Xena's Story Final Part (3)

 Xena on Saturday 1st September 2012 enjoying a long walk around The River Frome.

 

 

 

Xena's Story Final Part (3)

I decided to take her off her tablets. I thought long and hard about the decision. I spoke to the vet who said that she may go at any time from internal bleeding, that she would have a bleed in her brain or her stomach. He did not expect her to live more than two weeks. I knew I would lose her but I wanted her to have two good weeks if I could rather than another miserable few months or years. I looked into homeopathic remedies for dogs and as I had also recently started on a new life path for myself of holistic therapies I decided to learn reiki so that I could treat her.

I put her on Arnica and I treated her everyday with reiki. I brought in an experienced reiki lady who I met whilst learning reiki and she treated her. I took her off wheat and chemicals and only bought natural food for her. I treated her as if every day was her last and boy was she happy! I thought each day about it being her last day. I hated to leave her alone because I was convinced I would come home to find her dead. She had a habit of sleeping upside down with her legs in the air and snoring loudly. I kept waking and if I did not hear her snoring I would panic and call out her name. She used to jump up out of a deep sleep as if to say 'What!! Whats wrong?' I tried to make every day a good day to die. It sounds so morbid but I just wanted her to have a great last day.

As I am sure you are aware by the time scale and the start of the story. She is still around eight years later - yep - eight years. No one told her she was supposed to die from it - we just let her do her thing. After a couple of months I stopped worrying because it seemed like the right decision. She had a few good months and that was ok by me. Then it was a good year, a good couple of years and now it's a good life. Of course, she was spoilt rotten and you can't do a thing with her now! Her favourite hobby is barking and she just loves to do it. Mad as a ship's cat, but then I think she always was.

It is hard to play god, which is what we are to our animals. It is hard to decide to allow an animal to die if that is what is right? Who are we to say? We can only try and listen to what they are saying. Don't try and put words and thoughts into their heads they speak with energy. If you listen carefully and sit with your pet you can feel the energy and you will know the right choice for the animal you love. It is not always right to try and keep them alive just because we will miss them so desperately.

Xena checking the story copy is correct before going to press.

 I sure will miss Xena when she goes, but whenever that is will be fine because she has had a great life. Lucky dog!



 

 

 

 

 

Xena's story Part II

Xena's Story Part II

 Xena has never been an easy dog, if there is such a thing? She was so full of energy, being a Border Collie/ Spaniel cross, she should have been a working dog. But her spaniel side let her down - without a doubt she has always been a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. Having said that she tuned into me straight away and has always loved me deeply. More, much more than I deserved. I am an unreliable owner, I blow hot and cold with most things, I am not consistent. Having said that I always did my best to exercise her as much as I could. Single parenting is the hardest job in the world, I truly believe that and I am always mindful of how hard it is when I meet other parents in those circumstances. Single parenting with two young children and a neurotic collie is enough to drive anyone crazy and I think it did.

In 2004 I decided to get Xena spayed and this is where her remarkable story really begins. I had decided that it was necessary because her seasons sent us both over the edge! She would be running off trying to find any available 'man'. Perhaps I was jealous??

Having got her home from the op she started bleeding from the wound quite heavily. I took her back to the vets immediately and they kept her in overnight. I had to borrow a large cage (yes of course I had got rid of the other one - couldn't keep her in that!!) and she had to be kept quiet and only allowed out to do any business on a lead. She hated it - I hated it - she was so miserable - I was so miserable.

The vet had tested her blood and it turned out that she had a very low platelet count. Platelets are little cells in the blood that help it to clot. The vet was amazed at her results, in the tiny sample that they had taken they were hard pushed to find a platelet. She would bleed at the slightest thing. He warned me that he would book an appointment for five days later for a further test to see if the steroids were helping but that I should be prepared that she may not make it to that appointment. The chances of an internal bleed which would kill her were extemely high.

 

The next year followed in a blur of monthly blood checks, expensive tablets and steroids. I could not afford it but she was my third child (if you don't have a dog you probably won't understand that). It was better to get in debt than to lose her. Her condition did not improve, on the contrary, she became more and more distressed and 'crazy'. I decided to try and reduce her tablets and she seems a bit better in her 'mood' - I went to the vets for the next blood test and said that I had tried reducing her tablets and that she had improved so much. He phoned me up that evening and told me to increase the dose again immediately as her platelet count had gone dangerously low again. I despaired but did as I was told.

It was at the point that Xena had to take extreme measures to get through to my thick head and lack of understanding about her true energy and spirit. She ripped up several carpets - my sons bedroom carpet and the door, my new hall carpet, the stair carpet, the kitchen door. Shredded. I was so so mad. I am ashamed to say that I lashed out at her. I could not speak to her for two weeks my partner took her home with him and took her to work every day in his truck. I was deeply upset and didn't even ask him how she was.

Then it suddenly clicked. It clicked what she had been trying so hard for the last YEAR to tell me. How could I have been so far away from the language of energy? The language of animals. A dog that understood my every mood was screaming at me to try and understand her mood and her energy.

Xena came home and I started to think very hard about the right move forward. What makes my slowness of action even harder to understand is that I had been through the SAME thing. At 18 my platelet count was 18,000 per cubic centimetre of blood. I think the correct count is 350-500,000 per cubic cm. I was put on steroids, I felt miserable, the steroids did not work and I ended up in hospital at 19 having my spleen removed. Let me tell you that I would not let them do it now. But at 19 and told that I could bleed internally and that the operation was urgent, I just went along with what I was told was necessary to live.

 

Despite this, why could I not understand my dog? HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO STUPID??

 

Final Part III tomorrow.

Xena's Story Part I

This is the story of my dog Xena. Don't worry, its not an obituary, it is safe to read on without smudging your masscara. I'll try and do the story in several blogs otherwise you may fall asleep if I go on for too long.

It really is a story of a remarkable dog, I can't say that I fully understand the weirdness of what has happened to her, but I no longer worry and I no longer try to understand.

Ok - so here is Part One

Xena was born on the 21st June 2001. I didn't meet her until 19th January 2002. By then she was quite a big puppy and was causing chaos in the house that had her since she was eight weeks. They had bought her with her sister, who I think they called Misty. It was fine when they were puppies but as larger dogs they really couldn't cope with them both in a small house in Wareham so they advertised her. They chose to get rid of Xena rather than Misty because she was the most trouble, but they insisted it was because Xena had been chosen by the mum of the family and Misty had been chosen by the two boys and they didn't think it was fair to get rid of 'their' dog.

There are not many pictures of Xena in her youth - they are all blurred. She never stopped racing around.

So I turned up on a dark and dreary night in January, with two young children in tow. David was 5 and Lou was 3. We decided we wanted her straight away. They wanted us to take her then and there, so we did. We paid £100 for her and a very large cage.

That was the last time that she was shut in the cage with the door locked, until it was necessary that is. We kept it for a while as it was her 'bed' that she was used to. But we always left the door open.

When my husband left in March 2002 that was the last time that she slept downstairs - from then on I moved her bed next to mine and that is where she has slept ever since. She has never been an 'on the bed' sort of dog, she is too big and she also has more manners than that.

Then things started to get difficult.

 

Part II tomorrow