When blind Madison arrived a couple of weeks ago, we noticed how thin she was under her thick coat that she was beginning to shed out for summer. As the days ticked by, she seemed to be losing weight, not gaining any, despite the huge portions we were feeding her. In fact, we were feeding her as much as she would eat, yet we didn't seem to be turning the corner on her weight. Her water consumption seemed a bit high, too.
Given her age, we worried that she could be starting down the path of renal failure, or developing cancer of some sort. I arranged to drop her off at our internal medicine specialist's clinic in Missoula yesterday while I ran to other appointments.
At first Madison was happy to be in the truck with me, but then as I headed down the drive, she became very quiet and subdued. I looked over my shoulder at her in the back seat and could tell she was fretting. I think she suddenly thought she was going to be taken someplace else and left to start all over again. We've seen this before — the first time we take a new arrival to the vet clinic, he or she will get stressed about being uprooted again, thinking they're going back to the shelter. I'm sure that's what was going through her mind.
Yesterday afternoon Dr. Dave Bostwick did a physical exam and abdominal ultrasound of her organs, and everything appeared normal. He sent her blood work to the lab, and that meant we'd have to wait until today to find out the all-important results.
I picked Madison up yesterday evening to bring her back to the ranch. As the vet tech led her down the hall towards me, she heard my voice calling her. There was this flash of recognition on her face — "Oh! It's him! He came back for me!" – and my goodness, how her tail started wagging! Bless her heart, that's when she realized she hadn't been left to start over somewhere new, she was going home!
When the phone rang at 8:30 this morning and the caller ID showed it was Dave, I held my breath for a second … and then answered. All he said was, "It's been a long time since I've seen blood work this good." Whew. What a relief!
Dave's advice: Keep feeding as much as we are and be patient. Unless it's a weird GI tract malabsorption issue of some kind — which are very rare and hard to definitively diagnose in any case — he thinks it's just a question of calories and time. (That's what turned a similar problem with blind Evelyn arround.)
So I went over to Widget's House to hug our little lady and give her the good news. That's when I got the photo above of Madison, who was happy to be outside on a beautiful and sunny summer day.
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Enter
"Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana,
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Wow .. still No. 3, and that means a $3,000 grant if we can hold that spot! Please keep voting — thank you!
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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