I was afraid to give an update on Phoenix too early… so I held back, for fear I’d jinx her recovery. But now – I feel like we’re past the scary part and I can share an update with you guys!
Phoenix was looking ROUGH. Really, really rough. James and I spent two weeks not sleeping a lot, and one night really tossing and turning, near tears, because we thought the time had come for our old girl. So the next day James called vets all over the city but nobody had openings for her to come in. Finally – he found a vet on yelp.com that makes house calls. He was able to get a hold of her, and she came over that same afternoon to check out our pup. According to James – she was the sweetest, little old lady ever, has been practicing since 1963, and most importantly… Phoenix loved her!
She let us know that Phoenix most likely was losing her appetite in her old age (we still need to take her in for blood tests to confirm nothing else is going on) and that she appeared to be having an allergic reaction to the beef we were feeding her after she stopped eating her regular food. (Apparently she was allergic to all the hormones and antibiotics in the beef…Eek! And we put that in OUR bodies?! Eww.) Anyway – one steroid shot, some allergy meds, omega-3 pills, and special shampoo & conditioner later – things started looking up around the Tyler household! (Yay!) It was a slow recovery process, but we saw steady improvement and it was such a RELIEF.
I honestly didn’t realize how tense we’d been around here because of all the Phoenix stuff lately, until the tension was gone… and we could breathe again!
I know we’ve really gotten over the bad part because yesterday, for the first time, Phoenix REALLY had her appetite back. As in, as soon as we got home last night she was sniffing all over the place begging for dinner (which is now boiled chicken and either potatoes or brown rice, per the vet’s instructions). She went so crazy for her food, that I figured I’d take pictures of it (because I take pictures of everything, and also … because I was SO happy to see her trotting and jumping around like a little puppy again!)
Here are some pics from dinner time yesterday… I couldn’t help but tease her a bit…
I set it on the counter and egged her on to help herself… (What?! She’s a GREAT dog and never normally does anything like this… unless she’s being encouraged… so I figured, why not? haha Plus, I wanted to see if she had her strength back enough to stand up… which apparently, she does!) I couldn’t help but laugh as I watched her attempt to get to the food…
Crazy eyes!!! ha ha!
Can’t quite reach…
She figured out she could press on the side of the bowl to get to the food more easily… but didn’t hold it down long enough the first time. Look at the bowl rocking around in this pic! haha!
She got it to stay tipped over this time! ha ha!
Jack pot!
Phoenix is back!!!
