Once again, this is a post that some of you might not really care to read, but some of you will.
Emma (our miniature dachshund) had her yearly vet appointment on Thursday. Every year it gets harder to take her because I am always afraid that this will be the visit when they tell me that she's in bad shape. Emma will turn 17 this year. She's had a long life, so it's only a matter of time. But the vet said, "Emma is an amazing dog. She has definitely outlived all of her contemporaries." And not only that,but there doesn't seem to be anything majorly wrong. He said she was a pretty healthy dog and seems to be spry and in good spirits. But he wanted to do a total workup on her because she has lost another 3 lbs this year, making her a hefty 7 lbs. The results came back yesterday and everything seems to be fine. So we are changing her diet to a regular adult dog food so that she can get more calories. And we have to weigh her (with our non-existant scale), every week for a month. After that, we should report to the vet. Hopefully she will gain some weight, but she should at least maintain her current weight. So we shall see.
The scary thing is that lately Emma has been choking on her food. There have been a couple of times when I was about to make a phone call (I don't know to who!) because she wasn't able to get the food unstuck. So I asked what I should do in those situations. He showed me a couple of techniques. One was simply holding her vertically, which is what usually has been working for me. The other was to lift her head and run my fingers down her throat to help her swallow. Unfortunately, as dogs get older, those muscles that help them swallow just don't work so well. So this is the scary news from our visit. But all in all, I think that Emma is doing well.
I also want to say that Eli was great about all of this. He went to the vet with us, and he agreed to get the extra tests done even though that took the price up a notch or two...or twelve. He has always been so great about Emma and knowing how much she means to me. When we got married, he knew Emma came with the territory, and he really loves her too. They are so funny together. Every morning they wrestle a little and sometimes Eli gets jealous when Emma and I get "too much" snuggle time...and I mean jealous of me, not Emma! Love that husband of mine.
3 comments:
God love that little Emmerskino Baby. She has been such a joy through the years. And she gives me hope - maybe I will begin to lose weight in my old age, too! :)
But seriously. Keep taking good care of her, fatten her up as much as you can, and keep practicing the canine Heimlich.
And give her a kiss for us!
Love,
Mom and Borky
I'm so happy that Emma is going fine. I do have to say, she has outlived all our dogs (that we've known). She's amazing. You have to love dogs!! Woof Woof.
Abby and Eli know how I feel about Emma.If she was human she would be my main dawg. Although she's older than me,(17x7), me, 50-ish ,no wait! (late 40-ish,) they don't come any cuter or sweeter than the Emdawg.
noD namwoB.
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