Mr. Buddy Rose the American Staffordshire Terrier Part XVII

(Parts I-XVI of Mr. Buddy Rose's story are posted below. If you would like to read them in chronological order, please scroll down to Part I. You may need to click on "Older Posts" at the bottom of this page. Thanks for reading the story of a remarkable dog, Mr. Buddy Rose.)

Saturday, October 2, 2010
(For all of you who have been following Mr. Rose's story, he now has his own page on FaceBook. Search "Mr. Buddy Rose - American Staffordshire Terrier" to find him. "Like" his page and you will be able to follow him on FaceBook, leave messages or comments for him, post pictures of your own four-legged - or two-legged - friends and see updated pictures and videos of him and his friends. Thanks for continuing to follow the story of Mr. Buddy Rose. If he could meet each of you in person, he would happily give each of you big, wet kisses. He's quite the lovable, goofy guy!)

Mr. Rose continues to show small improvements on a daily basis. Yesterday, we took a much longer morning walk. He had to lie down to rest many times, but I let him go at his own pace and rest when he wanted. This morning, Buddy & I walked to the park. He walked the half-mile there without stopping to rest. I watched a little soccer while he rested. We would walk around the park and rest for a bit, then walk a little more. For the first time in three or four days, I actually believe he was ready to come home instead of wanting to lie in the grass and roll everywhere on the way home.

Because of the Prednisone, he drinks a lot more water and has to urinate a lot more frequently. He is very well housebroken and can hold it for a very long time, but the problem is when he has to stand or squat outside for several minutes to urinate. His legs can tremble badly when he has to stand in the same position for more than a minute or so. A couple of times I have thought he might fall, but he has not. He has stumbled. So, as of yesterday, he gets to go outside on his leash every couple of hours, so he doesn't have to stand or squat in one place for so long. Giving him the opportunity to urinate more frequently has stopped the trembling.

He has improved, albeit a lot slower than I would like to see. Today we lowered his dosage of Prednisone by half. We had a lengthy discussion with his Vet yesterday about his condition, improvements, shakiness, pain, etc. As I've mentioned before, I don't really like having him on Prednisone. I believe he has all of the ill side effects of the drug: panting, periods of hyperactivity, glassy eyes, increased water intake hence more frequent urination, gas and much softer stools and an insatiable appetite. I also know that right now he has to have this drug to keep him on all four paws. Without it, I really do believe he would be back to crawling again, which would be much more heartbreaking than all of the added ill side-effects of the steroid.

There is no polite way to say how gassy he is. It's not his fault. It's the Prednisone. He wasn't like this when he was not taking it and I guess we forgot just how BAD it really is. He is also taking 20mg. of Famotadine twice a day, but this doesn't seem to touch his flatulence. You rarely hear him but you cannot miss that wonderful smell! Most times, he has no idea what is going on. Sometimes he's pretty funny. Yesterday, he was scratching around on his pillow trying to get it in that perfect position, when he tooted. He must have heard it or felt it or something. Maybe it scared him. Immediately he stopped scratching his pillow and stood perfectly still. Then he turned and looked at me. The look on his face was priceless. The camera should have been ready at that moment. Who knows what he was thinking, but my idea of the look he gave me was, "Mom, what the heck was that?" He gave us a good laugh, well, at least until that special aroma perfumed the room.

What do dogs think? If you visit Mr. Rose's page on FaceBook, you will see the page is set up from the perspective of none other than Mr. Rose himself. I am very, very aware of the detriments of "humanizing" our dogs. And although he is a really smart dog, Buddy can't speak English or type on a keyboard. He does have a lot of friends. People around the world follow him and care about him. I visited several single dog FaceBook and web pages and decided I really liked the ones from the perspective of the dog. Many of the rescued Michael Vick dogs actually blog and converse with each other. I liked it and decided to do Buddy's page the same way. It's just another way for people to keep up with him and for dog lovers to share their stories. That's all.

He's walking better and once again getting stronger. As we start reducing the Prednisone, we'll be watching for any small sign of digression or improvement. It would appear that Mr. Rose is once again on his way to a healthy, happy life.