Goodbye dear friend
It was January 2nd 2016. I was browsing around pet adoption websites when I saw her. She was beautiful and I put in an application for her. The following Monday I returned to work. My employer at the time put everyone on furlough during the holidays. I was catching up with my colleagues when my phone rings. I answered it and stepped away from the table. It was the animal shelter, I found that yes she was still available and that they are closed for adoptions on Monday but will reopen at 5 the following day.
That night I went to two pet stores to get what I needed for when I bring her home. I left work a bit early the next day and drove an hour away to the shelter she was at, Heart of Minnesota Animal Shelter, and walked in. They had taken Tikka to get some last-minute shots and put me in a room off to the side to fill out some paperwork. As I was filling in the information, they let Tikka in the room quietly and she jumped on me and was so happy to see me, at that moment, I knew I was taking her home.
I had paid her adoption fee and we got her into the car, and we drove home for an hour. For the most part she was quiet and relaxed, but every so often wanted to see what was going on and stick her head between the driver seat and window.
It is now 2020, Tikka and I had been through a lot and she is now 10 years old. With age comes arthritis, and in Tikka’s case it is in her spine. It started off as just dragging her rear leg a little bit causing her toenails to grind down. I first took Tikka into the vet this past October. There the vet prescribed a pain reliever and a joint supplement. They did not seem to help. I took Tikka back into the vet to see if there is any more we can do. I was given a different pain reliever and a recommendation on a chiropractor.
We continued with the chiropractor treatments for several months, but with no improvement, not noticeably worse, but no improvement.
The vet ran some blood work and it came back fine and advised me to order a genetics test to check for Degenerative Myelopathy, Tikka was positive for both genes responsible for a predisposition to DM.
DM is a hell of a disease, It attacks the white matter of the spinal cord which transmits movement commands to the limbs and sensory information back. When it deteriorates the nervous system, the dog will lose control of their hand legs, and will not even know where in space the legs are. The muscles will start to atrophy. DM will lead to paralysis of the hind legs and then it will move forward.
So my dog has DM, comorbid with arthritis. It got to the point where she could not and had little desire to go for walks, she was unable to go to the bathroom and laid around most of the time. It was a far cry from the super active dog I took home four and a half years ago. This Monday I called the vet barely keeping it together and scheduled her final vet visit.
Today we had that vet visit. Tikka will be missed.
