Miss Blur

Introducing Blur

Blur is most likely a Japanese Bobtail, a domestic shorthair cat breed, but she is definitely not a purebred. The typical colors for a Japanese Bobtail are white with orange or tri, but they can also come in white with black too. They are very docile with loving purrsonalities. They are also quite petite. The most Blur has ever weighed is about eight pounds. Now, she weighs significantly less.

I got Blur from my friend, Callalily. I was actually watching her pets for her and later had commented on her new kitten. She had told me that she was actually fostering it for one of the cat rescue ladies as her house was overflowing with kittens. Callalily asked me if I wanted the kitten, and I said, “yes.”

Name

Callalily and her Jewish boyfriend were thinking of calling the kitten yarmulke (pronounced: yamaka) because of the black cap of fur on her head. But I ended up naming Blur, “Blur” because every time I went to take a picture of her with my Canon power shot camera, I would literally end up with a black and white blur as an image instead of a cute little kitten. A lot of people misspell her name as Blurr, and I’m unsure as to why. Her name does not have two Rs. She is not blurry. She’s just Blur.

Sweetheart, even with Mice 🐭

Blur is probably the sweetest cat I’ve ever had. Although she has teeth and claws, she has never bitten or scratched me. She has also never been mean to any of my other pets. Never raising up a paw to swipe at another cat or dog. She doesn’t even hurt rodents! Now that’s saying something.

Many a times, rodents have come into my house. Heck, I’ve had lizards, frogs, crickets, and scorpions come into my house too. When you have three of your cats staring at the refrigerator… you begin to suspect that maybe, just maybe there’s a mouse 🐁 behind it.

So after moving the refrigerator out from the wall, the mouse took off and ran behind the range. Good grief! I had to move the range out from the wall too, but there was no mouse. Hmm 🤔 where did it go? I looked behind the fridge again, but it wasn’t there. Then Blur was staring at the drawer below the stove. OK… I opened the drawer and out popped the mouse. First, my cat, Velcro carried the mouse around telling it all about his day. Then he dropped the mouse. Next Blur picked up the very live mouse. When the mouse made an eeking sound, she dropped it and it proceeded to run under the stairs. At this point, I had my arms up in the air, waving them around, telling my cats,

Will one of you worthless cats 🐈 please kill the mouse already?!

But nope, then No Mar picked up the poor mouse, played with it and then dropped it. So, this little frightened mouse whom I couldn’t catch to release outside, ran down the hallway into the living room, and then into the bathroom. It darted under the tub. Lance, my Shiba Inu, jumped up from the futon he was laying on and ran under the tub right after the mouse. The mouse was killed instantly. My dog killed the mouse, not my cats. Go figure.

Friendship and Food

Blur had a best friend which I will talk about in another blog – his name was No Mar. Those two were major cuddle buddies… never far apart from each other. I honestly didn’t think Blur would be able to live without No Mar, but she has been trekking along without him for a couple of years now.

Blur and Aby haven’t always been friends. Blur tried to be friends with Aby, but Aby wanted nothing to do with her. Aby would swipe at Blur’s face with her paw. But then when I was moving and was vacuuming and cleaning carpets… these two were hiding together under an upside cat bed, scared out of their wits from the loud noises. They became fast friends and have stayed friends.

Friskies may not be the most expensive, or the most high quality food, but Blur loves it. She loves Indoor Delights, the dry food with its tasty morsels of chicken, salmon, cheese, and greens. She especially loves her Friskies canned food. Although she’ll eat the pate, she especially loves her poultry flavored shreds with sauce. Yummy.

Foreign Body

Speaking of shreds, when I had my APBT (American Pit Bull Terrier), Brad, he had lots of toys. One of his toys was a red Kong. He was still an adolescent, and I had no idea the chewing powers of this breed! Well he destroyed that Kong. He tore it into little pieces. My colleague was astounded – she said it was almost like the Kong was made out of sponge instead of the hard rubber that it actually is. The little pieces were about the size of a dime – this would not have been a problem for Brad. Unfortunately, Blur had been playing with the small pieces…

I found some vomit on the staircase and my first thought was it was coming from my cat, Velcro who gets into everything! So, I treated him with injectable antiemetics. Well this of course didn’t solve the problem because it was the wrong cat! Then about a day later I noticed Blur vomiting. Eek. I knew she had been playing with the Kong pieces before I swept them up. I gave her some famotidine subcutaneously, hoping beyond all hope that this would help her and that she didn’t swallow a bit of Kong. This didn’t help, and I took her to work with me at the veterinary hospital the next day.

Lo and behold, the doctor in surgery that day had four exploratory surgeries – none that were scheduled on the books. All were emergencies! I had already told her about Blur’s possible foreign body, and she told me if there was any way it could wait… . Another doctor did the preliminary ultrasound and saw something suspicious in Blur’s intestines. We gave her some barium, a white opaque liquid that would show up on both radiographs and ultrasonography. Blur was also started on intravenous fluids. A few hours later, she had another ultrasound – the barium stopped in one spot – definitely conclusive of a foreign body. Because the surgeon couldn’t do any more surgeries that day, the doctor who had been doing the ultrasounds on Blur “cut her open.” Sure enough – positive for a foreign body which just happened to be a piece of the red Kong. I threw away all of the red Kongs that I had and bought black Kongs for Brad, which are made of a tougher and indestructible hard rubber.

Nicknames

Although Blur is a very short name, she is called other names as well… longer names than her real name. I call her Miss Blur and sometimes, I sing 🎤 to her.

🎶 Blurby Blurby Blurby get your adverbs here.

I don’t know how long I’ll have with Blur, but so far she has lived longer than I thought she would. I’m also not certain what is going on with her liver. When she first had the problem, I couldn’t afford to take her to the veterinary hospital. Since moving back to the Central Coast, a veterinarian has looked at her, but not in a veterinary hospital setting. We tried her on a course of medications, but they didn’t really help her. As long as she keeps eating and is enjoying life… then she will stay on this Earth.

July 29, 2020 0

Home in the Santa Cruz Mountains

It was 2004 when I found this gem – a one bedroom, two story cabin rental in a small town called Boulder Creek, in the Santa Cruz mountains. It was literally in the middle of the forest, off-the-grid, at 1700 feet with well water and solar electricity. The views were breathtaking as you can see from the image above. The majestic redwoods, oaks, and madrone trees provided shade and homes for an abundance of wildlife: deer, raccoons, skunks, bobcats, the occasional mountain lion, jack rabbits, squirrels, and other rodents, quail, finches, wild turkeys, skinks, salamanders, snakes, lizards – both alligator and blue bellies, scorpions, spiders, and so many more.

I still remember the ad that was in the back of the free publication, Good Times. It read:

1 bedroom cabin $950/mo 1st mo free. Views of Monterey Bay. Must have 4wd, be quiet & clean. No smoking. Fenced yard. Pets? 555-1234

My friend, Callalily and I had just finished eating lunch at the Boulder Creek Brewery. C, as I call her, actually lived in Boulder Creek and said that she’d help me search for a place. We had looked at a few places already and left messages. When we were leaving the brewery, which has the best raspberry iced tea, I grabbed the Good Times.

I showed C the ad and then called the number. Dee answered the phone and our conversation, not verbatim as this was about 16 years ago, went something like this:

Me: Hello, I’m calling about the ad in Good Times.

Dee: Yes, it’s still for rent. May I ask why you’re moving from your current place and how long you’ve been living there?

Me: I’m living in a duplex and have been for the last seven years. The lady who owns it is 90 years old and if she dies, I’ll only have 30 days to find another place. I have pets…

Dee: Well, we’re looking for a long-term tenant. How many pets do you have?

Me: (whispering into the phone) I have nine. (Louder) I work at a veterinary hospital.

Dee: Oh my (laugh), that’s a lot of pets. What kinds are they?

Me: I have six cats and three dogs – a pit bull, an older mixed breed dog, and a miniature pinscher.

Dee gave me the address, after making sure that I did in fact have a 4 wheel drive vehicle. C and I drove up there, taking her AWD Subaru as she had GPS. Except back then, GPS didn’t work so well. Even while I gave her directions, without any street signs, we still got lost. We drove the main road to the first sign and made a left, then drove until we came to a “1301” posted on a white sign and made another left up another dirt road, then when we came to the fork, and made a right. The next fork in the road, we made a left up the hill. Those were our directions as the roads were not marked with signs. With eight miles of roads in between, and “driveways” veering off to the left or right, it was very easy to get lost in the woods. These roads were not paved, they were more like fire roads. There were no houses like in a typical neighborhood, just pure forest. When we drove up the hill, we saw a brown painted clapboard house off to the left, enclosed in a huge yard. According to the directions, this had to be the place, but for $950/month? It looked huge! In comparison to the dinky two bedroom duplex that I had been living in for the last seven years, this place was huge!

We drove down to Dee’s house, which was grand, and retrieved the key to the cabin. We got a tour of her house – there was an atrium in her house with a wood plank walkway that curved around the atrium into her office. There was also a tree in her house! Wow! 😮

First Impressions

My American Bull Dog-Pit Bull Terrier, Brad Pitt in the living room with the old wood burning stove.

The entire downstairs was wood flooring – the front door opened up to the dining area with the kitchen on the left hand wall. Then there was a long hallway that led to the stairs on the left, and the original part of the cabin which was the living room and a full bathroom that was added on later. The living room and full bathroom had laminate wood floors, whereas the rest of the downstairs had pine wood floors. There were huge double pane windows that made up the whole right side wall of the dining room, along with one corner area where the propane stove was. The living room was wood paneling and had one large double pane window next to the sliding glass door that opened out to the deck. The deck didn’t have a railing around it, nor did it have stairs. There were 8 inch wide by 2 inch thick planks of wood that were about 10 to 12 feet long that sat on either side of the deck and were angled down to the yard. There was a claw foot tub in the bathroom with a pedestal sink. There was also a very small wood burning stove in the corner of the living room, nearest to the bathroom.

The upstairs consisted of the bedroom, a narrow hallway, and a one half bathroom that was as big as the downstairs minus the living room. The bedroom had light beige carpet, the narrow hallway leading to the half bath was turned into a closet on one side, but no doors. Speaking of doors, there were absolutely no doors inside the house – no door to either bathroom and no door to the bedroom. There was also no heat in the bedroom. (This wouldn’t be added until about eight years after I had been living there.)

After looking at the huge bedroom, the large yard, and knowing how little rent I’d be paying – I wanted this place! No walls to share with my neighbors, the location was closer to work, and it was just absolutely peaceful there. Dee called me a week later and said the place was mine if I wanted it. 🙂

Home Sweet Home

The stairs leading from the deck to the yard.

Throughout the years, Dee’s husband, Monte built a wood shed for me, replaced the tiny wood burning stove with a larger wood burning stove, built a carport, and stairs leading down to the yard from the deck. I supplied the fencing for the railing around the deck to make it safer because having a deck about ten feet off the ground with absolutely no railings of any kind around it is absolutely terrifying if a child or animal falls off of it. One night I was sitting with my legs dangling off the deck, and my Miniature Pinscher, Gwenyth was sitting on my lap. Well my Pit Bull, Bradley, came over and was nuzzling Gwenyth and he nuzzled her right off my lap, and she fell off the deck! Ten feet down and hit solid ground – boom! She lay there very still. I was scrambling to get my butt off the deck to run down one of the board planks to check on her, but then she shook herself off and was OK.

After eight years of living there, I even got a heater in the bedroom. (Mind you, I didn’t realize that this was a mandatory thing in California.) It was cold in that bedroom. In the winter, it would get to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit in that bedroom! Brr. My bed had fleece sheets, a thin blanket, an electric blanket (but it never worked right with the solar electricity,) a thicker blanket, and two down blankets. Not to mention, I would go to bed with socks on my feet, dressed in fleece pajamas, and wear a beanie on my head, and mittens on my hands. It was that cold! Having all of my pets snuggled in the bed with me just to keep me somewhat warm. The heater in the bedroom was a godsend.

But despite all of the problems with this house, it was my home. It was the longest place I’ve ever lived in my entire life. I loved it there. It inspired me to create jewelry. It inspired me to write poetry. It inspired me to learn how to draw. Dee and Monte didn’t care how many pets I had. They, at one time, were like my second parents, taking care of me – when I was their only tenant. They bought me a cord of wood one year, which isn’t cheap. They didn’t raise my rent for years!

And then 2017 happened… 😭

Next blog: Winter 2016-17

July 24, 2020 0

The Cross

The definition of a cross is an upright post with a transverse bar, as used in antiquity for crucifixion.

When we visualize the cross, most if not all of us think of Jesus – the pain and suffering He endured for the sake of mankind, to wash away our sins and offer us salvation.

Meaning of the Cross

“The Cross is a great contradiction. Death and life; hate and love; violence and peace; accusation and forgiveness; sin and purity; brokenness and wholeness; all is lost, everything is gained; destruction and restoration; defeat and victory. Once the cruelest form of execution, yet now, a symbol of abundant life.” – Sarah Coleman

Let’s delve deeper into that fateful day when Jesus lost his earthly life through the “Sorrowful Mysteries“

The First Sorrowful Mystery: The Agony in the Garden

Jesus went to pray in the garden of Gethsemane. He prayed to the Father agonizing what He was about to endure, knowing what He was going to endure. But alas, “Thy will be done.”

His friends fell asleep on Him, although He had asked them to keep watch, not once, but thrice.

Let us not fall asleep on Jesus or our faith. He had faith and love for His/Our Father to pray and trust with the knowledge that The Father knows best.

“Thy will be done.” We don’t always know what our Father has in store for us, but we need to learn to trust in Him, like Jesus.

The Second Sorrowful Mystery: Scourging at the Pillar

Scourging is the worst form of punishment; Jesus, innocent and sinless, was tied to a pillar with no type of cloth layer between Him and the whip. Here, He was flogged over and over again.

Jesus went through the worst kind of torture for us. He did this as prophesied. He gave up His pain to the Father in accordance to His will.

When we are suffering physically, we need to offer up our pain and suffering to the Lord.

Think about Mary, our blessed Mother, and what she went through during this horrendous time: watching her innocent and only Son, tortured, watching Him being scourged, and not being able to do anything to help Jesus.

This is much like when we watch our loved ones suffer, and we cannot ease their pain. I thought about this a lot when my mother suffered through her intense pain from the cancer that was slowly eating away at her. I wanted so much to take that pain away from her, but I couldn’t. I felt Mary’s pain then and what she endured while watching what her dear Son, our Savior, went through.

Third Sorrowful Mystery: Crowning with Thorns

Jesus is “crowned” with thorns, however these thorns weren’t just a wreath upon His head. These thorns were like nails being pounded into His skull!

Notice the spiked thorns in the “Crown of Thorns” plant

The soldiers continued to mock Jesus by giving Him a staff made from a reed (like a scepter), and clothed Him in a purple cloak. The PURPLE cloak symbolizes royalty, wealth, and status.

Jesus offers us courage as He was brave and courageous to go through these last moments leading up to His death.

Christians are persecuted every day for their faith in our savior, Jesus Christ.

Believers in Christ are mocked by those who do not grasp what Jesus went through to wash away the sins of mankind.

Those with mental illnesses can offer up their sufferings to Jesus.

The Fourth Sorrowful Mystery: Carrying of the Cross

The carrying of His Cross was extremely burdensome especially since He had just been scourged and had thorns practically nailed into His head. He fell, and although others around Him tried to help Him up and carry His cross up the steep rocky incline, the soldiers did not allow this. They even whipped Jesus to get Him to move faster.

We all have our crosses to bear, and they may seem, at times, too heavy to carry, let alone lift, BUT this is when we need to ask our Lord to help us.

Carrying the weight of the world upon our shoulders is very tiresome. It is extremely frustrating when we keep stumbling upon our path. This is when we need to turn to Jesus, and remember what He went through.

We are not alone in our suffering, we have loved ones and authority figures to help us out. We only need to ask for help. We don’t need to fall over and over again, and get up without help like Jesus did.

The Fifth Sorrowful Mystery: The Crucifixion

The ultimate sacrifice, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ being nailed to the cross, to His Cross. The Five Wounds of Christ healing us.

The soldiers nailed Jesus, pure and innocent to a cross and then lanced Him in His side to check if He was still alive – blood and water gushed from Him.

He died on the cross to save us from sin. We are lucky to be able to go to confession and have our sins erased. completely forgiven so we can start anew.

Christ dying for us and then being resurrected, promises us that a life of faith will lead us to eternal paradise, in the Kingdom of God where there is no strife, no pain, no suffering. We are reborn!

The CROSS is the symbolism of our Lord being crucified for the sake of humankind to be ultimately saved.

*** NOTE: The images are mostly from the movie, The Passion of the Christ which is a very difficult movie to watch as it closely portrays what Jesus Christ went through to prepare the way for us to live within Him. I highly recommend this movie!

#SorrowfulMysteries #TheCross #FinalDaysOfJesus #JesusSaves

July 24, 2020 0

Halo, My Golden Shadow

Searching for Mirrors

I was looking through a Facebook group looking for mirrors, table top ones for craft shows, and I came across the photo above. It stated that the owner couldn’t keep her any more and was looking for a free home.

😡 People should know better than to offer up their dogs (or pets) for free to strangers. I messaged the gal and gave her my references and let her know I used to work at a veterinary hospital and gave her this as a reference too. I don’t know if she called my references or not, but she did call me to let me know I could come and get “Zoey.”

Drive to Hayward

My friend, C (who’s also a veterinarian,) came with me to pick Zoey up. The drive was very long and oh my gawd, I had to drive across a bridge! This is one long a55 bridge, and I have a serious fear of bridges. 😬

We finally made it to Hayward and met the woman and her daughter at a park. Zoey wanted nothing to do with us. The lady told us Zoey’s heart wrenching story.

Her original owner had died, and then she went to live with the lady’s sister who had two boys. These boys tortured Zoey. They would pick her up and drop her, lock her in a drawer or closet, and who knows what else may have happened.

So, the lady was Zoey’s third home in less than two months… and my house became her fourth home.

Zoey was very attached to the lady’s daughter. I had bought a big crate which C and I had to put on the ground and lure Zoey in, but she wasn’t having any of that.

So, we had to gently drag her into the crate and leave her leash on because she was a land shark.

This is actually an image of her in mid-bark, but you get the idea of what she looked like with us.

Home in SC Mountains

I had set Zoey up in a smaller crate within a pen with pee pads, water, and food in my living room. It took a lot of coaxing and a few days later, I was finally able to remove the leash from her collar. Removing her collar took about 1 1/2 weeks.

Zoey to Halo

I didn’t really like the name Zoey. Too many people name their pets this, and I didn’t think it really suited her. Plus, if she has any bad memories associated with that name, I wanted to quell those right away.

Since this little blonde dog followed me everywhere, I thought of her as my golden shadow, and then was thinking of a name that summed that up. Halo stuck.

The Facebook ad had said she was spayed, but she wasn’t. So, I brought her and my cat, Felipe in to be spayed and neutered, respectively. Spayed usually refers to ovarian-hysterectomy, but she ended up only having a hysterectomy.

The photo above is after she had her surgery and was licking at her incision. Tsk tsk.

Miscellaneous Photos

Here’s Halo sitting in a chair beside me. For a long time, she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. She had severe separation anxiety.

When I first picked her up from Hayward, she came with her bed, brush, food, and shampoo, but not a toy.

This little duck is the first toy that she received from me, and she immediately started chewing on it and playing with it.

Here she is in her parka. It gets super cold in the mountains.

You cannot really tell, but she has an underbite.

Living in Pumpkin Center

After the fire consumed our home, we moved to Pumpkin Center, a small town outside of Bakersfield. She, my dogs Lance and Gwenyth, and my three cats: Blur, No Mar, and Abygayle were my companions.

Here’s sweet Halo resting on my bed. She is sleeping on her pillow.

Halo in her bunny 🐰 coat that I picked up at Ross.

IMHA

IMHA is abbreviated for Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia, which is also known as AIHA or Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia.

IMHA is a disorder where the body doesn’t recognize its own red blood cells and starts destroying them. Without red blood cells, the dog becomes listless and can die.

When Halo first started vomiting, I gave her an antiemetic, famotidine, also known as Pepcid. I didn’t take her into the hospital right away because she has been known to eat strange things in the yard and then get a tummy ache from it.

But her urine was bright yellow, and her gums were pale. I brought her into the emergency clinic, and the doctor said she had a heart murmur and also did some radiographs on her. Her intestines were full of gas. But the doctor also thought it’d be best to run a PCV (packed cell volume) on her to check her red blood cell percentage because her gums were so pale.

Her PCV was 20%. 😮 It should be about 45%! Then he ran a full blood panel on her – liver enzymes were high, and although her red blood cells were low, her reticulocyte count was high, which means she didn’t have non-regenerative anemia. Her body was making red blood cells as fast as her body was destroying them.

Prognosis and Treatment

Her prognosis was very guarded, and the doctor suggested hospitalizing her and starting a blood transfusion. 😮

From working in the veterinary field for over 20 years as an ICU/emergency vet tech (animal nurse) and running many cross matches, I knew that you cannot check to see if the blood donated would be a good match for the recipient.

Why? Because to run a cross match, you need to check to make sure the donor blood doesn’t agglutinate with the recipient blood. If the blood does agglutinate, then the animal will have a reaction to the blood. Plus, it’s not always recommended to give a dog with IMHA a blood transfusion because the body will go into hyperactive mode trying to destroy all of the red blood cells.

So, instead, I opted to take her home and start her on the prednisone, a corticosteroid. The doctor also gave her an injection of dexamethasone.

On the next recheck, her red count was up. I did a lot of research on her condition and asked the doctor if we could start her on an antibiotic and liver support medication.

He said that we could start her on this, but he didn’t think this would help at all because usually AIHA caused by infection is from ticks, and there aren’t a lot of ticks in this area. However, where we used to live, ticks are very prevalent.

Halo is Recovering

She chose the smallest blanket in the house to cuddle up on.

Last Recheck

Halo’s PCV went up to 56%, and she’s off of her prednisone! 😮🙂 But because her ALT (liver enzyme) is still high, she went back on her Denamarin (a liver support medicine.)

It’s now 2020, and Halo has not been on any medications for her IMHA and has not had another relapse. (Knock on wood.)

July 24, 2020 0

Last Chance Lance

Lance was a Shiba Inu X that I got from a colleague of mine.

She had told me his heartbreaking story… he was dumped off near her sister’s house, who took him to the San Jose Animal Shelter. The shelter did a “behavioral test” on him and decided that he should be euthanized. Why? Because Lance failed their “pinch test.” This is where they grab his sides and see if the dog bites them. Well Lance didn’t bite them, but he did get mouthy with them.

When my colleague heard he had less than 24 hours to live, she got him out of the shelter, and asked me if I wanted him. (I had wanted a Chihuahua, but I took Lance in and named him, ‘Last Chance Lance.’

He was hesitant at first, but he was just dumped by his owner(s), and being at that shelter didn’t help either.

He was neutered at the animal hospital I used to work at – a state of the art veterinary hospital, open 24/7, every day of the year.

Lance took to my dog, Toby, more so than my dog, Gwenyth. He didn’t mind the cats either!

He was a great dog! (He passed last night hence I’m writing about him in the past tense.) 😭

Periodontal Disease

Lance has severe periodontal disease. The first veterinarian I took him to (to save $$$) said he didn’t need his teeth cleaned. 😮 What?! He had built up tartar on his teeth and he was missing some teeth too… and knowing his previous history, those roots may still be retained in his gums. The veterinarian said she may have heard a heart murmur too. Hmm 🤔 he either has one, or he doesn’t. She also said this about Gwenyth, whom I knew had a heart murmur.

So, I scheduled Lance to see the state of the art vet, Adobe. Sure enough, he had stage III periodontal disease. Another colleague of mine cleaned his teeth and did multiple extractions. And many of his teeth were retained in his gums. He had a heart murmur that would get worse.

Heart Murmur

A heart murmur is a swooshing sound heard between the beating of the heart. It is caused by turbulent blood flow within the heart. Some murmurs are harmless, and some are indicative of something wrong with the heart.

When a veterinarian auscults the heart and hears a murmur, they’ll want to do diagnostic tests to rule out any potential heart problems. Usually this is done by radiographing the heart and checking the size of it. In Lance’s case, his heart did appear to be enlarged.

The next diagnostic test is a cardiac ultrasound. The veterinarian will look at your pet’s heart, take measurements and also look at the blood flow.

Mitral Valve Regurgitation

The mitral valve is a valve on the left side of the heart between the left atrium and ventricle that keeps the blood from flowing backwards.

How the Heart Works

Blood that isn’t oxygenated returns back to the heart (from the body) and enters the right atrium, then the right ventricle. From there, it is pumped into the lungs to become oxygenated, and then flows into the left atrium and ventricle, respectively. Then the oxygen rich blood is pumped throughout the body via the aorta and arteries.

Mitral Valve Regurgitation is caused when the mitral valve wears out. And this is when a heart murmur is heard.

It can be secondary to periodontal disease… this is what happened to Lance. 🙁 His teeth were so bad. But after he was diagnosed with this heart condition, it wasn’t advised for him to have any more dentals. Why? Because he could die under anesthesia.

Here’s Lance with his flying squirrel, but his favorite toy is Lamb Chop. He adored that toy so much that I bought quite a few of them.

Here’s his collections toys before the fire consumed them. Most of his toys are missing limbs.

Lance wearing some too large for him Doggles. 😂

Lance yawning.

Lance eating his Frosty Paws ice cream treat.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest

When a dog has heart problems or an arrhythmia, he can suddenly die. And this is what happened with Lance.

Before I had left to go pick my boyfriend up from work, I had given Lance some milkbone cookies. He was acting normal. I would have never thought that he’d be dead when I arrived back home. 🙁😮😭

Symptoms

Lance not only had a murmur that continued to increase (started with stage I and ended up being a stage VI in only a few years,) but he also coughed a lot. This was from fluid in his lungs.

He was on medications for his heart: pimobendan, enalapril, and furosemide. The pimobendan was by far the most expensive of his meds.

Here’s Lance with his Hartz orange squeaky bone that he loved to chase.

My sweet boy, I love you and miss you! I have your lamb chop that now sleeps in bed with me because you’re not there. You were a great dog, and I’m so glad I was able to spoil you.

July 24, 2020 0