I thought I’d give Miss Cocopuff a break and write this post for her. Haven’t posted in a while, it’s been a hard year already any it’s barely started. We lost Dougie, the youngest of the Reddawgs, on New Years day to, of all things, distemper. Dougie was young, healthy, robust and vaccinated but took sick on Christmas eve and was dead a week later. We hadn’t had any distemper here at the shelter but, come to find out, there’s a major outbreak among raccoons across the country with the south, and particularly the southeast being hard-hit. Even with that, Dougie should have been safe and even when he did get sick, he had at least a 50/50 chance of making it but we watched the disease destroy our handsome little imp over the course of a week. We have been, to say the least, devastated.
One thing about distemper, it plays by it’s own rulebook. Normally, it starts out looking like any other upper respiratory illness and, over a couple of weeks, progresses into a gastrointestinal issue. From there, it may or may not go in to the neurological phase where the chances for survival diminish dramatically. With my Dougie, he looked a little tired when he curled up in the bed by my desk the night of 23 Dec but that wasn’t all that unusual for him as he’d often play so hard during the day that by 9 or 10 o’clock, he’d crash and burn. He looked tired but did not appear sick. I had him and the girls out on the morning of the 24th and Dougie was his usual self, off and running and full of mischief. By mid afternoon, I was working in the sanctuary and heard Dougie in our backyard sounding like he was going to throw up so I came over to check on him. I noticed that one eye was a little runny but mostly, I noticed that his flanks were twitching rhythmically. Not having seen the signs of distemper in over 50 years and never in a dog, I was unaware of the significance of this but a quick search on Google suggested that we had a problem. I got him on supportive therapy and called the vet who was just walking out the door on the way to church. I had him at the vet’s as soon as they opened the doors and he stayed with them until Thursday. They didn’t say they were sending him home to die but I suspected. The progression continued until, like I say, he lost the battle on New Year’s Day. Had I known, I would have spared him the gruesome end but the odds were in his favor, at least by the book. Fortunately, he was comatose for the worst of it and at least he got to see his friends and family first and die at home rather in the vet’s office.
Dougie was still so young and healthy, I’d never even given consideration to his mortality. I hate to say it, but I’ve had to consider that Coco isn’t getting any younger and Lil, only a year younger, may not be blessed with a long life considering the horrible start she had. I always tell people that they’ll have to wrap me in bubble wrap before they put me in a rubber room when I lose my girls. Given that my relationship with Dougie was more of a guy thing I would have anticipated, had I thought about it, that losing him would have been somewhat less traumatic than parting with one of my two sweethearts but that has not been the case and I’m still a mess over it. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t automatically look for him when I come in or look over to his bed when I’m at my desk expecting him to be there but it still hasn’t really hit home that he’s gone.
Our sanctuary has been dedicated to all the little Reddawgs who have left their pawprints on our hearts and Dougie is buried in what is to become a little park in the center of it. I brought the girls out there to show them where their Dougie was buried and Cocopuff’s reaction was more of a “Okay, so what are we doing next?'” She’s so full of herself! You could tell though that Lil, always having been the sensitive, caring one, understood that that’s where her “brother” was although I’m sure she doesn’t understand why. The girls, when their time comes, will have their own place of honor here although I’m not anxious to see that day arrive.
Since all of this took place, we’ve seen distemper here at the shelter as well as everywhere else along with some horror stories along the way. We, like many other shelters, have done a voluntary 2 week lock down with the associated deep cleaning and disinfecting but we’ll all probably be fighting this until warm weather arrives to stay as the virus, outside of the host, is killed by heat and sunlight. The following link provides a little more insight into this insidious killer: for those who would like to know more: http://bakerinstitute.vet.cornell.edu/animalhealth/page.php?id=1088 .
These days, there’s a lot of controversy over vaccines in general but, if your dog is not vaccinated, there’s a good chance he or she will get sick and die. As we’ve seen, being vaccinated is not a guarantee that they won’t but, until recently, distemper was almost nonexistent in dogs due to extensive vaccination. Limiting opportunities for exposure would also be helpful if you can. This is not an option here as hundreds of dogs depend on the service we provide and we live in terror that this is not over yet.
I’ll always feel badly that I had to say goodbye to my handsome little man just as he was learning to be a good friend and companion. When he was young, Dougie, as a typical Boykin, was so full of fun and mischief that it was impossible to have him just come hang out while I worked and, as we’d written in earlier posts, was just starting to “get it” and come be a part of what we were doing beyond the fenced yards with increasing regularity. Of course, now I’m thinking that it’s too bad I didn’t have more time to work on this with him but then, we never do, do we? Love your dog while you can, he may not be here tomorrow!
Goodbye my little Dougie boy. We love you and will never forget you.
