Hello and thank you so much!
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The story of your Marley was so sad as I have a Fanconi affected Basenji. She is almost 3 and I will start to test her real soon, I had her DNA done and I am heartbroken that she has the gene. I will give her the best care that I can if and when she gets the disease. Marley looks alot like my B, Sahara, her pictures are in the member pictures under youngandtired, take a look. Sheba is also a great looking B, she looks sweet, and the idea that she found your bed just blows me away. I think is great that you took in this B with special needs, she needs you and you need her, what a great arrangement. Good Luck!
Start testing her now… it is really to your advantage to catch her spilling as early as possible... while it might be years before she spills... and needs to be treated... it is the best you can do to catch it as early as possible... and you should test her like 3 to 4 days in a row.. just to make sure. Early Fanconi, you will find many time that they might spill one day and not the next. You might even want to do blood gases once a year to begin with and see if there are any changes....
It is wonderful the people that care for our special needs B's... even "before" they might be sick... hugs and kudos to everyone that does so....
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Congratulations on your new furbaby; condolences on the loss of Marley (one day you'll cross the rainbow bridge too and he'll be waiting for you).
My previous beastie was blind in one eye but managed quite well, even continuing to catch rabbits, and also had a thyroid problem. It's not always easy but all basenjis are always special in their own way. -
Special needs dogs can give so much love.
Everyone seems to want puppies, but the older broken ones can bring such joy.
Just wanted to share that with you all. -
Sharron is sooo right. I dont know if we will ever have a puppy again. Older rescue dogs just seem more our style now. Everybody loves a puppy but our older girl is just a joy and has not caused as many stresses yet.
Youngandtired, I am sorry to hear that you may have an affected Basenji. I know how devastating it can be when they start spilling sugar. Our Marley was 5 when she was finally diagnosed. Our vet sent us to a specialist who was not very optimistic at first. But once she realized that we were going to do everything we could including learning as much as we could she really turned around and was very helpful. Once you start treating Fanconi it just becomes a routine. It was fairly easy and you start to appreciate every day you have with your pooch. The only hard part was the days leading up to the blood testing which we did every 3-6 months. We just didnt want any of the lab values to get worse but if they did we knew we would just deal with it and keep on moving forward. We treated Marley for 7 years. I wouldnt have changed a thing.
