Rolling Dog Farm Blog

On Friday morning I went out to the cat house to feed the gang and found Wobbles on the floor, eyes half-shut, mouth wide open and breathing oddly … shallow breaths, very labored.  He was clearly in respiratory distress.  He couldn’t move, and just lay there looking at me with obvious discomfort.  I said to him, "Wobs, oh no, not again!" 

I suspected aspiratory pneumonia, which he has had before — although he seemed in worse shape this time. He looked like he was going to check out at any moment.  I couldn’t believe it, because just the night before he had been himself … he came wobbling out to greet me when I went in to feed them, and he went straight to the food bowl to eat.  What a turnaround.

I called Alayne, who was over letting the dogs out at Widget’s House, to tell her Wobs was in crisis and I needed to get him to the hospital.  I grabbed a crate, put Wobbles in it, and carried him into the house while I got the truck keys and other things.  I called our vet clinic in Helena, Montana Veterinary Specialists, and told them I was on the way.

A few minutes later Wobs and I were headed down the highway.  If you want to see the route we drove, click on this link to a Google map.  At one point, about 30 miles into the trip, I looked into the crate and for a fleeting moment I thought Wobs had died … he had collapsed against the crate door and wasn’t moving.  I pulled off the highway, opened the crate, and found he was still very much alive, but too weak to pick himself up.  So I rearranged him and then hit the road again.

It’s on trips like this when the 70-mile drive to the hospital seems like an eternity, even when you’re going 80 mph.  (If our auto insurer is reading this, that’s a typo, oops, I meant 65 mph.)  It’s one of the most beautiful stretches of highway in the country, but it’s a little hard to enjoy the scenery when you’re worried about making it to the hospital in time.

Dr. Jennifer Rockwell was waiting for us, and in less than two minutes they had Wobs on oxygen while Jennifer began examining him.  I took the photo above of Jennifer taking his temperature while vet tech Rick administers oxygen.  Vet tech Jayme had just finished getting the intensive care cage ready for Wobs.  Shortly after I took this photo they had Wobs on IV fluids and IV antibiotics.  X-rays of his lungs confirmed my suspicions:  another bout of aspiratory pneumonia.

He gets this — we think — because of his cerebellar hypoplasia.  Our hunch is that while he’s eating, he may suddenly fall over, or lurch forward, and the abrupt movement causes a piece of food to go down the wrong way and into his lungs. 

The amazing thing?  By Friday evening he was already bouncing back.  He was up and about in his cage, eating, drinking, and looking for attention.  Jennifer said she couldn’t believe how fast he responded, given the kind of shape he was in when he arrived.  By Saturday morning, when Jennifer called with an update, Wobbles was completely back to normal.  This, too, is true to form for him … these bouts of pneumonia come on very suddenly, but with prompt medical care, Wobs overcomes them just as fast. 

Jennifer will take more chest X-rays tomorrow to see how his lungs look, and we will leave him in the hospital for a couple more days so they can monitor him.

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I’m leaving for Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine on Monday to go pick up Brynn on Tuesday and bring her back to the ranch.  I should have an update on the blog either tomorrow night or Tuesday night.  Basically she’s doing fine, her fevers are gone, but now we have a cardiac issue to worry about.  Not that Brynn is worrying about it, though … the doctor says Brynn is her happy, chipper little self!

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(Click on photo for larger image.)