When we got to the vet we found out the ol’ girl was suffering from kidney failure. She is almost 12 years old so we were thinking the worst. They ran test after test and never came back with good news. We were faced with that awful decision that I’m sure many of you have gone through in the past. That being “how far do we take this?â€. Do we accept what they are telling us or do we fight to keep her going and hope that it is not fatal. Well….We rolled the dice and gave her a shot. You gotta give ‘em a shot right? Right???
So, we settle in for the long haul. We were all in at this point and make no mistake, this was primarily because of my wife’s maternal instincts.
Pica settled in for her stay (much to her chagrin). She was poked and prodded, petted and loved by the great staff at the vet hospital for almost an entire week. And, although she was treated like a princess and made some new friends, she was very happy to finally get to go home.
As it turns out, the kidney failure was caused by “something†and not just a condition of old age. Meaning, she got into something bad which caused things to start heading south. Luckily, we caught it in time (or so we hope) and began flushing her system in time to minimize the permanent kidney damage. As it stands now, we have her on a battery of meds and have to give her fluids (via subcutaneous IV) daily. Her appetite improved the day we brought her home, but has fallen off in the last couple of days. With a countertop full of every variety of dog food, and a refrigerator full of opened and barely eaten cans, we were beginning to get desperate as she turned up her nose at each one.  But we finally found her weakness, a trip to McD’s was in order, she scarfed down 2 plain McD’s hamburgers 
Today, I took her back to the vet to get her blood work checked again. Her stamina is down but she is starting to act like her old self. We haven’t gotten the results of her latest blood work back yet, but, we are keeping are fingers crossed.
Clay
Update (2012-11-13):
I am writing this with the heaviest of hearts. Pica fought like a champ but in the end it was just too much. We lost her yesterday and the void she has left in our hearts is unimaginable.
We were rescued by her 11 years ago when she was the only puppy at the Humane Society not barking. She was the ugly duckling of the group with ears that were so out of proportion with the rest of her body that we had to name her “Picassoâ€. That quickly got shortened to Pica but she never really grew into those ears. She chased us on the mountain bikes, hiked with us on the trails, and loved to lay in the creeks. She could destroy a tennis ball in minutes and had an uncanny knack for extracting the squeaker from her toys with surgical precision. She guarded the perimeter and made sure the mailman didn’t linger on the porch for very long. She protected her momma with a vengeance and was truly her momma’s puppy all the way to the end. We’re gonna miss you ol’ girl! Now go find Tanner! He’ll show ya the ropes.
