One day my sister said that one of her acquaintances wanted to get rid of their mini schnauzer because it kept on fighting with the other dog, a chihuahua. Her name is Peanut, she was about a year with gray color and long hair. The boys got all excited and lobbied me for several days. They have been begging to get a house pet, a real dog for quite a while. Previously, I only allow fish in the house. No hairy animal especially long hair one. My hubby was not a big fan of having dog in the house. After the "verbal contract" with the boys (making the boys to promise to take care of the new dog) and all the reasons why not having dog in the house, finally everyone in the family agree to adopt Peanut.
Well, at first no one sure about what kind of breed she is. My sister said it is a terrier.
So Peanut arrives with her cage at our house and I had to run to a pet shop to buy her food that night. The first impression when we saw her: fall in love at the first sight. She is just so energetic and cute dog and smart too. So lots of browsing in the internet to figure out what kind of breed she is. We made several wrong guess.
Since Peanut have a long hair, we took her to the pet shop to be groomed. And that's a good place to know what kind of breed she is. The groomer said she is a mini schnauzer. He was also the one who discovered that she has a skin problem and therefore she needs to take medicated bath twice a week and he shaved her hair off because there was too many tangled hair.
So hairless Peanut in cool place becomes Peanut catch a cold and sick dog. In my whole life, first time I see dog just like a person catching cold have runny nose, sneezing, and coughing. I am not a big fan at first of putting some clothes on to my dog. But then I started buying a couple a sweater and a jacket.
My lesson number 1 that I learned from my dog: Put some clothes on to your hairless dog.
Since she sounds getting worst each day, finally I took her to see vet. To my shock the vet told me she got distemper virus. I was like what the heck was that? And to my surprise the vet said that the chance is 50:50. I thought distemper is a flu virus name for dog. Anyway my thought was the doctor is exaggerating this virus. But again, thinking about the American Indian long time ago many died because of flu virus so it does make sense. After all the IVs doctor prescribed medicines for 10 days. Many are pills -- geez how do you give a dog a pill medicine. The experiments start with just let the dog chew the pill. Obviously experiment number 1 failed. She did try to chew on it but when the pill burst on her mouth she spits it right away. Second experiment was hide the pill in a chunk of banana. Though my son did make a comment "mom I don't think she's a monkey." Just like the first attempt, it failed she is not a big fan of banana.
So then, my lesson number 2: If you can not shove pill to your dog's throat, start to open the pill's cap and mix the formula with water and then just put it on IV (without the needle off course) so it would not be a mess.
Ten days passed she still have a bad cough, so I took her to see the doctor again and another medicine prescribed. After 4 days, I lost her medicine and so I need to take her to a vet. Lucky I found an old family vet doctor through a friend so I take her to him. He claimed that his medicine can cure her within 5 days. That's a relief, and a friend of mine remind me to google distemper virus. Right, how could I forgot about it.
Lesson number 3: For terms you have no idea with -- google it!
To my surprise distemper virus is number one dog killer. By definition at Animal Health Channel "Canine distemper is a contagious, incurable, often fatal, multisystemic viral disease that affects the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and central nervous systems.Distemper is caused by the canine distemper virus (CDV). Group chat about dog owner that got distemper is also very informative. From giving Chinese herb medicine to acupuncture. Oh my God I thought only human do acupuncture. Though according to doctor at animal hospital, once the virus got into the nerve, acupuncture doesn't help much.
After treatment with the old family vet, Peanut seems healthy, all hype up. Until one night, she was wearing her military fleece jacket with hood. And a friend came to my house to drop cookies that I ordered. As usually she was following me to the gate. Suddenly she made a crying out for help sound under my CJ7 jeep. My instant thinking was I thought her hood was caught up in one of the tires. So I walked toward her trying to figure out what happened to her. But nothing tangle her and I kept on calling her name and she was just shivering and stiffen, so I pulled her out from under the car. To my horror she begin her seizures. I was so panic and started hitting her chest, a CPR was crossed my mind until her mouth starts come out with bubble and slimy stuff. She is having epilepsy! It probably about a minute or two epilepsy attack. Her eyes was popping out and her body was totally stiff. I though she is going to die, she is going to die.. Almost cried and then suddenly she flipped and bit my hand and started to run and barking like crazy. My dad was so freak out he believe it was a rabies. Next day I took her to the vet and explained what happened.
Lesson number 4 that I learned from my vet: If dog is having seizure or epilepsy - DO NOT TOUCH IT or it will bite you.
Again return home with another set of medicines. Now there are three things that change my life: a husband, children and a dog.
So many vet visits - most vets would said she will not live for long, only small chance dog can survive from distemper virus. Even the option putting her to sleep was offered. We choose to let her die naturally.
It was always a heartbreaking scene whenever she got her seizure attacks. Yet several months past by,
she seems getting better until our vet said that she is free from distemper.
But because that virus already damage her brain, the seizure will never go away. So sometime she suffers from the attack.
The vet gave her vaccine, some vet said that is the big mistake to gave her vaccine. The vaccine triggered her seizure even more. So she suffers the attack everyday.
Only one vet
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