Our oldest pup, Joey, had a health scare about a month ago. He had been one of the dogs in the best shape with no major issues. He had a dental done at the beginning of the year and his bloodwork was that of a youngster. Keep in mind, the old man is around 18 years old. He’s a 10 pound minpin / chihuahua mix we got out of the shelter many years ago. He’s our lover dog and he always tries to romance the big girl dogs. It doesn’t always work out for him.
He developed glaucoma in his left eye literally overnight. I got him into our vet and his eye pressures were sky high which meant he was having a lot of pain. The course of action is generally eye drops to bring the pressure down. After a few days it was apparent his eye was not responding to the medication. It ended up his lens had also luxated to the front of his eye, causing even more pain. It had to be excruciating.
We made the decision to remove his eye. A lot of vets would not even have considered doing a major surgery on a dog of his advanced age but our Dr. Rick is a super-hero! He’s not afraid of nothing! He’s always told us old age is not a disease and as long as he was strong enough he would be fine. The part that worried me most was the fact Joey is extremely sensitive. I was afraid he’d be traumatized and stop eating. That’s what he does when he gets upset by something. My worry was for naught. Joey came through the surgery like a champ and he was so pleased the pain was gone, he never missed a step! He’s back to romancing the big girls. Now it looks like he’s forever winking at them. You go, old man!
Our main man, Ramirez, improves daily with his ability to walk on his own. He’s been dealing with vestibular disease for over 2 months now. He’s amazing, to say the least. Dr. Rick examined him a week ago and he’s just in awe of the little guy. He can get around out in the yard with us just giving him touches to keep his balance. He is still annoyed with having to be helped at all. To add to his annoyances, he developed an ear hematoma. It’s fluid buildup that causes swelling and pain if left untreated. Some think they occur because of ear infections (never had one) or head shaking (doesn’t do that). The answer is, they just happen. It also happened to the ear he lays on so we were annoyed for him.
The hematoma has caused his gorgous ear to flop from the weight of the swelling. We watched it for a few days and decided along with Dr. Rick that he’d have to surgicially fix the thing. Every other method he’s ever tried never works. With surgery, you actually do quilt-like cross stitches to completely close any spaces in the tissue. Once this procedure is done, a hematoma can never happen again. We sure didn’t like the thought of putting him through anesthesia again, but we all know how tough this particular dog happens to be.
On the morning of the scheduled surgery, Dr. Rick came in the room with the drugs to knock my boy out. He looked at him and said, “I don’t want to put him under today.” So…we have drained the hematoma with a needle a few times and that seems to be taking care of most of it. Ramirez never even flinched when the needle went in he’s so tough. His ear will never stand up again but he is! He just keeps on keeping on…
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