Toby the Gypsy Doberman

2005-12-04T17:53:00.000-08:00

Rest in peace, Gypsy Doberman

2004-11-21T21:38:00.000-08:00

Sadly, Toby the Gypsy Doberman has gone to the bridge. The swelling in her paws was a component of the lung cancer. She wouldn't get up at all and started bleeding from her nose. She was deteriorating so quickly that I took her in. I told the vet that I was afraid that she wasn't going to make it through the night. He agreed that it was a real possibility. After some discussion, we decided it would be best to send her off and save her any more suffering. The last thing she heard was my voice telling her that I loved her. Tonight my Gypsy Doberman is stealing shoes in heaven. I hear Jesus is missing a sandal. Rest in peace Toby Doby. You will be missed.

Some days, it's not so good

2004-11-21T17:13:00.000-08:00

The Tobmeister has taken a turn in the wrong direction. She's barely eating, her heart is beating pretty rapidly, her breathing seems labored. One paw has swollen up terribly. I talked to my Mother and she had me test for fluid. The paw is definitely full of fluid and there doesn't seem to be an injury. I think the other one is swelling as well. It looks bigger to me. She won't get up and because her hips are bad, she can barely walk. I carried her outside today...before crap fell out of her butt. Pro-active. I'm going to watch her tonight and I think she'll go to the vet tomorrow. I suspect we're rapidly heading towards the unavoidable, but maybe a diuretic will help. The one tumor is next to her heart and nearly as large as her heart. I suspect it's pressing against her heart and restricting her circulation, hence the swelling. Tomorrow will tell.

Hacking with the Cancer Dog

2004-11-18T06:36:00.000-08:00

Rough night all around for everyone involved. I've got a bad case of the Danville Crud. Everyone at work is coming down with it. Too many of us crammed in a little space waiting for the BONEHEAD Developer to finish a new space that should have been done last week. So my throat is filled with fire and my nose has ceased functioning. Toby has been throwing in some sympathetic gacking. She was up half of the night hacking and gacking. The gack sounds like a sick seal. She finally got out of her bed and laid on the floor, which must have made her more comfortable. She quit gacking. She was obviously not feeling as well this morning. In her defense, the house crapping seems to be a function of elderly dog bowels rather than lazy dog bad intent. This morning I watched both Toby and Xica walk across the room with crap falling out of their butts, neither noticing at all. No wonder I couldn't get anyone to cop to the deed, neither knew they were doing it. And no wonder there was so much, two of them are doing it. Everyone except me is resting now. Toby's breathing was a little labored when she first laid down but she's sleeping soundly now. She's got a weird gurgling thing going on this morning. It's been a little over a month since I found out. I'm surprised at how well she's doing, but I wonder if the tumors are growing, have stopped growing, have moved so that's why she's doing well and they're still growing...hard to say.

To be the Cancer Dog

2004-11-13T17:19:00.000-08:00

Such a life, the life of a Cancer Dog. Extra love, no problem. Special food, no problem. Crap in the house, no...Hey! wait a minute! You have lung cancer, not brain or butt cancer. Crap outside you BEAST! We had some hacking last week. Not a lot but more than had been. It seems to have gone away. The store didn't have Essiac, but they did have Flor-Essence, which is, uh, essentially the same thing. Apparently there are some claims on the Essiac box that aren't allowed in the Whole Foods, whole wallet grocery chain. Actually, the Essiac was purchased at a rather shadey Health Food store. I wouldn't be surprised if the lady was bringing it in from Canada illegally. We all know about the sub-quality drugs those Canadians take...but I digress. Back to the Tobemeister, she is spending much of her time hanging out in the office, which is fine because Dan and his two 130lb beasts seem to live in my office. She bitches out Murphy at every opportunity, even though he's the least obtrusive of the three. Such is the life of the Cancer Dog.

The gack is back

2004-11-08T05:06:00.000-08:00

Yeah, the gack is back. Not as bad as it was, but she gacked a couple of times yesterday and twice that I heard during the night. The weather has turned here and it's quite cold at night, down into the 30's and then warms up to the 70's during the day. That might be inspiring the change, or not. It could be things I don't like to think about. She's still in fine spirits. We're almost through the Essiac. I got a bottle of Flor-Essence, which is supposedly the same thing, at Whole Foods yesterday. We'll see how that goes.

Keeping the world safe from shoes

2004-11-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

All work dogs must have jobs. Gypsy work dogs are no exception. No shoe is safe from her thievery. Now socks are disappearing at an alarming rate. They are usually recovered from her self-designated lair. We are a good three weeks into the treatment and life has returned to normal here at Camp Dowhachawannado, if there is such a thing. The dinner dance has almost returned. It was proceeded last night by great circles around the living room, which are designed to let me know that it's taking way too long to make her dinner. I expect the scuffing of paws and baying for food will be next on the list. I haven't heard her gack in days, her breath sounds good and she is obviously in good spirits. Today I need to go find some more Essiac. The dairy farmers should be sending us thank you notes for our cottage cheese consumption.

Ah, the life of a Gypsy Doberman

2004-11-04T06:09:00.000-08:00

The night before last Toby barked for her dinner. She hadn't done that in over a month. I figured it hurt to bark, or aggravated her or something. Dan informed me that she didn't gack at all yesterday. I've noticed she isn't gacking at all at night anymore. She's back to stealing shoes, she has two of mine and one of Dan's. She won't let Beauregard sit next to me, she's coming around to get her love again. I don't know if this means the tumors are subsiding or they're growing in a different direction or stopped growing and have settled. I'm curious, but it's too close to the last X-ray to take another, only three weeks. She's eating like normal, mean as usual, and has taken to crapping in the house, from time to time, even when the back door is wide open. She's always been a bit of a snot...

Treating the untreatable

2004-10-31T07:06:00.000-08:00

Don't tell me there is nothing to do. I went to the Special Needs Doberman people and asked for their suggestions. A plethora of information came to my inbox. Overwhelming really. I printed it all out, spread it out on the desk and researched every suggestion. Some stuff is very mind boggling. I thought that doing everything would make her sicker, so I chose the following tack, which so far has proven to be very successful. That is why this blog has been started, to document how this goes for other pet lovers faced with similar dilemna. Here is a list of the suggestions, at the end, I'll say what we're doing.

Ozonated olive oil -http://www.oxystore.com/ozonated_olive_oil.asp
Essiac - http://www.seacostvitamins.com/misc/floressence.html#info
Colostrum- http://www.newlifefoods.net/products/other_colostrum_products.shtml#capsules_powder
Organic cottage cheese -1/4 cup per day with 1 lbsp Omega flo or flaxseed oil- http://www.cancure.org/budwig_diet.htm
Artemesia http://www.msnbc.com/news/667259.asp
BARF http://bestfrisbeedogs.com/diets.html

I decided to feed her organic cottage cheese and flaxseed oil with Essiac. I started this on October 18th. The gacking has gone from every 10 minutes to twice a day. She doesn't seem as sad as she was, I gave her back rubs as I thought the hacking was making the muscles in her back sore. I would like to go to BARF, but with three dogs, and a full time job, it's going to take some planning. I hope to work that out in the next week or so. If one gets BARF, they're all going to want it. It is suspected that the sugars in kibble cause the tumors to grow. There are many other advantages to BARF and I've been considering it for about a year. It might be time. Speaking of time...we're now in REAL TIME! I hope to keep this going so other folks can benefit from our experiences.

The Hack, Gack, Yack

2004-10-31T06:52:00.000-08:00

The Gypsy Doberman developed a cough back in September. I talked to my friends at Special Needs Doberman and they suggested Kennel Cough, allergies, congestive heart failure, aspirated food or (hopefully not) cancer. I took her to the vet, he poked around a little bit, couldn't hear anything, felt around, nothing seemed too wrong and of course, she wouldn't hack for him. He ruled out Kennel Cough, aspirated food and congestive heart failure. He suggested a run of antibiotics. I think antibiotics are over prescribed, so I asked if he thought it would be ok to wait and see for maybe ten days. He thought that would be fine. It didn't get better, actually worse. So I went back and got a run of antibiotics. We did the ten day run, and it was still getting worse. I decided it was time and bucked up and paid for the X-Rays.

I still cry when I think about what I saw on those X-rays. I didn't need a Doctor to tell me that there shouldn't be something where something was. She had a tumor the size of her heart pushing against it and another one pushing against her diaphram. Toby had lung cancer. It was inoperable and they couldn't treat it with chemo either. It was my job to make her as comfortable as I could for as long as I could. Have a nice day, thanks for playing our game. That was October 16th.

The Adventures of Toby the Gypsy Doberman

2004-10-31T06:39:00.000-08:00

Toby came to me in February 2003. I was checking out the newly uploaded webpage for Special Needs Dobermans for their Senior Dobe Project. There on that page was the face of an 10 year old Doberman who was in rescue. Her owner had died and no one in her family wanted to take her. So the vet got her owner's family in touch with Dogworks who took her in. I saw this picture and thought that no 10 year old dog should be sitting i rescue. She should be spending the last days of her life laying by a fire place in the lap of luxury, as should all Doberman. I contacted Jolene at Dogworks. She didn't think I had the best situation since two Hellhoundz already resided here and I worked full time. I asked to meet her anyway. Being a Doberman, and a Gypsy, my heart was stolen immediately. She had a lump on one of her paws and we agreed to have it removed and checked for cancer. It came back clear. Then we agreed that I would take Toby for two weeks, if it worked out I would keep her, if not, she'd go back to rescue and no harm no foul. After four days, I called Jolene and told her she couldn't have her dog back, she was already part of the family.

Toby spent the next year training me. Leave a shoe out and I will steal it. Leave a sock around and I will steal it. I will trade it back with you later for your wallet. She never damaged anything, just stole things. I learned to put my shoes away and pick up after myself, or run around the house searching for shoes and socks. Toby has bad hips, so she takes slow somewhat dragging steps. If she wasn't getting enough attention, she would step into the room where you were, show you that she had stolen something, as it dangled from her mouth, and go back into her bed. She stole the heart of every one who came through the door.