Sept. 1993 —- April 9th 2001
Dog
Rudy was an eight year old brindle cur mix dog.
She lived outside in a pen all of her life. She was a good dog and loved us all.
My story is one that I wish everyone would read because it tells how everyone
should always pay attention to their pets. Because medical conditions can
arise that need immediate attention.
It starts a few days ago when my daughter’s were outside feeding and
watering the dogs we had another dog outside also.
My oldest daughter noticed that Rudy was getting fat. And she said she looks
like she’s pregnant. My youngest daughter said no she is just getting fat.
Well neither one of mentioned this to me. This was on Saturday on Sunday
they came an told me to come out and check on her she wasn’t acting
quite right so I went out and she appeared to be not feeling very well
just laying in her dog house.
Her abdomen was very hard so I came in and tried reaching out vet,
for a couple of hours I finally decided to call another vet and take her in to
his office and have her checked out. Upon examination he said she was
“pregnant” Imagine my shock! How could this happen her being in a pen
all of these years. She had never been mated before…….He said that he thought that
she would be going into labor within a few hours or days.
Well I brought her home and by morning it was evident that she was in labor,
I watched her for a couple of hours I thought that something wasn’t right
but I had to leave for work so I had asked my oldest daughter to come over
and check on her and I would take my afternoon break and come home
and take her to the vet if she hadn’t progressed.
By afternoon she hadn’t produced any puppies so I called the vet and
told him what what going on told him about the hard abdomen and he
said to bring her right in there was a serious problem.
He would have to do a C-section. He discovered that she had at least one
dead puppy and that only complicated matters because doing a C-section on
a pregnant dog is very complicated at best.
I told him he had to do something she couldn’t go on like this anymore.
She would die if he didn’t do something.
He said the surgery could take as long as 2 hours depending on what
he found inside.
He called me after the surgery to tell me that she had died.
He had finished the surgery and was stitching her up and she started to
seizure and within minutes she had died. He did everything that he could.
Since she had survived the surgery he was confident that she would be fine
he was surprised that she died. He found that she had only 2 puppies
he said that they were enormous that she could never have had them
they were so big. They had died a few days earlier and they had already started
to rot and her uterus was producing gas which is why her abdomen was so hard.
It is very hard not to blame myself for not getting her medical attention sooner,
but it may not have helped much the vet said that she might have died anyway,
because C-sections are the #1 surgery losses.
What had apparently happened was that a very large dog had jumped into
her pen and did his thing jumped back out without anybody knowing that
she had been mated. We thought that she was safe being in a pen,
but unless the animal has been spayed or neutered they are not safe.
My dog died because of someone else’s dog roaming around.
I believe in the leash law and I just wish everyone else did.
This was a senseless death on an innocent dog you could almost say that
she was murdered.
So please have your dogs spayed or neutered at at least pay attention to
what is going on with your pet at all times maybe if I had paid a little more
attention I could have done something sooner.
Although she never showed signs of her pregnancy until it was to late.
My vet says this happens all of the time unless you know for sure that
your pet was mated. Sure I take good care of my animals but
everyone needs to be observant.
Jo Anne
| Rudy |