Cerberus' Page
Announcement
It
is with great sadness and regret that I make the announcement of Cerberus'
passing on October 20, 2000. My heart goes out to you Sharon. I know she
was such a great friend, and an entire chapter of your life. It is
sad, the circumstances that you and I met under Sharon. However, although
I will never meet you, I know I have a wonderful friend in you.
Some
words from Sharon on her passing
We said goodbye to Cerberus today and I thought I'd let you
know. Some of our friends knew her puppy antics, some knew her towards
the end, some knew her all of her life and some never met her but kept
her in their thoughts. We had to make a tough decision today to let
her go. As you know, Cerberus fought her cancer very hard and it
actually was NOT the cancer that ended her life. She had close to
8 months of remission and was happy and running until her last few hours
with us.
I came home from running some errands this afternoon to find her
trembling. She came upstairs and I sat down with her and petted her.
She didn't want to be petted much but didn't want me to leave either.
I decided to take her in to the vet and she perked up when I said "wanna
go for a ride?", since that was one of her favorite things to do.
I thought to myself, "she's fine", but took her anyway. She whined
a little in the car on the way, and once we got to the vet. Those
of you who know Cerberus well know she didn't whine. Dr. Bednar determined
something was wrong with her hip or an organ in her abdomen and since Cerberus
was obviously in pain when the vet pressed on what hurt her, they needed
to sedate her a little to take x-rays. The x-rays showed her stomach
had turned over on itself (gastric torsion is what it's called), and emergency
surgery was needed or it would kill her. That's where the tough decision
came in. Surgery to correct gastric torsion is very invasive and
requires stapling the stomach to the ribs, some time in intensive care
at a 24 hour facility, months of recovery and many possible complications
including that torsion may occur again shortly after surgery. During
recovery, house rest is in order for quite a length of time.
Cerberus went through quite a bit with her amputation surgery and
it was about a month before she felt a bit like herself. She was
depressed and in pain during that time. In spite of that, she fought
the cancer and lived as fully as possible. She still played with
her bowling ball and ran around the yard although not as swiftly as she'd
done before. We just couldn't put her through that invasive of a
surgery again and hope she'd be fine. Abdominal surgery recovery
for a three legged dog is just too much, in my opinion. It almost
felt like it would be selfish for us to ask her to recover from all that
she's been through since March 2 just to challenge her again so shortly
after, just so she could be with us longer. And how long that would
be, we didn't know. Sometimes the stress of the surgery can cause
the cancer to go gangbusters since the body is weakened. We took
a chance with that when we had her amputation done. She did well,
but would we be so lucky again?
In our hearts, we feel we did the right thing to let her
go, although it hurts us deeply. She was so special to us and there
will never be another just like her, or to replace her. She was an
individual on this earth and was a gift to us for close to 9 years.
She will be sorely missed for a long time to come. She was a great
dog, a loyal and loving companion to us, and a joy to all that met her.
She was a beacon of light in our lives and her friendliness was a credit
to the Rottweiler breed.
I want to thank all of you for your care, concern, and love for
her; and in the case of her vets, the excellent care she always received
from you and your staff.
Sleep well, wiggle baby!
Sharon
*******************************************
"Faith is the bird that feels the light
And sings when the dawn is still dark."
--Rabindranath Tagore in Fireflies
Cerberus' Story
This is Cerberus, she is loved and owned by Sharon
Wehlermann. Cerberus was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma in February
of 2000. After much thought and consideration, Sharon decided that Cerberus
was not ready to go to the bridge yet. She underwent a front leg amputation,
and holistic methods of treatments. This is Sharon and Cerberus' story.
It has been a few months, and Cerberus is still doing great!
Here is the latest update from Sharon...
JULY 29, 2000
Cerberus had her monthly acupuncture treatment
and Dr. Schaeffer was so impressed with how she's
doing and how happy she is. I don't know
if you know much about Chinese medicine but the color and
coating of the tongue, alignment of the spine,
and pulses on the inside of their back legs tells a lot about
how they're doing and feeling. Cerberus'
were all just dandy! She's such a trooper! I told Dr. Schaeffer
"She's going to prove them all wrong".
Cerberus was
born November 24, 1991. My first Rottweiler, I found
the ad in the
paper and went to check out the breeder. I'd been reading up on Rottweilers
and thought I was
ready.
We picked her out when she would still fit in my hands, she was so tiny!
The person we bought her
from lived
about 45 minutes away so we went to visit her every weekend. I thought
it was so cute that she squirmed
her way into
the bottom of the puppy pile after we had her out to visit. She was pretty
rambunctious with her siblings, pulling them around
by the tails
and such. Had we known more about how more dominant dogs act when they’re
young we may have picked a different puppy.
Through everything,
we are blessed to have her as part of our family. She was difficult to
train, as she was wilful and stubborn.
We were also inexperienced with the amount of training a large dog requires.
She kept flunking puppy class because of her desire to
be “top dog”. We were
finally able to get into the right training class and get a handle on her
obedience training.
When Cerberus was about a year old we rescued a 6-month-old male Rottweiler
we named Rommel. The next couple of months
were stressful for her,
as she wasn’t used to sharing anything or anyone. She has always dominated
Rommel, and has always been jealous and
aggressive towards him
when he took the lead at barking at a stranger or the neighbours dog. Luckily,
he’s pretty submissive and we’ve only
had a couple of incidents
of her breaking his skin. For the most part they get along quite well.
When one goes somewhere without the
other (vet, training,
etc.) they look for each other, running in and out of the house to the
yard and then back in again. Our neighbour told us that
when Cerberus had her
amputation and was gone for 3 days, Rommel sat by the fence by the driveway
all day, each day, waiting for her to come home. Cerberus seems more like
a person than a
dog.
She is so loving and
attentive to us and displays such a wonderful personality we would never
refer to her as “just a dog”. She is
happy and outgoing with
other people. Cerberus is definitely “mommy’s girl”, and is very sensitive
to my feelings. I've never
been so connected with
a dog, or any animal for that matter, as I am with Cerberus.
She's such a happy, silly girl. Her favourite thing to play
with is her bowling
ball, which my nephew introduced her to. She "dribbles" it like a
soccer player and is quite skilful. A couple of years ago we had
to retire her real ball
since she was damaging the foundation of the garage with the bowling
ball and had actually shattered a few bowling balls. We got
her a hard plastic ball,
which she likes because it goes a lot further. Cerberus first hurt one
of her paws when she
was about 3 years old.
She’d jumped off the end of a slide at the park and twisted it, causing
a limp.
We took
her to the vet and they prescribed some anti-inflammatory medication and
told us to keep her off
of it. Since she was
crated during the day this wasn't that difficult, however when she was
outside she
still wanted to run.
Over the years she would “sprain” one or the other front paw
occasionally. About
2 summers ago, Cerberus was signed up for Agility class and on the first
day of class
she started limping
a lot and favouring her right leg. I took her to the vet and they gave
her a shot and
some Rimadyl and said
she could go to the class but no jumping. After the second class I pulled
her out
of class, as the limp
was too much for her. We finally had a spoon splint put on her leg since
as soon as
her foot would start
feeling better she would bounce up and down and re-injure it. She still
wanted to
run, even when it hurt
her. The pain was more evident in her eyes, almost like a frustration.
We never knew the cause
of her “sprains”. She and Rommel are free to be in the house or in the
yard
via a dog door all day
while we’re at work and we attributed her injuries to running and playing
so hard
outside.
About
3 months ago Cerberus hurt her left leg and she had another spoon splint
put on.
Once the
splint came off Cerberus would act like either one or the other front foot,
alternately, was
bothering her. We figured
she got so much attention when her one leg hurt that she wanted more.
On March 1, 2000, we
came home from work and Cerberus wasn’t walking on her right front foot
at all.
She had a hard, swollen, knot-looking area at the top of her right leg.
Since her prior injuries
had been attributed
more to strained muscles and sprains than bone problems, I figured she’d
torn
something. I held ice
packs on the swollen area and we kept her off of it that evening. I dropped
her off at the vet on
my way to work the following morning and at about 1:00 pm Dr. Bednar called
to tell me
she’d done an x-ray
on Cerberus’ leg and found what looked to be cancer in the bone and a pathological
fracture, explaining
the swelling. Dr. Bednar talked to us about amputation and cancer treatment
in
general, splinted the
leg, x-rayed the chest to determine if there was visible cancer there (which
there was
not), and referred us
to a specialist. My husband and I struggled with the idea of amputation,
believing that it would
kill her spirit if she couldn't run around and play, as she so loved to
do. The
only other choice was
euthanasia since her broken leg would not heal. I couldn't do that at the
time,
since she is such a
happy dog.We decided we had to give her a chance. If the amputation killed
her spirit, we wouldn't
prolong her pain, but would make that decision after she’d had a fair chance
to heal.
We had to wait a few days to be seen at the specialist and during that
time, I was very
upset. The thought of
losing Cerberus was breaking my heart. Of course she was picking up on
this and I resolved
to be more positive around her. I could not let my feelings affect her
health and
general well being.
The specialist did a needle biopsy of Cerberus’ leg to make sure the growth
was a
cancer and not a fungus
and it was definitely cancer. She explained the surgery and the pattern
Osteosarcoma seems to
follow. She also talked to us about the “success” of chemotherapy, and
said that
without it Cerberus
would probably only live 6 months. My husband, more so than I, was adamant
that we would not do
chemotherapy; he said, “We’re not putting that poison into her body” and
reminded
me its QUALITY of life,
not QUANTITY that's important. I agreed, but was torn since that seemed
to be
the only way to keep
her with us longer. She’s my baby, after all. It was my idea then to seek
holistic treatment for
her. A friend of a friend’s dog was diagnosed with cancer and the dog has
lived 6
months beyond any life
expectancy given it and did quite well. I recently heard that the
dog passed on but
that the dog wasn't
in any pain. I picked up a book by Pat Lazarus called “Keeping Your Pet
Healthy
the Natural Way” and
spent a lot of time “surfing the net” for information on holistic treatment
for dogs.
I never
knew there was such a thing as a “Holistic Veterinarian” until I read this
book. I believe if
healing is to occur
for her, this is the way it would happen and my hope for Cerberus is that
she will
continue to be happy
and healthy for the remainder of her days with us. I resolved to do whatever
was
necessary to keep her
healthy and happy, and to be who she needed me to be.
On Tuesday
March 7, Cerberus had her amputation surgery. That day I also contacted
one of the holistic
vets and made an appointment
for about a month after her surgery. The vet told me to pick up a
homeopathic
remedy called Arnica
and to give it to Cerberus to help with bruising. I didn't go see
Cerberus that day, the
vet said it usually
gets the dogs too excited and they really wanted her to stay calm.
Fortunately, this vet has
staff 24 hours a day
and I was able to call whenever I wanted to check on her. She definitely
won some hearts
while she was there.
The next day I went to see her at lunch. The Vet Assistants said
she wouldn't eat and
asked me if I'd like
to try. They put me in a room and brought her to me. While
I was waiting for her I tried to
prepare myself for what
I might see. Cerberus was SO happy to see me! She came up and
put her head
between my knees and
I just hugged her. She was getting around OK, and she ate for me.
We just hung out
on the floor for a while.
The vet tech I talked to later told me when she'd taken Cerberus out for
her walk
that she was peeking
into the rooms looking for me. I had to wait another day to bring
her home. Thursday
evening I picked her
up after work. When I got her home she really didn't feel too well
and I just laid on the
floor with her and petted
her soft, fuzzy head. I took the next day off work and since it was
a Friday I had a
long weekend to spend
with her. She slept a lot and sometimes didn't want to get up to
go outside but once
she was outside she
sniffed around and seemed to enjoy herself.
Cerberus was very depressed
for the first few weeks after her surgery, sometimes not even picking up
her head
when we came home, not
wanting to go outside at all, just wanting to lie there. I was starting
to think
we'd made the wrong
choice for her. This improved over time and she showed more interest in
going for
short walks and trying
“new” things on her own. This would include going up and down stairs, going
through the dog door,
etc. It’s almost as if she decided life is still worth living albeit at
a slower pace.
As time went on, she got around better and has improved ever since.
She is running around the yard
again although not as
fast and she's playing with her bowling ball again. For a little
over a month she'd
scrape her chin every
once in a while but has pretty much mastered this three-legged thing and
doesn't
scrape her chin any
more. I'd say she's adjusted quite well. I didn't know until
after her surgery that dogs
put about 70% of their
weight on their front legs. Her back legs have muscled up considerably
to compensate
for the loss of one
of her front legs and she's pretty burly!
The
holistic treatment has been going well. The first time we saw Dr.
Crosley she stressed the importance of
a raw food diet.
We'd never fed our dogs cheap food and I was shocked to learn what's included
in even the
expensive "premium"
pet foods. We changed both dogs' diets and got Cerberus started on
the antioxidants and
vitamins Dr. Crosley
prescribed. Both of the dogs' coats have improved, their teeth are
clean, and they don't
smell like dogs.
When my husband cuts the grass there are less "land mines" out in the yard
and the dogs are
so happy to eat!
Cerberus is also getting acupuncture. The treatments started at 2
week intervals and now
she just goes once a
month. The tiny needles don't hurt her at all and she sleeps most
of the way home. I
noticed a marked improvement
in her energy with the acupuncture. Dr. Schaeffer (who does the
acupuncture) also prescribed
some Chinese Herbs for her. Three Imperial Mushroom helps her immune
system. Holistic
care is more expensive than traditional veterinary care, about twice as
expensive, but these
vets are specialists
in their field and they are very thorough. They have to be, as the
holistic way of healing
doesn't treat symptoms,
it treats the individual. They have to know a lot more about your
pet to treat the
whole animal and not
the symptom. For example, in order for Dr. Crosley to prescribe the
correct homeopathic
remedy I had to write
a "Repertory" covering Cerberus' temperament, eyes, ears, nose, stomach,
stool,
urination, extremities,
heart, skin, generalities, pattern of illness and symptoms, what was "out
of balance",
and what was different
when she was well vs. not well. For me, it took a weekend at the
computer and ended
up being about 8 typed
pages.
Cerberus still sees
her traditional vet. Dr. Bednar treated her for an intestinal illness recently
and took
Cerberus' most recent
chest x-ray (which was still clear after 4 months... YAY!) Dr. Bednar
has been very open
to the holistic treatments
and is very respective of it and is careful not to prescribe anything for
Cerberus that
may interfere with her
current holistic treatment.
My hope is that Cerberus
will continue to be as happy as she is until the day she has to leave us.
I can't bear
to think of that day,
but when it comes I hope to find comfort and be reassured that I did the
best I could for
her in her last days
with us. I wish I'd known all along about the pet food and vaccinations,
we're just so
conditioned to believe
that if you vaccinate your pet every year and feed them a "quality" dry
food that we're
doing the best for them.
I definitely would have done things differently had I known. I hope
this experience
only taught me a lesson
and didn't cost me the life of my best dog friend. Only time will
tell.
UPDATE!!!
Cerberus'
six
month
checkup!!!
Cerberus'
x-ray was yesterday and she's still clear! YAY! I took her
to the Three Dog Bakery for a pig-out and she loved it. All the dogs
shared a "celebration cake" that had Cerberus' name on it. I took
some pictures, hope to get them back next week.
Cerberus' Links
Recommended
reading:
-
Dr. Pitcairn's
Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats
- Dr.Richard Pitcairn
-
Homeopathic
Care for Cats and Dogs: Small Doses for Small Animals - Dr. Don
Hamilton
-
Four Paws
Five Directions: A Guide to Chinese Medicine for Cats and Dogs -
Dr. Cheryl Schwartz
-
Natural
Healing for Dogs and Cats - Diane Stein
-
The Nature
of Animal Healing - Dr. Marty Goldstein
This page last updated on November 21, 2000