William H. (Bill) Barham
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This is just an update on the condition of my Golden Retriever, Sandy. As most of you already know, one day three to five months ago she stopped wanting to eat. If you know Golden's, when they don't want to eat rush them right to the vet's.
I just thought she was a little under the weather. But, in the evenings when it was quiet you could hear her breathing hard and sounding like she was in pain.. Little yelps and groans. That eased up some if I was right there with her. When I would get up to go back to bed it would get louder again. So for awhile days I slept on the floor right next to her. I walked by her in my living room one morning and told her to heel and we would go outside.
Usually if I tell her to heel she is right at my left side looking up at me. So when I took a few steps and she wasn't there I looked back and saw that she couldn't get up Try as she might she just couldn't do it but she stilled kept trying though yelping in pain the whole time..
I immediately picked her up (real bad move on my part) and took her to where my wife Nancy has worked for a group of veterinarians for 32 years. In spite of every test you can imagine and then some, and every blood work up known to man, and every x-ray from every angle possible, they still couldn't find anything wrong. She now had to be carried on a stretcher to go outside to do her duty or anywhere they needed her for tests. The Doctor's at Nancy's finally told us they didn't know and maybe we should try this specialist about 20 miles away from us. So we did and Sandy had to stay there for six days. Basically they duplicated all the tests that had already been done, even after Nancy supplied them with Sandy's records. Same result, "we're sorry but we don't know. It could be a new strain of virus we're not aware of." Now, when Nancy took Sandy to those people they wanted, and got, $2500.00 up front.:angry: After we got Sandy from them I told Nancy NOT to pay them until I went over all the charges with one of the Vets I knew. Nancy, not wanting to upset any apple cart, paid them in full anyway. Another $2500.00.:angry::angry:
Just about the time I was thinking we would have to put her down Nancy remembered an animal orthopaedic surgeon who had been bringing his dogs to Nancy's work for over twenty years. His office is in Baltimore but she called him and he said to "get an M.R.I. and bring it to me to look at." Nancy did that and this guy spotted a very small "something" on her spinal column. "Just a little dot he said that shouldn't be there". So we set up a date for surgery and took Sandy up to him. In the meantime Sandy is staying in my living room on a shower curtain and old sheet and it wasn't very pleasant. I bet we went through twenty shower curtains from the Dollar Tree store. The Doctor did the surgery the next day and said he found a "distended" disk that was probably mashing a nerve so he took the entire disk out. He also found what he called "a big mess of some kind of tissue, non=cancerous and probably mostly arthritis", and removed that also. Sandy could come home in about a week and a half. He knew Nancy real well so he only charged us half price, $8,000.00 <groan>.
Sandy came home at the stated time and we still had to help her everywhere. She had a lot of pain when moving so every time I said let's go "potty" she would do it right there on the shower curtain so she wouldn't have to move So I started making her move and she started doing ok but she wasn't using her left rear lag at all. It would just flop around like it wasn't connected to anything and this went on for awhile while it was breaking my heart. Nancy finally suggested a place called "Canine Fitness" that works with dogs like Sandy to get them to be as back to normal as they ever will be. There are two shallow pools there and they put a life jacket on Sandy, walked her down the ramp into the water. Meanwhile Nancy has a 40' lead on Sandy and she started walking around the pool and Sandy followed. She's goes there every Mon., Wed., & Fri. and all we have to mention is "pool" and she's ready to go She also gets acupuncture every Wednesday after swimming. She no longer wears the preserver and follows Nancy around the pool without a lead attached.
Soooooo, after all of this, and believe me even though this is a million words long there was a LOT more work and emotion dealing with this, Sandy is walking around like nothing never happened. Except she's still very careful walking up my rear steps. That water therapy did the trick. When I would go and watch she would hop to the pool ramp only using her right rear leg. As soon as she would start swimming ALL of her legs worked just like they're supposed to. Each week, and almost each session, you could see her left rear leg getting stronger and stronger.
I guess she figured if my back was like that she'd join me?:unsure: Nancy calls Sandy "my girlfriend" and at all of the training sessions I used to do everyone called her "my precious angel". She heels like a champion, has tracked me when I was over five miles away, if I tell her to "stay" she'll do it until I give another command, no matter how long it takes and she's very protection trained too. She will go on guard by verbal or hand mannerism. My older brother calls her "Cujo" and the guy who used to train the D.C. Police Dogs said it was impossible so I told him if he could get in my truck, no tricks or b.s. he could have it but if he couldn't get into it he owed me 15 protection training sessions at my dog classes. He couldn't get in, or even close. He paid me two training sessions before I hurt my back and had to stop doing that.
I'm just rattling on now and I want to apologize for making this so darn long! I wanted to fill in some of you who had been praying and sending good wishes and whom forever I will be grateful because I truly believe that had a lot to do with Sandy's recovery. She's laying here right now at my feet and that just about makes me the happiest man in the world!!:wub:
Uncle Billy
I just thought she was a little under the weather. But, in the evenings when it was quiet you could hear her breathing hard and sounding like she was in pain.. Little yelps and groans. That eased up some if I was right there with her. When I would get up to go back to bed it would get louder again. So for awhile days I slept on the floor right next to her. I walked by her in my living room one morning and told her to heel and we would go outside.Usually if I tell her to heel she is right at my left side looking up at me. So when I took a few steps and she wasn't there I looked back and saw that she couldn't get up
Try as she might she just couldn't do it but she stilled kept trying though yelping in pain the whole time.. I immediately picked her up (real bad move on my part) and took her to where my wife Nancy has worked for a group of veterinarians for 32 years. In spite of every test you can imagine and then some, and every blood work up known to man, and every x-ray from every angle possible, they still couldn't find anything wrong. She now had to be carried on a stretcher to go outside to do her duty or anywhere they needed her for tests. The Doctor's at Nancy's finally told us they didn't know and maybe we should try this specialist about 20 miles away from us. So we did and Sandy had to stay there for six days. Basically they duplicated all the tests that had already been done, even after Nancy supplied them with Sandy's records. Same result, "we're sorry but we don't know. It could be a new strain of virus we're not aware of." Now, when Nancy took Sandy to those people they wanted, and got, $2500.00 up front.:angry: After we got Sandy from them I told Nancy NOT to pay them until I went over all the charges with one of the Vets I knew. Nancy, not wanting to upset any apple cart, paid them in full anyway. Another $2500.00.:angry::angry:
Just about the time I was thinking we would have to put her down Nancy remembered an animal orthopaedic surgeon who had been bringing his dogs to Nancy's work for over twenty years. His office is in Baltimore but she called him and he said to "get an M.R.I. and bring it to me to look at." Nancy did that and this guy spotted a very small "something" on her spinal column. "Just a little dot he said that shouldn't be there". So we set up a date for surgery and took Sandy up to him. In the meantime Sandy is staying in my living room on a shower curtain and old sheet and it wasn't very pleasant. I bet we went through twenty shower curtains from the Dollar Tree store. The Doctor did the surgery the next day and said he found a "distended" disk that was probably mashing a nerve so he took the entire disk out. He also found what he called "a big mess of some kind of tissue, non=cancerous and probably mostly arthritis", and removed that also. Sandy could come home in about a week and a half. He knew Nancy real well so he only charged us half price, $8,000.00 <groan>.
Sandy came home at the stated time and we still had to help her everywhere. She had a lot of pain when moving so every time I said let's go "potty" she would do it right there on the shower curtain so she wouldn't have to move
So I started making her move and she started doing ok but she wasn't using her left rear lag at all. It would just flop around like it wasn't connected to anything and this went on for awhile while it was breaking my heart. Nancy finally suggested a place called "Canine Fitness" that works with dogs like Sandy to get them to be as back to normal as they ever will be. There are two shallow pools there and they put a life jacket on Sandy, walked her down the ramp into the water. Meanwhile Nancy has a 40' lead on Sandy and she started walking around the pool and Sandy followed. She's goes there every Mon., Wed., & Fri. and all we have to mention is "pool" and she's ready to go She also gets acupuncture every Wednesday after swimming. She no longer wears the preserver and follows Nancy around the pool without a lead attached. Soooooo, after all of this, and believe me even though this is a million words long there was a LOT more work and emotion dealing with this, Sandy is walking around like nothing never happened. Except she's still very careful walking up my rear steps. That water therapy did the trick. When I would go and watch she would hop to the pool ramp only using her right rear leg. As soon as she would start swimming ALL of her legs worked just like they're supposed to. Each week, and almost each session, you could see her left rear leg getting stronger and stronger.
I guess she figured if my back was like that she'd join me?:unsure: Nancy calls Sandy "my girlfriend" and at all of the training sessions I used to do everyone called her "my precious angel". She heels like a champion, has tracked me when I was over five miles away, if I tell her to "stay" she'll do it until I give another command, no matter how long it takes and she's very protection trained too. She will go on guard by verbal or hand mannerism. My older brother calls her "Cujo" and the guy who used to train the D.C. Police Dogs said it was impossible so I told him if he could get in my truck, no tricks or b.s. he could have it but if he couldn't get into it he owed me 15 protection training sessions at my dog classes. He couldn't get in, or even close. He paid me two training sessions before I hurt my back and had to stop doing that.
I'm just rattling on now and I want to apologize for making this so darn long! I wanted to fill in some of you who had been praying and sending good wishes and whom forever I will be grateful because I truly believe that had a lot to do with Sandy's recovery. She's laying here right now at my feet and that just about makes me the happiest man in the world!!:wub:
Uncle Billy
