Fourth Member of the Pack

Yes, this blog is about being owned by a basset hound....it started that way of course.  Della is doing well---she is 8 1/2 years old now and not showing any sign of slowing down.  Some gastric issues and acid reflux but it seems to be a bit more under control so I'm not overly worried.  She is happy, energetic, has a terrific appetite and still loves to play.

Guinness is cranking along and has his hands full with Oscar, who has become quite the chunky monkey.  Why?  Easy.......the new resident:  Shallimar.   Shalli was my mother's cat who is now a permanent resident of the Sarver household since mom passed away almost 2 years ago.  Shalli is a one person cat.....can you say "adjustment period?"  Holy!

My mother taught Shalli to "free range graze"---there was always a bowl of dry food out at my mom's house.  I taught the boys to eat breakfast and dinner---just like the dog.  They were in good shape, slender and muscular...but certainly not underfed.  Now.....Oscar has become a bit of a porker because if I don't keep food out for Shalli she'll starve to death.  Since it's out, it's like a cruise ship for the boys: all you can eat, all the time.  ...great....

Fortunately they all get along fairly well....Shalli is not a fan of Guinness but she plays hard with Oscar.  Shalli certainly is not a fan of Della but she tolerates the presence of a dog well enough.  There has never been any blood spilled--just the occasional spitting and hissing.  All in all, a solid and secure pack.

And so the world continues to spin and the stories continue to pile up.  There aren't any outrageous ones to tell (which is not really a bad thing) so I have been enjoying a sense of status quo.  It's pretty nice.

She is SUCH a great dog!

You know, you have a basset in your home for 6 years and she is in the shadows of another basset who is (sadly) always in need of medical attention, so the other basset gets inadvertently pushed aside in a manner of speaking. And (most sadly) she is not completely noticed until the other older basset makes his journey to the bridge.

Della-Ware Summer's End...aka Della, aka Bear, is the sweetest, adorable and most precious pup in the world!

I have no crazy story to tell here just a quick run down of the day and what I came home to:

I departed at 8:30 AM for work and usually get home during the lunch hour--but not today. And as the day wore on with no hope in sight of getting home I accepted the fact that I was going to have to do some steam vac-ing. And who could blame the dog--she's "good" for 6-7 hours, but 10?? Not a prayer!

I entered my home to find a delightfully happy dog who was extremely excited to see me--who raced out of the back door and right into the backyard with a huge look of relief on her face. Oh, and not a single "accident" anywhere in the house.

Della--you are wonderful!

New Addition....not a basset

Well, Oscar is here. He's now 15 weeks old and he's a MENACE...oh, and he's a kitten.

He's adorable, should never have survived his "birth" (he was FOUND during a routine spaying--never was born naturally), and yet is more full of life than any other animal (or human) that I have ever encountered--GO OSCAR!

Della is in love with him---which is good. She has finally started sleeping in Buford's chairs (yes there were 2 that were specifically his) and has clearly moved on. I am, however, convinced she missed a doggie companion so I'll have to do something about that over the course of the next year.

Meanwhile Guinness has accepted the little squirt and the three of them are getting along just fine.

Spring is Here!

It's been an interesting transition to life without Buford--I miss him horribly, but I have to admit life has calmed down around here. Buford, may he rest in peace and run free from all pain, was a very needy hound. This was part personality and part medical. I fault him for nothing and if I had to do it again I wouldn't change a thing. However, changes have occurred:

• We all sleep through the night--no 1 AM and 3 AM bathroom sessions;
• Della RUNS, and there is no drag and beg about going back home at the end of a walk;
• Della has finally decided it is ok to sleep in Buford's chair;

And the list could go on and on. In essence, life has settled into a new routine and it is pretty good!

WOW! What Fun!

Della's play date yesterday was terrific. We spent it with 5 of Cindy Miller's Rapscallion Bassets: Booker (7), Bobbi (5), and the three of the 9-month old pups--George, Cara and Gemma. What a wonderful pack of bassets. Della romped, ran, chased, played, flirted, raced and rolled with all of them. She hasn't had playtime in ages and it was a wonderful thing to watch. They all got along so well that I'm sure there will be future play dates down the road.

The red and white basset is Booker. The two other pups are Gemma (in the back) and George.

Della--a Play Date!

In about an hour or so Della is going to have a play date with 5 other basset hounds! We're going to join Cynthia Miller and the Rapscallion Bassets for an afternoon of romping and hilarity. I'll post photos and video (if I can capture any--they're fast little buggers!) later tonight.

Buford 1/5/99 - 12/8/09 Godspeed--Mommy Loves You

It has taken me about 3 weeks to finally sit down and write an account of the final weeks leading up to that last car ride to the vet and a final farewell to my best friend, Buford. I can only hope and pray that those with more faith than I are correct--it is tough for me to completely believe--that we will one day be reunited at the Rainbow Bridge, Heaven or whatever may be next for all. He took with him a part of my heart that will always be empty.

It started on November 22, 2009....well, maybe it started a few weeks before but there was no consistency to it, just a random episode here and there that I chalked up to a "bad day" that was to be expected. But in hindsight those few "bad days" were warning signs of what was to come. On November 22, 2009 Buford a "bad day," a REALLY bad day. He exhibited bloat symptoms multiple times that day, but 1) he could not go into a full GDV due to his stomach tacking, and 2) each episode resolved with a massive belch within 20 minutes of starting. But still, something was wrong because it happened three separate times that day.

The next day he was fine. Then Tuesday same thing--a longer episode. He calmed down eventually and slept hard. My radar was ringing loudly--something was wrong. He had just been boarded, but he had been boarded a lot this fall for a day or two with no ill effects. He had a touch of constipation but that started to clear so since things were moving, I figured he was alright. He was eating, peeing, pooping, and seemed happy.....except for these random bloat episodes.

Wednesday he was fine. Thursday, same routine; Friday ok; Saturday ok; Sunday--minor episode; Monday: BIG episode---I called the emergency vet where his internist worked. How convenient: the internist was on vacation on this December 14th--it was November 30th. They urged me to bring him and treat him as an emergency case. So I raced. He was in abdominal pain so everyone thought "obstruction." X-Rays revealed nothing. Nothing except food in his stomach, gas in every inch of his intestines and stool ready to exit. We were sent home with every antacid on the market plus Carafate. Instructions--see the internist when he returns.

He responded well to everything until Thursday. 2 episodes a couple hours apart so I raced him over to his regular vet. Everyone was scratching their heads--it made no sense. There was nothing wrong, but clearly there was something VERY wrong. We decided to max him out on the Carafate--his acid reflux was off the charts and in trying to quench the burn he was drinking excessive amounts of water and gulping air, essentially causing self-inflicted bloat. Home we went with a bunch more Carafate tablets.

He again responded well--the Carafate was working.....until December 8th. He was fine at 4:30 PM. I went over to my mother's home for a quick dinner with her and was home at 5:45 PM. While gone he had an episode that I walked in on in the middle--a full blown bloat episode and for the first time went as far as vomiting. He was in pain--from the gas, from the acid and finally from the vomiting. Something must have happened when he vomited as his eyes were completely bloodshot. Not basset hound red, but total red. There were no whites left to his eyes--they were completely blood filled.

....and he finally burped and wagged his tail while looking at me. And my heart broke as I picked up the phone to make the one call we pray we never have to make but know we will one day. I cried to my vet, but I knew in my heart it was his time. He sat with me there on the floor getting ear scratches and head rubs while I talked about options--knowing there was only one.

I hung up the phone, picked up his leash, looked him in the eye and said one last time, "Let's go for a ride baby." And he raced to the car as he always did--as if nothing was wrong. And when I looked at him as we drove I saw two bloody eyes that held so much love I hated myself because I knew this was his last ride, something he loved, but he didn't know.

We got to the hospital and I sat in an exam room with my boy, rubbing his head, scratching his ears and keeping him calm while I talked through everything one last time with the doctor. For him to not get relief from all the meds probably meant that his scarred esophagus and/or stomach lining had started to ulcerate. The only choice would have been to put him on massive doses of predisone to treat the pain.

I looked at him and then at the vet and said, "For how long and for whom, him or me?" The answer was clear without anything being said--it would have been for me, and merely delaying the inevitable and quite possibly causing him more distress. I vowed I would never let him be in pain if I could at all avoid it, and I kept that promise at 8 PM on December 8, 2009.

My Buford baby did not go gentle into that good night. The first attempt: his vein collapsed. The 2nd attempt he almost bit the vet. Finally (and yes, I stayed and I was more of a wreck than can be described in words), the third vein held and my boy drifted quickly and quietly in my arms. In seconds he was gone.....and I wanted to go with him.

I stayed alone with him for a while, talking to him, kissing his head and face and trying to pull myself together so that I could drive home. How I got home I'll never know but I did. And I grabbed Della and screamed into her fur. It took Della a full week before she realized her brother wasn't coming home. She hit full doggy depression at that point and would sleep on the couch and wake frequently, snapping her head toward his empty chair and then sighing heavily while she put her head back down and went back to sleep. It's been 3 weeks and she still will not go near his chair.

I miss my boy horribly. I'm learning more and more about Della every day and for that I'm very happy--she is a delightful dog who lived in the shadow of her brother Buford and his ailments for the first 5 years of her life. She is not Buford, and I do not want her to be. But I cannot help wishing he was still here.

I buried Buford on Friday, December 11th on the farm. One of the vet tech's mother owns a farm just over the PA line and her mother offered me anywhere that I wanted to lay my boy to rest. I picked a spot on a terraced area overlooking the lake--it is beautiful there.

Something odd happened a week after he left for the bridge. Because of his struggles with Cushing's Disease, Buford had to go out almost every 2 hours or so--I became accustomed to sleep deprivation many months earlier as this had been going on for close to 2 years. Della was sound asleep next to me in bed--deep sleep in fact, but while she slept, something woke me up. It was a little after 3 AM, a usual "gotta go out" time for Buford. I was awake, very awake. So I picked up my book and started to read. After about 15 minutes or so I heard something that normally would have frightened me--a scratch against wood. I put the book down and listened thinking it was a branch and then I heard it again and it was not a branch--it was a scratch of a nail against the front door. I looked at Della who was still sleeping. And then I saw the cat also sleeping on the foot of the bed. I looked toward the bedroom door and out into the hallway when I heard something else: a woof. And I knew Buford was downstairs in the foyer as he often was, calling up to me not out of need to go out, but rather as a "HI Mom. I'm ok!"

I wasn't frightened, I was calm. My heart wasn't even beating fast. As crazy as it sounds, I'm convinced it was him. I know the sounds of this house better than I know my own inner thoughts and I have never heard anything that sounds like a basset hound woof except when it came from one of the pups. I have not heard it again since that night, although I find myself waking regularly between 3-3:25 AM almost every night.

He was with me from the age of 7 months until his last breath when he was 10 years, 11 months and 3 days old. And I wouldn't trade a single moment I shared with the dog for anything in the world--he was my heart dog and I will always love him.

Rest easy Buford. Until we meet again my boy.