strut

Strut's Story

by Joyce Leonard

In December 1992 I had the opportunity to purchase three flat coated Retrievers from a person who no longer wanted them. I say purchase, when in reality what I did was rescue them from someone who no longer wanted, loved, or apparently fed them. This is about just one of those wonderful girls, her name is Strut.

When Strut came to live with me she was 16 months old and only weighed 20 pounds, you could see every rib, every vertebrae and even her eye sockets were slightly caved in. She had to be fed and watered in very small amounts, and when you did feed her, she would attack the food, water and even the dishes they came in. I cried lots of times watching this girl eat. Unfortunately though, the food went right through her, she had such horrible diarrhea, I know she had to be miserable. Through it all, she was a happy girl, but there were psychological problems also. She had no self-confidence. She would jump up on the grooming table, happy, with a constantly wagging tail, then suddenly cringe as if you were going to beat her, or worse, yell at her. She would be absolutely devastated if you raised your voice at her, or for that matter, any of the other dogs, so I had to be extremely careful. We were able to work through all of or most of the problems anyway.

The weekend Strut finished her championship with the last elusive 3 pt major, she also went Best of Breed over one of the top males in the country at that time. In earning that particular Best of Breed, she placed over seven specials, both males and females. Needless to say I was absolutely elated. During her show career she had earned several Best of Breeds but that one, to me, was very special. She loved the show ring and we would laugh at her and say that Strut loved to "strut her stuff" around the ring. She would fly around the ring and then stand just the right way and the tail never, never stop moving.

I wanted to do some obedience with Strut but after about two or three weeks into it, it seemed as if she was becoming very depressed again, and was starting to act like she did when she first came here. I decided that the stress may have been too much for her and decided to forgo an obedience career with her. She quickly became her happy go lucky self again.

In May of 1995 Strut had a litter of puppies sired by my "second" one in a lifetime dog, CH Suncoast Jumpin Jack Flash, CD, CGC. Two of those puppies went to pet homes and five of them went to show homes. Of those, four have finished their championships. Two were finished entirely from the "bred by exhibitor" class at 21 and 22 months of age. Another finished in New York at 23 months of age, one finished in Tampa last January.

In October of 1996, while Strut was on the grooming table, I discovered a lump on her leg below the knee area. A few days later we were in the vet’s office getting radiographs. My worst fears were revealed as there was a small indentation on her bone, about the width of your small finger, more than likely, some type of bone cancer.

The first thing was to ascertain what type of cancer it was and that meant a biopsy. My vet is great. The next day was not her normal surgical day but the biopsy was done immediately. They made me her leave that night -- something I don’t usually do and knowing how I am, usually don’t ask me. But as time was of the essence, this needed to be done immediately. She then told me that bone cancer is the most painful of all cancers, and I would have to make a decision to either amputate her leg, or maybe euthanasia. Through tears, I simply stated I’m not ready to say good bye to her just yet.

The biopsy came back as chrondrosarcoma, which, as horrible as it was, was better than osteosarcoma. Chrondrosarcoma is a slow growing cancer whereas by the time osteosarcoma is diagnosed it is usually throughout the entire body and you don’t have a lot of quality time together. My vet gave me the biopsy results and made some suggestions. Strut made a visit to an orthopedic surgeon to see if we could attempt to possibly save the leg. She stated quite emphatically that we should amputate the entire fore leg up to the shoulder.

I started making telephone calls to almost every veterinary university I could think of, hoping to hear something else. I was ready to take a mortgage out on my house if need be, to do whatever was necessary to save her -- and her leg. They all told me the same thing, amputate the entire fore leg up to the shoulder, but I also learned some other important things. Some suggested to x-ray her lungs to make sure there were no tumors in her lungs visible as of yet, because if so, do not put her through the surgery as she would not be here long. Another also suggested that she be x-rayed every 3 to 4 months after the surgery, and if she remained cancer free for at least one year, she would probably live to be an old lady and die of something else or maybe even another type of cancer.

My vet did the surgery and would not let her come home and didn’t want me to see her until she said so. Two agonizing days went by, the technicians and receptionists all know my voice by now. The day we went to pick her up I got a lecture from the vet, she knows me well. Don’t let her see you cry, she will worry about you -- when she falls, don’t catch her, she has to learn how to balance. When we walked to the cage she was in, my son and I both spoke to her. She refused to look at us or wag her normally non-stop tail. My son picked her up and carried her outside. He put her down on the grass and sure enough she started to fall and of course my natural reflex was to catch her but my vet was ready, reached for me and just shook her head. By now I couldn’t keep the tears back.

We placed her in the back of the van on the floor with me beside her, of course, and my son drove home. First time I ever let him drive my van. Strut would not look at me or even raise her head when I spoke to her. I opened the McDonald’s bag, which she totally ignored. I offered her a bite of hamburger (this is a special treat to all my dogs). At first she turned her nose away, then after talking to her for a while she decided she would try just a taste, and nibbled at the burger. Then the tears and the laughter came all at once and she started licking my face fast and furious and he tail started wagging. She even forgot the burger - all she wanted to do was wash my face over and over. Finally she did however, eat the burgers, all three of them. When we got home we lifted her out of the van and took her to the planned recovery area.

I had a recovery place for her set up in the living room with the x-pen and her blankets. I told my son to keep an eye on her because I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Now that she was home, maybe I could take a nap. Just as I got ready to dose off I felt a dog jump up on my bed and get in Strut’s place on her pillow. As all the other dogs were outside, and Strut was in the living room, who could this be. I opened my eyes and got my face washed again, by Strut, who knew her place was on the bed with me, not the living room. We took a nap together, but she needed help to get off the bed.

We placed steps by the bed so that she would not have any trouble getting up and/or down when she wanted. We both went through some serious depression for a while after the surgery. A friend in England advised me to try Lavender oil. I was impressed, it really seemed to help. One day I went to work and forgot to spritz her pillows. When I came home she was terribly down that day, did not even want to get up off her blankets to go outside, nor had she eaten any food that day. I had to coax her outside. When I came back in the house the brass bulb ring had Lavender oil poured into it and placed on the lamp, and I spritzed the entire house. When feeding time came around I heard her normal ‘feed me now’ bark, and of course cried again. To this day I still believe she handled this entire thing much better than I did.

She came home with just a few pain pills and Bayatril tablets for 10 days, but of course she also received rescue remedy and Echinacea, but she had already been on those for days before the surgery. I usually take stitches out myself. I’ve even had to stitch a few of my dogs up. However, I just couldn’t bring myself to take these stitches out. The scar looked so horrible, and all that bare skin where they had to shave her, I just couldn’t handle it. We went to the vet to have them removed. The vet was pleased with her progress, walked with us out the door and watched as Strut insisted in jumping in the van herself.

Today Strut is still the fastest dog in my yard when it comes to chasing tennis balls. She occasionally falls down and that definitely hurts me more than it does her, but she used to fall down when she had four legs. She runs so fast and forgets to put the brakes on before attempting to scoop the ball up off the ground.

Her favorite place is on the grooming table and if I ignore her, she will jump on the picnic table, or the dining room table, it depends where I am. She has become "counter cruiser extraordinaire", she even ate half a blueberry pie when we visited her breeder this past summer. A loaf of bread is never safe from her, even when on top the refrigerator. I guess she does it because she knows she can and because she knows I let her get away with it. All eight of my dogs are spoiled but of course she is just a little bit worse than the rest of them.

Every year I help out with the Weimaraner Club when they put on their fun match, and there is always someone there capable of administering the AKC Canine Good Citizen Test. Well as there was nothing in the rules against a three legged dog completing the test on August 2, 1997, Strut passed the Canine Good Citizen Test and earned her Canine Good Citizen award. Almost everyone stopped what they were doing and watched her complete the test, there were even a few tears, and of course I had them. Several people commented on her happy attitude and on the fact that when she had to stay by herself her eyes never left the place I walked off to. She knew I was coming back and waited patiently, just staring. When I started coming back she just stayed there and started wagging her tail furiously.

October 1998 it will have been two years since her surgery. We don’t bother with the x-rays anymore, they have been clean so far. Strut has learned to balance so well that she doesn’t even stand like a tripod like she did at first and she loves it when I ask her to stack like a show dog. Sometimes getting in the van she turns around as if to ask for help, but when you reach down to assist, she jumps in the van and turns around almost likes she laughing at you. Sometimes when I see her out in the yard I remember her beautiful movement, but each day I’m thankful that she is still here. Each day she faithfully reminds me to enjoy life no matter what happens -- Strut certainly does.

To contact Joyce Leonard, email her: joycel@okeechobee.com