Nikki the Rottweiler

Today is Nikki’s 9th birthday! It’s amazing to think that 1 year ago we were prepared for it to be her last. This week marks the week 1 year ago where we got all of the specialists involved to figure out what was wrong with her leg, and it was determined that she had an Osteosarcoma and it was advanced enough to where there was little hope. Obviously that “little” hope was all Nikki needed, because as you can see by the photo above, she’s become the 3-legged wonder dog.

During her last checkup with Dr. Friedly, he noticed that she is happy, healthy, well-adjusted and still cancer-free. The natural-regimen seems to be working well, and we are just supposed to continue on with her treatment plan with no changes. He scheduled us to come back in 6 months for a follow-up. (It really wasn’t all that long-ago that our trips to see the docs were measured sometimes in hours, so getting an appointment for follow-up set out 6 months is a bit of a victory!)

At home, Nikki has resumed all of her normal life. We take trips now and then to the front yard so that she can continue to ensure the integrity of her territory and of course she gets her rides now and then as well. About the only thing she can’t do is jump up on the couch. She’s made up for that though by laying up close to it and sticking her legs under. Adaptation is what it’s all about I guess.

Anyway, Nikki is doing great, and is celebrating her 9th birthday today!

Another Trip to CSU

For those that have been reading Nikki’s story, you know about her brother Buddy who we lost, and you also know about the new-found member of the family Tilley. Tilley is about a year and 9 months old and is a product of some pretty questionable breeding. We knew right away that we were going to have trouble with her hips later on, but we didn’t expect what happened..

Last Sunday, Tilley decided that she was going to stop eating. Up to that point everything was normal as could be, but she just decided that she wasn’t going to eat. We took her to see our regular vet at Banfield (actually it’s hard to call them the “regular” vet, since Dr. Pyne isn’t there anymore) and they kept her all day. Long story short, Tilley ended up spending the night in their emergency hospital and we transferred her to CSU on Monday. They decided to keep her for 4 nights, and determined that she has a few problems, the most prevalent is Addisons Disease. Addisons is an autoimmune disease that causes a host of blood problems, but it is treatable.. Tilley is home again and doing fine, and she’ll need once-monthly visits to the vet to check her for the rest of her life.

Mary and I are starting to wonder if we’re doing something wrong, or if it’s just a terrible coincidence that we end up rescuing these dogs that need so much treatment, but we’re very thankful that we have a world-class veterinary hospital in our back yard!

This entry was posted on December 26, 2010 at 09:58 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.