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We are happy to announce that Peyton is now an International Champion.
Below are pictures taken at a Papillon Butterfly Bash held in honor of Ava.
Ava and her cake
Just some of the guests in attendance
Karmen Klanac's Londyn & Peyton
Gail Howard's Phoebe and Olivia
Angela Dominguez's Dylan, Jazz, Trick-C, and Beau
Sherry Neumann's Spangles, Buster, and Lucky
Janet Hyder's Daisy and Quincy
Deri Anderson's Gizmo and Gunner
Buddy and Shonie Glen's Delilah, Jasmine, and Lollipop
Annette Dias' Keeper - waving at the camera
Pat Horton's Sadie
Gale Cielinski's Simon
Jim and Cherie Harrison's Sete and Sophie
Ana Slabic's Ava, Juliette, & Ferris and Karmen Klanac's Star (horse)
who started eating the prop and scaring the dogs
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It has been a difficult time for us the last few weeks. On September 1, Ana took Ava to the vet for what she thought was a simmple tummy ache.
Blood tests and x-rays were taken just to rule out any major problem. Everything came back normal.
When Ava wasn't better on Tuesday, Ana took her back to the vet where stayed remained much of the day. Not better
by Wednesday and not eating, she was back to spend the day at the vet's. A second series of x-rays and barium swallow revealed nothing wrong.
By now, Ana assumed it had to be some type of an obstruction that wasn't showing up on X-ray. The vet could have done exploratory surgery
but he was hesitant. What if if wasn't an obstruction? He recommended that Ava be sent to a specialist "just in case". He called Gulf Coat Veterinary Hospital
and made an appointment for Ava first thing Thursday morning with internal medicine. No one knew that the decision to see the internist would be the decision that would save Ava's life.
On Thursday morning, Ana went with Ava to see the internist. A bunch of tests were done, including redoing the blood work which had already been done on Monday by
the general vet. This time the results were anything but normal. Normal liver enzyme ALT value should be around 100;
Ava's ALT value was 10,000!!! Ava was in full blown liver failure!
Ava was immediately admitted and remained in the internal medicine ICU for 6 full days. By Thursday evening she took a huge turn for the worse. She had
massive internal bleeding and pneumonia. Had she of been taken into exploratory surgery, she would have bled out on the table! Instead, the specialists
gave her a couple blood transfusions and had her receiving plasma. That, along with a host of other shots and medications.
When Ana visited her, she saw that Ava's entire underbelly had been shaved. She was brusied from the internal bleeding from her chin - all the way down to her
inner thighs. She was completely lethargic and her eyes were glazed. On Saturday, she was worse.
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Sunday when she started getting a little better. The doctors were able to get her blood to clot which was their prime objective. By Tuesday evening Ana
was able to take Ava home. Ava wasn't bleeding out and she was on a ton of meds. Ideally, the doctors wanted her to remain at the hospital, but Ava wasn't eating.
It had been 10 days since her last meal. They thought that at home, with continued medical care, she would begin eating and would regain her strength faster.
Ana stayed home with Ava, giving her liquid puppy formula with a syringe. She literally gave her only 1cc every 5 minutes, almsot around the clock. It was
an exhuasiting task but necessary as Ava would regurgitate anything more. It was a long
road to recovery, but little by litter, Ava did recover.
The vets who worked on Ava believed the most likely culprit was toxicity. Genetic problems were ruled out but to date, we haven't found anything that she could have gotten into.
Cleaning products are never within reach of the dogs, there are no poisons in the house, the dogs are never roaming outside unsupervised, and there
are no toxic plants in the yard or on the other side of the fence. After much thought, the only possibility is that she got into some sugarless gum which
contained xylitol.
Ava is acting like her old self again. She is spunky, and always ready for affection. We are extremely blessed and thankful to the wonderful doctors
who fought to save her life and to our many friends
who prayed for her recovery. After the doctors got her blot to clot, it was in God's hands as to whether or not Ava's liver could regenerate.
UPDATE: Repeated blood tests confirm that Ava is back to being a very healthy and lively little girl. We still don't know what toxin she got into but have now
banned any human food which could be toxic to dogs. So, no sugarless diet foods in our homes! The total cost to save Ava's life was over $9,000.00.
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Gabriel turned TEN on March 18, 2009 so we threw him a party the following weekend!
Above are some of the guests from the party.
Our mom helping us to decorate before the party started.
After the party, Gabriel enjoyed his basket of toys and treats.
I took some new pics of the dogs; enjoy!
Gabriel (9.5 yrs), Juliette (9 yrs) and Peyton (1.5 yrs)
Ferris (4 yrs) and Peyton (1.5 yrs)
Ferris and Peyton
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