Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Will Minnie follow Jasmine!

Jasmine...was the pet we had before Minnie came in. She was beautiful and understood my husband really well..had the magic in her to cure his cough by sleeping on his chest when he was unwell...But we lost her too early. To forget Jasmine's loss we got Minnie.


Minnie has been with us for the last 8 yrs now. Notorious & highly greedy for food as any other labrador you would know. She's veggie Dog, not that she hasnt tasted Non-veg. But being brought up in a house where only Veg food is cooked, she has adjusted well to our cooking & tastes. Her normal day would otherwise be with 3 day meal(rotis, rice & milk, Dosa, idli, Bread, Pedigree) with Biscuits in the evening and any other snack that anyone else would have in the house. Her favourites Mango, Papaya, Carrots & Banana. No one in the house is supposed to eat Mango/ Papaya without giving it to her, else we are sure to go deaf. Friends visiting our house would often say that she's huge, all we would do is talk about her.

She has been one member of the family who kept my mum-in-law busy and away from loneliness from the beginning. She is one key member, who gets attention at all times. She wants to be treated equal in the house, but behaves like a child all the time, playful, hungry for outings.

Last 2 months she has been getting her outings...Car tatas...for a wrong reason. She has been taking rounds with her Vet every 15 days. About 2 months back we detected a lump, got to know that it was a Mammory tumour, which was growing at a fast pace. We decided to get her operated and found that it was a malignant tumour. Chemotherapy was started, but she went through it quite well, without any side effects. The wound also healed well without trouble. But by this time we started noticing another new lump, this turned out to be Lymph node tumour. Minnie very bravely and successfully underwent another surgery. She recovered. We were glad that it was over. Just 3 weeks back, we noticed one more new lump. Took her to the vet. He noticed there were two. But surgery would be the solution is what he said, as removing both the lumps would not be possible and removing one tumour would lead to increase in the size of the other :-(. She was put on Chemotherapy again. She has to go through 3 rounds. One round of chemptherapy was given 2 weeks back. First day she didnt eat much, hesitated to go near her meal. But by day 2 she was back to eating, not huge quantities, but she was eating. Now for the past four days she has been keeping unwell. She has lost her appetite completely. Anything she eats comes out. She's living on water, Glucose water & 2-3 biscuits a day. Tried Ice-cream, she atleast ate it, but then within an hour, everything was vomited out. We have been asked to give her Glucose water and Liv52 to increase her appetite. Wonder what she will eat even if her appetite increases. She hates the sight of Rice & milk which was her normal diet. She loved bread, thats also out of her list for now. For the last two days she has been crying in pain(thats my guess), must be the cramps that she is getting because of no solid food and may be acidity. If she's gonna eat Ice-creams atleast, am going to buy her a huge stock of it. She's looking for all the cozy places and soft bedding she can get. May be its the pain that she is unable to go through. The Vet says, its all normal, but we see her losing weight & hair massively. For someone who has been looked after like any other family member, this should not be happening. I call her my mum-in-law's daughter..thats how she has been looked after. The vet says that if we had spayed her, she wouldnt have had this problem, but why arent these things told to a pet owner when the pet is taken for its vaccinations!! Is the owner of the pet supposed to know everything? We have read so many Pet care books, I dont remember having read about compulsary spaying! Wish we had known about this, may be we could have avoided the trouble & pain that Minnie is going through now. We have to find out a solution to her pain & suffering. What is it that will help her....I hope we are able to help her..and find a way out for her.
Update: Thursday- November 06, 2008 was the D-Day for Minnie. Dr.Bhat, her vet visited our place to give her the freedom from her sufferings.