Happy Halfway Home

30/05/2024

It is with a broken heart that I write this...

Angel, our beautiful Siberian Huskey cross, with the striking eyes, one blue and one brown, our little Peanut (she thought she was tiny, even though she was pretty large!), died on the 19th of this month.

I called her my Ankhsennut (Ankh-sen-nut), living spirit of the Goddess Nut - the Egyptian Goddess of the Night Sky); my little Star Child; Princess of the Night (she loved standing outside in the garden at night time staring at the sky above...

I couldn't write about her 'till now... It has just been too traumatic. And I guess I'm just all over the place all the time...

She had almost lost the use of her hind legs, but at ~14 years of age, for a Huskey she was doing really well. The last time I took her out for a walk, about a week before she died, she just didn't want to come home.

She kept falling down if we turned a corner sharply, so I had to make sure we took a wide berth and turned very slowly to give her time, but by the end of the walk she really was falling, so I had to keep helping her up, and in the end I had to be really stern and tell her we had to go home because if she fell over and wasn't able to get up, then there was no way I could carry her home as she was too big!

She was such a sweetie she agreed, pouting the rest of the way, she walked home with me, but then fell down at the doorstep. I did manage to help her up and she walked herself in, but fell down in the kitchen door on her way out to the garden and her Mum, my sis Sherry had to lift her up. Sherry is incredibly strong - like a female Hercules!

After that it was only Sherry who managed to take her out, with a supporting belt round her waist to hold her up, and just up to the top of the road and back.

A week later Angel went to sleep and woke up in Heaven.

Run free my Angel... We will miss you to the end of our days, and then we will be together again in the Hereafter.

For now, here on this Earth plane... RIP Angel.

Dana ###x 💔💔💔💔

11/02/2024

Hello all,

Hope you and all your furry babies are well.

I have been meaning to write this for a while, but things have been so very busy here, that I simply haven’t had the energy left at the end of the day to write a post.

Pixie, our little ‘Pom Pom’ , ‘Pommet’ or Pixie Pom’) has been quite unwell for the past few weeks...

We had seen droplets of blood all over the place, but couldn't figure out exactly which one of the dogs was injured. Around that time, Angel had hurt herself poking her face into thorny bushes and trying to push through a gap in a fence while trying to snoop around a fox's den and had really badly injured her cheek, so we kept thinking it was Angel...

And then one day when little Pixie got up to go for a wee suddenly blood gushed out of her and we realised to our horror that it was her.

Following that, she started smelling of fish, so it became obvious that she had developed a very bad UTI (urinary track infection).

I took her to the vet as soon as I could and got a couple of prescriptions for her for antibiotics.

After that episode, though her UTI seemed to have cleared, her water intake rocketed, and I suspected that the infection had compromised her kidneys.

Further visits to the vet with blood tests done subsequently have proved thankfully, that her kidney function is fine, so I am hugely relieved,
The UTI however had a very bad effect on her bladder control and since she had that she's become very incontinent so we've started her on some incontinency medication the vet recommended. It hasn't worked yet, but it takes some time to build up in the system and start taking effect.

However, two of the vets suspect that she may have Cushing's disease, so today I am taking another urine sample to the clinic to get that tested. The last sample I dropped off, for some reason sat in the clinic fridge and became too old for testing (why they didn't send it off, I can't imagine). Hopefully, this time the sample will get sent off promptly and we'll know what is going on with little Pixie Pom.

The second vet I spoke to explained that her raised water consumption may be because of the Cushing's, so hopefully once we know the results from the urine test, she can start some treatment.

Other than that the poor little thing fell over a couple of times trying to get out of the back door, unfortunately, there’s a very difficult step you have to climb over to get out of the back door into the garden, and she hurt herself, so she has been really struggling to move. The vet gave me some Loxicom (strong painkiller) to give her along with the normal painkiller that she's been on for osteoarthritis, and I'm hoping it'll start working soon.

10/02/2024

It's the Chinese Lunar New Year today as I discovered from the Google Doodle...

So to all of us feeling a little worn down, and missing all the festivities of the Christmas period, here's to you...

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!

Lots of love and good wishes to you,
Dana ### 🎆🎇🎑

10/02/2024

Hello everyone,

I logged into the HHH Twitter (or X now rather... Such a daft. name... "Twitter" and the cute logo were nice) and I saw this post. I am sharing it here... Please do share and let's all try and make our world a little kinder.

Thank you all and bless you!
Dana ### 🙏🙏🙏

Here is the link...

01/01/2024

Love and blessings to you all, from all of us here at HHH (two-legged and four-legged alike!)
Dana xx 💙❤️🩵🧡🩷💛💚💜🩶🩶🤎

19/09/2023

Looking over some pics that were still on my old camera, I transferred them onto my laptop and found the one below...

It was from last year autumn, the weather was cold and wet, I had just come in and the dogs came up to me to greet me, I was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and had the hood up. Teddy came too... I bent over to give him a cuddle and my sis took the picture. It's quite funny as it looks as if Teddy is wearing a hood.

13/09/2023

Our precious baby boy Teddy, Teddikins, Billy Bubba, Snowby, Bon Bon, the little boy who, someone in the park just two days earlier, thought was a puppy, died on the 11th.

His anti-nausea medication had run out and I had to go to the vet to get it. It was our local clinic. I was walking down to the vet, as my car isn't ULEZ compliant. The baby boy wanted to come with me. I didn't have the heart to refuse him. But it's a long walk and I knew he couldn't walk that far anymore, so I took the buggy we had bought for him. It was only after we left that I remembered like an idiot I am, that without the nausea medication, he suffered from motion sickness. So he vomited up his dinner from the previous night. I cleaned it up and slowed down, trying to walk as steadily as I could. He hopped off the buggy soon after though and started walking again, with me and the three other babies I'd taken with me, Spritie, Angel, and our little Sparky.

We walked slowly, but he became tired and hopped back onto the buggy, but started feeling nauseous again, so hopped off again. He wanted to sit and rest on the pavement, but it was taking such a long time, to get there, I kept picking him up and putting him back in his buggy thinking the sooner we got there the sooner I could give him his medicine and the sooner he'd feel better and we could go to the park in the buggy. But by the time we got there, he was exhausted. His prescription was ready for me, so I collected it from reception, Teddy was sitting right there, just as I got ready to leave, and was picking him up to put him back in his buggy, he just collapsed.

The vet clinic we went to is a 24-hour vet, with emergency facilities, and one of the vets came straight out, and rushed him into the back and put him into intensive care. I'd taken Teddy there just a few days earlier when he had started vomiting and wasn't drinking. The vet, a highly experienced and very kind vet called Allan, who is the night vet there had put him on a long-term antinausea medicine, as the one Lia at Eco Vets has prescribed for him is for short-term use only. But he gave me only a few tablets. I went back there a few days later and asked for more, but again I was only given a short supply. I asked the nurse whom I spoke to, for more, And she said "Oh, okay, let me ask for more for you." The vet on duty at that time, hadn't seen Teddy as it's a very big clinic, and we've only been going there regularly for a few days so again I was given just a short supply. But I assumed I had enough for a while. We'd been so stressed out I didn't check inside the paper packet at home either. And then the night of the 10th I suddenly I realised I didn't have anymore. I phoned up immediately and asked for more but was told it would take 24 hours. And so he hadn't had his morning dose. The clinic issued it extremely fast, but there's hadn't been any for the morning. Otherwise, he would have just sat in his buggy and we would have had a nice long walk, he would have hopped on and off without feeling stressed... But it was all too late, the damage had been done.

I waited there for him and then the vet came out and asked me to come into one of the consulting rooms. She is a lovely lady called Laura, with a very kind manner, so like our much, much missed retired vet Ellie. She told me that he was going, and I could either have him admitted into intensive care for the next 24-hours again, or let him go to sleep forever. She said she didn't think he'd recover now, and she didn't think he'd probably last even 12 hours. She told me his body was just too stressed. She said with dogs, their bodies keep compensating, masking their illnesses until they can't compensate any longer, and Teddy's body has reached that point. His heart was pounding, she said he was struggling to breathe, he was not responding to her and her team at all, and there's no way she would allow me to take him home.

I knew I'd made a terrible, terrible mistake taking him along with me. The walk had been too much for him. The vet told me he had collapsed from stress. I wanted to tell her that I know Teddy, within a few hours he'd be okay again. But I knew he wasn't okay anymore - even before he collapsed. He needed medicines to make him feel hungry, medicines to make him overcome the nausea, medicine to help him p**p... Yes he perked up in the park, but the Teddy, who had boundless energy and leaped about like a buckaroo at the thought of going out (hence his name Billy Bubba, from Buckaroo Bill), now struggled to walk, sometimes he didn't even want to go out and I'd have to coax him out. He had even stopped sniffing and jumping up to peep over garden walls, incredibly inquisitive little pup that he had been... All he did was stop frequently to catch his breath, and when he lowed his head, it wasn't to sniff, it was to eat grass and the leaves of the common w**d called Green Elnet that helps with nausea. Often he'd just stand looking around him, whenever there was a view; we live in a very hilly part of London so there are often lovely views, especially in the park, he'd sometimes just stand there for an age, looking around with that far away look on his face, that sad, wistful far away look that they all get when they are between the two worlds, this one and the next, when they know their time is very close to an end, and they want to see all that they had loved and enjoyed in this life, to take it all in for the last time...

I knew this is not the life that that gorgeous, fluffy pup wanted to live... I told her I would wait for my family to come. I called my sister, she told Peter to come over.

She brought him out, her staff placed a lovely white fluffy rug onto the table and she laid him there. He instantly sat up and looked at me. I told the vet he's responding now. She said it was because he knew I was there. I bent over him and stood there holding him, and kissing him, telling him how much I loved him. When I stood upright, he sat up again, but his eyes were no longer bright. His huge, big gorgeous dark brown eyes with dark 'eyeliner', that made me nickname him "Billyses" (we gave all our babies mock classical or Egyptian names for fun with 'official titles' to go with them, and Teddy was given the title Billyses - Royal Messenger to the Canine Court because he was so outgoing and loved everyone, and everyone loved him back).

I held his beautiful face in my hands and asked him "Baby boy do you want to go now?" He lay down and shut his eyes and I knew that's what he wanted.

I asked Laura to give him a sedative first, I didn't want him to feel anything. She did, I held him tight and he slipped away...
She wrapped him up a nice blue sheet, I carried my baby out to my brother-in-laws car and placed him gently into the boot, I put his buggy in, and walked home with Spritie and Sparky. Angel went into the car with him. I wished that Wolfy had come on the walk - Teddy's last walk as Wolfy had been one of his friends, and then he would have had all his best friends, Spritie, Wolfy and Angel, with him, Sparky wasn't one of his friends, but I guess, as it turned out. I needed him for my comfort, Sparky was our first.

My big, beautiful, gorgeous fluffy arctic pup, no longer has to struggle to walk, no longer feels nauseous, no longer has to strain and strain trying to poo, he no longer has to feel ill. My gorgeous, big fluffy puppy is now in Paradise, he's gone back home to where all Angels go.

RIP my beloved, cherished, happy, bouncy Baby Boy, you brought so much happiness and love to all who met you - especially me, your Auntie JoJo, your Mum Mum, and your first Mummy, Mummy Linda, and her family.

Bye bye Baby Boy, we will always love you forever and ever and beyond. Until we meet again my lovely big Bon Bon.

D.x 💔💔💔💔💔🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Here's one of the last pictures of Teddy I took before he became ill... (The last picture my camera ever took before it packed up was of Teddy smiling, the same camera that I used from the very first day these babies came into our lives...)

08/09/2023

I don't know why FB doesn't allow more than one picture to get loaded onto the posts anymore... I used to add at least a couple at a time but anyway...

Here's another very sweet picture of Teddy with his first Mum Linda, a typical Teddy shot - with one paw up.

There are so many pics in my mind - moments captured by our brain and stored forever in our memories... Snapshots of those we loved. Sadly, I so seldom ever remember to take the camera, (or the phone). I thought of it this morning, when I him put in the car to bring him home. He looked so very sweet sitting there, like a big, furry toy dog... But once again I didn't have anything on me to take the picture. But it's burned into my brain forever.

Life hurts too much. There's a famous song called "Love Hurts" - it sure does...

08/09/2023

Teddy's first Mum, who has become a close friend of ours, and whom we met because of Teddy, came to visit him last week. I had phoned her to tell her he's not well.

Here is a picture I took of him with her...

08/09/2023

07/09/2023

Our baby boy Teddy seems to be fading fast, losing weight rapidly. He's just become skin and bones.

Yesterday he wasn't well at all, and the same baby who couldn't wait to go out and leapt about didn't seem to be interested in anything on the walk besides eating grass periodically.
Late at night, I noticed he wasn't actually drinking water when he came running to me while I was filling up a watering can and started sniffing around the tap outside in the courtyard. I thought he'd like some cool fresh water straight out from the mains, so I got a little bowl and poured him some. He sniffed it, put his head down but didn't drink. I noticed it again and again over the next few hours, so I took him down to our local emergency vet. Thankfully Alan, the nice vet was there on duty, his colleague the other night vet isn't very understanding at all. I expected much worsened results, but amazingly his blood work showed much-improved protein and creatine levels. Nor was he as dehydrated as I thought he would be since he wasn't drinking. He hadn't been interested in eating yesterday either.

A few days earlier he'd eaten a lot, he loves fish, so we had bought him fresh fish, and he had eaten seven over the day! But yesterday he spat it out. Whatever I tried to give him, he spat out.

Alan told me that for all intents and purposes, his blood tests showed that he should be in reasonably good shape, but there seemed to be some infection somewhere as he had an elevated white blood cell count.

The weight loss he said may have been because of that... Unless it's cancer. He was diagnosed with an abdominal mass in the upper abdominal region, near the stomach or liver which could be causing the loss of appetite.

He's still at the vet now, another vet phoned me in the morning, but I've not heard back from anyone yet. I phoned to find out how things were myself and I was told someone will call me later. I presume now as it's quite late it will be Alan - which I'm glad about, as he is very easy to talk to, and is not afraid to express to give advice and voice his opinion, so I can ask him questions and get his advice on what the best course of action may be.

I have to decide whether I should request a scan. I can't afford chemotherapy in case it's cancer, nor could I afford an operation, but Teddy is too old now to operate on, so it's wouldn't be fair. But dogs do quite well on chemo - it doesn't have the terrible side effects it does on us humans.

Here's a of pic of Teddy in better days...

My gorgeous baby boy. Even now everyone who sees him falls in love with him. Everywhere he went people would just go "Aaaaah." I don't know if I can take him going just yet. I don't think I can bear to lose him. I am so hoping he'll bounce back and we can spend another year or so together...

16/07/2023

Teddy had a terrific time running about in the park.

From one instant to the next - he perks up and has a good time, and then you look at him and it seems he's very ill.

Still, as long as he's a happy baby - we're happy too.

When we all go together to the park, that's with Poppy included, we always go late to ensure there aren't too many other dogs about... Here are some pics I took of Teddy, the white lighting around the park has made the photographs look very misty and romantic...

D.###

15/07/2023

Hello again everyone, Dana here.

An update on our little Teddy…
It’s been a little bit up and down, from one day to the next, one day, eating reasonably well, the next refusing to eat anything. One day going out and having fun, the next day, not even being able to walk.

The first couple of days after he came back from seeing Lia, he was doing okay. But refusing to take his medicines (as so many babies do). We tried everything, and in the end resorted feeding them to him in little balls of meat. I gave him the protein-digesting enzyme pepsin straight away, but somehow he managed to cough it back up (I later found it lying around), so the following day, he felt absolutely dreadful.

I took him for a walk, but we’d barely gone round the corner when he just sat down on the pavement. I stood there with him for about 15mins. Eventually, it started to drizzle lightly and I was able to persuade him to get up again, and we headed back home. He stopped again in the middle of a road, and I had to pick him up and carry him across. He didn’t want to come home but he knew he couldn’t walk either.

That night he just lay there barely moving, Not wagging his tail, not responsive to us walking past him. We got really worried, so the next morning, Peter took him down to our local vet to ask if he could be put on a drip for emergency fluid therapy.

The vet phoned me a little while later after having obtained Teddy’s notes from EcoVets, and told me that Teddy wasn’t dehydrated, but he was just far too ill to have any quality of life left, so we should really let him go. It was the kindest thing to do for him as he had no quality of life left.

I was shocked so I put asked my Sherry to hear the vet out. Sherry
told the vet we wanted to say goodbye to Teddy properly, so we’d like to take him to the park and let him play at his own pace, take pictures of him, spend some quality time with him before we say goodbye. The vet agreed, but instructed us to bring him back the next day to be put to sleep.

We phoned Lia to get her opinion on what had been said to us. She assured us that we shouldn’t feel pressured by what the other vet had said. She told us that Teddy would let us know how he’s feeling and he would be the best indication of his own health. So if we wanted to, we were not being unfair to him by giving him a chance.

The next day, Sherry ground up the pepsin and sq**rted it into Teddy’s mouth with his doze of lactulose which Lia proscribed to him to help him poo… That evening – he had a marvelous time getting my sister to chase him about all over the place round a cul-de-sac…

Someone had left one of the gates to the enclosed park where we take the babies to play, and Teddy along with his brothers and sisters ran out of the park with my sister chasing after them desperately. Thankfully it's in a very quiet residential area, surrounded by cul-de-sacs and fenced gardens. Teddy and his siblings had great fun running into people's gardens, thumping on their doors with their front paws, and running off again like naughty children making a nuisance of themselves.

So, maybe someone can help me out here… Has he got a good quality of life or not?

Here's a sweet pic. I took of baby Teddy with his "Mum Mum" Sherry...

09/07/2023

Sherry and I are getting really worried about our baby boy, little Teddy... He doesn't like any of the kidney diet foods I've bought for him. He has always been a really fussy eater, so now that he isn't well, trying to get him to eat has been very, very difficult.

Adding to the issue is that he has been having a lot of trouble pooing. Lia told us to get him lactulose syrup. We have to sq**rt it into the back of his throat with a syringe (without a needle of course!) and that has helped him slightly. But not nearly enough.

Today I got him some Dulcoease, (I looked it up on the internet to make sure it is safe for dogs) so we're hoping it will help him.

He was such a happy, bouncy baby - I hate to see him just lying, taking short laboured breaths. One day he seems to feel a little better and eats, and the next day he goes down again... All he wants to eat is meat which we can't give him because of the urea creatin levels in his blood works, he's not absorbing protein. I've bought him pepsin, the enzyme that assists in breaking down protein compounds. I'm hoping that will help. At first, it seemed to, but today he's refusing to eat anything at all. I'm beginning to think we'll have to send him back to the vet for another day or so of fluid therapy...

The trouble is I have no idea how I will pay for it. Eco Vets gives us 10% discount already, which I am so grateful for I can't even begin to say... But despite that, 100s of £s is still 100s of £s.

Anyway, here's the other picture of little Teddy (Billy Bubba as his Mummy, my sis Sherry calls him) with Lia his consultant vet...

08/07/2023

I just saw this on the HHH Twitter page while writing a post about Teddy...

I'm not sure how true or not it is - please write in the comments if you know more about it...

Thank you so very much! D.### 🙏🙏🙏

“❗️JUST IN❗️ : A bill has been introduced in South Korea that would END the cruel dog meat industry by banning the breeding and slaughter of dogs for consumption! HSI/Korea has worked with lawmakers behind the scenes to get to this moment – a critical step in our work to save…”

08/07/2023

A few weeks ago, our lovely baby boy Teddy was diagnosed with stage 2 kidney failure.

(It was like deja vu with little Roly Bear whom we lost to kidney disease in 2015.) I was stunned when I heard the news. Just like with little Baby Bear, we had suspected there was something wrong with Teddy's kidneys for coming on to about 2 years, he was rapidly losing weight, and drinking gallons of water at a time. But tests and scans always came back normal. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with his kidneys," were the vet's words last autumn...

For all the hideous experiments and tests that are done by medical science on animals for human benefit - when the tables are turned, the technology available for animals is maybe 50 years behind if not more. There is no kidney function test available to dogs, so the first instant that it becomes apparent that there is something wrong is when a test called a BUN test (blood urea and nitrogen) test shows elevated levels of electrolytes... By that time it's too late and the kidneys are already over 70% damaged. There isn’t even erythropoietin available for dogs with kidney disease (erythropoietin is the enzyme produced in the kidneys that regulates blood production).

Teddy had to be hospitalised immediately for urgent IV fluid therapy for a minimum of 48 hours. Our regular vet clinic doesn't have over-night care, so Teddy would have to go to another hospital.

I didn't have any more money left, I'd paid out more than we could afford for Synfie's hospitalisation only a month or so ago. But I took him to our local 24-hour veterinary hospital. The consultation fee came to £90, and the estimate for his stay for 48 hours was ~£1,500. I tried to pay the deposit but my card got declined, so I had to bring him home again.

The next day we phoned our regular vet Eco Vets (https://www.ecovets.co.uk/) again, I told his consulting vet Lia, what had happened and if there was any way I could give him subcutaneous fluids, but she explained that wouldn't be enough and he had to have IV.

How could we afford to get him the urgent treatment he needed?

To get to the point – everyone at Eco Vets, Lia especially in this instance, was so wonderful and kind. We were told we could pay in two instalments, so finally, Teddy could get the treatment he so urgently needed.

Lia his consulting vet was amazing, she kept me informed constantly. Teddy went there for three days in a row, Sherry took him in the mornings and Peter brought him home at close of day. He had several tests done, and thankfully his electrolyte levels were normal, he was slightly anemic but that is sadly inevitable with kidney disease. The problem was he was not absorbing proteins and his urea and creatin levels were sky-high.

Still Lia managed to stabilise his condition to a great extent, and we brought him home. She told me that from now on he will need regular IV fluid therapy, but thankfully his kidney disease is not too advanced, but he needs to be on a strict kidney diet from now on.
While he was at Eco Vets Lia spoiled Teddy thoroughly – she’d been given some seriously fancy dog food as a donation, so she fed it all to Teddy! But Teddy is like that – and wherever he goes people just fall in love with him, he is so lovable, with big huge brown eyes, an adorable friendly smile, a loving mannerism, and a delightful character, he’s a big, adorably cute, cuddly, fluffy toy!

I will keep you posted. I’m sorry this post has been so long – I just had to tell you everything the way it happened.

Here is a lovely pic of Teddy with his wonderful consultant Lia at Eco Vets… (Lia actually sent me two pics, but I can't seem to get the FB photo attachment icon to open up again, so I'll include it in the next post.)

Speak again soon, D.### 🙏🙏🙏