what’s left to say?

when we can see the differences in ruby’s physical appearance from one week to the next, it’s never good news.  below are pictures from last week and this week.  as you can see the difference in the size of the wound is astrinomical and the tumor seems to be taking hold of the surgical wound site and pulling more open by the day. these pictures are not pleasant by any means, but i think they are worth showing.  ruby’s story needs to be told so that maybe one more dog can be saved….seeing this may lead to a vet visit to look at a small, and at the time inconsequential lump, but could lead to better endings down the road.

last week (last week of dec/first week of jan)

 

this week (1/9) view #1

 

this week (1/9) view #2

she has been having some good days as she is off the chemo and feeling a bit better overall, but the increase in the size and severity of the tumors is still a tell tale sign that we must address the unthinkable in the near future.  she has been getting up in the middle of the night now for weeks and while we were at first frustrated with this change in behavior as it seemed to come out of the blue, we understand that anything she may exhibit from now on is most likely due to her illness, so we let her out, change her t-shirt to make her feel better and go back to sleep…sometimes.  many times its then that i lay awake thinking about her, the dirtbags who owned her and what they have left us to do now.  the hardest part is that WE, her rescuers (tara and amanda…more on them in another post), the board members at placing paws (becky, jean, christie and cindy) and all the people who have met ruby…WE are the ones that love her and care for her and WE are the one’s left to do the hardest thing of all….say goodbye.  the day is getting closer-i know it-and i hate it already, but as i think most of you will agree, we wonder how much longer we can let her go on living like this, in pain and not leading the kind of life a dog her age should be living.  i just don’t think its this week….

on a lighter note, in keeping with our goal of new experiences for ruby, Today’s Tasting was potato and onion perogi….and boy did she ever love it!

sheeeee’s baaaack

ok, so this isn’t about ruby…for once, but it is still about fostering (per se) as fostering is what i based this whole blog on….my feral cat, kipper, has finally returned after having dissapeared for 7 weeks.  kipper is a calico, believed to be about 5-6 years old.  she started coming around our house about 5 years ago.  we fed her a little not knowing what would eventually come of this ONE CAT!

long story short, we found her and her two babies living under a shed in my sister’s neighbors yard.  the two kittens were friendly enough that we rescued them and found them new permanent homes, but kipper was too wise for us.  but after getting to know me she started frequenting our home almost every day for food….she also kept my garage void of mice (total win win).  she eluded trapping for about 3 years and we did have to go through at least two litters that we know of.  the first litter she brought by my house regularly and the kittens were easy to trap and spay/neuter….one of them, snickers, was actually adopted out by one of her vet techs!  the other, buster (or buster brown as i called him a lot), lived in my garage for about a year and then one day just disaapeared.  however, i was not and am not as worried about him as i was for kipper since we had also trapped and neutered 3 other tom cats in our hood and they all took off after my torturous actions towards them…you should have seem them run when i opened the trap…..never to be seen again, but i’m sure have taken over as boss of the hood on the next block or so.

however, kipper was the one thing that i could count on….on my doorstep every night waiting for her dinner.  during the warmer months it was dry adult kibble and during the winter months it was kitten kibble (to give her the extra calories; fattening up for the harsh winter) with some heated canned cat food!  total yum for her, she loved the stuff.

when we see the cats on our front porch the sign they know (that tells them i know they are there) is for me to tap on the door window and they head for the garage door.  i open it set down the food and water on a rug in the garage and they come in (great for the winter as they can catch a break from the cold wind and snow) and eat til their heart’s content.  however, on occasion, one or two of them have been trapped in the garage, however, so very briefly, in the garage  door must come down (the 6″ or so its open) before it can go back up again, so bob has come home from work and accidentally trapped her inside.  when this has happened before, she has left us for about a week but never any longer….until this last time.  seven worrisome weeks went by before she came back to eat yesterday.  she wouldn’t however come into the garage, so i warmed up the canned food and put it on the front porch for her, hoping that it will lessen the fear and she will make it a habit of once again returning on a daily basis.

its just a huge relief for me as i’ve grown very fond of kipper (who got her name from z as she loved the children’s cartoon ‘kipper the dog’.  we were finally able to trap her about 2-3 years ago (with a very large contraption) thanks to serena at feral feline project http://feralfelineproject.org/ (who i’ve been working with since we noticed kippers first litter).  she has been spayed and we are happy to report that she, by herself, will no longer be helping to populate our little neighborhood with homeless kitties.  however, i have one more that is too, ever elusive.  we named him garth, after my fav country singer, as he’s a bit plump (actually obese in the winter) and slightly crossed-eyed and that makes him absolutely adorable.  garth only comes around to eat in the winter months when i can’t trap him, so the quandry continues as to how to get this guy and fix him once and for all.  i honestly think he is one of kipper’s offspring as we haven’t had any ‘new’ cats come by in about 3 years, but if he’s like any of his brothers or his father (which ever one it was) he too will dissapear and i will miss his adorable face.  i will try to get some pics of them if i can, but its hard because even after all these years, they still don’t trust me enough to let me get closer than about 3′ to them….sad, but true.

oh, and yes as all things relate back to ruby, on her new taste menu yesterday….warm, canned cat food!  OMG, this dog was in total heaven…oh and for desert she licked the inside wrapper of a butter finger candy bar….so what, the chocolate is going to kill her? (ok, maybe that was in bad taste, but we do need to lighten things up a bit, too!)

is it a milestone? not quite sure

its definately something, but not in a good way.  today is the first day ruby should have had a chemo treatment and didn’t.  doc h said that he expects her to go down hill more quickly without it BUT that she might have some better days ahead as well, as sometimes the chemo itself makes her not feel good.  its also the first day both she and angus were left home alone for the full day since before christmas.  they did fine…as expected, and even though ruby smelled horrible, her shirt was not as soaked as i would have thought since they are pretty much couch potatoes when no one is home….and that’s a good thing for her.

on a lighter note, she tried an orange, well actually a cutie, tonight.  at first she just smelled it and said no thank you, but when i broke the piece in half and exposed the juicy bits inside, she was all over it.  i think we will try a new food for her each night and see what she takes a liking to and what she turns her nose up at.  i do know, thanks to christie of placing paws, that she LOVES mcdonald hamburgers, but what dog doesn’t.  unfortunately for her, ruby will have to beg others to get her more if she wants them as our family does not frequent any fast food places, especially mcdonalds….so let the begging begin!

not what we wanted, but what we expected

ruby went to see dr hintermeister, her oncologist, today…for the last time.  he concluded (and agreed) that the chemo should be stopped.  personally its what bob and i have been thinking and i’m actually relieved to hear that we weren’t off base (if that makes any sense at all).  against what we had hoped for, its just not working.  the hole in her chest has gone from about as big as my finger, to slightly larger than a golf ball all in about a month’s time.  so, we are left to make her as comfortable as possible with love, toys, rawhides, wound managment and pain medication until she tells us its time for her to go.  dr h thinks it might only be a month, but we will let ruby tell us when; even if that means its earlier.  we don’t want her to suffer any more than she already has, but i’m hoping that these last few months are more of a blessing to her than anything she could have ever imagined.  i fight back tears everytime i think about it….and i’ve been thinking about it alot lately. for now we will celebrate the life she has left with us and hope that she continues her celebration wherever she goes next.

and her story continues

…so with no food and water amanda made sure that brownie wasn’t neglected yet another night.  she filled up her disgustingly dirty bowls with as much kibble and water as she could.  the girlfriend told amanda that the dogs were fed at night, but clearly amanda could see that even if the food from the night before had been demolished there was certainly no sign of recent water.   the photos below are what she took that night as quickly as she could.

from what i understand and amanda can correct me here, this is what happened in the following few days.  tara contacted placing paws yet again, with the plight of the one loley dog left on this dirtbag’s property.  placing paws was given the condition of the dog as best as could be described (medical malacies and all) and once again came through with a resounding YES!  after all, how could they leave the matriarc of this entire family that they’ve already rescued….

oh and side note:  tara and amanda drove ebony (the pregnant dog) up to placing paws themselves, with the thought that she had about a week before delivering.  placing paws sent out a mass email to all their contacts asking if someone could take ebony in for just that one night as her foster home was not available to take her until the next day.  well, we had just had our new foster dog delivered to us that same day…a ‘little’ guy named memphis….he was a 152 pound english mastiff and big hunka hunka burn’n love….but more on him in another post.  we did say that even though we got memphis that same day, if placing paws got into a bind we would take ebony for the night giving her the entire family room to herself for comfort and relaxation.  however, a wonderful home stepped up….thank you michelle!!…for her and thank goodness she did.  ebony started delivering her pups about 30 minutes after arriving at laura’s house….can you imagine?  in total there were 10 of them!!!

so with the commitment to brownie and the knowledge that she would require extensive medical care placing paws accepted her with open arms….and no firm foster home yet.  amanda was so excited that she jumped in her car and ran over to rescue browine as she didn’t want another minute to go by that the poor dog would have to stay at that awful place in such deplorable conditions.  upon getting brownie to her house, amanda took more photos (during the day this time) so that the extent of her gross neglegence could be seen.  amanda’s photos are once again below, but be warned…they are not pretty.

multiple skin tags

terrible hair loss...

sores and calusous due to laying on a hard surface

and her cancerous tumor...

amanda took her inside and got some final photos of this tired, sick, yet sweet and loving dog…her face says it all!

a hard life, but smiling through it all!

it was then about mid to late july when brownie, now named ruby, came to placing paws and was treated and fostered by Care Animal Hospital in Libertyville, IL (http://www.carelibertyville.com/).  it was at care that she was diagnosed with a severe skin infection (possibly mange) that resulted in her hair loss, double ear infections so bad that she might have had a hard time hearing at all, she was heartworm positive, AND a firm diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma….skin cancer (http://www.caninecancer.com/skincancer.html).  now mind you EVERYTHING this poor girl had/still has is completely treatable and better yet preventable.  IF she had been taken for proper and timely medical care, she would have been on heart worm preventative and would not have contracted this disease.  IF her skin infection would have been treated immediately at the first sign of hair loss or any symptom, it could have been treated and her permanent bald spots today could have been prevented.  IF her ear infection had been noticed…um by her constantly tilting her head to the left and shaking her head firocously, it could have been treated.  IF her tumor had been noticed or at least addressed (cancer is not an effect of neglect, just a bad luck draw), we were told by her oncologist at Grayslake Animal Treatment Center (http://www.aetcenter.com/) that it could have been cured…yes, you read that right.  this type of cancer, if caught early and removed could have been permanenty eliminated and have allowed ruby to live a long and healthy life. instead, due to the neglect she suffered, this cancer WILL kill her!

fast forward two months to the end of september when bob, z and i welcomed ruby into our home.  i had seen her story on the placing paws website and contacted the board back in july to offer our family as ruby’s family should she need us.  however, we needed to adopt out memphis, we were getting married at the beginning of sept, and i had a two week business trip right after it, so the only caveat was that we couldn’t take ruby until the end of september.  i did tell the board members that if another family stepped up for her, to please give her to them, but i think it was fate as ruby came home with us on sept 29th and here she will stay.

now, at first the prognosis was good.  the surgery to remove not just the one large tumor, but two other smaller ones, was successful.  the large wound was not pretty, and it was taking a long time to heal but she was recovering well and it was decided in early october that she was strong enough to undergo her heartworm treatment.  that meant two painful shots and then 4 weeks of inactivity/recovery.  during that time she went up for adoption and two loving famlilies were vying to make her theirs. the first family to apply, met all the criteria that ruby demanded of her new family and she was all set to become a ‘cheesehead’-lol-(she was to live in WI) the weekend before thanksgiving and after a successful heartworm treatment.  however, it was about the third week of her treatment that we began to notice her favoring her right front leg.  we kept an eye on it for about 2 weeks thinking she had just pulled a muscle or sprained something, but it steadily got worse and the week she was supposed to go to her new home, the docs discovered that her cancer had returned and its was now invading the muscle in her right leg, hence her not wanting to use it.  placing paws then decided it was not fair to her new family nor to her to move her again as we were not sure how much longer she had to live, knowing that after only 3 months the cancer had returned.  so she will be with us to the end now,  whenever that may be.

i will continue to update her status on this blog and on my fb page as we will be facing some difficult decisions in the near future.  but in the meantime, we are making her life as comfortable as we possibly can, hoping that her last memories might just be the best ones, to carry her into her next life….

grab a chair….and some tissues

this is going to be a long one…and its no fairy tale, as there is no long term happy ending.

once upon a time there was a female choolate lab.  she was owned by a couple (girlfriend and boyfriend) who lived in a rural central Il town.  the story goes that they found her abandonded in a grocery store parking lot and took her home; so one would think that this was a kind, loving couple who wanted to give a poor, lonely stray the life she deserved….but nothing could be further from the truth.

when they brought her home they named her brownie, and instead of bringing her in the house to live as a beloved family member they left her outside and chained her to a tree with a plastic dog house as her only shelter from the rain, sun, heat, cold, wind and snow.  not only did they re-abandon her on their own property, they failed to provide proper medical care which will present itself later.  they somehow also acquired a male lab (or simply allowed a stray or neighbor’s dog over for conjugal visits).  with the fact that they never spayed her, brownie became pregnant….time after time…and produced a few litters of puppies.

she must have cared for them all herself, as her owners never took the puppies in for proper medical care either.  In fact, their way of controling the amount of does on their property was to let the puppies roam freely and onto the busy road they lived on….yes, the cars and trucks that traveled that road was their method of population control.  you see many of brownies babies wound up as unfortunately victims of hit and runs and she could do nothing about it….still chained to her outdoor prison.

some of their dogs were fortunate enough to make it past the speeding cars, and found their way into the AC (animal control) facility.  the couple was contacted on numerous occasions to claim their dogs.  they were contacted so many times in fact, that they were allowed to go on a payment plan to pay off their fines for letting their dogs run loose.  on the last time they were called, they decided not to claim the dog and that is when AC notified tara and amanda about the purebred lab they had in their care.

the story is a little fuzzy after this as tara and amanda rescue so many dogs in their area, but they do remember these dogs vividly.  they contacted Placing Paws (http://placingpawsrescue.org/) to see if they would take in this dog, who was none other than Ebony…our pregnant gal….also brownie’s one time baby and now about to be a mother herself at just over a year old.  they also said yes to two other dogs that were on the property that were being surrendered (i guess they were finally tired of paying the fines).  PP also said yes to these dogs, dani and sergio, two of brownies older pups.  that’s when amanda went to the property to see if there were any other dogs as they were told there was at least one more that they searched for but were unable to find….we are hoping that this dog made it past the road and into a safe and loving home.  however, it was then that she discovered brownie….alone, tied to her delapitated dog house, with no food or water in site…

…to be continued….

not in the mood

i was going to post about ruby’s rescue day today, but it hasn’t been the best day around here, and….well….i’m just not in the mood right now.  she’s ok….not great, not bad, just ok.  we’ve gone through three t-shirts today alone, 3 loads of laundry (now adding bleach becuase of a huge infection) and well, i’m just worn out emotionally and physically.  our girl did enjoy a nice rawhide tonight and did feel well enough to greet the four 10 year olds that arrived at our door at 7:30 for a sleep over tonight.  its so wonderful to see her ears perk up when she hears the cheese wrapper, only to find that what follows is a dose of chemo in it….oh, and she totally knows the word ‘potty’….when she was done with her bone, we asked her if she wanted to go out to go potty and she bolted for the back door….gotta love her spunk!–or maybe it was the urgency of her bladder.

cheeky dogs

ok, so the gate that you can see at the left side of the photo is supposed to keep them from coming upstairs as ruby’s oncologist said to limit her activity.  but, angus, being the whinning baby he is, can’t stand to be separated from us, so if the gate door isn’t shut completely he will nudge it open and come through.  only today, this is what i found when heading into the shower…

 

Angus and Ruby

fumigating

tonight i took her dressings off to give her some freedom. however, when i walked in the house i was overcome with this horrible stench and as this poor thing approached me for some loving it was like this green haze just followed her…kind of like linus on the ‘peanuts’.  anyway, i had her lay down and i took off the bandages and the dressing and i’m actually embarassed to admit that i was gagging so much from the smell that i almost vomitted….it really was THAT bad.  she had no idea what was/is wrong with her and for that, i picked up the soaked, stained and stagnent dressing from the floor, tossed it in the garbage and then took that bag and threw it in the garage.  that’s when i lost it; cried so hard for this dog.  but i pulled myself together, came back in cleaned her off and put on her bright red shirt.  she seems so much more comfortable, too.  i lit a few pine tree smelling candles and the house began to warm up and smell fresher.  my heart aches for her, its funny because in treating her like a human, i don’t want to cry in front of her….i know that probably sounds weird, but its true.  i also washed the dog bed covers as they too were over powering and i sprayed the inside with lysol…actually i coated them with lysol.  now the two of them, ruby and angus, are happy to have clean beds to lay on while z and i snuggle up to watch a movie.

yet another hicup

it seems as if ruby has gotten an infection and needs to be on yet another med; an antibotic.  we noticed a foul odor last night and found that when we unwrapped her to change the dressings that it was coming from her wound/cancer/surgical site…don’t really know what to call it.  its also red and hot to the touch; a sure sign of infection.  so first thing this am, i spoke with doc L at Care Animal Hospital in Libertyville, the awesome crew looking after ruby’s general health, and we came up with a plan to only bandage her when we cannot be with her; as she likes to scratch and lick the wound, and then put the shirts back on her when we can be with her.  this will help let the wound breathe a bit but also protect it from foreign matter and herself, really.  apparently going to a dressing helps with the drainage, but suffocates the open wound and so it (sorry for the graphic wording here) festers.  we are ordering her elastic (ace type) bandages in bulk, but the tricky part is that i’m slowly running out of t-shirts for her.  we’ve already had to throw out 4 as the are so stained and even after repeated washings come out hard and stiff with all the fluids that have accumulated.  we have two that we are using now and i will go through our dressers this weekend to look for more-sorry good will store.  too bad the shirts z has grown out of don’t fit ruby, we have plenty of them, but they wind up being tight from her neck to the front legs, so its up to me and bob to outfit her-lol.n  is just another hicup in her long road, but one that we will get past as best we can.