Kira's Close Call

Kira had a close call at the beginning of August (2001). One morning, she wanted nothing to do with her breakfast. For Kira, that warranted an emegency trip to the Vet office. Sure enough, as soon as she was in an exam room she began to throw up. Over the next few hours, Kira became life-threatening ill, which included hemorrhaging vast amounts of blood. She was admitted to the animal hospital. Thanks to a quick response on our part and a fabulous veterinary team, Kira was released home after only a couple days. Once home, she needed round-the-clock care for the first week (my husband took off work). Unfortunately, she had an allergic reaction to her medication and developed extremely nasty sores on her body. Thankfully, it is now mid-October and she only has dandruff and a few thin patches of fur to show for her ordeal.

The moral of the story is KNOW YOUR DOG'S HABITS! Do not just leave a feeder out for your dog, and if you have a large breed or puppy break up their feeding into several meals. Thanks to the fact that Kira has a couple meals a day, we were able to pinpoint the problem in the morning instead of at night, if we had only fed her once a day. Dogs are creatures of habit; behavior changes let you know something is wrong. Most dogs will try and hide it from you if they are sick (trust me Kira was acting fine that morning - she just wouldn't eat). So, by knowing your dog's habits, if something goes wrong you stand the best chance to get to the vet early if you can spot it. No one in our vet's office thought it was strange that we rushed our girl in with a chief complaint of "wouldn't touch breakfast." It is better to be wrong and have an extra trip to the Vet that year than be right and lose precious time (or your pet) because you waited. Because we trusted our hunches, Kira got fast medical care and our vet had more time to run tests.

We Love Our Kira and are Grateful for Every Precious Moment! THANK YOU TO OUR WONDERFUL VET STAFF AND VETERINARIANS!!!
Scout's Page Back to Kira's Page Back Home