LucyTag Archives

There’s no H in Lucy

Silly Lucy

We have a soft-tile floor in our basement and we often have to tear it up if one of the dogs has a peeing accident on them. So quite often the tiles are up and being washed, some of them are scattered around drying. The tiles have our dogs’ names spelled in them, and our cats. Though we don’t have Muffit and Tatum’s names because they came after the floor.

So Lucy is feeling better! When she feels good and she wants dinner she brings me toys. With her megaesophagus she hasn’t been bringing me many toys in the recent past. But last night she was bringing me the H out of one of the floor tiles. I kept telling here there is no H in Lucy but she didn’t want to listen! I had to hide the H under the tv stands and then go and get her some dinner.

Oh but before I hid the H, I threw it for her a couple of times and she went and fetched it. She had fun and was prancing around like she used to. I’m so glad she is feeling better. We have been feeding her smaller meals, too, and she’s not throwing up quite as much.

She is still quite incontenent though and so can’t sleep on the bed with me. I really want to find some good diapers for her but I haven’t seen any that I really liked online yet. Anyone have any recommendations?

Cynthia

March 2, 2009

Lucy

5 comments

Lucy, Megaesophagus

Lucy and her Megaesophagus

And as the days go on, we continue to deal with Lucy’s Megaesophagus. It’s not fun.. and each time we have to sit her up in the chair to feed her, I am saddened that she has this awful disease. And each time she regurgitates on the bed frames, I feel bad for her.

Her weight is holding steady at about 61 pounds, which is good for her. We don’t want her to get below about 58 or so. She has been up to 65 in the past, but 61 is better for her anyway. My Husband has been taking her for walks to the local park about three times a week, which is great for her muscle tone and strength. Plus, she loves getting out!

She usually still regurgitates on a regular basis though. Mostly after she sneaks a drink of water that we don’t know about. Sometimes her food doesn’t seem to go down, though, and she’ll regurge the food too. But for the most part it stays down.

She just turned 10 on February 15. And we realize that once a dog is 10, they are considered getting old. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since little puppy Lucy came to live with us. I wish she would live as long as us.

We are managing the megaesophagus okay, I think. I wish she wouldn’t ever regurgitate, I need to look it up and see if it’s normal for dogs to continue to do so, or if there are ways to prevent it entirely. All in all, our Lucy girl is doing pretty good, all things considered.

Cynthia

February 22, 2009

Lucy

13 comments

Lucy, Megaesophagus

Lucy Made It To 10

Lucy Is 10

Yay! Lucy is 10 years old today! I’m so happy… last year this time when we were trying to figure out why she wasn’t keeping food down, and she lost so much weight, I was so worried she wasn’t going to live to 10 years old. We found her megaesophagus though and she’s doing so much better now! She’s still a bit skinny and she has bad days where she regurgitates a lot of her food. But for the most part, she’s doing well.

She loves to eat, and we feel bad that we can’t give her solid treats anymore. We do give her some, sometimes, just before we feed her a liquid meal. Kibble blended with water, mostly.

Sometimes she plays with the other dogs, and my Husband has been taking her to the dog park on a regular basis so she gets too exercise. So she is doing well, and we are happy for her. Hopefully she’ll have a few more years with us. Though we realize 10 is getting up there for a big dog. She seems healthy otherwise. Well, she does have calcification of the lungs, still, but that doesn’t seem to be bothering her.

Yay for Lucy! Happy Birthday Funny Faced Baby Girl Lulu.

Health, Lucy, Megaesophagus

Six Clean Dogs

Well today was bath day. It was between bathing the dogs, and cleaning the kitchen, and bathing the dogs won out! And it’s a good thing, too. Lucy was the dirtiest. The water ran off her very, very brown! We haven’t given her a bath for a while because of her megaesophagus and we’ve felt bad she’s been sick. But it was time, for sure.

Lucy Wet

Lucy hates baths the most, but then again, Tatum hates them almost as much. Angel has to spend hours after her bath licking herself. We think she may have been outdoors and cold and if she was wet, it’d be worse. And she has such a thick coat that she takes a long time to bathe and a long time to dry, too. Lucy has a pretty thick coat too. Levi’s is next in line, and then Tatum. Then Muffit with his border collie coat, his isn’t nearly as thick. And then Chase has the thinnest coat of all. He always has. If you want to see pictures of Tatum, Muffit and Chase, you’ll have to visit Tatum’s blog to see them!

Angel Wet

I don’t usually bathe all six dogs in a row. The water heater tank was empty when I finally showered myself off at the end, so the water was cool. Not cold, thank goodness! Muffit’s bath, his was the last, was a bit cooler than I would have liked. We bathe them in our tub. It’s too cold outside (snow on the ground and 32 degrees) and the dog washes are too expensive, even at $12 a dog, when you have six dogs to bathe.

Levi Wet

Do you bathe your dogs? I hear some people don’t bathe theirs ever. But with all the brown water that comes off, I can’t imagine not bathing them!

My back was pretty sore after. Lifting dogs in and out of the tub, and bending over to bathe them. I try to sit in the tub, but we have to move around a lot in order to get all the dog parts. All in all it went well, and it’s so nice to have six clean dogs!

Angel, Chase, Levi, Lucy, Muffit, Tatum

Lucy and the Muffin Tin Game

We read about this game from our friend Marie, who heard about it from Astrid’s blog.. and we thought we’d give it a try! As you can see, Lucy is doing pretty good. She’s eating better again and I do want to keep her engaged and give her things to do. So here, there are treats in the muffin tin under every tennis ball. And she has to figure out how to get the balls out to get to the treat!

Lucy is a very smart girl! She gets them out in just over two minutes. With her megaesophagus we don’t give her many treats, as we are afraid they will get stuck in her throat. So after she plays this game she gets to go eat her liquid diet so it all gets washed down!

I have videos of the other dogs playing the game too, they are uploading to youtube and I’ll post them later!

Games, Lucy, Megaesophagus

Lucy Had A Bad Day

Lucy didn’t have a very good day yesterday. We always worry about her when she doesn’t eat, and she skipped two meals yesterday. She ate her first morning meal and her second noon meal, but after that she just didn’t want to eat. And she seems to drop weight if she eats less than four meals a day, and we don’t want her to drop weight.

Lucy and Tatum

My husband reminded me of how her organs might end up shutting down… starting with her esophagus, and maybe now her bladder. She’s doesn’t want to go out to pee much. And so she leaks in the house. It could be just because we have snow outside now and she doesn’t want to go out. But we worry that it could be something wrong with her body, too. The megaesophagus could be just stage one of her falling apart… she needs some new performance parts instead of her old falling apart parts… but that is too sad to think about and so I just love her and hope she has a few more years left with us. This first picture is kinda cute… Lucy is eating in her Bailey’s Chair and Tatum is thinking she really wants to take a lick. But Lucy usually gives a nice solid growl and Tatum keeps her distance. Lucy is a good girl and is very appropriate with her growls. We love it when Lucy eats well.

Lucy Likes to Eat

Fortunately this morning she ate all her breakfast and even some raw honey, keifer, and coconut oil. All good things that, hopefully, will keep her strong and as healthy as possible for as long as possible. She also ate her lunch meal and she seemed to be hungry for both, yay!

Lately we’ve been changing our dog beds. We have to have washable beds now. I did buy a water proof liner the other day, and so now perhaps we can buy a cheap dog bed from Costco and put the liner on it so Lucy won’t ruin it. We can’t have dog beds with cedar in them, because we can’t throw them in the washer and they get ruined.

Anyway, so yesterday was a bad day, today seems like a better day. She’s eating and keeping her food and water down. Going out to pee a bit more than yesterday too. All good things that we take advantage of with our healthy dogs. We do love Lucy and we do all we can for her as long as we can.

Health, Lucy, Megaesophagus

Where Were You Five Years Ago?

I was just sitting around and looking at old pictures from five years ago and wondering where life was then. And where my life and dogs will be in another five years.

Five years ago was 2003… and we were fostering a couple small dogs, a silky terrier mix named Jojo and a Shitzu named Sammy. We only had Lucy, Levi and Angel at that time. This picture is of Levi and Angel at an agility trial my husband came to and brought Angel with.

Levi was only four and we’d only had Angel for a year. Lucy was only five and she was healthy and strong, didn’t have the medical problems she has now.. the megaesophagus, the incontinence, and the general not feeling well.

Our family was smaller, but happy. My husband and I had just gotten married in March of 2003. We live in the same house. We have different vehicles, though. I still had my Toyota Pickup as I didn’t get my Outback until 2004. Now my Outback is for sale and I have a minivan, and three more dogs. Wow a lot can change in five years.

I wonder where I’ll be five years from now. Lucy and Angel might not be alive.. hopefully they will, but we just never know. Levi, too, will be old or gone. Lucy would be fifteen and Levi would be fourteen. We don’t know how old Angel is but we suspect she’s around twelve now. So she’d be seventeen, if she lives that long.

Chase will be ten, and so will Muffit. Tatum will be about eight. And it’ll be time for a new puppy, I hope. And I will be retired, or thinking of retiring. Which makes me very, very happy! Maybe we’ll be moving to Richfield, Utah, and getting some property and some sheep or goats.

Where do you think you will be in five years? Where were you five years ago?

Angel, Chatter, Levi, Lucy

Lucy has a UTI

Lucy Camping

Ugh… got back from the vet for Lucy. Angel came with for the ride. Lucy didn’t get any treats at the vet… she throws them up if she does. I feel bad for her because she soooo loves the treats they have at the vet. My poor Lucy girl. The Megaesohagus is such a pain.

They tested her urine and yup, she has a bad bladder infection! I wish we would have taken her in sooner! Usually it’s my husband that insists on taking the dogs in and I say wait. But this time I wanted to take her in. She’s on Baytril for 21 days. And they want to test her again 2 days before she’s done with the antibiotics. The vet said she has a lot of rods, and not many round cells in the bacteria… though I’m not sure what that means, I guess it means it’s a pretty bad infection. My poor girl.

She got in the house and drank a bunch, so I put her in her chair for 6 minutes. Then she just went upstairs and had another big drink. I hope the meds help her soon! Bladder infections are just awful! We got some ground beef from the grocery store and I cooked it up, put it in the blender with some water and a pill, and let her drink it in her chair.

Hopefully the pills will kick in quickly and she won’t be in pain. If this doesn’t stop her incontenence, then we will probably look into meds for that, too. My poor baby girl. The above picture is from a camping trip we went to in April of 2005. Isn’t she a sweetie?