It's been 13 months since Lucky died.

So much has happened.  What distresses me the most is that our beloved pets continue to get sick and die from this awful plant.  Companies have no reason to put warnings on these plants.

On to Aly.  Aly before the puppies arrived.

Before we could get her a Cocker sister 2 very small (2lbs&4lbs) Maltipoo's arrived.  Lucky was so sick for so long that Aly acted like a little old lady, she did not play and just stayed glued to me. I thought the puppies would be good for her but she seemed to think I had lost my mind.  We got Gypsy and Bear some time in March 2013.  For a couple months Aly ran away from them and looked distressed every time they tried to get too close. Pics in order.  Aly and Gypsy eating side by side.  Lucky's bowls still where he left them.

 Aly trying very hard to get away from that little thing.

 bear and Gypsy playing.

 Aly getting as high as she can to get away from double trouble.

Bear is all boy and aggressive in a playful way.  I began to think he was not good for Aly so he went back to my daughter.  And then I noticed Aly and Gypsy just laid around like even littler old ladies.  bear came back and we all settled in.  I then began to realize that Bear is just like Lucky.  It's scary how much bear is like Lucky before he got sick.  He gets the girls moving, playing and when needed, hiding from him.  :-)  If the girls are relaxing with me and he shows up, he jumps right into the middle, like Lucky use to.  He sleeps in the same spot on the bed as lucky did and his personality is like Lucky reincarnated.  Once we realized it, it was so crazy.  We feel like our boy is with us in this fabulous little boy.  Bear has many things unique to him, I'll show you those in another blog.

Lucky would have been 10 this Feb. This is Lucky and Aly in 9/20/2011.

RIP Lucky!

And then there is Aly....

She is alive and well.  She is laying right next to me snorning. Glad one of us is sleeping.

Aly turned 8, Sept. 21.   I hope we have at least 6 more years with her.

She trotts next to me when I ride my bike, she loves walking by any body of water so she can get wet.  That is a normal trait for a Cocker and Koko was the same way.  Of course Lucky had to be different and never wanted his paws to get wet :-)

She has her booster seat and rides with me to the coast and anywhere else she can go.  She's even been in a TJMaxx and a tile store.  Everyone adores her.  She looks just like Koko and is the same size Koko was.  Lucky was a little bigger, well a bit bigger :-)  he was leggy.

I'm trying to get her a Cocker step-sister.  Sometimes I think she is just fine alone but she's never been the only dog.  This is the first time in her life. I try not to leave her but sometimes it cannot be avoided.  When I get home she acts like a puppy that has not seen me for days. Dancing and running like she's crazy.  She did not do that before.  Before she and Lucky would stand by the door wagging there tails while the door got unlocked and then they would follow me around.

Well like we always do, we will find our way.  Love your Cocker Spaniel, they are very special merry little dogs.

I'll continue to update the blog about Aly.

The rest of Lucky's story....

Lucky continued to improve and amaze the vets.  He never could jump up on the bed but he used HIS stairs faithfully.  With his weakened immune system we never could get beyond the ear infections but lord knows we tried everything.  Even weekly packing with antibiotics did not work.  I cleaned and cleaned and used all thedifferent drops. That at least kept him from getting to the point of needing a surgery he could not have because of his condition.

Then in the latter part of 2012 he wasn't eating.  We went back to rice. I kept telling the vet he was not himself but all his numbers where the same.  In Feb 2012 he had turned 8 so as he got closer to 9 I wondered if it was his age considering all he had been through.

In Nov. I got a feeling that Lucky would leave us in 2013 and I decided I needed to prepare mentally and just enjoy him.  I'm Ok with planning but I don't like the bad surprises, the unexpected. I can deal with what I know, it's the unknown, the darn unexpected.

Lucky suddenly, unexpectdly left us Dec 20.  There will never be another one like you. RIP

I look at his pictures and smile.  I'll never forget the time I got a visit to the ER thanks to him and a big bump on my head.  Or what a surprise when he was born. He was the runt, runt and so small.  He did not show-up on Koko's U/S so he was not expected and then he was the only survivor .  I named him Lucky.  He was such a boy and so beautiful.

And one last thing, he was fixed before 6 months and he never even knew it!

Dogs mourn, I know this.

I couldn't work the next day, one of our treasured family members was gone. I cried, cried, cried and Lucky and Aly would not leave my side.  We were a mess and little did I know it was my fault.

The very next week I told Dr. M I wanted the same test on Aly and another one on Lucky.  He tried to tell me it wasn't needed (these are not part of the plan, you pay extra for these test).  I asked him to humor me and if they were OK I would leave it at that.  Well he was right, they were fine.  Lucky was where is always was and Aly was fine.  I felt relief but not better.

Three week later we're still all depressed.  Back to the Dr. M we go.  So I ask him, "how long do dogs mourn".  I had a Golden that mourned a cat we had and loved. They use to sleep together.  I knew dogs mourned.  Well Dr. M looks at me and says, "they are going to mourn as long as you do."  I perked up on the walk to the car because I do not want to be the reason my dogs feel any physical or emotional pain.

I always thought Koko would be with us at least 14 yrs. But she wasn't and just like with my son I had to focus and treasure the time we did have her.  She was very special and the best doggy mommy ever.

This blog was about Lucky but without Koko there would have been no Lucky.  When he was a very little puppy, Koko had a routine.  She was in our bedroom all night and early morning, then around 9 Am she would want to move to her bed in the family room, she liked the sunshine.  So she would come upstairs and get me so I could get Lucky and move him to the other bed and then we would repeae it in the afternoon when she was ready.  One bark meant she was ready and two or more meant something was wrong. We have great memories.

A lot of things have happened.....Koko

Before I get to the present let me tell you a very condensed version about all that has happened since I last posed.  Ironically, almost exacty 3 yrs to the day. 

We were always so worried about Lucky's weight.

Two months after my last post I got very sick and could not eat anything.  I did some reseach on foods best tolerated by those that cannot seem to tolerate anything.  I discovered plain old white rice.  I looked at Lucky one day and thought if I can keep this plain rice down maybe you can to.  It was a miracle food, no more vomiting, he got back to his normal weight of 32 lbs, no more Ascites.  He was back to throwing his weight around, barking at dogs to stay way, we were his people.  As much as that barking use to annoy me it was so joyful to hear again.  He had done it before a little but now it was like old times. :-)  He ate his white rice and canned dog food or the sausage looking stuff.
He started running more, not a lot but way more than before. He walked up and down the steps, I did not have to carry him.

Turns out people with liver issues tend to have the same stomach problems so I treated him like a person after checking with Dr. M. 

Then in August, a few days after Koko's 10th birthday (Lucky's doggy Mom)  She could not make it up to the chaise lounge in my office.  It was a Monday and that was her spot.  I put her up there and looked at her.  She seemed weak so I put a blanket around her and called the vet.  We went in and her blood test for the first time showed elevated liver enzymes.  They weren't too worried because she seemed OK and everything else was normal.  But being Lucky's nursemaid I had be come paranoid.  I asked them to do the other test (can't recall the name but they don't eat then do the test then eat do another test).  The results came in the next day.  The numbers were so high the machine could not read it, she was in liver failure.  That was the day I learned that Cockers can just have Liver failure without any history.  I never knew that since Lucky's was caused by that Sago Palm.

That was Tuesday and I just went into shock, not Koko. Noooooooo!  All this time I was hoping Lucky would be OK, doing whatever it took to ensure he survived and now out of the blue Koko was dying at age 10.  I took a picture of her that day not knowing it would be the last one.  Thursday evening I was sitting in my office typing on one of the Liver chats to see if anyone knew of anything (I had already tried the liver transplant rounte with Lucky and knew they don't do them anywhere in the country).  Koko was in my lap in a blanket.  All of a sudden she jerked her neck.  I knew she was dying and in my shock I wrote it on the chat board.  I felt so helpless. Everyone started writing back in shock  telling me to run to the closest ER.  Unlike with Lucky I knew there was no hope.  I closed my computer and took her down to our bed.  I told my husband and we laid there with her between us.  We wanted to do something but we did not know what.  Just like my son I did not want her to be poked and proded just because. She was comfortable.  Then we worried that maybe she was in pain and just could not show it so we got dressed and went to the ER.  We could not bare the thought of her being in any pain.

I let Lucky and Aly smell her before we left. I don't know why but I felt like they would know.

 They vet saw us right away when we told them she was dying.   They confirmed it and said they could put her on IV etc etc and I said, "for what, so she can suffer a few more hours or do you really think it will help?"  They are nice vets, they understood what I was saying and told me it would only possibly prolong her life some hours.  I would not do that to her.  I asked if they could give her something for pain, if they thought she was in pain so we could take her home.  The vet said yes, and they went to get something.  Koko was on the exame table and she was having trouble breathing, I picked her up and held her close.  The vet came back in and I put Koko back on the table. Then she said, "her heart rate is very low".  I pulled Koko towards me and her heart rate went up.  I had the funniest feeling she was holding on because of me.  I put her back on the table and held her in a way she could  not feel my heart beat, after I told her it was OK to leave.  She took a last deep breath...  

We had always intended to bury her in what we call the puppy garden in our yard but somehow in death she looked so much larger than she had in life.  Even though by the time we got it together enough to leave the ER it was 1 AM, Koko's ordeal was thankfully very short. The vet told us we could have her cremated alone and get her ashes.  My son had been cremated and somehow it just seemed like the right  thing to do.  I think in the end it happened just as Koko intended.

Lucky goes to the dermotologist, day 306

I sit here with Lucky laying across my feet. Koko, his Mom is pressed on my left side and his sister, Aly is half on my shoulder. I wish I had 3 arms to I could pet them all at the same time. This is the life.

A lot has happened in the last month. Lucky jumped on the bed one day. He's gotten up to 32 lbs with ascites (excessive fluid in the abdomin) and come back down. Up and down, the story of our life.

On the plus side I got Lucky to eat the special Liver diet food. :-)

I took him to see the dermotologist, who knew animals had dermotologist? I wish I had know that years ago. Maybe Lucky's Mom would not have needed ear surgery. Well anyway I took lucky because his ears are not getting any better and he cannot have the ear surgery. I had forgotten his Red Blood Cell (RBC) has been low since he ate the Sago. It's 21, normal is 35. This is considered a huge difference. Sometimes he shows the jaundice and sometimes he doesn't. I wish I understood this.

The dermotologist cleaned his ears so well they did not stink anymore. I could let him sleep in the bed with us. His ears had been so bad he was stinking up the entire house and both of us are sensitive to smell, I don't know how we managed but we did. But we could not sleep with him.

The dermotologist gave us a shampoo to bath Lucky every 48 hrs. We have 2 washes to puty in his ears every day and an antibiotic goes in his ears twice a day. There is some conditioner to put on his skin when we bath him. And he has atarax for dogs, twice a day. He's been on that before. And we don't even know which oral antibiotics he will be on till the culture grows. I work at home so I am always with the dogs. but I work long hrs I don't have time for all of this so I can't imagine people who have to go to an office. But make the time I will, we did not come this far and spend this much money to let a bath get in our way.

All three dogs ended up in the bed with us. We have to be fair. Usually they all surround me but he was being needy and ran his mom and sister off to the other side with my husband. We had a nice night but in the morning I found he had thrown-up. I just don't understand why he keeps going from ok to bad and back.

I started researching the liver again. Apparently it is very common for humans or animals with cirrhosis to be underweight and malnurished. It does not make me not want to fatten him up but at least I know I am not doing anything wrong.

The vets are amazed that I can tell when he is retaining fluid. I never realized it was so difficult. I reach under his belly while he is standing and push at his belly quickly with my fingers only. If it's jiggly like a ballon filled with water I keep doing it to get a feel for how much it is. On a dog that does not have acsites the belly will not move like that and will feel more meaty. I have the benefit of having 3 of these dogs so I can compare how his feels compared to the others. Sometimes it's not too bad and I track it based on his weight.

See ya, we're going to take a bath!

Lucky does not feel well, day 290

Just when I started thinking we might be able to proclaim Lucky's survival, we got a kick in the head. On of those kicks that says, "you big idiot". I have been hoping all along we could get to the point where we felt he would make it, we could relax. But instead I know realize we will never get there. When he gets to be an old boy, that's when we can say, "he made it".

So what happened..... He went to the vet for his ears again and when I weighed him he was 28 LBS. I was shocked. I had stopped his daily weighings when he stopped gaining water weight. Dr M was hopeful it was actual fat, I had my reservations. I felt his abdomin and could feel the ballon like feeling. But you never know. I started the daily weighings again and sure enough he started going down after about 1 week.

I started weighing his sister Aly too. She is getting fat from eating all the treats intended for Lucky. :-) They weighed exactly the same. The race was on to get the weigh off of her and him and then get him fat.

Lucky has been on antibiotics for over 1 month for his ears and I think they are getting to him. He vomits daily now, all the food he eats and he looks very skinny again. I know he has about 3LBS of just water. He no longer has the strength to jump on the bed but he is in good spirits. I won't be giving him the antibiotics again until I prove to myself they were not the cause.

Then our buddy Beanie, took a turn for the worse. She liver numbers are up and she is not feeling well. We all thought she was well on the road to recovery. This more than anything made me realize we will never know if Lucky will make it, until he has his 12th or 13th birthday.

Lucky's Mom, Koko had her second ear surgery yesterday and she is not doing great. She is staying in the hospital another day because she falls over. The vet is hopeful this will go away eventually. Poor Koko, she has also been though so much and is always a trooper.

After her first surgery (2 weeks ago) she came home in one of those collars and she turned into a one dog wrecking crew. She seemed even more surprised than we did when item after item fell and broke in her path. :-)

Lucky was on antibiotics to prevent him from getting like Koko. The operations would be very hard on him, not even sure it could be done. What are we going to do with these Cocker ears?

Our daily thoughts are with Beanie and her family.