Not for the Faint of Heart

Who is "Cyi?"

Cyi (pronounced "sigh") is a beautiful little white and tan Toy Fox Terrier. She should only weigh about 5.5 pounds but getting her below 6 pounds is a challenge. Cyi loves food. She will go out of her way to steal whatever food she can get her tiny little teeth on. She has stolen food right out of Yaddle's mouth, God love her, even though Yaddle is two and a half times her weight. With her high level of activity, you would think Cyi would melt away those extra calories. Alas . . . no. She hasn't had a tuck-up since she was two. It was Cyi's love of food that got her into her mess last week. And, unfortunately, it's a mess from which she will likely never recover.

Beautiful little Cyi was a beautiful little puppy. She came from a highly reputable breeder who sold her as a puppy with show potential. Her breeder has produced a good number of beautiful, healthy puppies who became wonderful pets and successful show dogs. One of my favorite dogs came from her home, a lovely little black tricolor male named "Johnny." Like Johnny, Cyi has a funny, quirky personality that makes everyone who meets her, simply love her.

Cyi herself has been a wonderful show dog. Back in her 'tuck-up days,' she finished her AKC championship in fairly easy time. Her then-owners were concentrating on another dog's show career at the time, but she was such a loved and loving dog that they brought Cyi with them every time they went to a show. Because Cyi is a smaller rather, um, portly dog, she didn't do very well in the specials class, showing against other champions. She eventually got her three major wins, as well as her wins over other champions, but her quest for her final three grand champion points went on for almost two years. Her owners wanted to hold off on breeding until she got those three points--and, as you will see, it was good that they did.

Unfortunately, time marches on. One of the owners left the partnership and got married. Her spouse wanted a different breed of dog, that "they chose themselves." The TFTs had to go stay with the second owner in the partnership and Cyi just didn't fit in. She loves people, but she is domineering to other dogs and can be the instigator of a good bit of discord. When Cyi's second owner decided that she needed to go to a good pet home, I asked if I could take her. I was certain that her personality would fit in with my other dogs, none of whom would let her get away with her shenanigans. I was in no hurry to finish her grand championship but would do it if it would be a condition of breeding her. Cyi became a happy member of the household, adopting Widget as her best friend. I showed her a little bit in UKC shows and, finally, in January 2022, we finished her AKC grand championship. I began to think about breeding her to another male outside the home.

The Dreaded Bloat

During the lockdowns, Hattiesburg Clinic requested that family members and drivers not wait inside with the patients receiving treatment. When Dan decided to resume going to doctors for routine appointments, I had some long waits in the parking lot. I'm not a shopper and nothing appealed to me less than hanging out in a store looking at things that I wasn't going to buy. For that reason, I had gotten into the habit of bringing a dog to train while I waited. There were often large areas of parking lot that were free of cars, so working on exercises that didn't require signs or equipment seemed a good way to pass the time. I decided that I would bring Cyi and Widget with me for a training and pictures day when we went to Hattiesburg the following day. I already had two crates in the car from when I brought Badger and Yaddle to training the previous week.

Naturally, because taking Dan for a report and consultation on his biopsy wasn't stressful enough, Cyi chose that morning to raid the trash. Ever mindful of my dogs, I never keep poisons or toxins in the house. Trash is generally limited to leftover food that never made it out to the chickens, dog kibble that has gotten wet or moldy, and glossy paper or packaging. Nevertheless, Cyi had started to bloat. I gave her some simethicone to reduce the gas buildup and put her in the car, anyway. There's an emergency vet clinic right near the Hattiesburg Clinic, so it wouldn't be hard to get her an exam if she needed it. Any other day, I could have gone to my regular vet, but we absolutely needed to keep Dan's appointment.

Seizures!

The drive to Hattiesburg takes over 90 minutes, on a good day. Once we reach the outskirts of town, there's often a good bit of traffic with which we have to contend, so we usually plan a minimum of two hours for the ride. We had just passed Tylertown, not quite 30 minutes into the drive, when we heard one of the dogs scurrying around in the crate, nails scraping against the plastic crate pan. It wasn't Widget. I could see his ears in my rearview mirror.

"Maybe she's feeling better?" Dan suggested.

"It's possible." All the same, I wasn't certain. I don't know if you've ever had the gut feeling that something simply wasn't right. I had it at that time. When we stopped to get gas in Columbia, I moved her crate from the far back of the Suburban to the back seat. Her bedding had all be scrunched to the back of her crate. I knew I'd feel better if I could see her, especially because she seemed to be panting very hard. Bloat will do that to a dog, as will trash picking. The dog will pant to relieve the discomfort they feel--and she was obviously uncomfortable. Periodically, she would lie quietly, though, so it seemed that it was not an immediate necessity to get her to the vet.

We had just passed the sign for Oloh when Cyi had difficulty standing. By now I was nearly in as much distress as my dog, as I was convinced something was very wrong. We found a place to pull over for Dan to take over driving. I removed Cyi and placed her on my lap, where she rode for the remainder of the trip. She appeared to relax in my arms and slept until we got to Hattiesburg Clinic. Dan's appointment was supposed to be a short one, so I thought that it might be okay to pull over into the parking area to wait for him.

I was wrong.

Only 10 or so minutes had passed before Cyi began to pant again, harder. She was directly in front of the air conditioning, so I knew she wasn't hot. Her stomach was deflated and soft, so the bloat had passed. And then it came, swift and brutal: Cyi stiffened and began paddling the air in a full-blown grand mal seizure. I called Dan's phone to let him know I would pick him up when I could, then rushed Cyi to the clinic, five minutes away.

At the Veterinarian

Cyi was still seizing when I reached the vet. I pulled into the first shady parking space that I could find and rushed her inside, still wrapped in her crate bedding. "My dog is having seizures," I told the girl at the desk. "I need to talk to a doctor." She took Cyi from my arms and rushed her into the first open exam room. It was the last I saw of Cyi for several hours.

The clinic staff was wonderful, giving me busy work to keep from panicking even more than I had already. I still hadn't talked to Dan. I still didn't know if he had learned the result of his biopsy, if the biopsy had revealed cancer, or if he was waiting on me to pick him up. I didn't feel as if I could leave the vet, given that Kathleen (my kennel partner) and I hadn't yet made arrangements to pay the bill. The $1200 total was more than either of us had on hand and I knew that Dan didn't have it. I applied for one form of credit tailored for veterinary bills. Due to the very small income I have right now, I didn't qualify. Unless we could get another form of credit, we couldn't pay our bill--then what? I had a brief conversation with Kathleen, who was at work and we ended up agreeing: if we could not manage to reduce the bill, if she could not come home with me instead of staying at the vet overnight, not only would we have to stop treatment, but Cyi would need to be euthanized. Kathleen would talk to the "money person" for me, so that I could possibly focus on Dan.

I felt I had failed my dog. The feeling of guilt was overwhelming.

After around an hour of fruitless waiting--no word from the vet, no word from the "money person," no word from Kathleen--I began to feel the crushing weight of anxiety pushing in. I have chronic depression in combination with anxiety--I was surprised that I managed to last that long. I felt trapped by everything that was happening, panicked over the probability that I was not ever going to see Cyi alive again. Everything negative that could run through my mind, did. The most prevalent feeling became anger: I had no idea what was going on with Dan, who in my mind was outside in the heat and not knowing what had happened and I had no idea if my dog was even alive. I kept getting assurances like, "the doctor will be out to see you in a few minutes," or "I'll get an update for you soon." I don't think I ever saw the doctor, but to be honest, I really don't remember.

At around 5:20, I finally got in touch with Dan. Before I could ask how he was, he asked about Cyi. Crazy dog people! I told the people at the clinic that I was not running out on my bill or on my dog, but that I had to go pick up Dan. I didn't care if they would "permit" me to leave or not. I was going. On the way back to the veterinary clinic, Dan told me that his potential cancer diagnosis had been confirmed. We were fortunate that the mass was small and encapsulated and that we had caught it early. More guilt. With all the focus I had put on Cyi, I had not been there to give Dan the attention the gravity of the day demanded.

When I returned inside the clinic--Dan stayed outside to take care of Widget--I was met with good news. Cyi was not only alive, but the doctor had made it possible for her to come home with me that night! We just needed to wait until 7:30 before we could pick her up. It wasn't an "ideal" situation, the tech explained to me. Cyi would be groggy and most likely she would still be "tremoring," but she had been given a phenobarbital shot and it would last until she could start her pills in the morning. Although not ideal, there was no reason to expect that she would suffer any ill effects from going home.

At 7:35, I saw Cyi for the first time after her terrible ordeal. She was haggard. Her eyes were half open, and her tongue protruded from her mouth. she was visibly tremoring, despite the IV phenobarbital she had been given. The moment she saw me, though, she tried to struggle out of the tech's arms to come to me. She began to lick my hands, the closest she could come to a "kiss" at the moment. It didn't matter if she was weak, if she smelled like vet clinic: my Cyi was going home.

There are a lot of heroes in this story. The clinic did an amazing job with Cyi. They did everything they could do to stabilize her so that all of the charges I would have incurred for an overnight stay went away. The bill is paid, due to their ability to work with us. Kathleen was an amazing negotiator. She recognized that I couldn't deal with the stress. Without her ability to communicate our needs and our ability to handle our dogs' medical care, Cyi might not have come home. Dan, bless him, put his needs second. Not only did he drive himself part of the way to the clinic, he also paid for our dinner and drove most of the way home so that I could focus on Cyi. My boss, too, was wonderful. She gave me two days off to ensure that Cyi's tremors stopped and that she would not have to get any additional emergency care.

Cyi is a beautiful little white and tan Toy Fox Terrier. She has idiopathic epilepsy. She has a bald patch on her hip from where it rubbed against the crate pan as she had her seizures. It may be permanent. She will be on medication the rest of her life--perhaps another 10 or 12 years, God willing. She is sleeping on the back of the couch right now, unaware that there will never be another dog show, that she will be spayed and live out her life as a pet. I'm certain that both are fine with her, as long as her twice daily "cookies" keep coming. Don't worry, Cyi. They will. I promise that with all my heart, cherished one.