In 2019 we had four dogs.
Our male (Ty), his color .. in dog terms; was red and white, and he was the oldest at 7.5 years old.
And, we have three females who are all black and white.
One of the females, who was also the youngest of our dogs, was 2 years old at the time that our beloved male died unexpectedly. This little girl was the daughter of our male. She was born through an accidental litter.
When his daughter was born, her mother and all of the other puppies from her litter would not bother with her. Her mother refused to nurse her, her litter mates literally left her alone. My male however, would often cuddle with her and he would lick specifically; her little eyes.
So, I would feed her with a tiny bottle, I would hold her and carry her around, and at night, I would rest her in the crook of my neck where she would fall asleep and where she would be throughout the night.
A few weeks had gone by and this little girl was growing fast. She was twice the size of all of the other puppies and I noticed that when I would put this little girl down, she would not walk.
She would instead roll over on her back and cry. I'm one to spoil my dogs and so I would pick her up and carry her around, every day and all day.
Her preferred position was always on her back in my arms, where I would calm her by rubbing her little belly. It soothed her tremendously.
When she was 8 weeks old, my little girl was huge compared to all of the other puppies. She looked like the size of a three month old Newfoundland or a little bear cub, despite that she is an American Pitbull Terrier. She looked like a little black and white bear. So, I named her Panda Bear.
I was concerned for her size and the fact that she refused to walk, and made a mental note to ask the Vet at their check up if my little girl could have Acromegaly, which is gigantism. I knew the chances of her having this were close to none, but I love my dogs and I want to make sure they are all OK.
At 8 weeks old, we brought the litter to the Vet for a health check up and to get their shots.
One by one the Vet was checking them from head to paws, giving them their shots and all was OK, until the Vet got to my little girl.
The Vet patted my baby, she made comment on her size and when she began to check her little eyes, the Vet immediately said; "this puppy is blind".
I was shocked. But, it now made sense why my little girl refused to walk, why she preferred to be on her back; it gave her security, why her mother and her litter mates would have nothing to do with her and it explained why my male would often lick her little eyes.
He knew.
Our Vet told us that we had to make her walk, and to stop carrying her around because she had to learn how to navigate on her own. The Vet also told us that although very small, there was a very small chance that her eyesight with time, could become a little bit better.
The Vet also told us that she did not believe that she had Acromegaly, she was just a big girl.
The families came to pick up their new puppies, and we decided to keep my little girl. To be honest, I was afraid to place her with anyone due to her handicap. I knew that I could take care of her, I knew that from the time she was born, I was the person who took care of her and who she had come to know would sooth her, and so she became a member of our family.
So, despite that my little girl did not look blind, she was and we now had to find ways to make her walk and how to help her learn how to get around in her world of darkness.
The first few days did not go well at all.
I would put her down and she would just cry and cry. It broke my heart to see her all by herself sitting in a room just crying. She would cry, and when she didn't get the reaction from me that she wanted, she would throw herself on her back, kicking her little legs, because in the past, she knew I would come to her, pick her up and I would rub her little belly soothing her into sleep.
Needless to say, the first few days did not go well. I had a real hard time just leaving her on the floor, so, I would, I'll admit, pick her up, carry her around and I would sooth her. But, these were in between leaving her on the floor more and more often.
When my little girl was four months old, it became difficult if not impossible to carry her around anymore because she was getting too big, her size never slowed and at this point, she weighed just under 65 pounds. So, carrying her around wasn't an option anymore.
She learned however that she could still be soothed with a belly rub, if she climbed onto the couch and got onto her back.
It would take us nine long months to teach my little baby and for her to have the confidence to walk through a doorway thresh hold, and it would take another two months to teach her how to walk up and down stairs.
Teaching her how to walk up and down the stairs was a challenge. Not so much for the trek up the stairs, but getting her back down inevitably resulted in a face plant.
She would climb to the top of the stairs (what a good, brave girl), then when it came time to come back down, she would start off slowly with me stepping on each stair, until she would be half way down and somehow she became top heavy I guess, and each step became quicker and she couldn't quite slow herself down towards the bottom, and there she would be... face planted into the wall at the bottom of the stairs.
We ended up piling up a bunch of pillows between the wall and the stairs for a couple of weeks and until she could do this without face planting.
At this point, my little girl had finally been accepted by her mother for sometime now, who now often cuddles with her and cleans her the way dogs do. And my little girl is accepted by our other female who wrestles and plays with her daily.
My little girl is now almost out weighing her father, despite that he doesn't wrestle or play with her too much, I think due to her size, there he is; still every now and then licking her eyes as he stops while passing by her in the living room.
As time went on, I began to notice that my male (Ty) was getting a bit of a belly. This was odd for him because he was the typical; muscular, defined, solid and tight American Pitbull Terrier. I remember making a silly comment to him one day while he was sitting next to me on the couch and I was ... rubbing his belly.
I said; "Hey little buddy, your gettin' old huh, you're gettin' a belly".
At the time, I made a mental note of it because to me this potbelly came out of nowhere.
A month or so went by, he did not seem to be gaining anymore weight and other then sleeping more often, he seemed fine, so the potbelly thing was no longer a concern of mine.
A couple of weeks later, I came home from work and as I'm getting out of my truck, I can hear my dogs howling for me. They do this every time I get home. My male starts the crowd going until they are all in a full blown howl, until I walk through the door.
I got inside and my mom ( my dogs granny nanny) told me that my male had been coughing, and she thought that maybe he had eaten something or had something stuck in his throat.
I checked him out, he seemed fine other then coughing a few times. Maybe allergies I thought.
Well no one could have predicted what would happen and so quickly.
The next day, he is coughing more. I call my Vet and she tells me to give him Coconut oil to sooth his throat and I could give him Benadryl if he needed it, because it may be allergies. So, I go out and buy some Coconut oil and I began giving it to him. It seemed to help the first couple of days. So, I continued to give it to him and I kept Benadryl on hand.
The only thing different that I noticed was that he was following me around the house and into the bathroom, something he hasn't done in a long time.
After a week of this, one night while laying on the couch, I notice that he is laying behind my mothers recliner (odd) and I hear him breathing.
That's concerning and so I call to him and he comes out but he is breathing heavier than normal. I call to my son and my son decided to take him out to get fresh air.
He went out with my son, but he didn't want to walk. He just stood in the same spot and was breathing heavy. So, my son went to take him back in, but he refused to walk up the stairs.
My son had to pick him up and carry him into the house.
Now in through the door, which you can see from across the room where I was on the couch, my son unhooked his leash and my dog immediately tried to come to me.
In panic, I screamed for my dog, followed by screaming for my son, who had just left the room.
I ran to my dog, but he was gone. In an instant, my baby was gone.
There was a puddle of fluid that was getting bigger and bigger coming out of his mouth while he lay motionless on the floor.
Eventually we learned that my dog died from undiagnosed congestive heart failure.
The potbelly, the coughing and finally his labored breathing were all because of an undiagnosed illness. The fluid that spilled out of his precious mouth, was from his lungs, which had been filling, causing him to have a hard time to breath.
He was two months shy of being 8 years old, at the time that he died.
My son gently wrapped him in my baby boy's blanket, and we took him to my Vet, I wanted him to be cremated.
The next day, we noticed that our three female dogs were laying together in a pile in the living room. My son snapped the following picture with his cell phone of Panda Bear, because at that moment, she looked different...
This is Ty's daughter, and yet it isn't...his daughter Panda Bear is black and white (see below) and at this point she weighs 120 lbs. and she is bigger than her father.
You can clearly see that the dog in the picture, who is supposed to be his daughter (Panda Bear) is the same exact color of and looks just like her father Ty, who passed away one day earlier.
At the time that the above picture was taken, my baby boy Ty had passed away the night before and was at the Vet wrapped in his blanket. Yet, here he is in this image that was taken in our living room the day after he died. This picture is of his daughter (Panda Bear) resting her head on one of our other females, but she looks just like him!
How can Ty be in the above picture that was taken after he died?
But, once again, the strangeness doesn't stop there.
Each of our dogs has a different type of howl and a different tone to their howl. Ty was the one who usually got them all going.
My son and I stopped in our tracks and looked at each other. Oh my God, you can actually hear "Ty" I said. My son looked at me and he said; "Ma, listen, you can actually hear him howling, his howl", "How friggen strange is that?" he said.
She said that she could hear my baby boy's howl distinctly too. She said she watched all three dogs start howling but, she could hear Ty's howl distinctly.
I used to get annoyed sometimes when they would howl, because I thought it may have aggravated our neighbors, but now I look forward to it.
This is his daughter today...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to leave your comments