same year.

Annie... Apple Annie... Annie Bananie... Annapolis Annie - whatever we end up calling her... she has just been such a treat! Although she appears to be a purebred Irish Setter, she embodies the best of both breeds. She can be zany, calm, active, exceptionally smart, very loving, friendly and a million other adjectives. She terrorizes the cats (in play only, and they actually love it), herds the chickens in at night, chases any rooster that appears to be aggressive away from her beloved "people", makes sure everyone is where they belong every morning and even more. She has had us hooked right from the get-go.

Anyhow, I had originally planned on having Baie-Leigh obtain a CKC title and her clearances so she could be bred, but with everything going on with Thunder I just wasn't able to put enough time into that, so we decided we'd have her spayed when she was 2 years old. Having the 2 girls both in heat at the end of July was stressful especially when we'd let them out late at night only to find male dogs in the yard. It was also difficult to find a place to board them when we went away for a five day vacation. So we decided to have them spayed before their next heat and eventually made the appointment for Tuesday October 8th. Well, to say the least, I was a little stressed at the thought of the "girls" being spayed this week. Let me explain...

Many years ago I had 2 German Short-haired Pointers. The male was Sam (aka Sampson) and the female was Del (aka Delilah). I was going to breed Del, but quickly realized that she was not going to be a good choice as the pups just took too much out of her. She had 8 pups in her first litter when she was about 17 months old. She looked like we starved her even after all the pups were long-weaned. I worked as a Veterinary Assistant in a mixed practice at the time. We ran all kinds of tests on her, dewormed her just in case things weren’t showing up, put her on a special diet in the hopes of pumping up her weight… but nothing worked. So, I decided to keep one of her pups, Sadie, and spay Del.
You will learn that nothing comes from me without a story behind it. Hahaha! I have always said I am NOT a woman of few words!

Anyhow, back in the 70’s it was common practice to give the dogs a mild tranquilizer before surgery… like a pre-anaesthetic. The theory was that it would calm the dogs down and help them have a better experience. So, we gave Del a ½ dose of the mild tranquilizer due to her thin stature and about 40 minutes later she was quite sleepy. We were a little surprised, but assumed that it was because she was so drained. We put her up on the examination table to administer her IV drip then part of the anaesthetic because we decided that although we’d draw the proper amount but we’d give her less as she was already so affected by the pre-anaesthetic. The balance of the dose would be on hand in case we decided to administer more during surgery.

Well, we were almost finished the surgery (without administering any further anaesthetic) and she stopped breathing. We worked on her for a long time but it was in vain. My boss was crying and felt so bad. Of course, I was too. We had called in an assistant to help out in case we were missing something… but all seemed routine. I lost my beloved Delilah on the operating table as my boss and I were just getting ready to close her up. We eventually sent her body to Guelph University in Ontario for some answers and the verdict was that they learned that German Short-haired Pointers had an allergy to this particular pre-anaesthetic.  It seems one of her sons had almost died on the operating table during his castration with another vet and one of their sisters died while under anaesthetic to correct damage done in a car accident which they had assumed was due to damage from the accident. Apparently it was probably not from that, but the pre-anaesthetic. 

Anyhow, ever since then I have had an irrational fear of having my girls spayed. I actually ended up losing a dog to pyometra (from not being spayed) and I knew that I don’t want to subject any of my dogs to that, so the rational side of me says “spay the girls” and the irrational side of me says “but they might die!” Regardless, I have pretty much always known that I only have one choice and that is to spay them. As I said, I have put it off long enough (Baie-Leigh will be 2 years old Dec. 23rd and Annie just turned one on Sept. 23rd); the timing was right as Baie-Leigh was in heat the latter part of July and Annie started right around the time Baie-Leigh was finishing. So, I made the appointment with much difficulty but felt resigned to it.

So, on Monday night my husband, Neil took Annie out to do the rounds & shut all the chicken pens, make sure they were all in their respective coops, runs, etc., and all the food and water was topped off. While he was topping off the turkeys food and water Annie ran into the corner of the yard back near the woods. He called her; she didn’t come so he went over to get her. Just as he got to her he realized that Annie and a young skunk were having a little stand-off and before he could get her (and himself) far enough away the skunk sprayed. So I was going to cancel the vet appointment telling them that Annie was skunky and it wouldn’t be good to do Baie-Leigh and not Annie as they both needed to be feeling a little under-the-weather at the same time as they play too hard. However, I didn’t use it as an excuse and we bathed her with skunk shampoo and in the morning I gave her an extra squirt of perfume on her muzzle so she’d go in smelling like a perfumed baby skunk.

The day of surgery (Tuesday) I had an ominous feeling when we took them to drop them off. I hadn’t slept much the night before because I was stressing it, so Neil thought it was just one of those maternal-like things. Oddly enough, he was feeling the same way. Anyhow, I called at noon to see how things went and I was told (after a little hesitation) that they weren’t done yet. I had taken them in at 8 am and was told the first one would be done at 9 am so I was quite surprised. I also sensed the hesitation in the response so I questioned things. The receptionist said that Annie was finished but they had just started or were just going to start on Baie-Leigh because something came up to cause a delay. I had a nagging feeling it had to do with my girls.

Well, they had originally told me to pick them up at 4 or 4:30 pm so we showed up shortly after 4:30 knowing that they had a late start. They asked us to wait a bit so the vet could explain “things” first. Well, she took us in her office and asked me when Annie was in heat. I told her and she asked me if I was sure. Well, duh! (Sorry… I am very PEESED off!) So, she asked if I could be mistaken because everything inside Annie was “engorged” so they had a lot of trouble with bleeding. I immediately wondered if she had a cystic ovary but I was told no.  Hmmmmm… let’s see. Would she really not have come into her first heat until she was over a year old yet shown physical and behavioral signs 3 months prior?  

Anyhow, the veterinarian - not one of our usual vets as one is on maternity and the other was working in the main office and we had chosen the office closest to us - stressed that the girls were to have NO off-leash activity (her bold and underline), baths or swimming for 2 weeks. Well, that seemed a wee bit excessive to me, but I figured I’d keep an eye on them and judge by their behavior and healing. So we then went out to pay the bill and collect our girls.  

Annie came out first…. and you could tell she wasn’t right. She was still extremely dopey, her colour was poor and she did not want to walk at all. Her belly was very swollen… it looked like she’d been nursing puppies for a few weeks. She cried and cried (which is not like her at all!) Neil took her out to see if she needed to pee while I was paying the bill and waiting for Baie-Leigh to come out. Well, next came Baie-Leigh. OMG! She looked like she had just come out of surgery a few minutes before. She refused to walk until I called her, but seemed unable to ascertain where my voice was even coming from. Her little belly was so swollen she looked like she had just given birth. She would take a step then sit of the floor. When they tugged on her leash she’d wobble back up and almost fall over. I had Neil carry her and lift and put her into the car. 

When we arrived home neither one of them wanted to walk to go “out” after we lifted them onto the ground. Baie-Leigh went under duress, then walked into the house and collapsed on the floor by the fireplace. She cried and groaned a few times then shifted her body so that her belly was flat on the floor and her legs were splayed out on both sides like she used to do as a puppy. I took this photo at 4:44 pm:

 

Over the next 2 hours neither one of the girls would drink or even move. Gradually, with some urging, Annie did so I took her out to piddle before supper. She went a little bit, came in and refused to eat. We managed to get her to drink a few tablespoons of water. Baie-Leigh, on the other hand, didn’t move. I decided to just let her continue to sleep. She just kept whining softly with an occasional groan so shortly before 7 pm I wondered if she was having trouble moving back over onto her side on the ceramic floor or if she was too hot near the fireplace. Well, I went over and felt her and she was FREEZING! I got the mat that was under her head by the fireplace and put it beside her and moved her onto her side beside it to pull her over onto it. What I found shocked me! She was leaking blood from her incision.

 

I called Neil from the top coop and told him we had a real problem with Baie-Leigh and he needed to get down here quick. I called the vet’s office (only this time I called the other office because I knew Teresa would be in (she owns the practice) and told them we were bringing Baie-Leigh right in and why. They suggested I better bring Annie, too. We put the back seat down in the car, put Baie-Leigh onto a blanket and carried her to the trunk (which was now open to the back of the car.) Then we put Annie in on the back seat area and headed off to the vet. The Vet Tech that had assisted in the surgery was there so she was able to fill Teresa in on everything that had happened that morning. 

Well, Baie-Leigh’s body temperature was way below normal so we got her on a blanket, covered her with a comforter and they put a heating pad under her and ran warmed up fluids into her. They gave her more pain meds to help her be a bit more comfortable. They took blood tests and, oddly enough, her blood count wasn’t too bad yet… probably because I caught it fast enough. Although by the next morning it had dropped by 10. They ended up opening her up again, finding all areas that required suturing during the first surgery and redid everything up securely. It takes quite a while and a lot of prodding around to find those things once they’ve been cut, but she found everything after a lengthy surgery and made sure everything was double done up.  

Poor Baie-Leigh’s tummy is a big bruise. Up until Friday she was incontinent and peeing blood. If it had continued on Friday they were going to have to go in and check things out again, but luckily she began to show small clots in her urine by Thursday evening and seemed much better on Friday. 

Here’s her belly now…the red fur is from licking herself thanks to a skin irritation that she gets from eating chicken poop when we let the chickens out in late  summer. The deep raspberry red marks around the incision (which is just over 3 inches long now) is the heaviest bruising. Then you can see the blackness everywhere else… as well as the swelling. It’s so sad. 

 

However, she only spent one night in the hospital and came home to us on Wednesday. She started to feel much better Friday night. She even grabbed a few of Annie’s toys and shook them trying to engage Annie in play. Annie is just starting to feel a bit better herself. We have a difficult time getting her to eat, but Friday morning she finally ate a full meal with minimal coaxing. She started wanting to play a bit as well and jumped up on the couch to cuddle last night. She is very clingy now but that’s understandable. 

The second vet bill was just shy of $500 but our vet said “no charge” and she apologized profusely. The vet who did the first surgery called us on Wednesday evening to ask how Annie was. She didn’t even mention Baie-Leigh (although everyone in both of the offices were talking about it.) I held my tongue and gave her some yes or no answers then promptly hung up before I exploded. The woman didn’t even have the “kahunas” to apologize for what those poor dogs (or me) has gone through. Teresa has apologized several times and thanked me repeatedly for my patience and understanding. I was told that if I had of waited an hour longer that we probably would have lost Baie-Leigh.  

So, that’s my excitement for the week. I think we turned a corner Friday and today has been much better so hopefully it’s uphill from here. I can’t take any more stress for awhile!  

Sorry for the length of my blog entry. You will probably always need to be prepared to sit for awhile when checking it out! 

Bye for now…. Chicklette