It’s dissettlingly quiet here at Chez Schuler. I had thought that Ziva’s health was stressing out the other dogs but I hadn’t realized how much. Kara, our remaining Samoyed, seems pretty bummed out. It doesn’t help that she sprained her foot last weekend and has been benched all week. I’ve been taking my daily walks by myself. Mamie and Ghillie, our Australian Shepherds, have been searching for Ziva as is their nature. I think they’re puzzled. Everyone clearly misses her.
Earlier this week we received her cremains in a lovely wooden box with her name embossed on the side. It’s sitting on our hearth room mantle.
We had our dogs cremated, and after opening the box, I regret it. If we ever get another dog, he/she will be buried in the backyard. I think it is illegal, but I do not care. Other than a Viking boat or funeral pyre, the experience has made me anti-cremation.
Do you walk all the dogs, and if so, is it individually or collectively? It seems like you and Kara, but Australian Shepherds are not couch potatoes.
When Isabella died, Little Man did not seem to care. They were littermates, but they were not pals.
@Drew
Our vet said that a lady he knew used a glucose monitoring patch on her diabetic dog. After using one myself, I am not sure how easy it will be to remove it. For weight control, you can add unsalted green beans to their food. We would cut them up and add them to their wet food. Slathered in gravy, they thought they were feasting.
If your dog is really bad, do not let the vet lowball the insulin dose, and you should be able to afford the good stuff.
Unfortunately, I know what you are going through. I am a heartless bastard, but for both dogs, I took it worse than my wife. We did what we could, but in the end, the organ damage was too extensive.
When we knew he was going, we got the vet to give him some a shot of morphine, and he slept, mostly. Again, the vet lowballed the dose, and Little Man yelped a few times.
@Janis
Is that you? If so, I hope you are doing well. Always remember, there is somebody out there who is thinking about you and cares.
When I walk dogs I do so individually. When I was a bit younger I would walk them two at a time. Right now I only walk with Kara (twice a day) but I have walked with each of the Aussies and I plan to do start doing so more regularly. Presently, I don’t want to interfere with my wife’s training regimen for them with my own sloppy handling.
@Dave Schuler
Presently, I don’t want to interfere with my wife’s training regimen for them with my own sloppy handling.
From what I know about Australian Shepherds, they are smart, and they would have you trained, quickly. Your wife might be so impressed that she would let them whip you into shape.
They could be used as a cheap child care solution. They keep the cattle in-line by nipping at their legs without injuring the cow, and they need to be quick to keep from getting kicked by a cow. Plus, I have never heard of a dog molesting a child.
Thanks, Tasty. Over a two week period her blood sugar has been all over the map: from 47, a sudden crisis when she was unable to even stand, to over 500. All while methodically adjusting the insulin. I am told the physiology is not well understood (or perhaps just dog specific) and despite all due care on type, timing, dose administration and proper mixing (shaking) of insulin the dogs body is the dominant factor. That all said, while incrementally increasing the insulin dose while she maintained BS levels over 500, she suddenly reduced to 200 +/- with a 10% insulin increase. Hard to imagine how to so closely administer.
Now we watch.
We discussed insulin quality, but were advised that type would dominate quality. Above my pay grade.
PS – we do the green beans. She likes them.
That reminds me of something I once heard a border collie breeder say. When asked if border collies were good with children she replied that it depended on what you meant by “good”. If you mean that if you let a border collie out into the backyard with children that within 5 minutes the children will be herded into a corner of the yard and not allowed to move, they’re very good.
@Dave Schuler
That is what I was thinking, and I thought applied to Aussies, as well. I know Border Collies are smart, and in Scotland, they would let them loose to go find the sheep and bring them home.
@Drew
My little dog was the same. By the time it was caught, it was seriously out of control, and the vet was trying to get the dose right. Since we were having serious money issues, we could not get as many of the all-day tests as the vet needed.
After he ate, there would be a spike, and then, it would drop-off, sharply. He really needed a fast acting insulin, but it is not cheap. My dogs got the best healthcare in my house, but at the time, we could only afford the generic slow acting type.
Basically, the vet was trying to lower the spikes without dropping the glucose levels between feedings, and we really needed to use the more expensive fast acting type. We could have gone from two feedings to three or four feedings with snacks in-between, and by giving the slow-acting insulin at the same time, we could have evened the glucose.
Unfortunately, my hands do not work well enough to be able to do the injections alone, and my wife was working too far to run home. Even with the fast-acting insulin, it would not have been easy. As with humans, fast-acting insulin without using a glucose meter is dangerous.
Because the VA does a lot of education, I am familiar with how damaging diabetes can be, and even with optimal care, we would only have extended his life for another six months to a year. I guess it was best that the end was fast, but I still miss both my little dogs.
Hopefully, you or somebody else can benefit from my experience.
Oddly, that was true of Samoyeds in their native Siberia. Samoyeds and Rottweilers (!) are the only dogs that don’t belong to the herding group allowed to compete in AKC herding events. The first Samoyed that my wife and I owned together, Qila, had a herding title.
@Tasty
Yes, that’s me. Thank you for the kind words. I’m okay so far. Hope you and family are doing well, too.