We had a fun time at Cold Spot Feeds on Friday. Although it was Black Friday, Cold Spot didn’t put out a huge sale flyer so the store was actually pretty quiet that day. But rewarding that most of the people that came by our little table to visit with Bonsai and hear his story threw in a couple of bucks for the Fairbanks Animal Shelter Fund.
Bonsai loved all the attention. He especially liked visiting with all the other dogs that came into Cold Spot.
We are planning on doing another one sometime in December.
Sleeping with his pal Blackberry.
On Friday Don and I will be at Cold Spot Feeds with Bonsai hoping to get some donations for the Shelter Fund who has paid for all his medical so far. It will be fun to be out and about with him. He is a very social puppy and I think he will love all the attention. Hope to see a lot of people that we know at Cold Spot.
Please donate to the Fairbanks Animal Shelter Fund. Many animals have benefitted from this fund for their extra care.
P O Box 71267
Fairbanks, AK 99707
It’s been awhile since I wrote an update on Star and Onyx.
Star is still kickin’. She is pretty amazing. Her will to survive and continue on in life. 17 years 6.5 months old. Still eating weird food but the last couple of weeks she has started to drink the rich meat broth we give all the dogs on winter mornings. This is a change for her because she wasn’t touching anything with meat in it! Her evening meals still vary. Such as last night when she ate a little salad, 2 white flour tortillas and a little ice cream.
She likes Yummy Chummies too.
Onyx has had a bad couple of months. After doing so well for quite awhile she started crashing again. Diarrhea, weight loss, lethargy. Back to the vet for bloodwork and stool samples. Looks like she has both hookworms and giardia. yikes! My dogs have rarely had worms (except occasional tapes) but we wormed the whole yard with Strongid and are giving Onyx a 4 day dose of Panacur for the giardia.
We also took her off budesonide and put her on Vetalog. Her stools are looking good again (a rarity) and hopefully she will gain weight back. It has been a roller coaster for her. But through it all she remains the sweetest and most accepting dog. Nothing much phases her.
Here is the x ray of Bonsai soon after surgery. They gave him a barium slurry to highlight the constriction. Is this amazing or what??? The large “bulb” is where food would get packed up and then regurgitated. There is just a very small opening where fluid could get through to his stomach. No wonder he was so malnourished and his bloodwork was bad.
We did get good news today though. Looks like he doesn’t have a liver shunt! His liver bile enzyme test came back perfectly normal. Whew! Now we can put him on some higher powered food and get some weight on the boy. We were worried about stressing his liver if he did have a shunt so we were staying with a lower protein food.
The vet figures that all his abnormal bloodwork and liver tests were because of malnutrition.
Over time we are hoping that his esophagus will shrink back to a normal size and he will be able to eat normally.
We are very thankful for the Fairbanks Animal Shelter Fund that continues to care for Bonsai financially. Please think of giving a donation. The Shelter Fund cares for 100′s of animals from our Fairbanks borough shelter. If it wasn’t for the fund, many animals would not be alive today.
Their address is P O Box 71267 Fairbanks, AK 99707
