Wrigley seems to think Gray is her puppy. She cleans him, protects him from our other dog Cohen even though Cohen wouldn’t hurt a fly, and basically offers herself up to our kid as his own personal rag doll dog.
I swear, sometimes she gives me a look that just screams, “You are not a good momma, I’m a gooder momma than you are. Just ask the 7 puppies I birthed-ded under a trailer in Arkansas and kept alive for two weeks all by myself. Just let me do this. You know I’m better…geez!”
This is a recent video of the sweetness between “Momma Wrigley” and her human puppy, Grayson. It was a rainy day and these two were watching Puppy Dog TV together (aka – looking out the front door). Gray is playing with Wrigs’ DogLeggs, and I’m pretty sure she is trying to signal to him to take them off. She also gives him a few cleansing licks for good measure.
Wrigley has a hurt front elbow currently and has to wear something called DogLeggs for a while to give her elbow some cushion and time to rest. DogLeggs are like Dr. Scholl’s Gel Inserts for puppy dog joints. It’s a great product. So great in fact that, they are custom made for your dog. And whenever you hear the word custom you know there’s going to be a few dollar signs following not too far behind. That’s okay though, I love my dogs and would go deeply into debt to save their lives and/or lessen any pain they might be in. (Sorry honey, pretend you didn’t read that last line.)
Just yesterday I was saying, I’m pretty sure he’ll be walking before his 1st birthday. I should have never opened my mouth. This morning I was filming Gray holding on to the couch and walking/dancing. Next thing I know he let go of the couch and started to walk towards me. As you may have guessed…I freaked. Sorry in advance for the 5 million times I repeat “Oh My Gosh!”, and for my high pitched mom squeal.
Unfortunately, Wrigley came to see what I was freaking about and bumped the baby with her e-collar and he fell. He got in 6-7 good, stable, and slow steps. I think he would have made it even further if not for the bump for Wrigley. I’m so proud for my little fearless guy, but I think you can figure that out when you hear me on the video.
I can’t believe this milestone is hear already. Too soon, Baby Boy, too soon.
Here she is people. In all of her after surgery glory. She’s the swallower of squeakers, the eater of anything, she’s………….Wrigley.
Little bit came home last Friday wearing an e-collar. Poor thing. Here is Cohen welcoming her back home. He pretty much doesn’t leave her side right now. It’s super sweet.
How totally pitiful does she look? Wrigley has to wear this bad boy for a full two weeks. She is only allowed out of it while using the restroom and to eat/drink. If left off too long she starts licking her wound.
I think she really pulls this look off. Don’t you?
This is what she swallowed. A squeaker. The vet said it was bent in half and stuck in her intestine. See that liquid? Yup, that’s belly juice. I have no clue why the vet felt that I may want the squeaker, but she gave it to me.
Do you scrapbook something like this?
Now she’s on a special diet of extremely bland food and tons of meds for two weeks. It’s already been a week and she’s back to her hyper self. Derek thinks it has to do with the “high energy” food she’s on. I think she’s just going stir crazy.
Her poor front legs are partially shaved due to the multiple IVs she had over the course of the week.
Here is her incision and staples. It is healing nicely and so it she. It has been 10 days since her surgery, and she is back to her typical overly peppy self. Her staples come out in about a week.
I couldn’t be happier to have my little girl safe and at home with me.
A million thanks to everyone that helped save my puppy’s life.
It happened. Tuesday morning we woke up to vomit, compliments of Wrigley. She would no longer eat and her activity level had dropped since we picked her up from the emergency vet the morning before. I called our vet and left a message with the front desk about what was going on with Wrigley. I didn’t hear back from her, so around 1:30pm I called back in asking for guidance on what to do with my little girl. To calm my troubled mind I needed to know whether I should bring her in for further observation or not. I didn’t want to be rushing to the emergency vet again.
This is not typical of Wrigley when she is outdoors.
Ten minutes later, I received a call telling me to bring Wrigley in ASAP. At the time it was simply because the doc was leaving early and for her to see Wrigley that day it had to be now or never. I was two blocks away from home when I received the call. I flew home grabbed the dog, loaded her in the back of the SUV, grabbed the baby who was still napping in his car seat (thankfully), and made the nerve wrecking drive to the vet’s office downtown. Yes, I was nervous to find out what was going on with Wrigs, but equally as nervous because Wrigs likes to jump into the back seat when she is in the car. I couldn’t have that happen, because there was a baby in the back seat. Luckily and unfortunately, she was not feeling very well so she just laid down the entire drive.
Next, I had to figure out how I would manage getting a sickly 60lbs dog, and an 8 month old into the vet’s office by myself.
***LIGHT BULB ON***
Derek literally works across the street from our vet, so I called him and asked for some assistance. Typically, I would have found a babysitter for Gray, but I had zero time to do so. Derek met me at the vet’s office and helped me get my two babies in the building. He even stayed through the entire visit to hear what the vet had to say.
After a few more x-rays and a blood test Dr. Heartsill determined that most likely there IS still something in her. I think Wrigley had us fooled for a bit, because she is so incredibly stoic. That puppy has been through so much in her short little life that a little bit of tummy pain was nothing to her. I mean she didn’t even wince when the doc squeezed on her tummy. Since her white blood cell count was severely elevated and her x-ray showed a large build up of gas we all decided surgery was the best option. Even though we still were not certain there was actually something in there Dr. Heartsill informed us that all signs pointed to YES. She said she would rather go in there and not find anything then not operate and Wrigley die. I totally agreed.
I kissed my baby on the head, told her goodbye, and walked out the door. I actually held it together. I think I knew surgery was always a strong possibility, and I already went through the shock and massive amount of crying Saturday and Sunday. I cry every night when I pray for her. It’s just to hard not to.
How amazing is our vet? She was planning to leave early that day, but cancelled her plans and all other appointments at the office that afternoon so she could operate on Wrigley ASAP. Within 30 minutes of us walking out the door Wrigley was on the operating table. When Dr. Heartsill told me she was clearing her schedule to save my dogs life I did everything in my power not to run up and hug her. They preformed an abdominal exploratory on Wrigley. Not to gross you out, but it’s where they open the abdominal cavity and examine the abdominal organs. In Wrigley’s case, her intestines.
The entire weekend Derek and I were certain that she had only eaten some form of fabric from one of her toys. Thanks to the phone call from one of the vet staff during surgery we came to find out that it was indeed the squeaker that was still lodged in her belly. Dr. Heartsill call me herself once the surgery was over. She informed me that Wrigley did AMAZING. That was so wonderful to hear. There was minor bruising to her intestines, but not so much that she felt they needed to be removed. Since Wrigs responded so well to surgery we decided to allow her to spend the night at the vet even though they don’t have overnight staff. Otherwise, Derek and I would have needed to pick her up from our vet, put her in the back of our SUV on a gurney and drive 1/2 way across town to the emergency vet for overnight observation. That would have been another $500. Yikes! Then an amazing thing happened. Dr. Heartsill called me back and told me that Jamie, the tech that always assist Dr. Heartsill when we visit, offered to check in on Wrigley around 11pm that night. How awesome is that? I love this office.
If you live in Memphis and are looking for a new vet, and don’t mind driving downtown, check out the Downtown Animal Hospital. You won’t be sorry.
My sweet little girl is still at the vet recovering, and is doing well. Dr. Heartsill calls us everyday, sometimes twice a day, to keep us up to date on her progress. They said that she gets so excited when she gets to go out in the yard to potty. I told them that was her happy place so that made total sense. She is eating, not a ton, but she is eating. So far she is holding everything down. She is not running a fever and doesn’t appear to be in any pain. She is high as a kite on pain meds.
I miss her so much. Even though I have a house full of boys right now (Derek, Grayson, & Cohen) the house feels empty. Derek noticed it too. She really completes this family. She’s the family member that keeps everyone on their toes, can always make us laugh, and keeps the energy level up. I can’t wait to have her back in my arms. She may be dog, cat, bird, and mailman aggressive, but if you are a friend of ours she is the sweetest most loving dog in the world. She is so protective of our family. I think it’s because she mothered 7 puppies of her own. Did y’all know that she kept them alive for 2 weeks under a trailer? She was a stray with nowhere to go and 7 puppies to birth and care for. How awesome is this chick?
Now it’s my turn to take care of my puppy.
Don’t worry, we were just playing in this pic. I was trying to get her to chase me.
I’ll keep you updated on her recovery. Please pray that it is a quick and safe one.
I would like all of you to focus on the EMERGENCY part of this sign, because this is where I was at 11pm Saturday night. Three weeks ago Cohen was taking massive watery dumps all over my house due to stomach issues, and this week I had Wrigley barfing everywhere. She nailed two area rugs, in two places each, and the carpeted stairs.
Question, why do pets, mainly dogs, manage to aim their vomit, pee, and/or poo at rugs. Why can’t they just barf on the wood floor like a normal drunk? In the toilet would be even better…no clean up required.
Seriously though, my little girl was sick as a dog. Pardon the pun. But really, she was lethargic, wouldn’t touch her food (totally not normal for her), and wouldn’t come in from the backyard. Wrigley is typically an overly hyperactive dog. I mean spaz level of hyper activity.
See what I mean?
So, when she just laid in the house and barely moved, and just laid in the flowerbed in the freezing backyard and wouldn’t come back inside we knew it was time to take action. I did a little research on the web about her symptoms and possible cause, and I began to get really scared. It seems that at some point Friday evening Wrigley swallowed a portion of her toy. It was a plush bear that squeaked. She had already pulled all the stuffing and the squeaker out, but she’s never eaten any of it before. Saturday morning Derek found the portion she ate thrown up on the living room rug. Throughout the day she vomited more and more and started looking worse and worse. She threw it up, but she was becoming so lethargic and not eating/pooping that we thought she might have a piece stuck in her intestines.
If there was still part of her toy in her it would most likely require surgery to remove. I couldn’t bare the thought of my sweet girl under the knife, but if that’s what I had to do to save her life that’s what would happen. We also noticed that she no longer had normal bowel movements. They were watery and bloody.
At 10:30pm on Saturday night I headed to the emergency vet clinic. I couldn’t wait to see what this was going to cost us. Thankfully, we save…a lot. Or did save, before I was a SAHM. Anywho, we were prepared and it wouldn’t bankrupt us to pay the bill. It just seems that we’ve been incurring quite a few of these “bills” lately.
Replacing our sewer line :: $3,900
Buying a new server since our old one got fried by a recent storm :: $700
New laptop charger since baby killed the old one :: $100
6 month vet check up for both dogs :: $400
That’s just to name a few.
Little Bit waiting for her x-ray.
They did an x-ray and although they could not see any objects in her there was something that worried them. I was told that soft objects are extremely hard to detect in an x-ray. The vet noticed small pockets of gas bunched together in a very small area in her intestines. He said it was possible that the fabric was bunched up in her and was trapping gas. With fabric like this there was a very, very small chance that she would pass it. He gave me two options. Since we weren’t certain that there was any fabric still in her, and we brought her in early enough they could put her on an IV to give her fluids, and observe her overnight. Or they could go straight to surgery to try to remove the possible object.
I called Derek who was at home with the baby and sobbed the options into the phone. There were a few times I had to stop talking, because I physically could not form the words. We decided no matter the cost we would opt for surgery if that’s what the vet thought was best. Guess how much surgery to remove something from a dog’s intestines cost at the ER vet. $2,500!!!! Even though it was a huge chunk of change; we were ready to pay it if it meant keeping our puppy alive.
I spoke to the vet and asked him what he would do. He suggested taking the conservative route since we weren’t 100% certain anything was actually in there. That meant they would keep her overnight for observation. During this observation period they would give her fluids through and IV, put her on anti-nausea meds, and also give her something to calm down any indigestion she might be having. The doc said that if at any point she began vomiting again they would suggest moving forward with surgery.
Around 1am I left my puppy in the hands of the staff at PetMed Emergency Services, and cried all the way home. I did my best not to cry too much because I wanted to live to see my dog again, but that’s easier said than done. I did quite a bit more crying once I got home, and then passed out due to exhaustion. Needless to say, we did not make it to church Sunday morning. I woke that morning with an intense headache that finally went away Monday morning.
The vet decided it would be best to keep her one last night for observation and to keep her on fluids. She did not throw up the entire time she was under observation, but her fate was still unknown.
Monday morning Derek went to pick her up. I would have been the one to go get her, but sometimes my headaches get so bad it’s not very easy to drive. I stayed home with the baby while Derek picked up my furbaby. I missed that little girl so much. $1,200 later, sans surgery, my little girl returned home. Since they are an emergency vet office you MUST pick your pet up by 8am Monday morning, and then take them to your personal vet if care is still needed.
When she got home she had a little pink bandage on her leg where her IV was. I loved on her for a bit and then she and I headed back to the vet. I love our vet. Wrigley and Cohen go to Dr. Heartsill at the Downtown Animal Hospital. I took Cohen there when I lived downtown, and loved it so much I never even thought about finding a vet closer to our current house. Dr. Heartsill examined Wrigs, did another set of x-rays, and cleared Wrigley to return home. The x-rays this time did not show any signs for concern. The gas pockets had dissipated, and nothing new was showing.
Thank goodness Derek was able to take off work today. It would have been really hard handling a sick infant and a sick dog. And on top of that trying to take the sick dog to the vet while carrying around a sick infant by myself. I love my husband.
Now, our little girl is at home with us once again with a new fur style. It looks like she asked for a poodle cut, but then changed her mind.
Now we just watch and wait. She’s on a few meds and get’s to eat really bland food for the next 5 days, but she home and that’s all that matters.
Gray playing in his saucer-thingy, and his toys scattered amongst the dog toys on the floor. Then there are the dogs. They sit looking out the windows praying for something to bark at. Even a leaf will do.
This is not typical of Wrigley when she is outdoors.
Don’t worry, we were just playing in this pic. I was trying to get her to chase me.
Little Bit waiting for her x-ray.
Now we just watch and wait. She’s on a few meds and get’s to eat really bland food for the next 5 days, but she home and that’s all that matters.
Gray playing in his saucer-thingy, and his toys scattered amongst the dog toys on the floor. Then there are the dogs. They sit looking out the windows praying for something to bark at. Even a leaf will do.
