My Dog is a Lemon

“So, we've decided to change her name to Lemon. No kidding. I've been calling her Sadie-Lemon to try and get her used to it.

She's been to the vet so many times, I can't even count. But, I'll try...

*Surgery to remove growth on paw.
*Anal Sac Disease... contsantly needs vet to squeeze 'em for her. He said I could do it, but YEAH RIGHT.
*Pancreatitis - more than one occasion.
*Burnt paw.
*Eye "ucler" (poked her eye)
*2 cysts removed
*Hot spots
*Intervertebral Disc Disease

And then, she poked her eye, again, last month. We have lots of Honeysuckle on the fence by the front door. She likes to walk up and down the fence to scratch her back on the woody branches. We think that is how she poked her eye. Took her to the vet, like we did before. Gave her the same eye drops. Only, this time, it didn't heal up. So, took her back and got a new kind of eye drops. No luck. Took her again today and doc says she needs to see a specialist, the Doggie Opthamologist. It may require some sort of surgery since her vision is affected by it.

All this, and I've only had her 4 1/2 years.

So, she's gonna have to start paying her own way. Any good jobs out there for dogs? lol”

“Boy, the mutt is getting expensive.

Go to a seedy neigbourhood and buy some illicit drugs (different kinds), get some explosives too....use them to train your dog sniffing them out. Airport security needs animals like that.”

“Maybe you'll have to get her a "seeing eye human".”

“Is she a pure bred? From a puppy mill? Damn that's bad luck.

You know what they say about what to do when life hands you lemons...

(not sure if that applies when anal sac disease is involved though!)”

“LOL!!

Think I could get paid to be her seeing eye human? That would help take care of her vet bills.

I'll pass on the lemonade!

No, violin, she's not a pure bred. She's a mutt from a shelter. We got her when she was about 1 yr old.”

“Yikes, poor pooch, and poor you!

When I had my cat to the vet a couple weeks ago, the vet told me to take out insurance on her. Between the reactions to any vaccination, the bout of diahrea she had when I got her, and her horrible teeth (she's only 3, her teeth and gums are in bad shape, vet said she will proabably loose then in a few years) she's bascially not a healthy cat.

All you can do is love 'em, and get a second job. :) Hey, just get Max working!!”

“You'd probably have to be re-trained tara, and wear one of those harnesses..

Our Yellow Lab, Jesse, is 13 now and she's starting to have more problems. She keeps pulling her ACL or whatever it is in dogs. Her hip bothers her and she's losing her hearing too. I guess that's 91 in Dog Years. I guess all you can do is keep them happy...”

“http://www.dogswithjobs.com/

Haven't you ever heard of an internet search?”

“We thought about the vet insurance when she was having the disc problems cause he said it was likely to return and could result in needing back surgery. But, found out that would be considered a "pre-existing" condition so it might not be covered. Check into that before you shell out any cash, sg.

Oh, and have a happy birthday!”

“We have a name for dogs like that down South...Lucky.”

“If my dog gets a job before i do, I will seriously get a complex..”

“Yes, biz, I know a little about internet searches. But I was really more interested in letting everyone else do the work for me.”

“Poor pup. Play the cards you are dealt. Those of us who have lost their "man's best friends" would kill to be in your position. Spoil him/her (sorry for not noting gender, but I'm not going back up to check) If he/she is truly a family member you need to "see it through" as long as he/she is not miserable. Give it a pat=pat from me.”

“Trust me, this dog is looooved. She's worth every dime I've spent and will spend on her in order to keep her around as long as possible!!”

“I know the feeling, tarabull. One of my cats has a heart condition and gets diuretics 2x and heart meds 3x a day. Another one has seasonal bouts of asthma which also require 2 separate meds. Yet another cat had severe parasitic infections as a kitten and now that he's old he has very few teeth and occasional arthritis flareups. You can hear his joints creak as he walks across the room. But they're like your kids. You just love them.”

“My WIFE'S dog is a purebred & not from a mill. Can you say surgery TWO times, plus daily meds. at $1.50 per day and add $.80 every third day for additional meds, as well as "prescription" dog food on a daily basis? If we had kids we'd have to sell 'em or put them to work just to pay for this fur bag! (My wife keeps tempting me with trading it in for a fish.--I Keep saying WHEN!?)”

“Sounds like time for pero burritos.”

“What breed of dog, stumpy?”

“sorry I called you stumpy. I used to know a guy who's last name was Stumpton, and he preferred to be called stumpy.”

“You can only buy doggy insurance before doggy hits 6 months. (At least last I checked.) The mutt is a minature schnauzer. (My wife comes from a large family and all the female sibs have minature schnauzer's. Didn't release this when we got married!) Stumpy is fine, get a lot of flac from the perverts on this site for the full name.”

“tarabull, bummer about Sadie. I did LOL about changing her name to Lemon. I have one dog whose nickname is Lemon Head. She's not the brightest canine in the camp.

All you can do is love em. Good luck.”

“Thanks all!

When we first got Sadie/Lemon, she was a bit absent minded. A friend of ours took to nicknaming her Clue... cause she didn't have one”

“I think you have our dog!”

“LOL Stumprider... want her back?

(j/k)”

“NO!”

“Once had an old mutt that was the best three-legged dog around. He wouldn't use his fourth leg because it was injured.”

“I can sympathize a bit tarabull, Scooby cost me a couple hundred dollars by the time she was 4 months old. They really are worth it, though. Good luck with that eye. Do they make safety goggles for pooches? LOL!”

“Yeah, they call 'em Doggles!”

“Uh-uh! That's too much!”

“if i had a dog i would want to call it "#&%!$ head"
sorry steve i need to steal that one”

“Oh now you shouldn't have done that! Those doggie RayBans are a must-have for the next dog now. Poor pooch! LOLOL!”

“So sorry, Tarabull that kind of luck hurts the heart and the wallet. Sounds like you are doing the 3 most important things: loving her, taking good care of her and finding a way to laugh about.

My dog cost me a fortune as a pup, she got parvo shortly after I took her home. Evidently the first shots didn't take (I'd hate to think the woman at the Mom & Pop shelter in New Hampshire lied to me about giving her shots). She lost half her weight and couldn't even lift her head at one point. More than 9 years later, she has been an incredible dog: smart, athletic, sweet and as obedient as a dog could be and still have spunk. She's just starting to show a little age now.”

“skullcap - Max and I have talked about getting a side car for the dog once we get a motorcycle... These Doggles will definitley be in order! Can you see it? Too funny!

Thanks Ped, and everyone. I'll keep ya posted on what happens when we see the specialist. I'm told it can take a very long time just to get an appointment. We're gonna call Monday after we talk to Max's sister - who just graduated vet school from Mich State Univ which is where we're taking her. So, we want to find out from her how to get her in as quickly as possible.”

“Good Luck.

My second dog was also a mutt. Had to take her to the pound in order to keep peace in the family with my second wife. Broke my heart.

In the end it turned out I got rid of the wrong dam dog!”

“geo,

ouch!!”

“LOL”

“...And the ears whipping in the wind. I can definitely see that! As long as she's got a good 'sit stay' and a doggie seatbelt it's very do-able. And it will be cracking people up wherever you go!!!”

“If you knew my ex WF, you'd agree. The little fuzzy one never caused any grief. Never had any doubts that she loved me.”

“Sorry to hear about your doggie mix-up!!

Been there myself..makes one a bit cautious the next time around - doesn't it?? LOL

Hang in there buddy, it gets heaps better!”

“Pedxing-interesting, down here they don't treat for parvo. They just put the dog down.”

“That was some time ago Tex. I've been in and out of love a couple times since then. Mostly out. Life's been goofy, but I'm having fun with it.”

“The last time I went to the vet it was $350 and my dog is perfectly healthy! lesseee..Heartguard, shots, new tags, flea & tick protection, I think they even charged me to feel up his nads.. doh@! he doesn't have any he's fixed!

I feel for ya chica!”

“$$$$$$$”

“Hot Lips, Gravely Ill, Receives Elaborate Care at Fish Hospital

By DAN MORSE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


RALEIGH, N.C. -- Three veterinarians stood over a $4.95 goldfish named Hot Lips, prepping her for surgery. The senior vet, Craig Harms, slipped a syringe into the nine-inch-long fish's swollen belly. He drew out clear fluid -- a bad sign.

Dr. Harms retreated to the hallway, pulled out his cellphone and called the owners in New York's Catskill Mountains. It was Wednesday morning, Aug. 14.

"Hot Lips is doing OK," he said, before delivering the bad news about the liquid. "It puts the possibility of liver disease or kidney disease back in the picture. ... We'll keep you posted as we move along."

Dr. Harms and his colleagues are among about 20 vets in the nation who perform surgery on pet fish. Not one of them makes it his sole practice. But the need for such services is growing. Americans are building more backyard fishponds, stocking up on pets that they swear have their own personalities.

Large "pond-kept fish" rank as the fastest-growing fish-pets in the nation, while the broader category of fish ownership grows faster than dogs, cats, lizards or any other pet type, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association in Greenwich, Conn., and pet fish tend to grow bigger when they have more room to swim. Koi, the goldfish's fancy and often-expensive cousin, are particularly popular. They can live well past 30. So when these much-loved pets grow lumps or quit swimming, some owners give surgery a shot.

More are reaching out to Dr. Harms and his colleagues at North Carolina State University's College of Veterinary Medicine. One reason: Surgeons there have developed an advanced way to keep their patients alive on the operating table -- a portable device that pumps fluids, including anesthesia, into their mouths and out their gills.

The North Carolina surgeons will take cases that other vets consider hopeless. In March, they fused two crushed vertebrae along the spine of a 21-inch, $900 koi named Ladyfish. The three-hour procedure followed X-rays and a CAT scan. Ladyfish's owner, a North Carolina Roto-Rooter manager named David Smothers, recently brought in a smaller koi named Wendy for similar work. "To see this little girl swimming again, it's just incredible," Mr. Smothers says.

That expertise caught the attention of Deb and Greg Ireland, who live in Liberty, N.Y., about 90 miles northwest of New York City. The couple, both in their mid-50s, bought Hot Lips three years ago when she was a three-inch baby. They picked her out of a pet-store tank because of the fish's striking snow-white body, reddish-orange back and small spot of color above her mouth.

The Irelands acclimatized Hot Lips to their pond, in a backyard oasis of gentle waterfalls, a barbecue grill and lounge chairs. Hot Lips grew into a svelte beauty, making friends with the couple's 25 other fish, among them Pinto, a large koi, and Alice, a naturally round oranda, a type of goldfish.

Last fall, the Irelands noticed some lumps on Hot Lips. "Maybe she's got some oranda genes in her," Mr. Ireland told his wife, hoping to ease her concerns. By spring, Hot Lips's stomach had swollen like a baseball. Mrs. Ireland gave her regular injections of antibiotics. That cleared up the sores but didn't reduce the swelling.

Mrs. Ireland began looking for a surgeon. By early August, she was telling surgeons at North Carolina State about a pink, bumpy growth protruding from Hot Lips's vent.

"How soon can you get her here?" veterinarian Greg Lewbart asked.

Three days later, the Irelands took Hot Lips to an aquatics shop in Warwick, N.Y., where she was specially packaged for overnight shipping. "Hang in there, Champ," Mr. Ireland said.

That night, Mrs. Ireland couldn't sleep and spent her time tracking Hot Lips's travel itinerary on the UPS Web site. By 10 a.m. the next day, Hot Lips had arrived safely in North Carolina. The operation was to take place the following morning.

The Irelands had reason to feel good about their surgeon. A native of Iowa, Dr. Harms earned his bachelor's degree in biology at Harvard, where he became taken with the idea of working with aquatic animals. He then went to vet school at Iowa State University. He has since had advanced training in microsurgery.

During the past eight years, Dr. Harms, now 41, has operated on about 125 fish for pet owners and while teaching seminars for other vets. All but one fish survived. The pet owners generally pay between $350 and $1,000. Dr. Harms's research-journal articles have chronicled, among other cases, the removal of a hematoma the size of a pencil eraser from a three-inch gourami.

Operating on Hot Lips, Dr. Harms wedged the Irelands' goldfish into a V-shaped bed of foam rubber. The sedated fish was still, save for the motion of her gills as water and chemicals flowed through. A water pump provided the only constant sound in the room.

Dr. Harms, wearing aqua surgical scrubs and a light-blue mask, cut and retracted enough of Hot Lips's sides to reveal the first of two growths. With his fingertips, he gingerly probed beneath the yellow, slimy mass. "Looks like we got a big ol', fluid-filled, nasty ovary," Dr. Harms told his team.

The growth had been pushing into Hot Lips's central organ cavity, wending its way around her tiny colon. At Dr. Harms's request, one of the other vets inserted a catheter into Hot Lips's vent, hoping that it would support the colon as he cut near it.

No good. By the time Dr. Harms's instruments reached the colon, it had torn. He would have to repair it with surgical thread the thickness of a human hair.

At 11:04, Hot Lips stopped gilling.

Pam Govett, a vet assisting in the surgery, switched the anesthesiology flow device to pure, dechlorinated water. This supplied Hot Lips with oxygen in the same way a ventilator keeps human patients alive in a hospital. Next, the fish's heart became the big concern. Jenny Kishimori, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer now in veterinary school, put a tiny audio probe just below Hot Lips's throat. They couldn't hear a pulse, just water sloshing through the gills.

The team adjusted the probe. Finally, the sound of a steady, though slow, beat filled the room. "Thump-thump ... Thump-thump..." A low-normal 28 beats per minute.

Dr. Harms eventually removed two growths, which together accounted for about 40% of Hot Lips's weight, which had been 13 oz. But it was then clear exactly how sick she'd been: with damaged kidneys, scant body fat and pale gills suggesting anemia.

Dr. Harms turned back to the frayed colon. He pinched its underside with forceps, rotating it enough to sew together a lateral tear. An assistant retracted the catheter slightly as saline solution ran back into Hot Lips's colon to test the fix. It held.

In New York, Hot Lips's owners waited by the phone. Nervous, Mrs. Ireland finally called the vet school, but could reach only an intake room. "Hot Lips hasn't made it back yet," she was told.

Forty minutes later, her phone rang. "It's not looking real good," Dr. Harms told her. He explained all his team had done. "The biggest concern for me right now is: She's been on pure water for over two hours and she hasn't started gilling," he said.

"Keep trying," Mrs. Ireland said.

Back in the operating room, Hot Lips's pulse had faded to 14 beats per minute. Dr. Harms injected her with adrenaline, which spiked her heartbeat to 32, but he didn't really expect that to last.

"Come on, Hot Lips," the soldier-turned-vet-student Ms. Kishimori pleaded, "Wake up!"

Dr. Govett smoothed out Hot Lips's tail. "Such a beautiful fish," she said.

Nearly five hours after the procedure began, Hot Lips's pulse faded to nothing. Dr. Govett extended her thumb and forefinger into Hot Lips's chest, applying several minutes of CPR to try to start her heart.

"I think not," Dr. Harms said finally, walking out of the room to call New York.”

“Pass the tartar sauce, please.”

“man, i used to have an aquarium maint. business in dallas and lemme tellya, people really do freak out when their fish die. most of mym clients were really rich people cuz i mean, who else would pay someone to clean their tanks every week. i did everything from bete bowls to reef tanks to gigantic ponds. i had one guy who had a 15,000 gallon koi pond & the sand filter busted one day and pumped the pond dry killing all the fish. the insurancec settlement was $150,000....just for the fish he had in this pond. they were all imported japanese koi, many were over 2 feet long. that article was wrong about something...they can live to be over 100 years old. they actually have koi in japan that are so old, they really don't know how old they are. some big breeder fish auction over there for over $100,000.....FOR ONE STINKIN GLORIFIED CARP! ! !”

“It was a sad day in our house...Khatru was visibly upset for a few days...even now...when we walk past Bob's empty giant Brandy Snifter...we get a tug at our heart strings...Bob was beloved and we still remember him.

Oh Bob,,,where art thou of fishy buddy...we miss you and hope that your new life in the giant fishbowl in the sky is full of happiness and sweet mosquitos to snack on...swim on little buddy, swim on...we shall never forget...”

“I like goldfish.....


They are impressive bait when you put them into a tank with an Oscar.”

“Dead fish make nice fertilizer for house plants. Just bury them in the soil in the pot and stand back.”