Wandering Where We’ll Be

Seventeen and a half years ago, a scrappy, energetic, light-brown terrier mix with big ears came running up to me and Dan as we were walking home from Jakeeno’s Pizza in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis.  He had no collar and had something sticky matted into the fur on top of his head.  But, a group of kids were hanging out nearby, and we wondered if the dog was theirs.  We asked them, but they told us he was not theirs and called him “Lucky.”  They directed us to a house about a block away where they thought his owners lived.  We brought him to the house and saw that there were dishes for food and water on the open porch.  The kids must be right: this is his home.  But, it had begun to get dark out, and there was no porch light on.  We rang the doorbell.  No one came.  Then, we knocked.  Eventually, a woman came to the door.  Hi; is this your dog?  No, but I see he’s eating my cat’s food again.  So, people had seen him around the neighborhood, but nobody knew to whom — if anyone — he belonged.  Dan picked him up, and we brought him home to our duplex apartment a couple blocks away.  Our upstairs neighbors had a dog, so we asked them for some dog food.  They brought down some food and an extra collar they had.  He scarfed down the food as if he hadn’t eaten in some time.  Over the next couple days, we did some checking around, but no one seemed to be looking for this “lost” dog.  Dan brought him to the vet to have him checked out.  The vet estimated that he was about 8 months old.  We decided to keep him, and we named him Jakeeno — Jake, for short.

Fast forward to today.  Jake’s not eating, and we believe his time with us may be short.  Last fall, he began eating less.  At the time, we were feeding him a dry dog food (Castor and Pollux’ Organix) that he had been eating fine for a few years.  Before that, we had almost exclusively fed him Sojourner Farms (or Sojos) — a dog food pre-mix that we mixed with water, veggies and meat.  Over time, he had become finicky about the veggies and meat that we added and, so, we switched to the dry food.  Until last fall, he seemed to enjoy the dry food and ate it well.  A bit after his eating slowed, Dan came home one day to vomit in the dining room and, bringing Jake for a walk, discovered that he had blood in his urine.  Dan brought him to the vet.  They sent him home with antibiotics for a likely bladder infection, but were even more concerned that his weight was down at least 4 pounds from his normal.  So, they also gave us some canned dog food that is specially formulated for easy digestion.  Initially, he loved the food, but this also began the cycle of us finding a food that he would eat for a few days and, then, have no interest in it at all.  We tried another flavor of the same canned food, and he initially loved it, but eventually rejected it.  In mid-December, we were on our way out the door for my graduation ceremony, and Jake hadn’t eaten much that day.  I was eating a Clif bar and decided to break off a piece and offer it to Jake.  He ate it, so I gave him several more bits.  So, for several days, he ate mostly Clif bars.  We continued to offer him regular dog food, but he wouldn’t eat it.  Christmas came, and Jake’s interest in Clif bars was waning.  We were having rice soup on Christmas Eve, and Dan gave a bit to Jake to see if he would like it; he did.  So, he had a few “meals” of rice soup and, then, again, rejection.  We had some Christmas dinner leftovers and went through the same cycle: love it, wolf it down, eat it for a couple days, reject it.  We cycled through variations of chicken, rice, gravy, stuffing, ground beef, tuna, eggs, bread cubes, various soups and others that I’m not remembering at the moment.  We continued to periodically offer him some of his dog food — dry or canned, but he wasn’t interested.  We started offering him a little bit of what we were eating — of course, avoiding ingredients that are uniquely not good or toxic to dogs: mushrooms, onions, chocolate, etc.  He liked and ate a couple pasta dishes that I made, most recently, veggie lasagna.  He also became less interested in his treats, so we tried graham crackers, and they had become a good standby until very recently.

About a month ago, Jake began coughing, especially at night.  He wasn’t getting much sleep, and neither were Dan and I.  Dan brought him in to the vet.  They had done several tests when he was there in December.  They did several more tests and x-rays.  They were not finding anything wrong with him and suggested that we make sure he has plenty of fluids and run a vaporizer in the bedroom.  For some time, we had already been keeping a dish of water on both floors of our house.  So, he had ready access to water.  We ran a vaporizer at night, but he was still coughing at night.  I called the vet to let them know this. The other doctor on staff looked at the x-rays and thought there might be congestion in his lungs and that his heart may not be keeping up with things.  She prescribed Furosemide.  The cough subsided within a couple days and hasn’t returned as we continue to give him the pill each day.

So, fortunately, Jake’s no longer coughing at night, but we continue to struggle to find foods that he will eat.  Over the last couple days, he has only had a few bites of foods and the bit of peanut butter we give him with his pill.  We continue to bring him for daily walks around the block, but the walks now take much longer.  He always loved to stop to sniff along the way, but he has become even more ponderous, sometimes just looking up and staring off.  We know that he has, over time, lost much of his hearing and vision and, recently, he seemed to be getting lost in the backyard at night when we let him out.  We now usually carry him outside to do his business, especially now that the back yard is so icy.  He can still make it up and down the stairs in our house, albeit slowly, but it’s easier to carry him up and down the stairs at night.

Today, he is mostly sleeping.  He is still drinking water, so I’ll bring him outside occasionally.  And, I keep offering him various food.  I had an extra sweet potato, so I boiled and mashed it for him; no go.  Dan is working today, so a short time ago, Jake wandered around the house, going upstairs and coming back down, presumably looking for Dan.

Tags: Jake

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2016 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Jake. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.