Goofy Rufy or B.O.B (Burnt Out Beagle) as you were commonly known–you were definitely one special guy. Through no fault of your own, you “marched to a different drummer”.
You came to me as a birthday present from Dad. The year before you came,I lost my beloved Ginger Beagle who I had had for almost 16 years. Although we had 8 other dogs at the time, I missed not having a Beagle. Dad rescued you from a place that bred beagles for research, so in a way you were saved from a life of pain and suffering. When we got you, you were 4 months old and little did we know the adventure you would take us on.
The second day we had you, you had a full blown grand mal seizure. Luckily we were familiar with seizure dogs, as we had rescued many in the past. The thing that was different about you is that you seizured bad and often, right from the beginning. This was not a good thing at such a young age. After the first week of almost daily seizures, we took you to the Vet to look for a cause. Preliminary testing showed nothing abnormal so we attributed it to epilepsy. You were started on Phenobarbitol and hopefully we could get the seizures under control. The seizures lessened in frequency but not severity. Without doing an MRI we could only assume that it was epilepsy. We couldn’t afford an MRI so we changed the dose of the Phenobarb and added Potassium Bromide. That seemed to do the trick. The seizures lessened in both frequency and severity. You were down to maybe 1 or 2 seizures a year and you maintained at that level for many years.
The thing was however, you acted like you were “on drugs”, probably because you were! You were never quite with the program. We had to keep a careful eye on you because you were prone to getting yourself in situations that could have been disasterous. You were pretty much in your own little world but it didn’t seem to bother you and you were happy and content to live your life your own way. Your were never “normal” but it didn’t matter, we loved you just the same and you were very special to us.
We were told early on that you probably wouldn’t live past maybe 4 or 5 years old because the drugs you were on would cause liver damage because they would become highly toxic over time. We had to keep you on them though because at some point the seizures would have killed you–they were that severe.
Despite everything, you were a typical beagle–NUTS! You loved to eat and to howl at everything, sometimes we think only things you could see or hear. You were a world-class lover and into your comforts. You were the only beagle we knew that couldn’t stand the elements, you freaked when you got wet; be it snow or rain or the garden hose. You never would have made a hunter, getting mud on your paws upset you too!! You were certainly different.
When you were about 10 years old, we noticed you were losing weight even though you ate like a horse. We took you to the Animal Hospital and had all kinds of tests done. It appeared you were leaking protein somewhere and they couldn’t find where. We started feeding you high protein food which normally isn’t good for a dog your age, but it appeared to help keep some weight on you.
Life went on and you were happy and content and best of all pretty much seizure free. Our Vet and all the other Drs. at the Animal Hospital were just amazed at how well you were doing and that you were still alive–nobody thought you would live as long as you did and more astonishing that your liver and kidneys both looked good even after all the years of the drugs. You were a wonder dog and didn’t even know it!!!
We knew from the start that we were on borrowed time with you and unfortunately that time was starting to run out. Suddenly you slowed down on your eating and began acting weak and disoriented. Off to the Vet and to everyone’s amazement, you had gone into heart failure. It caught us all by surprise because we thought and expected the end to come in the form of either liver or kidney failure. We couldn’t treat the heart failure because of the other medicines you were taking. We couldn’t take you off of those medicines because we couldn’t risk the seizures starting up again.
With very heavy hearts we had to let you go because we were not going to let you suffer in any way, you had already had a lifetime of problems. We had at least 8 “bonus” years with you that nobody thought would have happened. For the dog who should have died at 4 years old, you lived to be 13 and flabbergasted some of the best Drs. around here.
You gave us so much joy and love, we are forever thankful to you for letting us share your life. Your will and determination and our love and care made it one hell of a ride. You taught us patience and perserverance and gave us a different view of life. THANK YOU for choosing us Beagle B.O.B, your memory will live with us forever, we will never forget you, there will never ever be another beagle as special as you.
Be at peace with our other “kids” who have crossed the Bridge–we are looking forward to seeing you again
Forever Missing You,
| Rufus "B.O.B""" |
| 20, Feb 2009 |
| Helen Malinauskas & Joe Bielinski |