Grand Lady Snickers passes away April 21, 2019

[amydunn19]

I rotate the flavors of Nutrisca - chicken, lamb and salmon. If you do try Nutrisca, I will tell you that we went from 5 units of insulin down to 2.5 units. Are you testing blood sugar? If not, I would. Low glycemic food can be tricky and it doesn't work for everyone. It can cause lows - maggie gets 4 meals (things like frozen yogurt(yoghund) and a carby bones or freeze dried meats). Low glycemic food can need what I call propping up to have staying power but it could just be her.

[LizE]

Re: Snickers' story

So this morning I gave Snicker's a fur shot. I've been trying to be careful with the shots because she was having pain with them initially but this morning it just went wrong.

Do you just leave it as is? I feel terrible because this morning she ate all her food without much fuss and her numbers were a little high.

[jesse girl]

Re: Snickers' story

the thing about fur shots is do you know for sure that no insulin got into the body ? if not most dont repeat with another shot but if you want to make a few more tests today you maybe able to give a quarter of the dose maybe up to an hour after meal but i could see 2 hours because the shot is so much smaller

[chrmyr]

Re: Snickers' story

We have had similar issues as our girl is young and this is our first at this. Definitely tely don't try again as you can never be sure if you got any in or not. We waited till it was time for the next shot but we will be started to test at ho!e next week.

[LizE]

Re: Snickers' story

I opted to wait and not give her another shot. Numbers were high last night and again this morning as expected. I'm pretty sure I missed her completely. She even sat and looked at me before the walk like she knew she didn't get any insulin and she needed a real shot .

But she's been acting normal with no excessive thirst or urination. Could be worse I guess.

[Monsters Momma]

Re: Snickers' story

So this morning I gave Snicker's a fur shot. I've been trying to be careful with the shots because she was having pain with them initially but this morning it just went wrong.

Do you just leave it as is? I feel terrible because this morning she ate all her food without much fuss and her numbers were a little high.

We recently missed a shot with Vinny too...although ours was due to forgetfulness and not a fur shot. Couldn't figure out why he was so high! Oh well, they survive, as you have found out!

Hang in there!
Mel and Vinny

[LizE]

Re: Snickers' story

So today Snickers had a physical. The vet said she has a slight heart murmur. He graded it a II. This wasn't her regular vet - there are three at the practice but I voluntarily will see any of them - but no one has noticed this before.

Starting tomorrow (after she's not so stressed from the visit to the vet) I have to start tracking her resting respiratory rate and send it to them. Should I be worried? Is this the beginning of the end?

I feel like we are just getting the diabetes thing figured out and now this. I didn't realize she was getting a physical today, thought she was just getting her dhp and bordetella updated so I wasn't prepared with any numbers for the vet. I'm about the only person at the practice who tests at home so he wasn't concerned about that too much - he thought that all her clinical signs looked good.

Anyway, I know that until I get the respiratory rate collected I won't know more but all my friends have young healthy puppies so I can't unload on them so you all get to hear about it.

[amydunn19]

Re: Snickers' story

My schnauzer has a grade 3 heart murmur. I don't know why you should have to monitor respiration at this point - we don't do anything like that. We try to have her ultrasound done every year to see progression. My schnauzer has zero problems. We try not to get her out when it is too hot in the summer walking or running because she pants really hard but she has zero symptoms day to day. They can go years at grade two and not progress until much later.

[LizE]

Re: Snickers' story

Thanks for the encouragement. They just want me to get a baseline on her resting rate for future reference. She was pretty stressed at the vet yesterday so he didn't feel like they could get any accurate idea of how she is really doing. If it's over 30 breaths/min they might do an x-ray but it's in a wait and see mode right now.

[amydunn19]

The vet's office is literally the worst place to get a read on a dog and how they are - stress plays such a role in how they feel.

[LizE]

Re: Snickers' story

Last week marked Snicker's One Year Sugarversary! We couldn't have done it without this forum to help us through it all. We are so grateful for all of the help and support. While Snickers is not a very difficult case compared to others she will be turning 16 in the next couple of weeks. Every extra day with her is a blessing.

For much of the year I've had limited internet access (by either choice or by happenstance) and have not checked in on this site very often so I'll give a quick update on Snickers.

She has lost almost all of her vision and hearing and gets around primary by memory and smell. She gets one big "walk" in the morning - mostly a lot of sniffing and ideally some interaction with one of the neighborhood dogs. Otherwise she sleeps. A lot. So much so that we always check to see if she's still breathing when we walk past her.

While it probably sounds depressing Snickers is pretty happy and has more than enough "Puppy Attitude" to convince us that she still loves getting up every morning. This fall we took her tailgating to an Iowa State game and she was so excited! She has her own stroller because of her limited mobility so she was in full princess mode, right in her element.

I"m so sorry to read of all the furry friends here that have passed these last several months. Each story is so heart wrenching. It's so difficult when some of our greatest joys in life also eventually lead to such overwhelming sadness. My thoughts and prayers to everyone that has suffered a loss.

I'll try to be better about checking in - especially if it's good news.

[jesse girl]

Re: Snickers' story

congrats on the one year milestone that first year is quite a bit a learning curve

it sounds like your in a nice routine with snickers and thats pretty good for a 16 year old pup still enjoying a dogs life

[Auddog]

Congratulations on your 1 year Sugar-versary!!
I've always been of the mind set that if our older pups still have a joy for life and want to get out of bed in the morning there's no reason not to let them stick around. It's really nice to hear these positive updates
Good Job to you and Snickers!!
Audrey

[farrwf]

Re: Snickers' story

Congrats to you and Snickers on the milestone!

[LizE]

Re: Snickers' story

Snickers had a terrible bout of diarrhea in the night. She had a pretty normal day yesterday although a couple of hours after supper I noticed she didn't seem well but nothing overwhelming

Since this morning she had gone outside about every one to two hours and with a little bit of diarrhea (there is almost nothing left in her system) but she doesn't seem to be acting like she feels that bad but she has had nothing to eat or drink since she got up.

I'm not worried about her not eating but I'm getting concerned about the not drinking. She has not vomited. Could this be pancreatitis?

How long do you wait until you have her checked by the vet? She gets pretty stressed out there so I try to avoid unnecessary visits.