Turning the Corner

Day four started out very similar to day three.  I was able to get six hours of sleep the night before, which was heavenly.  I had committed to helping out at the monthly Big Dogs Huge Paws dog food pickup, so Tony stayed home with the dogs.  Hudson was not pleased with this decision.  He is a huge mama’s boy and was distressed that I was leaving without his permission.  I felt very bad for Tony, but was delighted for myself.  I was so looking forward to a few hours out of the house.

Dog Food pick up went great.  Lisa, one of my fellow officers at BDHPI and a very sweet person, brought Hudson a bag of Puppy Crack.  (We’ve since discovered it’s one of the few things that will tempt him to eat.)   After dog food, my friend Darlene and I went for breakfast at Pete’s University Park Café before heading to Marie’s house to see Izzy.

Izzy was one of Big Dogs Huge Paws foster dogs in 2009.  She was an older (estimated 5-9  years old) black female Great Dane with cropped ears.  If you know anything about dog rescue, you might be familiar with Black Dog Syndrome.  Statistically, black dogs are much more difficult to adopt than any other color.  Some believe that this is because lighting is poor in shelters and doesn’t allow adopting families to see as much expression on the dogs faces.  In cases like ours, where we don’t have a shelter, the theory is that photographs don’t capture the expression on darker colored faces as well as lighter.  Regardless, it’s difficult to find an adopter for a black dog, harder to find an adopter for a black female.  To top it off, Izzy had cropped ears and was a medical train wreck.  She came in with ticks, demodex mange, and was skin and bones.  Marie was her foster mom.  She was in rescue for almost four months and was lovingly cared for by Marie the entire time.  The Silverstein’s had to have their house bug bombed twice due to all the parasites Izzy brought in with her and it took a long time for her fur to finally grow back.  Luckily, a very nice couple fell in love with Izzy and adopted her, providing a loving home and a Great Dane brother to play with.

Fast forward two years, and after everything Izzy had been through, she was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma in her left rear leg.  (The same leg as Hudson.)  She went in for amputation on 5-18-11 at VRCC in Denver.  Her surgery went beautifully and this tough old lady sailed through with no complications.  She was quickly up and about as though nothing had happened.   Izzy has already been through her first round of chemo and showed no ill effects.  Izzy’s parents had a family obligation that they needed to attend and asked her former foster mom, Marie, if she’d be willing to watch her for the weekend while they were gone.  Marie agreed, of course, and then invited me to come see Izzy and her progress.

Izzy is three weeks ahead of Hudson in her journey through Osteosarcoma.  It was very inspirational to see this old lady kicking butts and taking names.  She was bouncing around the house without a problem.  She easily climbed down five steps to the backyard, did her business, and bounced right back up them.  She was able to climb onto and off of the couch with ease.  Her suture site was completely healed and she looked great!  Going from day three (one of the worst days of my life) to seeing how Hudson will be in just a few short weeks gave me a lot of hope.  It’s easy to tell yourself that he’ll be fine in just a little while, much harder to believe it.  Izzy showed me what Hudson’s future could be.

When I got home, it was like Hudson had turned a corner.  I don’t know if it was because I had hope, or because he was really progressing, but the whimpering and crying seemed to have dropped off, and Hudson wanted to get up and move around.  He and I practiced walking to the mailbox and back twice, then rested for twenty minutes.  I had to go out and clean up the back yard, so I took him with me.  He hadn’t seen it since the sod had been completed and he loved it.  He laid down in the grass and rubbed his muzzle against it, before he sprawled himself full length.  He stayed in that position the entire time we were out there, just soaking in the fresh air and sunlight.

**Video Warning** Turn down the volume.  I'm talking in dog voice which I just discovered, thanks to this video, is obnoxious. J

Tony had plans that night with his friend, Alex, who had recently gotten out of the hospital.  The puppies and I decided we were too tired to make something to eat and ordered a pizza.  Shortly before it arrived, Hudson passed out on the couch. The pizza guy didn’t even wake him, so clearly his busy day had exhausted him.  He did wake up when I started eating, of course, and was rewarded for his good behavior with a piece of ham off my pizza.  He ate his one piece and went back to sleep, while I stretched out on the other couch and watched Netflix movies on my laptop for the rest of the night.