New Angus

Last Saturday something sad happened. Stay tuned for the story.

Misses Savannah and Adi had their last dance competition of the year (woo-hoo!) last Saturday in Taylorsville. My grandma and grandpa Brown came down from Boise to watch some of their dances, also, my aunt Meredith and cousin Beatrice came, too -- it was fun. Further into the day, my grandpa and Uncle Dave ran down to our house to grab something out of our garage. While they were there, we asked if they would check on Walter and Angus and make sure they were doing alright. Then my grandpa called us.. He told us that Angus was acting really weird, being shaky and strange. Sometimes Angus is just a weird-o so at first, we didn't think too much of it. We just asked grandpa to give him some water and assumed he'd be fine after that. As the day went on, though, the thought of Angus acting weird started to worry us a little. 

Finally, after a very long, but successful, dance competition, we made our way home. My cute daddy beat the four girls home and when we arrived, we found him sitting out in the garage with Walter and a very sickly looking Angus :( Poor little Angus was shaking like a leaf, soaking wet from head to toe, seemed terrified any time we tried to touch him, was very jumpy, and wouldn't blink, his eyes were weird and buggy, and his little tongue appeared to be stuck hanging out of his mouth. My dad had wrapped him up in a towel and was very worried about him. We all were once we saw him. Pretty quickly we decided we needed to take him to the doggie ER (yes, they have one of those) so we loaded him into his crate very carefully and mom was off with the little fella. 

Angus was a medical mystery. For two nights he stayed in the ER and he stayed one night at the vet and never were his doctors able to really tell us what was going on with the little Bunny Puppy. Apparently, he was showing signs of eating Snail Bait, but seeing as we do not own nor use Snail Bait, that couldn't have been it. I don't feel like the vets were all that helpful..

Eventually, the little trooper was able to come back home but was not doing well, at all. Sometimes, he looked 100% dead and you had to poke and prod him several times before he'd show you the slightest sign of life. He had an antibiotic he had to take daily for five days, eye cream (that is no fun to put on, btw), and some caloric goo that we had to feed him through a syringe (for a few days, we had to feed & water him through syringe, too). Much of his time home, he would lay motionless, looking rather dead (as shown, above.) Angus wouldn't eat, drink, go potty, poop, or even walk. If you held him, you would think he had no muscle in his body. His little head would flop over your arm and he'd hang there..again, looking very dead. It was so sad to see this little guy, once FULL of chaotic, psycho energy do absolutely nothing. Its like he wasn't even Angus, anymore. He had forgotten us, clearly, and had no idea what the heck was going on around him. Not even Walter, who he once idolized, could perk him up. On the rare occasion he would walk, his tail was down, curled under his body and he just looked sad and pathetic. Luckily, when he was in these weird dead-puppy periods, we could stick corn syrup in his mouth and he'd usually "perk" back up within an hour or so.

After talking with the family and Craig (who is family, too) we decided, together, that if he wasn't functioning or any kind of better by tuesday before we left for Disneyland, we would put him down :( We all hated the thought (some of us may have even shed a tear or two) but Angus wasn't happy and was a walking zombie. He was brain dead. It was awful. He would walk around our house in circles and do the exact same thing - he'd walk to a corner, smell the same place on the wall, walk under the chair, lick your foot, and repeat that same route over and over.

Now, back to the whole lack of knowing what the heck was going  on with my little Bunny.. You know my boyfriend, Craig? Turns out he is an awesome veterinarian. That cutie found several articles online about similar conditions to Angus and the symptoms matched Angus, almost perfectly. So, after studying these articles and having Dr. Craig check him out, we've decided the poor little man probably had multiple seizures or strokes. 

The saddest thing is, Angus isn't Angus, anymore. At all. He only looks like Angus (minus his kind of creepy/zombie left eye) but his personality is the exact opposite of what it once was. He is freakishly mellow, doesn't make a sound and is just..calm..which is so weird compared to the puppy we had last week. I think Angus really did loose his mind. He's just starting to recognize us, again, and acknowledge our noises, touches, etc.

Fast forward a couple days. Good things started to happen with Bunny. He ate on his own, he drank on his own, and after some q-tips shoved up uncomfortable places, he'd even poop and go potty on his own! It was really exciting! That is when we decided Angus didn't have a deadline, anymore. He'd be living past Tuesday, for sure. He wasn't completely helpless, anymore..so his little life was spared.

Now here we are, today, and I'm happy to tell you little Angus is still on the up-rise. He functions like a normal dog - just a very, very calm, mellow, "brain dead," clueless doggie. Its kind of cute, actually. This new Angus is growing on me :) He no longer walks circles 'round the house and sometimes, if you're lucky, he'll raise and wag his tail, and he's running and jumping, again!! We definitely aren't getting our old puppy back, but we're getting him back mentally, at least.

He's still got improving to do, but he's improving, nonetheless and I am completely thrilled that we don't have to put our sweet little guy down on tuesday. He's a fighter, that little guy is.