Megasophagus Dachshund Update (4/13/2019)
"Mega" dogs are born with a dilated esophagus and cannot get food or water down without vertical feeding. (Please read my previous review entitled, "Be Careful and Cover Your Back," originally from 2013).
Tom is now eleven years old and we have kept him alive with dogged determination (please no pun) and a love for all living things. We (our family) have all suffered, but I assure you, HE has had a good life worth living.
It has taken years to perfect our technique for nourishing him. These days Tom has six feeding 1.5 hours apart--food three times and water three times. He takes two heart drugs for congestive heart failure. The expenses have been staggering; in time and the money we can't afford for his vet care, but always find somehow. Otherwise he would have died years ago. No, we wouldn't have volunteered to take Tom before we fell in love with him that first week. We knew we couldn't let him go back to the puppy mill and certain death.
His special needs prevent anybody but us from caring for him--it requires that much focus and skill. So for example, we haven't taken a vacation in eleven years. We have never been separated from him for a single day. That makes him in many ways a "lucky dog," to find us and to get so much love and constant attention. In that way he is special and different from other healthier pets. He loves the attention and it enriches his challenged existence.
Today, we got especially unlucky and at 7am were forced to rush Tom to Tucson (75 miles away) to the Vscott Vet Hospital. He was in respiratory failure and had aspirated into the very bottom of his "mini" lungs--the result of a particularly bad bout of regurgitation of food and water the previous night. Right now he is on oxygen and fluids and has been x-rayed to confirm "aspiration pneumonia." He will be in the hospital for at least two days. We were required to deposit $2500.00 before they would even admit him.
What caused this emergency was a particularly bad event, but one that happens almost every night, although fortunately, with less dire consequences. So somehow we have adapted to being awakened almost every night of our lives unless he has a "lucky night." Otherwise, he would be forced to lie in his own fluids and the remains of food that stubbornly lodges in his throat unmitigated even with vertical feeding and long sittings in his padded "bucket." We have stacks of "Tommy-towels" to mop up the fluids and food that inevitably soil the floors, furniture and bed daily. Imagine having a sick human infant for eleven years--how tired and constantly afraid you would be! It has been our private version of hell, notwithstanding our love for him and the pleasure we get from knowing we have beaten the odds and given him the great gift of life.
I know what you are saying; is it humane to keep him alive? Yes, he is a wonderful, loving dog, and enjoys life in his own sweet way, having no idea all dogs don't cough and regurgitate. On good mornings he stands on a chair eating his food at our kitchen table for the vertical traction needed to gravitate it down his esophagus; and it keep his back legs strong for the sake of his fragile back. He "wolfs" his food like normal dogs and has a typical "weiner-dog"obsession with anything culinary. Unfortunately, anything he casually eats off the ground, like grass or rabbit pellets (his favorite), inevitably gets stuck in his throat sending him into head-twisting and convulsions, finally extricating it in a swish of fluid and partly digested food. He gets the best food money can buy, soaked in water overnight and ground up with a food processor.
He is a miracle dog. Despite all of it, he has adapted and his life-force is a remarkable fact of nature. He loves his walks, cuddles with us on the bed, and lies by the open fireplace in the winter basking in the warm glow. He is a happy dog. We suffer more under the burden of his care than he ever will, but it makes us happy to have allowed him to survive and be loved like a normal dog.
Thanks Nuforest! You are cutthroat criminals for what you deliberately did to us eleven years ago (please see my original review). It's called "Honest Services Fraud." You thought we were just dumb cowboys from Arizona and you could dump a dying dog on us. Well congratulations, you got away it with complete impunity. You could never repay us for the money (at least 8K so far), or more than the money, the years of emotional torment and Tom's daily suffering. You deceived and swindled us, but we did what any true animal lover would do and honored our pet with a decent enough life. We will continue for as long as it be humane to keep our little dapple mini breathing and happy.
Beware breeders. Many attempt to profit off unscrupulous practices designed to increase their bottom-line. I would go elsewhere for your treasured "weiner-dog." Methinks not! No stars.
TH
Elgin, Arizona read more