Missing my Gumball

I had to say goodbye to my Gumball this morning - he very suddenly became sick yesterday; he refused lunch, and after napping for about an hour from 1 - 2PM, he grew more and more restless, and got very clingy. He wanted me to hold him, which was SO out of character for him - he was an independent little cuss! Then he refused his supper, and just couldn't get comfortable (even in Bailey's bed). I knew he was tired, but he just kept pacing, then asking me to hold him. I had a long, sleepless night worrying about him, and had set the alarm for 2 hours earlier than usual so I could get him to the vet as soon as they opened - didn't NEED the alarm, since I never went to sleep.

Gumball drank a good bit of water around 11:30PM, and slept for about an hour. We got up around 1AM, and I took him outside to pee. Then more pacing around the bedroom. He fell asleep again around 4AM. I finally gave up on sleep and got up at 4:30 AM and showered, and then thought I would get some computer work done while we waited for the vet to open.  I logged onto the computer at 5AM, and at 5:10 I heard the bells on Gumball's collar going crazy, and thought he must be up and ready to go outside again. But no --- he was having a grand mal seizure. Scary. It lasted a long time - and then he was only semi-conscious for about 20 minutes afterward. Then his gait was very abnormal, and he paced in circles in the backyard for 2 hours until we could leave for the vet.

He was running a fever at the vet - about 2 degrees higher than normal. The vet could tell from the history that bloodwork was probably not going to reveal anything treatable, and recommended that we put him to sleep, which I had known was going to happen ever since the seizure - and so I lost my buddy Gumball this morning, and I really miss him!

Gumball on Sunday, 6/17/12 - curled up in his bed, but keeping one eye on me.

Last picture I took of Gumball - Sunday, 6/17/12. He loved to sneak into Bailey's big bed and curl up.

In the foreground? That's a big bowl of the metal beads I've been struggling to ream, waiting for me on the bedside table. The walls are scratched and dirty because unlike Gumball, Bailey has to squeeze into this space, and often scratches the walls when he turns around.

The first time Gumball coopted Bailey's bed - shortly after I rescued him. He looks so sick here (and he was.) Notice how much cleaner and less scratched the walls were. This was July, 2010.

My perky, "Zombie" Gumball - sucking on a rawhide chew, eyes glowing...

Gumball came in to my life July 22, 2010 - I had him for 23 months, and he was a wonderful dog. He was a roadside rescue who had clearly had a rough life before he stumbled in front of my car.  He went to work everyday with Bailey and me, greeted all the customers, and kept a watchful eye on his new Mama. He definitely had mama issues - he would cry so pitifully when he couldn't find me. He was deaf, almost blind, and had no bottom jaw, but he was a little fighter - and at home he fiercely defended his territory and his Mom - often giving Bailey an earful if Bailey got too close to me, or to Gumball's food, or Gumball's bed, or my bed, or to whatever territory Gumball had decided Bailey needed to back the hell away from! But at the bead shop? Different story - he was just as meek and mild as could be. Always on his best behavior!

He always ate like there was no tomorrow, prompting me to once compare him to the planet-eating Doomsday Machine on an old Star Trek episode. He especially loved people food - as long as it was meat. Fish, chicken, beef, pork - didn't matter. He wanted it NOW. And if he didn't get it, he started asking for it, LOUDLY. And a few months ago I discovered he loved ice cream (but not Frosty Paws!) - and I would always give him a little. He was quite the character.

Miss you, Gumball! I know I'll keep checking to make sure you aren't right under my feet every time I get up for a long, long time. The shop is so empty without you, and I know the house will be, too, when I get home tonight.

Gumball is Home

We ran ads, put up flyers, left flyers at all the vet offices in the area, and did a few more things, and no one has stepped forward to claim this little guy. Which just dumbfounds me - I wish he could just tell me where he came from, and what he's been through. He is SUCH an angel.

As small as he is, he is able to jump up on most of the furniture - and acts like he has always been a furniture-sitting kind of dog. Certainly, at the very least, he was a well-cared for, inside dog.

After 2 weeks with no responses, I took him to Bailey's regular vet, who did a thorough exam, and agreed with the vet from the animal hospital - he had been well-cared for, lots of money had been spent on his surgeries, and he is in excellent health, other than being underweight.

She (Bailey's vet) estimated, based on his current body weight, that he had been on the run for about 4 months when I rescued him, because he was just over 25% below his normal body weight. And therefore, he needs to gain 4 pounds. Which I could easily gain in one day, but not so with poor Gumball.

She wants to start him on Rimadyl because of his severe arthritis (you can hear the bone-on-bone grinding noise from one of his hind legs/hips when he walks, and his gait just in general is "arthritic") - but Rimadyl is more expensive than I can afford (even though she tried to break it down for me, and told me it was only 46 cents a day). That didn't really change anything because I can do math, and 46 cents a day is still basically $170/year. So I did a little research when I got home, and learned that while dogs canNOT take ibuprofen, they CAN take enteric-coated aspirin, which is also an anti-inflammatory. And they can also take glucosamine chondroitin - and so I started him on both of these, for way less than 46 cents/day. Just started them yesterday, so I don't see any changes yet.

We went straight from the vet to PetSmart, which was having a going-out-of-business sale, and I let him try out a few beds, and he picked his favorite, and so I bought 2; 1 for home, and 1 for work. And we also bought a nice sturdy set of pet stairs, so that he can get up on my bed (and down) without being lifted (and without jumping off the bed, which can't be good for his arthritis). The little guy really doesn't like to be lifted - I'm sure it hurts his arthritis. But he wants to be right by my side.

At home he is fond of claiming Bailey's giant bed - which of course peeves poor Bailey. But Gumball only does this during the day - at night he sleeps in his own new bed.

We get up about every 3 to 4 hours during the night for potty breaks, because he's a small dog, and also an old dog, and just can't comfortably make it through the night without going. He WAS holding it all night when he was sleeping in the crate, but after the 1st week (probably as he was gaining strength) he let me know that he had NO intentions of spending the night in that crate. And since I have to get up myself every 3-4 hours during the night, sadly, I just now have added in throwing on shoes and  taking him downstairs and out into the yard. And then back upstairs again. He is actually walking all this way himself now - I rarely need to carry him, but all this extra activity for ME at night is making it very hard for me to fall back to sleep, so I am basically tired and sleepy all the time.

I see improvements in him everyday, and after the 1st 2 weeks, he has become a regular eating machine.

After the vet told me he needed to gain 4 pounds, I started to feed him much more often, so he's eating what seems like a huge amount of food, with real gravy for even more calories, about every 3 hours. And it seems like the more I feed him, the more he wants - it's gotten to where every time I take him out he comes back in and starts doing the little "feed me" dance in the kitchen, hopping around the spot where his bowl goes while I fix his special food. Another thing that peeves Bailey greatly. (the special food, and the frequent feedings)

The basic routine is eat (which takes almost an hour), then sleep for 3-4 hours, then potty, then eat, etc., etc.

But when we get up in the middle of the night for potty breaks, I am not giving in to his demands for a meal after every potty break - although he is certainly asking for one. I'm going to run him over to the vet in a couple of weeks to check his weight - I sure hope he's gaining. I thought he was BEFORE I took him to my vet, because he was so much more active, and his eyes were brighter, he was more alert, and he looked more filled out than when I had rescued him. But at the vet visit, he had actually LOST almost a whole pound from what he weighed the day I picked him up - do you remember me half-joking awhile back that when they weighed him at the animal hospital he was so flea-infested that I was sure 1 pound of his body weight that day was fleas? 

He sort of reminds me of the "Doomsday Machine" from the classic Star Trek episode of the same name - which was basically just a giant maw that ate everything in its path                                                                                                                                                                          

and even tried to eat the Enterprise!











The only difference (well, maybe not the only one) between Gumball and the Doomsday Machine is that it takes Gumball almost an hour to eat each meal, since he doesn't have any teeth and no lower jaw. He has to work the food into the back of his mouth and down his throat with his tongue, and he makes a big mess, and he may take a long time, but he sure is determined, and he loves eating!

The day before we went to the vet, I had given Bailey a big marrow bone, and Gumball stole it. The vet said that Gumball remembers eating solid food and chewing bones, and that it is OK to let him have the bones (even though he can't chew them), so now he has them, and he licks and licks them, and just has a big old time. And as long as it makes him happy, I'm OK with it.

Of course, Bailey is not pleased with all the bone-stealing, even though I immediately give him another one. Bailey, of course, devours them in a matter of minutes, and I'm sure he doesn't understand how Gumball can just casually spend days savoring one. So Bailey has gotten in the habit of waiting until Gumball gets out of his bed, and then Bailey "sneaks" over and steals the bone. And I can tell every time he's done it, because he sort of ducks his head and tries to hide the fact that he has a huge, re-stolen bone in his mouth.

This is Gumball's favorite spot at the shop - in his bed, staring at me. He spends most of the day there (with frequent meal and potty breaks), but if I have to be up and wandering around, he follows me like a baby duckling, And if the store is full of customers, he gets confused by all the legs, and will start running around trying to find my legs.       

Yesterday was a very busy day at the shop, and so Gumball was excited, and running around trying to keep track of me.  I even left for an hour to run errands and pick up lunch, and when I got back, Gumball wasn't in his bed, and my employee told me he had wandered through the store in a continuous loop the whole time I was gone, looking for me.

I had picked up Chic-Fil-A for lunch, and I went into the backroom to fix Gumball his lunch, so he could be eating while we ate out front, and before I even put his bowl down on the floor, my loyal employee had started hand feeding her chicken nuggets to Gumball - she was breaking them in half, and dropping them in his mouth like a baby bird, and he was in 7th heaven. So then he completely refused to eat his own food, and when her nuggets were gone, he came over to me and started begging for my chicken. Which, naturally, I gave him.

So now we have created a tablefood-begging monster.

And this is my little sweetie sleeping on the job.

After he finishes his meals, he usually sleeps for 3 or 4 hours if we are at home, where there are no interruptions. At the shop, if we are having a slow day he'll sleep that long, and then wake up, go potty, and demand more food. But if a customer comes in, he wakes up, and usually goes over to greet them.

                                                                              

So, it is now too late to make a long story short. But Gumball seems to be thriving, and seems happy, and is here to stay.And Bailey is still jealous and pouty, but is doing much better.

And I need to take this opportunity to give a huge shout-out to Jan from Heartworks. She is a very special lady, and a very talented graphic artist, and she did something incredibly nice for me, and so thoughtful. She'll never understand how touched I was. You guys take a few minutes and check out her beautiful work - and trust me, she can do incredible custom orders!

I apologize for the length of this post, and I feel pretty certain it rambled, and I repeated stuff. I had a really rough night; didn't sleep much at all because of a headache that wouldn't respond to any medications (all of which should have made me sleep) - so between the headache & not sleeping, I can't concentrate well today. I have tried to reread this post for editing purposes, and I can't even concentrate enought to do that - sorry!

I doubt this will end well

Our new little visitor came home from work today all tuckered out (doesn't take much to tucker him out) and he wandered behind a chair in my bedroom and discovered Bailey's bed. And he curled up, and hasn't moved yet.

It's been 2.5 hours now.

Bailey hasn't noticed yet - he is reveling in having me all to himself on the bed. But he will notice eventually.

Can't wait to see how that goes - last night, after the little guy had finished his dinner, he strolled over to Bailey's dinner, and proceeded to start drinking all the "gravy" out of Bailey's bowl. I had been upstairs changing clothes, and I came down to discover Bailey lying down 6 feet away from his bowl, watching the little guy chow down - my big old baby submissive Bailey had just walked away from his food, and offered it up to the intruder.

We'll see if he shares his bed. My guess is he will go find another comfy place, like the throw rug int the bathroom, and sack out there, rather than force a confrontation. He is such a sweet sharer!

Rescuing Gumbo

While driving to work yesterday morning, on a long country road that is not heavily traveled, but those who DO use it drive ~60 mph, I spotted a very small dog ambling slowly toward me in the middle of my lane.

This road is a notorious dog-dumping area, and the dogs usually form small packs and travel together, and always get off the road when cars are coming. And people feed them (volunteers stop several times a week and slice open large bags of dry dog food in a couple of places way off to the side of this road), so other than the fact that it is 100 degrees everyday right now, I don't worry too much about these doggies (there is a big creek and a lake right there, for water) - but this little dog was different. He was not showing any signs of getting off the road, so I stopped the car - the road was deserted; got out and crouched down, and he slowly walked straight to me. I scooped him up and plopped him in the passenger seat, and started driving on toward Augusta.

All this time I was thinking this was a puppy - he was SO small, and so friendly - but I was driving rather than paying much attention to him, and he had settled down with his back to me. Bailey was camped out in the back seat, but more than a little curious, and thousands of thoughts were running through my head - I figured that a stray (he had no collar, and was kind of bedraggled looking) whose tongue was hanging 3 inches out of his mouth and was probably sick - certainly dehydrated and malnourished, and probably infested with ticks and fleas and GI parasites, and possibly heartworm, and who knew what else. I just knew I couldn't take him to the store with me and Bailey.

So I pulled up to the store, and quickly shoved Bailey inside, and grabbed a cup of water, and returned to the car. The dog refused the water, which I knew couldn't be good, and I drove on to an Acute Care Animal Hospital that I had had to use once for Bailey.

I filled out all the paperwork, and they put me in an exam room with him to wait for the doctor. The doctor knew I had essentially no money, and when she came in, she actually looked at the dog (of course, she did a full exam) but after just a quick look she asked me what I wanted to do, as this dog was probably 15 years old, and had previously had his entire mandible (lower jaw) surgically removed, as well as all of his upper teeth removed surgically, and might possibly be quite ill.

I told her that I didn't rescue him just to bring him in for her to kill him, and we agreed that she would do some basic bloodwork - some simple chemistry and hematology panels, and also the blood test for heartworm, and they would check his stool for GI parasites (worms, basically). She could tell he was anemic because of the color of his tongue, and he was just covered with ticks and fleas, so they were going to give him a Capstar tablet to get rid of all the fleas, and then bathe him. He weighed 11 lbs, and I am certain 1 lb of this was fleas

I left him there, and the doctor told me she would call when she knew more - but we had agreed that if there was evidence of organ failure or other serious medical illnesses that it wouldn't make sense to do much more for him.

On the way back to the shop, I kept thinking, "What have I done?" Bailey is such a Mama's boy, and this was clearly an older, and sick dog. I stopped at Target and picked up flea spray (the kind you spray on the dog AND the kind you spray on carpets, upholstery, etc) and flea bombs, and when I got back to the shop I immediately sprayed down the car, and then went inside and sprayed down Bailey really well.

The vet called me late that afternoon to tell me that ALL of his bloodwork was normal except he was profoundly anemic, but that he had no heartworm, no GI worms - was actually very healthy other than being malnourished and dehydrated, and anemic. He was showing severe allergic and infectious reactions to the flea bites - so she was starting him on prednisone and antibiotics, and liquid iron for his anemia. She said he had a ferocious appetite, and had eaten 3 servings of a special gruel type of dogfood they had (he has to have pureed food, because he has no teeth, and even if he had upper teeth, he has no lower jaw, so he still wouldn't be able to chew. He had drunk a little bit, but she had also given him IV fluids. And he was 100% free of fleas and ticks, and I could come get him.

After the shop closed, I took Bailey and went to pick up the dog. The tech and the doctor spent a long time explaining to me how to feed him, and how to get him to drink water, and how to give him his meds. The vet felt very strongly that this poor dog had NOT been abandoned - the surgeries that he has undergone are very expensive, and take a lot of recovery time, and she felt that no one would invest that much time and energy into saving a pet (she suspects the surgery was done for cancer) would then abandon the animal. And she explained that he had been very well-cared for up until he went missing, because he had obviously been on heartworm medicine, and he couldn't have been gone too long because he hadn't picked up any GI parasites, and because of the fact that he can only eat pureed food, and certainly wasn't going to find this in the wild, so he could not have been out there for long.

And, it turns out, the vet had named him "Gumbo" while he followed her around all day. I really have mixed feelings about that, because if I can find his owners, I want him to return home, and giving him a name makes it that much harder to remain a little emotionally detached.

When I arrived home, I took him outside and he peed, and we went inside and I placed him in my bathtub while I went about digging Bailey's old crate (poor Bailey refused to house train, and I had to train him with a crate. Only took 2 days, but it was totally worth the price of the crate!) out of the attic and assembling it. It took about 45 minutes to get the thing out of the attic and get it put together, and since I wasn't entirely sure about the dog's house-training skills, I decided the bathtub was the safest place. And he promptly fell asleep in there. I figured he must be exhausted - I imagined that this poor old dog had been walking for several days, and not eating or drinking, and I knew he hadn't slept at the Animal Hospital, so I just assumed he was tired.

I found an old comforter to put in the crate, and put a water bowl in there, and put the dog in there, and he curled up and went to sleep.

I woke him up a few hours later to eat, and take meds, and go outside. Then I held him in my lap for several hours - thinking I was showing him he was safe, etc. Bailey was mightily peeved by this lap time stuff.

Took him out again around 11 PM, and he peed, and I put him back in the crate (which is huge!) and he slept through 'til 8:30 this morning. I carried him outside, he peed, we came in, he ate - and we went to work.

I had found a basket that fit him nicely, and put some towels in it, and he curled up and slept. Slept in that basket behind the register for most of the day.

He can hear pretty well, and he sees well, and is sweet as can be. He does NOT like to be picked up - I think it hurts his arthritis. He doesn't mind being held, but the picking up is a struggle. And I don't want to hurt him, but I carry him up and down stairs, and if we are walking long distances (like to the pee-spot at work) because he just can't seem to walk this far yet, and he was having some trouble with stairs.

At first, last night, he could only make it up my deck stairs if I lifted his butt - he would lift up the front of his body, and then I would carry the butt end up the step -and that's how we got up the 6 or 7 deck stairs. Then, this morning, he started trying to do the deck stairs on his own, but he had a little sideways hop method that scared me a bit, so I ended up helping him again. Then, after work tonight, he just bolted straight up the deck steps - so I am seeing little improvements all the time.

I realize that he was sick and tired and run down and anemic and malnourished yesterday, and we have him on all these medications to restore him back to his baseline. And I hope his baseline is fairly healthy. I recognize that he probably HAD cancer, and it can always come back.

So he slept about 22 out of the past 24 hours, and I don't know whether this is normal for him, or part of his recovery process.

I'm trying everything I know to do to find his owners (if they indeed want him) - but I have an appt in 10 days to see Bailey's vet, and become an official member of our family.

He gives every appearance of being house-trained; he woke up today at the shop and stood up and kind of looked at me, and I carried him outside, and he had a nice long pee - he has had no accidents inside. And he hasn't pooped yet at all, but the vet said that is due to him not having eaten for a number of days.

The fact that he has no lower jaw makes eating a very peculiar process, but he is clearly used to this. His tongue hangs out because there is no way for him to close his mouth. When he eats or drinks, he kind of twirls his tongue like a prop-plane propeller, and scoops some food or water onto it and flicks it to the back of his throat. This is much more efficient with food, because it sticks to his tongue, and he can get it back there and swallow it. With water, most of the water flies off before he can get it swallowed, and more ends up on his chest and the floor than in his throat, so the vet suggested today that I started serving him water through a syringe, directly into the back of his throat - and he doesn't mind at all.

So I may or may not have a new dog - Bailey walks 3 miles out of his way to avoid walking near the crate the dog is in. It's pretty funny - he goes behind chairs, over the bed, and under tables just to avoid walking by the crate. I am not sure if it is because he remembers being in it when he was 7 weeks old, or because the new dog is in there. When we are outside, he tries to get the new dog to play - I guess because it is so small that it looks like a puppy. Bailey goes down into a play bow, and then charges the dog, who just casually steps to the side and totters away. And Bailey definitely does not want me holding the new dog in my lap.

Just really not sure how this is gonna turn out. I know I spent $500 yesterday at the Animal Hospital, and that special food and a geriatric dog with health issues isn't really something I want to sign up for. But I know I couldn't have left him on that road.

Ideally, all the flyers, or newspaper ads, or Facebooking will help locate his owners, and they will welcome him home.

If you are reading this, and live in the Aiken/North Augusta/Augusta area, please Facebook it, or Tweet it, or e-mail it to anyone you know in this area - I really want to get the word out about this little guy!.