I was driving to work and not far from home when I saw a beautiful hawk floating above the freeway. Suddenly its wings lost the current and it literally slammed into the ground. West Nile does that, we hear. Bam, just like that. So when our 5 yr old Pitty became seriously sick, we rushed her to the vet thinking it might be that.
In just a few days our robust dog had become virtually incapacitated. Her temp was over 104, she could barely get on and off the couch, she quit eating, she had labored breathing and didn't even try to get into the cab for rides in the truck (her favorite activity other than chasing squirrels).
She cried out when we touched her, so much so that we couldn't even narrow it down to where an injured area might be.
The vet immediately began rounds of blood and urine tests, swabs and xrays and numerous evaluations that turned up nothing. I mean, they knew a lot more than before the testing. They knew it wasn't a sprain or strain, not fungal, yeast, or valley fever infections, not heartworm, not a tick borne disease or rheumatoid arthritis. There found no visible skeletal or muscular trauma but it was clear she was losing muscle mass in her hind quarters. She was a 5 year old dog that was acting 14. Now there were 2 top vets on the case.
They focused on pain management and fine tuned that. What's working are 6 tabs of Tremidol daily plus 4 tabs of some other pain reliever, a Glucosamine and an anti inflammatory. Eventually the fever broke and she returned to her more normal self. She still can't climb on the bed or hop into the truck and pulls herself up onto the couch with her front legs. Her appetite has returned. Her spirits have soared. We still don't have a diagnosis, but she's got a good quality of life going on again.
Lily has found ways to communicate what she wants, for instance, she shakes her collar when it's time to be lifted onto the bed. She seems to understand why she needs to be leashed instead of running in the fields. Sammy brings her chew sticks and lays nose to nose at the end of the day. That'll have to do, for now.
