October 2014 – Ti the Tripawd Mastiff

But now I won’t get to use my witty nickname!

Tiberius will be remaining Tiberius. I will never get to call him Triberius. Or Tri, for short.

Ti will be keeping his leg. I feel like a Tripawd Fraud!

He had his consult with the surgeon yesterday. She noticed the pain in his lower back, the pain in his hips… but more than that, she noticed that he is STILL using that leg. There is no question that he is in a lot of pain. So for him to be still using it, means that he does not feel like he can do without. He would rather walk through the pain then try to walk without his leg. I didn’t think of it like that. She said she feels that he will not be able to get up on his own, which was a big concern for me. She said that she is afraid he will lose the will to live, if he can not rise on his own. The thought of that could smash my heart into bits. At first, I thought, well I can get him up! I can use the awesome harness to help him! But what about when I am not home? What about in the middle of the night when he wants to get up and reposition? How would he feel if he could not even stand up on his own?

She said that she had never seen a dog this large come through an amputation, (and they do a lot of mastiffs, obviously) but that his size alone wasn’t the deterrent. It was the other things. And if he were her dog, she would not do it. My heart says she is right. Yes, I could get a second opinion, but I am choosing to listen to my heart on this.

However, I am kinda mad.

I had myself convinced that he was going to be an awesome Tripawd. An inspiration even! I thought about how many people could be educated by seeing him get around, and asking the questions anyone would ask seeing such a big guy on three legs. But that isn’t meant to be.

Instead, Ti is getting radiation and zoledronate. We are hoping that it can decrease his pain, and therefore prolong his life. We may even get 10 months of relatively pain free bucket list time!

The good thing is that his appetite is as raging as ever. Yesterday, he wasn’t allowed to eat before his appointment. While the surgeon was talking to me, she was holding a crumpled paper towel that she had just used to dry her hands. Ti thought it looked delicious. He managed to hoist himself up and went to sniff it. She tried to show him that it was “just a paper towel” but what he heard was “scrumptious paper towel” and tried to eat it.

That’s my boy!

I will keep updating this blog, if you don’t mind hearing about a 4 legger. Gives me an outlet.

And here are some photos of him for no good reason.

Ti likes his new tempurpedic bed I cut down to twin size for him… but he is questioning my taste in sheets.

Ti appreciates that you gathered this wood for a fire, but thinks it can serve a better purpose.

Here Ti comes to save the day!!!

I’m not saying I’m psychic or anything…

But wow. Sometimes a persons intuition is scary. I’m going to go off track real quick, and tell a story about one of my other dogs, Kingston.

A little over a year ago, I was told that my older mastiff had lymphoma. I had chest X-rays, an ultrasound, and had the lymph nodes aspirated. I was told by both vets at the practice plus the internal medicine specialist who did the ultrasounds, that it was lymphoma. I did not have the aspirate sent out to Colorado, because the only purpose in doing that was to do chemo, and we decided not to do chemo for him (due to how poorly he was doing, and not wanting to wait to treat his horrible symptoms), so I never had that 100% diagnosis, but they all agreed, lymphoma was it. He had about 3 weeks to live.

I didn’t believe them. I can’t explain why, but I didn’t. People thought I was in denial. Serious denial.

He was put on Prednisone to help take down swelling in his rear legs that was so bad that he could not bend them at all. Most dogs gain weight on Prednisone. Not Kingston, he lost a lot of weight, somewhere around 40lbs. He LOOKED like a cancer patient. But still I didn’t feel right. Even though I looked up the proper Prednisone dose for a dog of his size, and knew it was in the range of normal, I felt like I was poisoning him every time I gave it to him. I weaned him down, and then down again, and even at half the dose of Prednisone that he was initially prescribed, he was still getting weaker and weaker. My vet said that half of the dose of Prednisone could not possibly be effective, let alone be causing him so much trouble.

Skinny Kingston

One Friday, when he couldn’t stand up to poop any more, I made the appointment for a vet to come out and let him go to sleep that coming Monday. After I did that, I dropped him way down on the Prednisone, until he was only getting 1/8th of what was prescribed. And he started getting stronger. In one day, I saw an improvement. By Monday morning, I knew it wasn’t his time. I canceled the appointment.

Kingston went on to gain his weight and strength back. He still has flare ups of swelling in his legs, and has been through tons of testing with no answers… but he is alive. Happy and alive and as healthy as I could hope.

I am telling this story, because I had no such feelings of disbelief when it came to Ti. In fact, I did not believe for a second that he had arthritis like my vet said. I felt so strongly that something else, something worse, was wrong, that I made an appointment at a new vet the very next day. I walked in knowing that my dog had cancer. When the vet called it an MCL tear, I was not relieved. I knew it wasn’t. When I saw the X-ray, I didn’t even look at his ligaments… All I could see was the dark shadowy place on his bone. Sometimes I hate being right.

The biggest takeaway I get from this whole thing is to listen to your gut! If something doesn’t feel right, please, trust your intuition. Vets are very important to our beloved pets health, but they do not know everything, and they don’t know your animals like you do.

I’m all good on the bad news, but thanks for the offer!

Turns out it doesn’t work that way.

Three months back, my friend DeeAnn told me that her dog, Jenna, had been diagnosed with Osteosarcoma. This was heartbreaking news, as you can imagine. Jenna and my older mastiff, Kingston, had been totally in love since they first set eyes on one another. They met on the sidewalk, which is kinda like the equivalent of meeting on a bus for dogs? Maybe? If the dog park is the bar, I definitely think the sidewalk is public transportation of some sort. Anyway, DeeAnn and I started talking, mostly to drown out the sounds of Kingston and Jenna totally making out. Gross. We had no choice but to become good friends, so we did.

When Ti came along, Kingston and Jenna let him hang out with them, but you could tell that he always felt like the third wheel.

Anyway, after reeling from the horrible news of Jenna’s OSA, DeeAnn took all the steps to save her. She had her front leg amputated, and started chemo. Jenna did wonderfully as a tripawd, she came out of the hospital with her butt wiggling and ready to go home. She even shot DeeAnn the “I got this, thanks” look when she tried to help her up the stairs for the first time upon arriving home. Jenna was doing hydrotherapy and ready to take the world by storm again. But life didn’t comply, and unfortunately, just a couple of months later, DeeAnn got the news that Jenna’s lungs were full of cancer. Chemo was stopped and Jenna had some wonderful last weeks chasing moles and sitting on the porch, watching the world.

I came to say goodbye to the beautiful Jenna on Monday, as Tuesday was the day she was going to go to sleep. Jenna was ready to go where her lungs weren’t heavy any more.

Jenna was very picky on her second to last day. She didn’t want real bacon, only fake bacon. She didn’t want cheeseburgers, or chicken sandwiches. She wanted cat food. Stella and Chewy’s dehydrated raw cat food, in Tummy Ticklin’ Turkey to be exact. I bought her every pouch at the store when I saw she wanted it.

Note the ignored bacon etc. on the ground. Mmmm Kitty food.

We took a paw print, had many snuggles, cried a little, and just reveled in what a good girl Jenna had been.

When I was leaving, DeeAnn offered me some of Jenna’s pain meds “just in case” one of my big boys needed them for something. I mentioned that Ti had been limping for a couple of weeks, and that we were going to the vet on Thursday, so I took them. What I didn’t mention was the horrible intuition I had that Ti had the same thing that Jenna did.

That thursday, my (ex) vet told me that Ti had arthritis.

So I took him to a new vet on Friday, because I’ve learned not to ignore my gut feelings. X-rays revealed what I already knew in my heart. I saw it the same time the vet did.

Saturday morning, I got the confirmation from the radiologist. That was the same Saturday that Jenna was cremated.

Rest in Peace sweet Jenna.

Meet Ti – his heart is as big as his head.

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This is Ti.

Ti’s real name is Tiberius, but he doesn’t know that. I don’t often tell people his real name, because they usually ask if he was named after Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, and I am a terrible liar. They never seem to buy the Roman Emperor thing. Anyway.

This is what Ti looks like now, more or less. Maybe a bit more grey in the muzzle. Sugar Lips.

He is 4.5 years old, he’s an American Mastiff, no, I don’t have a saddle for him, yup, he eats a lot, no, he won’t eat your dog, nope, not your small children either, sorry I can’t help you out there.

Ti has cancer.

But that isn’t what this post is about. This post is about Ti the dog. Not Ti the Dog with Cancer, or Ti the Dog who is in an Incredible Amount of Pain. This post isn’t even about Ti the Dog Whose Person is Terrified About Having His Leg Removed but Is Even More Terrified to Lose Him. This is just about Ti the dog.

Ti came home to me as a big fat meatball with a smushy crinkled face.

This is what he looked like the day I met him, when he was 4 weeks old. This also marks the last time I was able to lift him. Ok, not really. That was a couple of months later.

When Ti got home, he met his “big” Brother, Kingston. Now we just say Kingston is his “older” brother.

He also met his sisters, Ava and Zofia.

And eventually gained another brother, Milo, the foster failure

Ti grew, and he grew. When he was all done, he was the biggest being in our house at 220lbs. Roughly half of that is his head. I’m only sorta exaggerating.

Like most dogs, Ti enjoys the finer things in life. Digging in the trash can, peeing on things, waking us up at 3 am to poop, and his all time favorite, laying in the middle of the floor in the dark so you trip over him, and flail around like a drunken ballerina trying not to kill yourself or land on him. You know, fancy stuff. He’s thoughtful too, saving me from having to open the bag of dog food by opening it all by himself. Moving the couch while we are sitting on it, so we don’t have to bother ourselves moving it for him. Helping people stay in shape by drooling in their bowl of m&ms. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

Ti is also the kind of guy that doesn’t ask for a whole lot. He likes his crappy bed, and eschews the nicer ones. He doesn’t care much for toys, won’t beg for your food. He loves his cuddles, but won’t pester you for more when you need to do something else. He is friendly but not overbearing, protective but stable, slow to anger and easy to please. The only thing that gets him howling is when someone has the audacity to leave him outside for periods exceeding 3 minutes.

Ti is the kind of dog that makes you want to do anything you can to save him. And that is what we are going to do.