Last year a nightmare came true. What I had so hoped would not happen, did: Sophie turned out not to be healthy.
My previous dog had health problems for many years. I always lovingly cared for her and made sure she suffered as little as possible from her discomforts. This meant that I took her to the physical therapist every week, drove her around in a cart a lot in the last years of her life (where I lifted her in and out at least 12 times a day, and that's pretty tough to lift a 25-pound dog when you have health problems of your own) and tried to match her diet to her symptoms as much as possible. But all that was nothing compared to the mental strain that her health problems were causing. I worried so often and so much, felt intensely sad, emotionally exhausted when she was in her spring depression again. That was the biggest challenge. Seeing my dog suffer, even though she had a very nice life and was happy for the most part, was very difficult for me.
Therefore, my greatest wish when a new dog came into my life was that she would be healthy. This time I had deliberately chosen a different breed, a Goldendoodle: a breed that, I hoped, was stronger. Alas! My wish did not come true. As it turns out, Sophie is not healthy either.
Last summer she suddenly limped. At first I thought it was because I had let her run a lot and carried her in a backpack. So we took it easy for a few days. That helped. She was walking normally again. But after we had been out on the sandlot again, near our house, she limped again. Again we took it easy for a few days, but this time it didn't go away; she kept limping.
Since a trip to Italy was planned and we were supposed to do some walking, I decided to visit the physio as a precaution. Maybe she could figure out what the problem was and give some tips. That visit surprised me enormously. It turned out that Sophie had a lot of tension in her neck, both shoulders and elbows, and that there was a thickening in one elbow which might contain fluid. Furthermore, she also appeared to have a lot of tension and stiffness in her lower back. I had not seen this coming. To me, Sophie was a healthy, fit dog. So I was quite upset when we walked out the door.
Wanting more clarity and not wanting to risk anything during our trip in Italy, I went directly to my vet the next day. After examining her again, he came to the conclusion that it would be wise to have a scan so we could rule things out. She was given painkillers for during the trip and that Monday, after returning home, we went to an orthopedic vet to have the scan done. She wasn't limping by now, so for a while I doubted whether it made sense, but in the end I decided to go. Just to be sure.
I already found having the scan done very stressful. My previous dog once went into cardiac arrest during a procedure because the vet at the time had administered the wrong amount of anesthetic. Fortunately, they were able to resuscitate her then, but that experience left a pretty deep fear. To take the scan, Sophie had to go under anesthesia.
I was waiting in the waiting room with tears and much excitement. My fears turned out not to be unfounded. Fortunately, the vet had taken my concerns seriously and put Sophie on cardiac monitoring while he did the scan. Sophie turned out to have had an extremely slow heartbeat. If she had not been on cardiac monitoring, they would not have been able to detect this with the naked eye and thus could not have reacted in time. Fortunately, Sophie recovered well from the anesthesia.
But the news the scan yielded was and is very shocking to me: Sophie has calcification in the intervertebral discs of several neck and thoracic vertebrae. And that while she is only three years old. That is remarkable, to say the least, for a dog of that age.
And there is no solution, no cure to fix this. At worst she will get a hernia in the future, at best the calcification can disappear. And there are all kinds of degrees in between.
I really did need some time to process this news. For the first few days I was in a mourning mood. Sophie, as she existed in my mind, was no longer there. She was no longer the healthy, fit dog, but a dog with serious flaws. And that was tough; both for me, because I had a different image of Sophie, and for Sophie, because she had been walking around in pain (probably for much longer). After the news settled in somewhat, I happily got back into action mode. I discussed with the vet what I could do to at least not make the situation worse. This includes: no more running after a ball, avoiding sand flats and avoiding jumping off heights (stairs, the couch, the bed) as much as possible, because downward pressure on the vertebrae is not good. Fortunately, I already had a good harness, which is not around her neck, but around her chest, so that the vertebrae in the neck and chest area are not put extra strain. Furthermore, we pay regular visits to the physio/osteopath, who makes sure the tension does not build up unnecessarily.
So that's how I monitor Sophie. That's all I can do. And hope it doesn't get worse. We are now six months on. And I can say that, crazily perhaps, I am confident that things are going to be okay: that the calcification is not getting worse, but maybe even less. I don't know this with certainty, of course, because I haven't had a new scan. But I am confident. I have modified or eliminated many things, which can make the calcification worse. So in theory it should then improve, or at least stabilize. And I trust that.
In retrospect, I am so glad Sophie started limping last year. Had she not, there is a good chance that she would have had an acute hernia in a few years, with all its consequences. And then the damage would have been many times greater, both physically and emotionally.
Yes, we have had to adjust things. And some fun things that made her very happy are no longer possible. But we do other things now. These days we do more tracking games, so she can use her nose and is mentally challenged. And I massage her more often, to make sure she is supple in her skin. I also monitor her behavior more closely. What is she showing me? What can I do to make her life as pleasant as possible? So I pay even more attention to her and I have the impression that both her physical and mental health is better than before all this.
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