11/4/08 – 24/1/2015
My big baby girl has gone. It hurts so bad.
From the day Djebel came home with us we knew she was a treasure in so many ways and she became a huge part of our lives. I had waited for years to get my own Great Dane (both my aunts had Danes so I grew up loving these very special gentle giants) and for me our lives would become interdependent in a way I will never regret but wish it never needed to be.
Djebs was in her 4th year when we started to suspect that from time to time things weren’t quite as they should be (sometimes head hung and tad too wobbly on her feet). It took a downturn, a change of vets (for one who would take me seriously and not just give me the ‘well you know these breeds, they tend to get arthritis early’ line) and a scan at a veterinarian neurologists to diagnose her with Wobblers. That was in Jan 2013.
She was doing really well. We got to well beyond the neurologists cautionary 6 month prognosis.
Then in Dec 2014 she had her first ,of what was to be many, Glaucoma in both eyes. We then fought one battle after another. Her right eye seemed to settle but the left one just kept flaring up. She lost almost all of the sight in that one early on. We must have been doing an average of weekly trips to the vet. But in the meantime her Wobblers was stable enough with just the odd sign of some regression.
The Glaucoma were secondary and caused by Uvitis – in Djebs case, a ‘flower’ pattern of floating cysts. Had she been a young and/or Wobbler free doggie the vet said it would have been worth trying to aspirate them but it would have been too risky and unfair to put Djeb through that. We also discussed removing the eyes but also agreed that it would just be too much to ask Djebel to go through and recover from. Aparently dogs who have these cysts are born with them. They may be tiny, fixed, and never cause a problem or, they are a ticking time bomb.
Anyway, on the 30th Dec her eyes went really bad. Glaucoma in left one and this time, what we were all dreading, the right eye went as well, only not a glaucoma, but it filled with blood. The vet explained that the floating cysts had caused this haemorrage. Treatments and meds (cortizone) were aimed at drawing the blood out of the eye as well as controlling tension. Incredibly she did recover again ‘some’ sight in that poor left eye but the blood in her right eye never cleared.
We noticed during this time that she was also losing weight and her Wobblers was also getting much worse. She was so brave during all this time, never complaining, letting me do all her treatments multiple times per day, trusting Mark and me to guide her everywhere (it’s complicated here, thankfully not indoors where she moved about quite comfortably, but outdoors there are terraces, some 2 m high, and the lay of the land is varied, Olive & fruit trees, swimming pool etc). But she was starting to look sad. She didn’t want to go out anymore and then only to do her business. We did manage to get a tail wag and have a little meriment at breakfast and diner time and we also managed to do a mini morning walk all together with Tati dog which she still got very excited about. Precious moments.
Last weekend both her eyes went one last time and on our Monday vet check we all agreed it was time to let her go and relieve her of her suffering. The vet offered to come to the house to put her to sleep 'en douceur' and so that we could bury her here but this is not stricly legal in France and so she could only do it in her time off. This last week has been the toughest, bitter sweet, heart wrenching, soul searching time of my life. I didn’t know it was possible to cry so much.
Laura (our lovely vet) came up yesterday afternoon and we all settled together by the fire and she gently put my big baby girl to rest (Just short of her 7th birthday).
Mark and I are devastated. The loss of her is physically painful.
Run free my Djeb Djeb – you will never be forgotten and you will be in our hearts forever. Thank you for being a very special part of our lives….
My big baby girl has gone. It hurts so bad.
From the day Djebel came home with us we knew she was a treasure in so many ways and she became a huge part of our lives. I had waited for years to get my own Great Dane (both my aunts had Danes so I grew up loving these very special gentle giants) and for me our lives would become interdependent in a way I will never regret but wish it never needed to be.
Djebs was in her 4th year when we started to suspect that from time to time things weren’t quite as they should be (sometimes head hung and tad too wobbly on her feet). It took a downturn, a change of vets (for one who would take me seriously and not just give me the ‘well you know these breeds, they tend to get arthritis early’ line) and a scan at a veterinarian neurologists to diagnose her with Wobblers. That was in Jan 2013.
She was doing really well. We got to well beyond the neurologists cautionary 6 month prognosis.
Then in Dec 2014 she had her first ,of what was to be many, Glaucoma in both eyes. We then fought one battle after another. Her right eye seemed to settle but the left one just kept flaring up. She lost almost all of the sight in that one early on. We must have been doing an average of weekly trips to the vet. But in the meantime her Wobblers was stable enough with just the odd sign of some regression.
The Glaucoma were secondary and caused by Uvitis – in Djebs case, a ‘flower’ pattern of floating cysts. Had she been a young and/or Wobbler free doggie the vet said it would have been worth trying to aspirate them but it would have been too risky and unfair to put Djeb through that. We also discussed removing the eyes but also agreed that it would just be too much to ask Djebel to go through and recover from. Aparently dogs who have these cysts are born with them. They may be tiny, fixed, and never cause a problem or, they are a ticking time bomb.
Anyway, on the 30th Dec her eyes went really bad. Glaucoma in left one and this time, what we were all dreading, the right eye went as well, only not a glaucoma, but it filled with blood. The vet explained that the floating cysts had caused this haemorrage. Treatments and meds (cortizone) were aimed at drawing the blood out of the eye as well as controlling tension. Incredibly she did recover again ‘some’ sight in that poor left eye but the blood in her right eye never cleared.
We noticed during this time that she was also losing weight and her Wobblers was also getting much worse. She was so brave during all this time, never complaining, letting me do all her treatments multiple times per day, trusting Mark and me to guide her everywhere (it’s complicated here, thankfully not indoors where she moved about quite comfortably, but outdoors there are terraces, some 2 m high, and the lay of the land is varied, Olive & fruit trees, swimming pool etc). But she was starting to look sad. She didn’t want to go out anymore and then only to do her business. We did manage to get a tail wag and have a little meriment at breakfast and diner time and we also managed to do a mini morning walk all together with Tati dog which she still got very excited about. Precious moments.
Last weekend both her eyes went one last time and on our Monday vet check we all agreed it was time to let her go and relieve her of her suffering. The vet offered to come to the house to put her to sleep 'en douceur' and so that we could bury her here but this is not stricly legal in France and so she could only do it in her time off. This last week has been the toughest, bitter sweet, heart wrenching, soul searching time of my life. I didn’t know it was possible to cry so much.
Laura (our lovely vet) came up yesterday afternoon and we all settled together by the fire and she gently put my big baby girl to rest (Just short of her 7th birthday).
Mark and I are devastated. The loss of her is physically painful.
Run free my Djeb Djeb – you will never be forgotten and you will be in our hearts forever. Thank you for being a very special part of our lives….
