@KhaiPan Pam and I are both stubborn opinionated people and without mutual respect, we'd be in constant battle. Instead, I love her. I watch her utter devotion to the dogs, to doing things right, to helping anyone who needs help. She isn't stuck in any idea... given proof and research, she'll reconsider. She is calming. 🙂 Knowing you have someone personally in your corner navigating this helps a lot. Glad you contacted her.
My poor boy . . .
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Thanks for all the comments and thoughts from the group. It's very easy to see how important these dogs are to all their owners and how loved they are! The almost eleven years we?ve had Skeeter and Heidi has been mostly rewarding and even as they age things change and issues do come up, we would never falter in our responsibility of giving them the best we can for their whole lives. I remember when we decided to get a dog back in 2000, we had no idea what type or breed of dog to get. I just got on the internet and went to Dogs.com and just clicked through the pictures of all breeds. Ha, when the picture popped-up of a Basenji, I was instantly impressed. I knew absolutely nothing about them, but something about the looks, the tail, the ears, heck I dunno, I was just very impressed. So, I started reading and it was a little strange seeing all the references and warnings about owning a Basenji and trying to explain the good and the bad and making sure we knew we were sure, etc. It almost seemed like we were being warned and to really be aware of the issues, before deciding. I couldn?t imagine what could be so bad . . . but eventually I found out.
I did a little more research and found a breeder down in Warrensburg, Missouri, about an hour's drive from Kansas City. And again I was told by the breeder to read up about Basenji?s and make sure I knew what I was doing. So, my wife Dana and I drove down to take a look. Linda Ehlers was the breeder and she had a few Basenji?s that were just weeks old for us to look at. Out of a group of 4 or 5 we instantly saw one that was a chestnut red female and had a very nice pattern on her coat. She came right up to us and we knew right away she would be perfect. So, Linda explained how the father of these new pups came from Denmark (getting in some new blood) and the mother dog was hers. We met the mother and made arrangements to come back the next week to pick up our new pup. That gave us a week to pick a name and get supplies a crate and whatever we needed. So, we came back the next week, paid the agreed amount (gulp) and got some initial verbal training on what to expect. Linda gave us some pictures she had from the birth and early days and she explained we would get her papers after we had her spayed. We were instructed to get it done before the first time the dog goes into heat. She had some real fancy name on her papers, but I had picked the name Heidi and my wife liked it too. So, off we went with our newest family member, Heidi.
We have a fairly large back yard, but no fence so we were taking Heidi out with a leash a few times a day to go potty. For the first few nights we had Heidi in her crate to sleep. But we could tell she didn?t like it, so that ended rather quickly and she only goes into a crate now, if we?re leaving the house for more than a few hours. Within a few months we got a 6? privacy fence and things got a lot better. She was house broken very quickly and was quite an active girl. We had a patio and to this day Heidi loves to lay in the direct sun light. And if a squirrel or bird dares to land in our back yard she?ll be chasing after them. Her worst trait is chewing on material. We have a collection of sheets, blankets, underwear, socks and more than I can think of, she has chewed through over the years. I get upset for not keeping most of it out of her reach, but I know she'll never grow out of it, at this point. We were BRAT volunteers for a while and during a transport we ran into Skeeter and added him to our Family. We knew having a companion for Heidi would be good and he was her same age at that time 1.5 years old. Skeeter has the same coloring as Heidi but is much more laid back. Heidi is definitely the Alpha dog in this family! They've gotten along very well over the years and have never had a serious fight. After spending over 10 years with these guys, you really learn their idiosyncrasies. Their personalities are just as complex as a human. To this day we have never regretted adding these wonderful animals to our family!
So now you can appreciate how sad we are to see Skeeter going blind from Diabetes. We are going to do our best to get his Cataracts removed as soon as we can financially deal with it. My wife did say Skeeter was checked for Fanconi when we first took him to the Vets with Diabetes. At that time, it was negative, but I will certainly have him checked again as soon as I can. One comment said, drinking a lot of water is not a trait of Diabetes, but that is incorrect. I am a type II Diabetic myself and when you have a high blood sugar reading you do get very thirsty and my Vet agrees to that as well. As far as going potty in the house, we've noticed that even after going outside he will at times go potty inside within a few minutes, strange? In the past he would be prancing all around to let us know when he needed to go out and hold it until we let him out. Now, he seems to not even care? It's one thing to not want to navigate his way out, but why go again inside, after just being outside? Heidi doesn't seem to realize the situation and since Skeeter has always been laid back, nothing seems different to her.
Thanks again for all the feedback and support. I'll post any changes in the future, right here . . .
Jerry and Dana in KC
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Has he been checked for a UTI? When they are spilling sugar in their urine there is a much higher likelihood of them developing UTIs. Alot of inappropriate peeing in housebroken adults is from UTIs.
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Starting just yesterday and continuing today, Skeeter has shut-down. What I mean by that is he is not eating solid foods and just drinking water when it?s available. So, I give him a drink of water, he gobbles it up and then usually a short time later he will throw-up what looks like bile. I guess that's all he has to kick-out is his drinks of water. And he doesn't want to go out or even move. So, there is obviously something more happening now.
I will take him back to the Vet tomorrow and ask him to check for everything. I have written down all the suggestions from this thread and I'll see what the Vet thinks. Gosh, I certainly wouldn't want him to die, hang in there Skeeter. I'll get you to the Vet first thing in the morning . . .
Jerry and Dana in KC
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Oh, hugs..this sure doesn't sound good.
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Jerry and Dana..I am so sorry to hear about Skeeter doing even worse today..Y'all are in our thoughts. I hope the vet knows what it is and has a treatment for it..
Please keep us posted. -
Prayers to you and good thoughts to Skeeter. Best of luck.
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So sad to read about Skeeter today.
But I did want to tell you that we're related by dog. All of my pups came through Linda. She has wonderful temperments on her pups!
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My prayers and healing thoughts to Skeeter and you.
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Our Vet is very caring and he said that it appeared Skeeter's pancreas had shut down completely. His glucose level had gone to over 400, even with his normal, twice daily shots of insulin. We even had to carry him in. So, we were instructed to leave him at the Vets for the day and they would get his blood sugar down through the day and he was fed intravenously, since he made no effort to eat.
The Vet called in the afternoon and explained that they did get it down some, but he felt that continuing the treatment even through the night was necessary. So, we were recommended an all-night animal hospital about 20 miles away, so we took him over there. They also seemed very caring and went over his ongoing treatment with us after being faxed everything from the Vet. We had to pick Skeeter up by 8:00 the next morning since this is only a night clinic. We brought him back to our Vet for another all day round of treatments and by the end of the second day the Vet felt he had made real progress. His blood sugar was close to normal, but he still would not eat on his own and was constantly shaking. He said we should take him back to the all night hospital again, so we did. Just as information, the two nights at the all night hospital cost over $800 and the Vet is running close to $1200, so far. We weren't prepared for the expense, but of course we never gave it a second thought. Getting Skeeter back to health is our only concern.
So, we went back to pick-up Skeeter this morning to bring him back to our Vet and the people at the hospital said something happened overnight and Skeeter took a serious turn for the worse. He was having Liver and Kidney problems now as blood tests through the night showed them and he was just lying in his bed not moving. So, they carried him out to our van and we drove back to our Vet. He wasn't in yet, but we got Skeeter in there and he just looked up at us with his sad eyes and was shaking. My wife Dana was crying and it was sad, but we went home to wait for the call. The Vet called shortly after we got home and he didn't waste any time getting to the point that Skeeter had reached a point that he was suffering and no further treatment would return him to any sort of normal life. We told him we would come right back to finalize whatever was best.
We went back and brought Heidi with us, since she hadn't seen Skeeter for a few days. The Vet said it's not an easy decision, but Skeeter had so many issues that it would be best to just say goodbye. I had always thought I could never do that, but the Vet was explaining the current condition of Skeeter and he was suffering. We asked the Vet if we could be alone with him for a while and we went into one of the exam rooms and brought Heidi in with us. When Skeeter saw Heidi, he even stood up, but just couldn't keep himself up and fell back down. She went over to him and sniffed him a bit, they were both whining. But, then she seemed to sense something was wrong and got back by us. We were in with him for about 30 minutes and it was so sad to see him trembling. So, we said our final goodbyes, apologized to Skeeter, wondering if there was anything we could have done differently and told the Vet to go ahead. After giving Skeeter the final shot he closed his eyes in about a minute . . . Thanks to all the Forum participants and I know you know how we feel right now.
Oh, one other thing . . . Skeeter's registered name was "Caesar Augustus" and he was born on July 12th 2000.
Jerry and Dana and Heidi in KC
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oh..Jerry, Dana and Heidi..my heart goes out to you all..
I am so sorry to hear of Skeeters passing. I know this is so hard to do..I am crying for you, with you.
Know that Skeeter runs again on the other side of the bridge.. -
Jerry, Dana and Heidi, i am very sorry to hear about your loss of Skeeter.
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So sorry to hear about your loss, but thank you for helping Skeeter over the Rainbow Bridge to be with all those that have gone before him… You did the right thing for him, which is never the easiest thing for us.
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My heart goes out to you. At least you know that Skeeter is no longer suffering. Your vet is very considerate in allowing Heid to say goodbye.
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Oh poor you! I am sad to read this. Skeeter has a wonderful, loved life. The right thing to do isn't always the easy thing to do. I'm so sorry.
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I have cried the whole way through this thread. My heart really goes out to you.
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I'm so sorry for your loss. Skeeter loves you for all you did for him, including his final time with you and your unconditional love that let you help him pass peacefully, and painlessly. May your happy memories soon replace your deep sorrow. My prayers to you in your time of grief.
Dawn
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I'm sorry for your loss Jerry and Dana. You tried your best to do everything you could to save Skeeter and he thanks you for that.
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I am so sorry. You did everything you possibly could to help him, including helping end his suffering. Hugs to you all.
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Dana and I are were quite surprised by the amount of replies to our ongoing thread concerning Skeeter's final days and it certainly was nice to see the support from the Forum crowd. We weren't sure if we did things the best way for poor Skeeter, but looking back now, we're not sure what we would have done any differently. We took Skeeter's last collar and framing it with his birth papers.
He's been gone a month now and we've turned all our attention to Heidi and how's she's getting along. She no longer has a mate to chase around the house and yard, so she does seem a bit sad. We're not sure what to do? Do we get her a new mate or what? She is 9 years old now and in very good health. We hate to run out to replace Skeeter, since he can't be replaced. But, we do want to do what's right for Heidi. Actually during this month see has gotten better, so things will probably be OK in the long run. We took her to Pete and Mac?s pet resort, for a couple days of doggie day care and she seemed to like that.
Just looking for feedback . . . any suggestions would be appreciated. If we decided to look for a new mate, should we look at BRAT? And how old. Dana said she would rather not start with a new pup, but not sure what to do? I was going to ask if getting another Basenji is the best choice, but asking this crowd, would probably be a bit prejudice, ha. Of course that?s what we would prefer. And is getting a male the best choice? We had a good set-up before. Heidi was definitely in charge and Skeeter had no problem with that. How can we make sure a new mate and Heidi would get along?
So, that's it, can't think of any other questions. I look forward to any advice. When you become a Basenji owner, you become part of a select group of dog owners and I can't think of a better group to be part of, thanks
Jerry & Dana & Heidi . . . in KC
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If you decide to get a second b. I would suggest getting one close to Heidi's age, or just a few years younger.
BRAT does have some wonderful b's, and we would want your b to meet the new boy, to make sure SHE likes him.
I like to have 2 b's…they keep each other company when hubby and I are working.
