회복의 교훈: 반려견이 거의 죽을 뻔했던 그날 밤 #61

an eight-year-old dog. John and I had taken the RV to Florida where I was competing at the AKC Invitational with feature. And it was the night before my first run when I got a call from Linda Orton Hill. Actually, not true. The call was from my good friend, Dr. Leslie Woodcock, a veterinarian. Linda was too upset to talk to me. But Linda was on site in charge when Encore had a seizure that couldn't be stopped. Linda rushed her to the emergency veterinarian. They could not stop these seizures. So, they put her into a chemically induced coma. John and I packed up the RV and we started the 21-hour drive home. Bless his heart, John drove almost the entire way without a stop. When I got to Encore's side, she was unable to move. They were able to get her out of the coma and get her to a neurological hospital. There was a great team of supporters, veterinarians, and people that helped Linda. And you can read about that on my blog. There's three posts about this. The first lesson that I have for you about this experience is a really important one for every single person who owns a pet. And that is, what is your critical care solution? Do you have pet insurance for your animal? And if you don't have pet insurance, what is your hard stop? If you get into a situation like I did, what is the number that you can pay to save your dog's life? You should make that decision now so that when you get into that situation, you can know I've got to make the tough decision and let my dog go. Now, luckily for me, I was in a position where I could pay the veterinarian bills. But please take that seriously. I would strongly encourage everybody to get pet insurance on their animals. But if you don't, what is your number? What is that hard stop? If you have children, this is important. You've got a family to feed, anyone with animals has to make that decision. So, I walked in with Encore and she was at that time paralyzed. She stayed in the hospital for a week. That first day when I walked in was the first time they saw her move. She wagged her tail, tried to lift her head when I came in. And I would stay with her as much as I could. And the clinic was very good. I remember one veterinarian technician who made all the difference in the world. As I would be trying to hold back my tears and I would talk to Encore and I'd tell her how much she's loved and I'd ask her to fight. And that could be an extra bonus lesson. Talk to your dogs like they were human. Talk to them because how do we know what they do and do not hear from us?

So, talk to them. Take the time to talk to them like you acknowledge there's a possibility that they get it. And don't just do it when they're sick. Do it every day. I remember this vet tech. She would walk by and she would just under her breath say to me softly, she would walk by doing what she did. She would say, the brain is a remarkable organ. And she would say that over and over and over. And to give me hope, to make me believe that this dog would be able to move. And she did. When Encore came home a week later, she had some symptoms. She was incontinent. She couldn't control her bladder. So, wherever she'd laid, when she'd get up, there was some urine that had to be cleaned up. She was able to stand and walk a little bit assisted, but she didn't really have use of the right side of her body very well. And of course she's had a spinal tap. So, she's got this big diamond shaped shaved out of the back of her neck. She was sent home on high doses of meds to control the seizuring and high, high doses of steroid. And so, that brings me up to lesson number three. You've got all the notes from the veterinarian, but don't be afraid to look outside the box. So, a very dear friend of mine and our chiropractor, she said to me, try this therapy. And so, because Encore was paralyzed on the right side of her body, what we would do is we would put a light for one minute, just a penlight flashlight to show light through her opposite side of her brain to her left eye. And we would play Mozart for one minute at a time to try to stimulate her brain. And to try and stimulate movement in the paralyzed limbs, we would take a electric toothbrush and just lightly touch her limbs where she couldn't feel anything. So, this was part of the alternative therapy that we did. But there was also ongoing rehab therapy. Eventually Encore was able to swim, but there were certain skills that she could do. Things like wave and back up and spin. Eventually these were things that because she knew them before, they gave me a baseline to know where she was and how much she was improving. So, that's lesson number four is have a baseline for your dog of skills that you know you can ask your dog to do. And it lets you know how much they can move their legs, how much they can coordinate backing up or whatever it is that you're going to ask them to do. Have that baseline. For all my dogs, I have them to move their paws individually, turn their heads one side or another. So, have a baseline, create a baseline of what your dog knows, write it all down

right now. Now let's fast forward to one year after Encore's catastrophic brain injury. And now she's had two spinal taps. So, the diamond shape in the back of her head because of the high doses of steroids never grew in. She had a bald spot in the back of the head. I personally took it all myself to get her off all of her medication. I kept her on Doxy and she's been on Doxy every day of her life since then. But I got her off of all of her seizuring medication, which we put her back on a very low dose of Phenobarb because my husband was not comfortable with the risk of seeing her seizure again. It just upset him way too much. And I got her off of all of the steroids. Yet she still had that patch of bare spot in the back of her head. She still was incontinent and peed when she laid down a year later. And her coat now was deteriorating. It was brittle. It was falling out. It was this orangey color, not the bright, vibrant red we were used to. Her immune system couldn't deal with what was going on. Enter our 10-inch worm. When your immune system is so broken down, it can't fight things it would normally fight off. And guess what? There is a worm. It's called Dracunulus, I believe. It's related to the Guinea worm. You can Google that. And it's in ponds all over, except dogs are able to fight it off so that it doesn't show up as a worm growing out of their armpit. And guess what? There was a take two. A week later, she got another worm growing out of her ribs. Not growing, just emerging from. So, all of this was happening. And a year later, Encore looked worse than she did before. And I said to John, I said, I think we're going to lose her. I don't think she's going to live to Christmas. Now, all of this rehab, I just want to say a big shout out to the people, Linda Orton Hill, Louise Lamar from a friend of ours who was a vet tech, who actually moved in with us for three months to be with Encore and help her anytime I couldn't be there. But with all of this help and all of the friends that were helping with the rehab, even John would help with some of the rehab exercises. Our friend Penny would help with rehab exercises. She was still not moving forward. And that brings me to the fifth lesson. And that is look to alternative modalities. Because as amazing as veterinarian medicine is, traditional medicine has boundaries. Look beyond those boundaries. And a friend of mine, my osteopath, when I was telling him the story, he said, look, why don't we try something called tissue-specific microcurrents? And what we did was we put Encore in

the pool. Part of her therapy was in the pool. But in this case, we just had her sit in the pool and Darren put these electrodes in the pool. That was the last time Encore ever had an accident, peeing herself. One treatment, the incontinence was gone. And a week later, I noticed the fur had grown back in the back of her head. And then this bright, vibrant red fur started emerging from her face. We continued to give her treatments twice a week, which was amazing to see. And that was a turning point for her. So, please look to alternative therapies. There's so many different modalities out there that you may not have heard of unless you start looking or you ask. That's a big lesson. Now, the sixth lesson that I learned, and it's something we all as dog lovers should know, appreciate each and every day with your dog. Each and every day. I look at that time when Encore was eight years old, every year after that as a bonus. I have a goal when I get a dog that they're going to live to be 20. I haven't yet achieved that goal, but I keep trying. But honestly, when Encore went down, it was, I just want you for one more day. Just one more day, girly. And that day turned into a week and turned into a year. And in 11 days, we celebrate Encore's 17th birthday. And to me, it's more than just miraculous having known all she's gone through. She never really fully recovered the use of her front right leg. And unfortunately, the steroids severely damaged the ligaments in her good leg. However, she still loves to go for walks every day. She's an amazing dog to this day. And what's more amazing about the fact that she's going to be celebrating her 17th birthday in just over a week is that she's outlived every one of her littermates by more than three years. She's outlived her parents. And so, many of you have written in and said, could you please talk about what you feed your dogs? And honestly, I don't believe longevity is about nutrition. I think nutrition absolutely plays a role. I think longevity is about one thing. And I'm going to share that one thing and all the outspokes of that one thing in my next episode. Here on Shaped by Dog. All right. I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you to think about. This is my hallucination. I don't know what longevity is all about or what it all amounts to, but I do know this. When Encore reaches her 17th birthday, it will mean the last three dogs I've owned have all celebrated their 17th birthday. So, that could be luck on my part, but I've got to think some of the things I'm doing are helping to contribute to the life my dogs get to live,

the longevity of those dogs. And my last Border Collie Buzz outlived his littermates by years as well. I believe the one thing that is common is stress. Now, of course, I'm not discounting genetics, but we're going to get into more of this in my next episode. So, please hit the notification bell. So, you will be notified when the next episode is published. Come back here to Shaped by Dog. And if you are listening to this, please subscribe and share this podcast with your friend. We'll talk to you next time. And it will be all about all of the things that I believe contribute to longevity in my dogs. I'll see you next time.