Rescue Journal

scrappy went hypoglycemic tonight...it scared the crap out of sheila and leila. good thing i answered my phone!

Carol · Dec. 30, 2010

the first time is always the scariest because you are not sure what is happening. once you have seen it tho and taken the steps to correct it, the scariness disappears and the next time it gets easier. ahh scrappy cat..bet he is happy getting to stuff his face freely tonight!

i will probably eventually take on that biting dog if his people can wait...but that is a big if. i think they are not really happy with me right now because they spent a couple of hundred dollars to find out there was nothing medically wrong. but..it is part of the responsibility of pet ownership...making sure that behavioral problems are not physically based that could get better with treatment.
both thyroid disease and diabetes can make good dogs irritable and aggressive....treating the diseases can settle them down again.

anyway....if we do end up taking him, i won't take him on until we have at least one segregated living area available which we currently don't have. i am not taking him on without a back up space and plan. i don't want to take him on and then have to nuke him because i have no where to put him if he becomes a safety issue around here which he probably will be.

however... i suspect they are getting close to the end of their rope and want a solution now...not in a couple of months or more.
oh well..realistically there is nothing i can do about it. if he is still in need when we have an appropriate spot, then we will try to help him. and if another solution is found, including possible euthanization before then...the fact remains....we just cannot help him right now.

it sucks..biting dogs are the most difficult to find an appropriate placement for. they are the most special of all the special needs out there because....biting dogs are a royal pain in the ass to everybody....especially to rescues. they can so easily end up being lifers in rescue and if so we have to give them a decent quality of life while keeping them and everyone else safe....and that is not easy.
still...now i will worry about him and wonder what will happen to him...i should just not even engage in discussions or problem solving...if i just said no i could probably forget them easier and not think about them again.

sigh..i do so want to save them all..but i have been around the block enough to know that i can't.

rescue is big time sucking at the end of this year.

Comments

Tammy

Thanks for the update. Scrappy is a great little/big cat. I'm so glad he got a great home.
Don't let him loose too much weight or he might loose him membership in The Fat Cat Club.

Leila

The vet clinic thinks that Scrappy's diabetes may have reversed in that he needs to go to a lower insulin dosage which is what Carol thought and which is why he had the seizure/ The clinic took blood samples and his levels look normal after he didn't have any insulin. They sent away the fruitcose sample (I think I got that right). He is going back to the clinic tomorrow morning with his insulin and food and they are going to monitor him for us for the day. The vet who checked him out today thought that we should have taken him to emergency even after we gave him the maple syrup and the food as maybe more was required like IV fluids and maybe that is why he had a crappy morning. Boy this diabetes thing is tricky - you start feeling better so you have a seizure to tell your body that you don't need so much insulin? Crazy.

Scrappy seems fine now - dug into his food and tried to knock down Little Face's bowl which he does nightly. He probably woofed down the rest of Lotus' kibble. And Tammy you will be glad to hear that Scrappy has lost a bit of weight. He looks a little bit slighter. He now jumps over the baby gate downstairs. Jumps up to knock over food and what ever is little paws can get to.

Tammy

Is Scrappy okay?

Sheila

I am with scrappy at the vet's right now become he wasn't interested in his mid morning feeding and was going and walking low to the ground. He was fine this morning though and was very interested in his early morning feed.

Leila didn't give him his insulin shot this morning.

Carol

don't forget the blog says an hour later than it really is and i did sleep in today so it worked out fine. plus i am often up anyway at least once or twice a night...last night it was only once so that was good as far as i am concerned and i quite enjoyed that the crises was at your house and not mine!

Leila

Yikes Carol, sorry for waking you up - looks like you stayed up longer than we did after the crisis - yikes. I just didn't want to take Scrappy to emergency and we didn't have any corn syrup. I knew you would know what to do. At least now I know what signs to look for before Scrappy goes into shock. That was worse than Luke's seizure - wow scarey. Hope he doesn't have too many of those again. Early in the morning, Scrappy decided he needed to thank me for helping him out by laying on my chest and staring very intently at me. It is hard to breath when there is Scrappy dappy doo sitting on your chest. Thank god Scrappy was sleeping on my bed when this happened - what if I hadn't heard!!!