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i was over my fiends house for her birthday, it was realy fun, then we crashed in the living room, not knowing how much would change by the next morning.

we woke up kinda earlie, and then fooled around for about an hour before we ate breakfast, and our picture taken, and then her parents went to walmart, everything seemed fine, almost boring. so we dicided to give their inside dog, pepper a bath. we were almost done washing the obese black lab, when her little brother rushed into the bathroom saying " theses somehting wrong with tippy! shes lying on the ground twitching!" his face was white, so emediatly i told Raijean (the other friend at the party) to stay with pepper in the bath, and finish up quick, then Nicole (party girl) and I rushed out of the bathroom, frantic to find our shoes, after about 10 seconds, i couldent find mine, so i just ran out the door, flying over snow banks to get the the dog run behind the barn, whne i got there, i was horrafied, she was lying on her side leggs thrashing, shivering, and her teeth were knashing and she was gasping for breath, i restled withthe door, but it did no good, the bottom was frozen, so i flew back around to the font of the barn and got through the 2 dors to the area where she lived ( a 3 room area in the barn)and slipped belly first through her dog door and down the ramp, cursing the whole time, i rushed to her, and tried to calm her down, but it was usless, she was in a full out seizure, si i picked her head out of the pool of water her nose and mouth was in, and started talking to her calmly, and softly, telling her it was going to be ok, and started stroking her to try an get her frozen body warm, (she was lying on a sheet of ice that she had made from melting the slow, then thrashing on it turning it to ice, her nose has melted through 2 inches of ice by the time we got to her)Nicole appeared in the window above the dog door, crying, and i told her to hurring and get blankets, minuets later she came back with a bed cover and then she came through the door threw it at me, and ran to find more. Tippy was still seizuring violently, but i had to get her off the ice ,so i grabbed her and quickly pulled her onto the cover trying to get her warm, i wasnt thinking, i wast just doing. nicole came back with a few blankets and a bag of sheets, and we covered her up, and just started to rub. the seizure stopped. but then she started to cry out in pain. still holding her head in my hand, i was talking to her, and trying to comfort nicole at the same time, who was rubbing as she sobbed. after i felt she might be stable enough for me to make a few phone calls, i ordered nicole to hold her head, and to not stop rubbing!

i got inside and talked to the vet, who mad me so mad, becasue she was all calm, and like "well, she should have been brought to the vet whne she was younger" and " well see if you can get a ride down here and i will see what i can do" how heartless! then i phoned my mom, and of course she was too buisy with her life to come down here and help us kids with a seizuring dog! (there were no adults to help, i was the only one who knew what i was doing) so then i went back outside (still in socks) and went around back to the pen, and tryied with all my might to get the door open, but ended up slipping my way through the dog door again, then i took control again, i ended up making the decision to flip her over, the bed cover was soaked, and it was now just as cold as the ice, so after lying out new sheets, i told nicole to grab her feet, and support her hipps, and i was going to grab her head and legs and we were to flip on three. after we had her flipped, her crying stopped (i was so glad!) and then we becan drying the other side, which was covered in fecal matter, mud, water, and ice. we rubbed vigorsly, and in about 20 minuets she finaly started to shiver with cold! (a good sign that her sences were telling her body to warm up!) nicole and i were sniling at eachother and she kept saying "feel how warm she is!!" after she was warm enough, and had not had a seizure for a few minuets, i decided i needed more help, and sence they were trapped on the other side of a frozen door, i began looking for somthing to hit the ice with to break it up, but all the boards i tryed were frozen solid to the ground! then William (her little brother) started shooting ideas, then i told him to get the ax, i had seen it the night before (the last time we saw tippy in good health) he ran as fast as he could and came back with it over his shoulder, he handed it over the fence to me, and i emediatly started to chop away at the ice holding the door, supprizing ly hitting my mark each time, it cam loose, and we all cheered for the minor sucess, then i got raijean in there to help while i made more phone calls, to other vets and my parents again, they also tryed to locate their parents (but luckly their older sister works there so they talked to her, and she sent her parnents home)after the news and many more seizure attacks with thrashing leggs, mouth opening to full, then clamping them shut and repeating, we knew we had to get her off the ground, so william got the great idea to get a pallet from inside the barn, after we lifted tippy onto the pallet her seizures became less violent, and more of a blank stare with stiffening, then her parents came (i actualy dident notice them untill they were petting tippy and trying to talk to her ) her parents kept looking to me as if they wanted me to do more, but her mom called up a vet, and was then told to call a different one (a new vet in willsburo)who said they would take her, and they would be waiting for her, and wit hthat we started to ponder how to get her out of the pen, and durring this i ran to get my shoes. (took me a time to find them first) when i got there, they were pulling her out of the pen, on a tarp, and thats when i noticed nicole standing a ways away hands over her eyes facing the other way, so i ran to her, and gave her a hug, and she started to cry, when they were carrying tippy away we walked after them arms around eachother, we helped load her into the back of the ven, and decided it would be best of us girls stayed behind to wait for their other sister to get home (this sister is 17, and mentaly unstable becasue ehen she was an infant, her babysitter shook her) we all agreed and william went along with his parents.

we waited for over an hour for word on tippy, and we just started watchign tv, wondering out loud what went wrong

whne her parents got home, they told us that it wasnt looking good, she was seizuring non stop from port henry to wilsboro, and was still even when they carried her into the office. later on, she wispered to me, that she had stopped breathing twice along the way.

we decied that nicole would spend the night at my house that night. later on, while she was playing with my rats she got the call from her parents. tippy had been put to sleep, she was suffering from liver failure, and there was so much brain damage from all the seizureing, that there wasnt any way she would be able to live even a half way normal life. nicole was quiet for a while after, but my rats helped to keep her mind off, and she only cryed a few times after, but, tippy was never off either of our minds for more than a few minuets at a time, anyhting and everything was reminding us of her.

i left out alot of stuff too, like whne she lost control of her bowels, and after that, she was throwing up, each time before a seizure hit, sometimes she would just throw up over and over again, before another attack hit. her crys were undescibable, and when she wasnt crying or screeming, she was moaning, it was so hard.

to say the least, yesterday was the hardest day i have ever had, and i with i could have done more, even if i had the slightest idea of anyhting else i could have done, im still frustrated over it, and i miss her, even though i had only seen her twice healthy before htis, she barly knew me, and i her.....i dont know, i bordering on depressed, but i suppose talking, er, typing helps a little, i just want her back

Sorry to hear about the sad loss of Tippy and your horrible day yesterday. I hope you and your friend and her family are alright after such a tramatic experience. I have witnessed my own beloved dog pass away in my arms and there was nothing I could do about it. Just remember Tippy and pay extra attention to your other pets, as they will help you through this hard time. You did an excelent job yesterday and it sounds like you did everything you could.

It's a horribly sad story, but it could have been prevented if the dog had regular twice-annual vet appointments (which it sounds like it didn't). Liver disease and eventually liver failure is not something that comes on suddenly, and it can be treated if caught early.

Dogs, like humans, need regular checkups at the doctor's, and any strange symptoms need to be reported. It's part of the basic resposibility of owning a dog.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

i know, my animals get checkups regularly, (like for instance their next checkup in in june) but tippy was an outside dog, realy only jessica (the older sister who works at walmart) and nicole, her mom and dad probly haddent seen her in weeks untill now..er then and pepper (inside lab) is so obese i suspect he might have diabeties, but im not a vet so i cant say for sure, but i realy want them to take pepper in too. the first time i met tippy, was in the summer. i was horrafied by the conditions of her pen, that i started to clean up all the crap and garbadge in the pouring rain, i only got a thanks from nicole and tippy, her parents probley couldent have cared less (sad i know)but after nicole and i finished the next day, it was so much better! and i know tippy was happy, i even planted some grass for her (which she emediatly divoured ( but when she picked the grass, she held the sid in place, and just took the grass, but that was the last time i saw the pen with out snow, i also had them change her diet (sort of) i had nicole be more carefull of the table scraps tippy recieved, and by how much she gave her... i guess it just wasnt enough.

i had a dog that woke me up christmas morning by walking into the bedroom and falling down with a seizure. we had changed his diet to a raw meat food and he had gotten toxoplasmosis. and of course the only place open on christmas day is the emergency vet who is easily triple the price and you have to pay up front or else they won't do anything for you. he survived it but died a few months later from cancer.

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"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

Aww...poor doggy. I am so sorry about Tippy.

My dog has small seizures every once in a while. It breaks my heart because he yelps really loud. He goes to the vet regularly though and the vet said that Beagles are e to seizures. They just said if the seizures get really bad to bring him right away. He usually has them at night and I'm not sure they are really seizures. I don't know. They are not full blown seizures like Tippy had...just small ones. He loses muscle control and can't sit up and he yelps because it scares him. But afterwards he is fine.

Hopefully they will take better care of the inside dog now. If it is obese it could have diabetes or heart disease...just like people do.



*Kristin*

All I can say is at least when she was in status, she was feeling nothing. The cries and stuff were just random electrical discharge in her brain (from the seizures). Dogs (and all mammals) do also cry when they are post-ictal, it doesnt mean pain, and she was most likely not in pain, she was just confused, disorientated and post ictal. There is nothing you can do to stop it, it's just the way it is. (watch a person have a seizure and you'll see what i mean)

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

thanx but no thanks in the invite tiny i have had my share of seizures now

also her tummy was real tight and raijead kept rubbing it roughly (even after i told her to stop) and she would cry out, also, after we rolled her onto her other side, she stopped moaning for a while, at that point she kept trying to get up, everyone thought we had it beat, but then she would be struck again

im just glad its over now

Sounds like the dog is in a better place. When I see mistreatment of a dog like you described I have no problem calling animal services. I have been now to get in peoples face when I see bad animal treatment but then again im 6'10",300lbs and have no problem backing up my mouth. I tend to spend more on vet bills for my pup then I do at the doctor for myself. The pup was at the vet 6 times in 2005. The last time I saw a doc was in 02 or 03, not sure which.

since i am not really a dog person i can't really take in the full impact, but it is still sad about ur friends dog.

just give ur friend support in anyway she needs.

thank you all for youre kind words, it realy does mean alot to me

i suppose a few good things did come of this, me and my friend are closer than ever, and tippy is no longer in pain, and doesnt have to live as an outside dog anymore, and im sure she will be waiting at rainbow bridge for nicole.