Puppy Love

My little family currently consists of three, 2 adults and 1 dog-a very special dog that is.  My little Samson can make anyone smile just by his personality and playfulness.  I love my dog more than I ever thought I could love an animal.  He is like my child! 

Sammy, or Bubs, or Little Man (whichever we feel like at the moment) was born on May 19, 2007 to a party poodle mother and a Maltese father. 

I had been talking about getting a dog for a long time and knew that I wanted a Maltese, because they are so cute, great for people with allergies, and have great personalities.  I also knew that I wanted a male as opposed to a female, I guess I had always had boy dogs and knew how their mannerisms were.  I had searched the local papers and even thought about adopting from the listing of rescue dogs.  Ultimately my mom found a "breeder" just outside of her town who had one puppy left.  We all drove out to this house, in the middle of nowhere it seemed, to find at least 15 dogs running around all looking pretty nasty.  The woman came out of the house holding the cutest white puppy I had ever seen, she placed him in a wire pen and I got to watch him run around and play.  I fell in love instantly.  We were very skeptical of Samson's "breeder" as we came to the conclusion that she was running a puppy mill.  This was just a better reason for me to get my puppy out of there and give him a better life!!  I drove to the local convenience store and withdrew $300 and went back to pay for my new little puppy!  Here's what he looked like as a pup:

Samson is the best puppy I have ever had, he works so hard to please you, knows when he is in trouble, and listens better than some humans!  He always makes me smile when he jumps on you as you enter the door-it doesn't matter if you were gone for 5 minutes or 5 hours he is excited to see you.  He is a hard one to crack as well.  It's like he knows what is going on in my life and refuses to let people in until he knows they are going to stick around.  When I met David, Sam didn't care for him much.  Sam would hide when he was over and wouldn't even go near me.  Then something changed about 8 months into our relationship, Sam decided he liked David (8 months in was about the time that David said the three words).  Sam wanted to spend more time with him, Sam would run to him before greeting me, and Sam even cuddled with him on the couch.  It's like he knew that we had taken our relationship to a new level and Sam was letting us know that he was OK with it!  Smart Dog!  They say that animals are splitting images or their owners...I'd like to think so! 

Sam and I have had a few set backs just as any new mother would with their child.  We spent some days in the doctor's office because Sam ate something he wasn't supposed to and it gave him an upset stomach.  We had some accidents during our house training phase.  We even had some issues around other dogs.  I'm happy to say that most of these things have worked themselves out and he is better than ever.  Over the summer in preparation for our upcoming wedding, we all moved in together.  This was the first time that Sammy had stayed with anyone other than me or my family.  I wasn't sure if David was quite aware of how important Sam was to me on a day to day basis.  He had only really seen us interact periodically.  I would do anything for my dog, anything!  Little did I know that Sam was about to test me on this.....

In September of 2011, I had noticed that Sam was acting a little different.  I knew that he was sad that he didn't have his doggy playmate (Graci-my sister's dog) to play with anymore, but I didn't think that would cause him to lose all of his energy.  I'm one of those doggy mothers (and probably baby mothers) that gets paranoid about everything!  I began watching Sam when he went outside to make sure he wasn't getting into anything (previous history) and made attempts to search online for possibilities.  One morning I was talking to David before I left for work and remember telling him that Sam sure was getting to be a chunky monkey.  Sam has never been a heavy dog, always weighing in about 10-12 lbs.  His belly sure was getting big, but the rest of him seemed to get smaller.  I really started to worry, so David took him to his vet's office for a checkup.  I remember it like it was yesterday, I was eating lunch with a client and David called.  He had his worried tone and I knew something was wrong.  It turns out that Sammy had ascities of the abdomen. 

• Ascites is the abnormal accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity. The leakage of such fluids may derive from blood vessels, internal organs, abdominal masses and lymph nodes. In some cases, the level of ascites may be quite evident often causing abdominal swelling to a point where there may be pressure on the diaphragm causing difficulty breathing in the dog. While ascites per se does not create problems, it is the underlying issue that needs addressed.

It was then that we started on this long road to recovery for Little Man.  We knew that ascities was the underlying issue but needed to run tests to determine the cause.  We were referred to a specialist and had several labs tests completed and it was determined that Sam's issue was PLE (Protein Losing Enteropothy).  Sam's body was not making enough of the protein Albumin to absorb the fluid in his GI so the fluid was draining into his abdomen.  We had tests run to rule out reasons for this, including kidney failure, liver failure, and heart disease.  So it really only left the GI tract to blame.  We went ahead and had Sam's stomach drained, but David and I opted against the scope (the scope would tell us exactly what caused the problem) because we have been able to treat the issue with a diet change and medication.  Luckily Sam hasn't even acted sick.  We now only feed him Royal Canine Gastrointestinal dry and canned food and our little guy can only eat carrots as treats.  We had to cut fat out of his diet.  We also give him 1 prednisone pill each morning and have monthly blood draws to check his albumin level.  We are on the right track and his levels are almost normal again and at that time we will try to taper him down and then off of the medication. 

Talk about a scary time for me!  At one time I thought I was going to lose my pup, and now we are working each day to keep him healthy.  We have learned alot, had great doctors and understand that this is going to be a thing we will deal with for the rest of Sam's life, but we are willing to do that.  He is apart of our family and we can't even think about not having him around. 

Here are pictures of his progress through treatment: