On Memorial Day weekend, 1995, we trekked to Farmington to interview a breeder about their golden retrievers and quickly discovered that it was us, who was being interviewed. On that day, we put down a deposit for our golden retriever. In November, a beautiful litter of golden retriever puppies were born, complete with AKC registration papers and a certified bloodline. A week later we were there for an introduction to the litter. A few weeks later, we were there to assess each puppy. Mr. Green, as he was known to the breeder, due to his length of green yarn tied around his neck like a collar, asserted himself early – pushing the other puppies aside to saunter up and nip my wife on the upper arm. We looked at several other puppies, but at 8 weeks, Mr. Green came home with us where he got the new name, Cody.

Throughout his life, Cody had to endure numerous surgeries to remove cancerous tumors, and the weeks of recovery afterward, and a 3 month run of chemotherapy. I took on the role of caretaker – looking after him, changing his bandages, cleaning the incision sites, making sure he was comfortable, and even administering his daily chemotherapy drugs. During these periods, I often slept on the floor beside him so I could check on him during the night, or listen for his tell sounds of pain or discomfort.

Cody started slowing down in late 2007. We expected to lose him by summer 2008, then by Labor Day, then by Christmas 2008. But he made it through all of those dates, and even New Year’s Day, 2009. But on January 3rd, 2009 at about 5 pm in the afternoon, he collapsed while heading for the backyard. Except for a quick jaunt outside much later, and a quick bite of dinner, he laid nearly motionless the rest of the night. It would be the first time in his 13 years that he would be unable to walk upstairs for the night. I slept on the cold vinyl floor beside him. It would be my last night to sleep beside him.

The next morning, he bounced up like nothing was wrong. He played with my wife and I, and our two rescued golden retrievers all day. He walked up the street and down the street, running past the house as if to say “not yet, I want to walk some more”. That night, he bolted up the stairs and positioned himself on the floor at the foot of the bed – his usual place. Sunday, he was a bit slower, but still very full of life. But when he refused to climb the stairs to the bedroom Sunday night, I figured he would come up later and let him stay downstairs.

Every day when I think back to that Sunday, the guilt tears me up. That night would be his last night on Earth. I should have been on that floor beside him, but I didn’t realize his time was so short. I didn’t realize that we would have to euthanize him before Monday’s sunset. On January 5th, 2009, he didn’t get up; he wouldn’t eat; he wouldn’t even eat peanut butter! By noon, he would try to get to his feet, but fall over. I would help him stand; watch him stagger to a new spot; and help him lie back down, gently. Throughout the early afternoon, with my help, he visited every one of his favorite spots. As early afternoon gave way to late afternoon, he stopped trying to get up. He was done. Except for a brief struggle to his feet as we drove him through his favorite park on the way to the vet, he would walk no more. I carried him to the truck when we left; I carried him into the vet.

#uknowulovedogs when after 6 months you can still feel guilty for not being on the floor beside him during his last night on earth.

#uknowulovedogs, when you want to rip anybody’s head off that, brushes the emotion off with “he was only a dog”

#uknowulovedogs when you miss him every day!

Note: For those of you unfamiliar with the # tag. #uknowulovedogs was a trending topic on Twitter.

We locked our dogs in the house and took these two goldens into the backyard and gave them time to become a bit more comfortable with their new surroundings. A beautiful day of blue sky and sunshine was quickly giving way to dark skies and thunder rolling in the distance. Clark and Clover were already understandably upset at having been taken out of their home. Typically foster dogs have some trouble adjusting and will spend a lot of time panting and drooling during their first few hours in a foster home. But as we discovered this morning, these two are terrified of thunderstorms. As the thunder rolled closer, we pushed up the introductions. Jasper (6), as our alpha male, was introduced first. We took him into the backyard on a leash and tightly controlled the introduction of Jasper to Clark & Clover. Once the initial greeting had subsided, we removed Jasper’s leash and let him free roam with the two foster dogs. After about 15 minutes, it was Amos’ (4) turn. Out he came on a leash. With Jasper already there, Amos was calmer than he normally would have been. Amos had a horrible start to life, (more on that some other time). The introduction between Amos and the two new fosters was a bit rocky. Clark immediately tried to dominate Amos, and Amos put this pretty golden boy on his back with Amos standing over him. This is something of a feat since Clark has at least 10 pounds on him. They repeated this exchange another 3 or 4 times throughout the afternoon and evening, with Amos dominating each time.

Our oldest Golden, Cody, who passed away on January 5th, 2009 at 13 years and 5 weeks, had serious health issues many times throughout his life. He had 7 surgeries to remove fairly large cancerous tumors and 3 months of chemotherapy. For this reason we chose to not foster dogs that would present a challenge to his alpha dog status in our home. In other words, we fostered puppies. However, now that Cody has gone to the rainbow bridge, and Jasper and Amos are more than capable of defending themselves, we figured these two 1 year old sweeties would be welcomed by our dogs. After all, both Jasper & Amos go to the monthly GGRR meetings and romp with the 20 to 30 adult goldens that show up. There has never been a dog fight where either of my dogs were on either side of the fight.

Yesterday, it rained; it thundered; but soon the sun came back out and all four dogs were getting along well. Clover was busy trying to get Amos to play, and Jasper joined the fun, and soon Clark was there too. I was sitting on the ground among them and the foster dogs were trying to figure out the game. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell when a growl is just one dog talking to another and when it’s a symptom of aggression. In any case, with no toys around, suddenly Clark started growling at Jasper, and it sounded ominous; Jasper returned the growl. Clover immediately dived in alongside Jasper on his other side and also started growling in a menacing tone. All three were laying down facing the same direction, shoulder to shoulder. And 10 seconds later Clover and Jasper moved from a playful session to a battle. Clover just grabbed his ear while Clark went for Jasper’s head and throat. I was sitting right there, not 3 feet from them when this erupted. Jasper cried in pain, Amos tried to jump in, and then I intervened. I pulled Clover off and put her on her back. She fought back hard – trying to get back into the melee, but I managed to keep her down while I pulled Clark off Jasper. The whole thing lasted less than 30 seconds. But it left Jasper’s ego bruised and his ear bloodied. There was so much blood that we didn’t know for 10 minutes that it was only his ear that was bleeding. He had blood all over his head and shoulders and was dripping large drops everywhere he walked.

We took our guys into the house and left the foster dogs to wonder what happened in the backyard as we focused all of our efforts on getting the bleeding to stop. After about 30 minutes using paper towels, an ice pack, and flour, we were successful. But 30 minutes later we had to repeat the flour application because he shook his head and it started bleeding again. The foster dogs have been separated from our goldens ever since. They spent the night in side-by-side crates in our family room, while Jasper (with his e-collar on) and Amos spent the night on our bed. We’ll try re-introducing the dogs again on Tuesday or Wednesday (maybe).

All night long, we played the day’s events back in our heads as we searched for answers to what we believed was an unprovoked attack. Hindsight has shown us that there were signs that we missed. Each time Amos put Clark on his back, Clark’s ferocity increased with the next attempt. On a couple separate occasions, when Clover was jumping up on my wife or me, Jasper positioned himself between Clover and us, with his hair standing up and a rigid “These are my people” posture. We thought it was cute. Jasper, having left his Mom at 5 weeks old, has always been a Velcro dog anyway; we figured he was just being a bit jealous. He wasn’t. Jasper perceived a threat and was reacting. If he had been able speak to us we might have been able to recognize that the situation was more volatile than we thought. Both Jasper & Amos had been telling us all afternoon, but we were too busy trying to make these new fosters feel welcome to notice.

That makes three occurrences during our time in rescue that something happened because we missed the signals. The first was when Amos made it clear that he didn’t want to be adopted by the family who was trying to adopt him when pushed out the screen on their front door as he tried to escape during the dog introduction. The second was when we were trying to pair another foster puppy with a prospective family. There were some light growling issues between their existing dog and the foster puppy, but it wasn’t bad enough to warrant stopping the adoption. After all, their existing dog was 5 years old and the puppy was 7 months old. The older dog would quickly teach the younger dog about dominance. But as we were leaving after the dog introduction (there’s a mandatory 24 hour waiting period to eliminate spontaneous decisions to buy a dog) the puppy bit their dog on the paw. He didn’t break the skin, and the other dog didn’t cry, but it happened, and the prospective family witnessed it. They called 72 hours later to say they didn’t want the puppy. That puppy went on to another family, with another golden as well, and it’s a perfect match.

Obviously, dogs aren’t going to learn to speak English. So I guess we have to do a better job of learning to speak dog.

(Side note: My wife took Jasper to the vet at noon today. The wound is a puncture through the right ear flap. As they tried to clean it up, it started bleeding again, and they’ve decided to keep him for a while this afternoon because they can’t get the bleeding to stop. The vet said that putting a stitch in that part of the ear could do more damage than the original injury. However, if they cannot get the bleeding to stop, a stitch or two may be the only solution.)

This year, 2009, so far, we have fostered Spencer, Tyler, Hunter, and Logan.

This posting is about Hunter.

Hi, I’m Hunter
Hi, I’m Hunter
We fostered Hunter and Logan together. Both were about 6 months old. Hunter met his prospective adoptive family on April 26th. About mid-morning on April 27th, Hunter was suddenly stricken with some kind of illness. And I do mean suddenly. One moment he was fine, running and playing with his golden playmates, and 30 minutes later he was down. His eyes were swollen shut, and when he opened them, they looked like pools of blood. The whites of his eyes were extremely bloodshot, and the conjunctive tissue around the eyes was blood red. And he wheezing and having difficulty breathing. Jasper, Amos, and Logan were all fine and had been running and playing together in the yard just before this happened. During a call to the vet, they suggested giving him an antihistamine, but with my years of experience in dealing with the many illnesses of the foster Goldens and the various cancers that Cody had, something told us that this was something that a simple antihistamine wasn’t going to fix.

Ten minutes later, pulling into the vet’s parking lot, Hunter started going into anaphylactic shock. His breathing became very labored. Inside their office, they checked his temperature and discovered that it was 105.6F. Normal body temperature for a golden retriever is 101F to 102F. Brain damage can occur at or above 107.6F. The vet started an I.V. and to help reduce his fever they packed his I.V. bag in ice, sprayed him with cool water and rubbed isopropyl alcohol on his pads. Hunter’s fever responded by going up to 106.2F. They treated him with higher than normal dosages of antihistamines, antibiotics, and steroids, and plenty of fluids. For the next 24 hours, Hunter fought for his life, and we continued to get updates on his condition every few hours. At around 5pm when the vet closed, we transferred him to the emergency hospital where he could receive round-the-clock care through the night, and back to the vet when they reopened in the morning. By morning, he had stabilized and his fever was bouncing up and down near 104F. By mid-afternoon, his fever was falling, and by the end of the day, it was low enough that he could come home.

The question that remains, however, is, “what happened?” Today, more than a month later, with Hunter happily in his forever home, and Logan happily in his forever home, that question still haunts us.

Our best guesses are the following. Both were suggested by Hunter’s vet.

Hunter may have eaten a spider. He had been busy consuming every June bug he could find, and in Missouri in April, June bugs are plentiful. I could see him pouncing on a spider in the absence of an available June bug. His reaction appeared to be an allergic reaction, but it was extremely more severe than a simple spider bite or bee sting, even if he had been allergic. In fact, if we hadn’t been home when it happened, he would have died. In fact if we had given him an antihistamine at home and played the wait and see game before taking him to the vet, he may still have died. When a poisonous spider bites (brown recluses are common here), it only pumps a small amount of venom into the wound. But if the dog eats the spider, he ingests all of the venom contained within the spider and absorbs it through the stomach wall, so the toxicity is MUCH higher.
Hunter’s blood work was evaluated by the vets on-site on the day of his admittance. They usually send the blood work out to an outside lab; but there wasn’t time for that. A couple of days after he had come home, they repeated the blood work, and sent both samples to the outside lab. The results showed that at the time of his admittance he was anemic and the second sample was not. It also showed that his blood was having difficulty clotting during the first and second blood tests, but now, 5 weeks later a blood test (at the same vet and paid for by Rescue) showed that problem has cleared up too. One of the things that causes anemia and clotting issues, is rat poison. We bought nearly sixty 40lb bags of top soil at Home Depot and Lowes the two days prior to his illness. We emptied those bags into the new raised garden on the day before. We (the vets & us) theorize that Hunter may have found a piece of a dead animal that had been stricken by the poison and had died in the dirt before it was bagged.
Either one of these guesses are a real possibility. We were lucky; we were home when this happened. If we hadn’t been home when he fell ill (may not have happened immediately after exposure) he would have died before we could have gotten him to treatment. If we had just given him an antihistamine and waited to see what happened, rather than take him immediately to the vet, chances are better than average that he would have died. The “What If” question still haunts us. I’d feel better with a definitive answer about what the cause was. But we won’t get that. And in a week, we’ve got two 1 year old golden retriever siblings showing up for a foster visit.