Joy Update and Fat Boy is in his new home

It has been a tough few days (and long nights). Joy has been quite ill and we really thought we were going to lose her. Somehow it is worse when you are dealing with a dog so full of life as Joy is. To see her lying flat out and unresponsive is so scary. Thanks to everyone who has called or written to see how Joy is doing.

She began with vomitting and diarrhea late monday afternoon. By Monday night she got worse aand quickly became very lethargic and disoriented. I lay on the floor with her all night on Monday and we took her to the vet on Tuesday. The vet wanted to keep her at the clinic, but we refused. They thought she was in liver failure and the prognosis was not good. The last thing I wanted was for her to die in the vet's office alone. So after some injections (antibiotic, anti-vomiting and something to bring her fever down) we took her home. She was still very poorly all Tuesday and Tuesday night. Dennis stayed downstairs with her most of Tuesday night.

This morning she actually looked a little brighter. Instead of lying on her side with her head down, she was lying on her stomach and able to hold her head up. We took her to the vet again today and they repeated the injections and also added some sub-cutaneous fluids to help boost her up. She cannot seem to keep any fluids down; when I syringe water into her mouth, she vomits it up within 5 minutes. Now the vet thinks that maybe she ate something that triggered this event. That could be likely as Joy was in the back garden for quite awhile and she will eat anything.

Anyway, that is where we are at now. Joy will be 15 in May but she has never seemed old. I am certainly not ready for her to go yet and I don't think she is ready to leave us. We will try all we can to keep her around, but know that we will not let her suffer if this goes on. Please pray that she comes out of this and we don't need to make any tough decisions.

Here is a photo of Joy taken in August at the KC International Agility Festival. As you can see in the background, Joy was "the face" of all the signs and posters at this show!

Now onto the happier news! Fat Boy (now and forever to be known as Todd!) was due to go into his new home tomorrow. But I asked Karen to come and get him today as Joy is taking all our energy. Poor Todd has not gotten much attention these past two days. He is so energetic and when we would take him out, he would do laps around the living room! He needed to go where he could get more attention.

It is both a sad and happy day when a puppy leaves. Todd was such an easy puppy (other than his birth which made him my most expensive puppy!) so it was especially sad to see him go. But singleton puppies are like that. You give all your attention to just one puppy, so you get very attached to them.

Todd has gone into a great home with a few border collies and one little poodle. Karen, his new owner, mostly does agility. Luckily, she also works from home where she helps run a dog supply company (www.doggiesolutions.co.uk) so Todd will get loads of attention. We look forward to watching Todd grow up and hopefully he will make Karen very happy!

I forgot to take a photo of Karen and Todd together (maybe Karen will send me one?) but did get new photos of Todd before he left. He shows alot of potential in many ways. He is a beautiful boy, very bright and bold. I cannot wait to repeat this breeding next year and maybe get a sable girl for myself!