Dogs

I have a couple, and I'm very fortunate to have the younger one. Last month he had some serious health issues and we had to consider putting him to sleep, a few times. Even our vet admitted his discouragement at the lowest point. There were a lot of prayers offered on his behalf, and God granted us more time with him. His name is Sirius Black (yes, from Harry Potter). He's a mix of doggies, his mom was a Border Collie/Aussie Heeler Mix and maybe more, and we're clueless about his father. He definitely has some black lab in him, and more.

He started throwing up and when he didn't stop, we took him to the vet. Dr. Rambo (don't you love the name?) did some xrays, thinking obstruction. Not so much.

His stomach was going up into his esophagus - that's not a good thing. Doc had no idea where or how, but he knew Sirius would die without surgery.

During Surgery he discovered that the bottom end of his esoph. flared, like a bell - it's not supposed to. This contributed to the problem we were having. He put the stomach where it was supposed to be and sutured it in place. The top of his stomach had telescoped into the esoph. He'd never seen that before. His stomach was also in the begining stages of torsion, where it twists, like a balloon, on both ends. He'd never seen it this early before.

During surgery he also found a bad kidney. In his words, there was NOTHING right about it, so he removed it. That got sent off to the lab for analysis - it was made that way, so we hope the small amount of abnormality with the remaining kidney is the extent of the kidney issue for the pup.

He had about 15 staples closing his incision. He was cut from sternum to groin. He had two layers of sutures under the staples.

We're about 6 weeks out from surgery and Dr. Rambo cleared him, declaring him healthy and he's back to his normal routine. The scar is hardly visable and his hair is almost fully grown back in.

I've added some pics of him. Puppy pictures and staples, and scar. My goal now is to get him trained and certified as a therapy dog. I don't want to waste this miracle we've been granted!