Vanessa With her little Precious

On the 7th of December, 1998, Precious barked to go outside. She was sleeping in her crate. I got up and let her out and put her back to bed. It was a little after Midnight. At about 1:AM, she barked again to get out, so I got up  for her again. This was very unusual, as she hardly ever had to go out during the night. This time, she did not want to go out, but she wanted to come to bed with us. I put her back in her crate and the same thing happened a couple of more times before she settled down and slept in her crate. In the morning, she didn't want her treat of turkey breast. This alarmed us as she was always hungry for this morning treat, so we knew that she wasn't feeling well. My husband saw her straining to have a BM, so he thought. When she came in, I checked her and she was hemorrhaging. I called the vet and I couldn't get her in right away, as he was doing surgery. When I took her out to him, he checked her temperature, etc., and he thought that she was still quite pink. He gave her some Kaeopectate(sp) and sent me home with some to give to her later. I just felt that she needed an antibiotic, but he was a vet that wasn't real receptive to suggestions from a lay person. How I wish that I would of chanced the bad roads and taken her on to another vet. I guess I'll always feel that I didn't do enough for her..what a horrible feeling this is.
Precious did not seem to have pain, but she got so weak that she couldn't even drink water!! She just locked her little jaws shut so I couldn't even get her mouth open either. I went to sleep around 11:30 PM and my husband stayed up with her. I had been so exhausted because of the stress of our youngest son being diagnosed with colon cancer and his surgery just three weeks away. He had been given only 50/50 odds of surviving the surgery. At 12:15 AM, my husband came into the bedroom and got me as he knew that her time was short. I held her, loved her, petted her and asked her to "stay with us Precious", but it was too late. She went to the Rainbow Bridge to wait for her family at 1:45 AM on December 8th, 1998. It was so cold that night. I held her for about another half an hour before I wrapped her up and had my husband put her downstairs for the night. I couldn't put her out in the cold even if she was dead. We disposed of her in the morning. What a horrible feeling it is to not have her when I think that another vet may have been able to have saved her. This is the problem of living in a small town of about 2500 people..you end up taking whatever there is to offer. The vet was upset that she died and called and talked with me. Seven weeks later our other Yorkie came down with HGE too. Both dogs came down with this the morning after a big snowstorm!! The local vet had had a heart attack during the night and I only called there to let his assistant know that I thought that whatever Precious had died of was contagious as she had her young pup out there that same day that I brought Precious to be treated. I called a vet 50 miles from here and took Hooch over to him as soon as the roads were cleared. He was aware of what the problem was ...HGE...and treated and saved Hooch.
Now I want to let you know about some of my little sweethearts characteristics. She did figure that she was the ruler of the world. She would sit on the back of my chair and give all of the animals and people on her road or within her sight a piece of her mind. Boy did she like to bark at them. She had us get up and look out the window and snoop too and sometimes it took us quite awhile to see what she was giving heck to too. She'd get the little male, Hooch, all excited and then he would want to look out the window too. Then she would be mad at him for pushing her around while she was trying to watch what was going on. Sometimes she'd get so angry that she'd comb his hair with her teeth, as one of my friends put it when she saw her get after Hooch! Really, she was trying to yank his hair out and hoped that it would really hurt him. Oh all the work that is involved with being the ruler!!! After all of this ruckus, they would both sit on the back of my chair and watch and watch for things. Hooch didn't bark at them, but boy Precious did. I called her the "neighborhood watch". I was sure that someone would come and put a sign up at our place just any day. Precious would get angry when my youngest son's chocolate lab would step on her or her hair and she'd jump and try to bite that big dog's nose. I was always scared that maybe someday that lab would grab her, so I always would grab Precious and pick her up. On the way up, she'd reach over and bite the chocolate lab's nose as if to tell her "How do you like it?? It hurts, doesn't it??" I'm sure Troy's dog thought that she was just plain crazy and didn't even seem to realize that Precious had bitten her. Oh how she loved new toys. She had just gotten a bunch of new toys the week before she died and she was in Yorkie heaven. She'd run and get one and then she would run and get another and want you to play with her. Oh yes, they were all her toys,...Hooch didn't get any. :) :)
Every night, we had a ritual. I would sit on the floor in front of my husband and he would rub my back with his feet. I have a very bad back problem. This was such a great time for Precious. She would come and hold my left foot down and just wash it and wash it. (I don't wear shoes and socks around the house very often) Hooch would wash my legs, but the left foot especially, belonged to Precious. If Hooch even looked like he was interested in this foot, she would once again "comb his hair with her teeth". Oh how I miss her. I still warn Hooch that if he doesn't leave that foot alone, she'll get him. When she was through washing, I would cuddle her and give her lots of love.
Precious loved to lay on my legs if I was in a recliner or had my legs on the footstool. She also loved to lay alongside my husband in his chair. There wasn't enough room for her between me and the edge of my chair...I fill it pretty well. :))
Precious used to love to play a game that I called "Chase". All of a sudden she would run as fast as she could and talk Hooch into chasing her. This game was played indoors, and she had her bases where she could rest and her rules told Hooch that he couldn't catch her when she made it safely to these bases..they were rest areas. She would run under the furniture, around the furniture and wherever it was hard for Hooch to get through because he weighs about 7 1/2 or 8 #'s compared to her 2 1/2 pounds. Hooch never could catch her as she was so tiny and so fast, but they had a great time doing this. I tried to record it one day, but all Hooch would do was bark at the camcorder, so the game was over and never got taped.
I hope that you will enjoy the things that I have told you about my sweet little Precious. Oh how I wish I could have saved her. I still cry for her way too much and I know that my husband can't understand how I can continue this way. I don't understand it either, but she was loved so very deeply by us and I hope that she can forgive me that I didn't dare drive on the roads that day to go to another vet in another town. I'm truly sorry that I didn't...I'll have to tell her all about it when we meet in Heaven once again to live with our Lord. I know that he has forgiven me for not being able to save her.
Sally J. of CO

============================
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HGE, please go to
ALEXFAQ  at www. shooterdog.com and read the Q & A
What shall I do for bloody diarrhea called HGE and what is it?