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September 25, 2005 Our Year With Babs Last Monday we knew we had to say goodbye to our Babs. Soon. Monday was the day we saw the xrays – two large masses, two organ systems involved. Monday was when we saw, and believed for the first time, that she was tired, that she was ready to leave us. So the week became a Babs week, a celebration of her life. She had meat loaf, chicken, steak scraps, string cheese, cheddar cheese, and yogurt. No, her appetite wasn't off (it was never off) but Babs did love her food and we wanted to give her a week of love. We went for short walks in the fields behind the house. Once I carried her back. I was sorry the raspberries weren't in season. One of her favorite things this spring was to go on berry-picking trips with me. We didn't bring many back. because we both liked eating them right off the bush, but she was sure good at spotting them. I wasn't allowed to pass up one raspberry bush that Babs thought had potential. Babs didn't like to be carried. She seemed to think it was undignified or dangerous or both. She made little grunting, whining noises that almost were growls but weren't. Come to think of it, I made similar noises, trying to carry a solid 35-pound Whippet while nursing my own bad knees. I also
carried her up and down the stairs a few times a day, whenever
she wanted company and there was no one downstairs. We tried
to keep Dallas The Obnoxious German Shepherd Puppy out of her
face, though she was still quite capable of the famous Babs
Lip Grab, which always put him in his place very promptly. Babs didn't cotton much to puppies, but she always geared her discipline to the size of the puppy. The whippet babies got snake-strikes, but no grabs. It was enough for them. When the puppy herd would thunder through the kitchen this spring on their way outdoors, they gave her a very wide berth after the first time. Actually Babs didn't have much truck with any of the other dogs. She liked Sam okay, our big red whippet. Sam is such a gentleman that no one could have a problem with him. But unlike our other whippets, she was not given to snuggling and "piling up" even during the winter. Last week Babs had knucklebones and rawhides and carrots freely. Not that we were concerned about her teeth any more, but because she loved them. Babs
arrives The trouble was, we couldn't afford another old dog. As much as we love them, old dogs always have higher vet bills, and we already had two dogs over 12 years old, another at nine, and one at eight. Whippet Rescue and Placement (WRAP) would pay for her initial physical exam and anything basic she needed, but if we adopted her ourselves, could we afford whatever came along later? What choice did we have? We hated to think of an old whippet alone day after day, an old whippet who was used to an active family life. We might not have much money, but we had enough love and attention to go around, even with a houseful of other dogs. We made an agreement. We would take Babs, but when she did get sick, as she inevitably would, we would put her down. No discussions, no decision. We would give her what we could, but we couldn't give her money.
Skinny? Ivy? Uh oh. They opened the hatchback of their SUV and there she was. A very fat whippet looking very dubious. (We later learned that dubious was Babs's favorite expression.) But she was beautiful. Cream and white and an exquisite face with big dark eyes. Her owners signed the paperwork, hugged her goodbye, and we trundled her on over to the car. She more or less ignored Ivy. And me, as far as she could. When I got her home, Walt's mouth fell open. "That is one fat whippet!" Babs
Settles In So...we would have to address diet and teeth right away. Obviously Babs wasn't particular about what she ate, so on the way home I picked up a large bag of frozen broccoli. That night we added a floret or two to her dinner and reduced the kibble by about an eighth of a cup. She was old, I decided, and I wasn't going to starve her for the sake of a few pounds. If I could take the weight off her painlessly, I would. If not, well, she could die fat and happy. Over the next week, as her body grew accustomed to the broccoli, I added more of it and reduced the kibble more, until she was getting only a quarter of a cup of kibble twice a day, but all the broccoli and raw carrots she wanted. Babs was happy and we were happy. She also had about an hour with a knucklebone every day. In four months, she had dropped five pounds and her teeth were sparkling. By February, she was a fairly trim 34 pounds.
The folks at Whippet World named her their September 2004 Rescue of the Month and Patience Renzulli of A Dog in the Garden crafted her a lovely purple collar and Christel Ausman presented her with custom-made purple pajamas from Cottage Hound Designs, which she loved and wore every day, all day in the winter. I don't think she had had a coat at her previous home. She was definitely agitated when her PJs were in the wash. She'd come running when I got them off the line and brought them back in. One day a box arrived with two brand new handmade toys, signed only "Mother Bunny." The whippet people had welcomed Babs to the world of LOPAW. (Land of the Overly Pampered and Adored Whippet) Where Did She Come From? Meanwhile,
we were curious about her history. She was obviously a quality
dog and I was concerned that some breeder somewhere was worrying
2) At the time she had been with a Bullmastiff handler who said that her owners didn't want her any more because of the injury. The story was more than secondhand, so we didn't know how much of it was correct, or how much I had heard correctly when it was told to me. But something had very obviously happened to her front. She walked with a flip to the side and her right foot and pastern were very weak, sometimes to the point of trembling. (I called it her Elvis impersonation) So I posted the story to a couple of the whippet email lists and asked if it sounded familiar. Almost immediately I got a note back from Mel Joyce, Rejoyce Whippets, who had forwarded it to Barbara Pendergrass. Barb bred whippets for many years under the Rafina prefix and now breeds chihuahuas. She said this sounded like a bitch she had sold years ago and hadn't heard anything about for a long time. We called Barb, assured her that Babs had a loving home with us, and asked for permission to keep her. Winter was coming and she'd need heavier pajamas if we had to send her back to Michigan! Barb said we could keep her and told us who her sire and dam were. She didn't know what Babs' registered name was. (If anyone reading this remembers her from the show ring, please let us know. We'd like to add it to her headstone.) UPDATE: Our friend Mary Magee of Whippet Watch magazine did the research we didn't know how to do. Babs was offcially Rafina's Lookin' for Trouble. Thanks so much, Mer! Babs Becomes a Timbreblue Whippet Babs fit right into the household as if she had been here forever. She curled up on her dog bed under the counter for most of the day while Walt worked on his computer or ham radios in the kitchen. When I came downstairs she'd follow me to wherever I was going and settle down there.
But she followed me everywhere outside. Once or twice when I "lost" her by going behind the barn or a tree when she wasn't looking, I'd come back to her trotting around in circles, ears up, looking panicky. So I was careful to let her know where I was. In the house, if I closed a door behind me, Babs would stand there for a long time, just waiting to see if I were coming back. Eventually she'd go back to her bed and get comfortable. For a long time she wasn't especially friendly to Walt, though she tolerated his company when I wasn't around. I began to get those hard-earned tail wags fairly early in our relationship. Anyone connected with food was okay in Babs' book. Walt had a tougher time of it. One day
just a few months ago I came downstairs to his announcement,
"Babs wagged her tail at me!" Her Problems Begin
Walt was still asleep, so I called the vet and went up to tell him we were going. "I guess if Dr. Keating thinks she's in pain, I'll just go on and have her put down." He snapped awake. "We can't just put her down without knowing what's wrong with her! It might be very treatable!" We didn't really talk about the money seriously again after that. Somehow we paid her bills. Bloodwork, chest x-rays, and $300 later, Babs began to get better, though we didn't have a diagnosis. Dr. Keating put her on prednisone, and that worked. She went "down" again three months later. Again we did all the tests, again everything was normal, and again prednisone helped. Finally in June there was a small breakthrough. Her thyroid screening (the third since she'd arrived) showed hypothyroidism. Medication made her feel so much better that for awhile it was easy to forget she was old. She was still reserved and dignified, but those occasional tail wags were more frequent and she played with toys more often than before. We had a good summer. The Final Days But Labor Day weekend, Babs didn't look good. I had a very bad feeling about it. We didn't want to call Dr. Keating over holiday so we gave Babs some prednisone. She was so much better by Tuesday that we didn't even take her in. But that Friday her left foot began to swell. We were afraid one of us had stepped on it – Babs was a tough little cookie and seldom cried or yelped even when something hurt he. We could have crushed her toe and not even known. Dr. Keating, however, found puncture wounds that indicated a spider or possibly even snake bite. We put her on antibiotics and for a week we soaked her foot in warm water with Betadine and Epsom salts two or three times a day. The swelling went down, but she didn't feel much better. Finally Monday we took another round of x-rays. We'd x-rayed her heart earlier in the year, but now we wanted to see her abdomen. Though she had lost weight, Babs had a very wide girth. Even when her ribs were showing a little, her abdomen was distended. Dr. Keating thought it was intra-abdominal fat and that seemed logical to us. She had been overweight for a very long time. Now though, she looked still fatter, even though she wasn't eating more. And she was panting a lot, even in the air conditioned house. "I don't like this," Dr. Keating said when she brought back the x-rays. We couldn't see the abdomen well because it was so thick the x-rays didn't penetrate, but there was a mysterious mass at the edge of it, that looked as though it extended back into her belly. We took more x-rays. Another mass was in her lungs. If Babs had been younger, we would have done an ultrasound and then an exploratory. But when I took her home that night, she made it clear that she was ready to go. She just plain felt awful and surgery was too much to put her through. We spent the week with her. I missed a club meeting and a handling class and canceled a doctor's appointment. She and I watched TV (a rare treat around here) and went for short, slow walks through the fields behind the house. We gave her plenty of prednisone. It was the only thing that made her feel better. She and Walt spent time together in the kitchen and he even got another few tail wags out of her. Friday morning came too soon. Dr. Keating and her assistant Amber came to the house to save Babs the stress of another trip to the clinic. We sat on the front porch and Babs curled up on her "porch bed." She was calm. We told her goodbye and I held her close while she got a large dose of liquid Valium. After she had slipped into unconsciousness, Dr. Keating injected the euthanasia solution and Babs went to sleep for the last time. We buried her in a pink blanket with her "baby," a brand new rawhide chewie, and a newer baby she'd gotten right after she arrived. Though we have lost many Collie friends over the years, Babs was the first whippet we have buried. Hamlet is our oldest, and he's pushing 15 now. We'll plant a flowering shrub on her grave as soon as I find one that is worthy. Goodnight, sweet Babs. We'll see you again.
Babs |
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I
met her family at the Waffle House up the road. I took my Ivy
along for the ride – Ivy, who is always two pounds overweight.
When we arrived, she and I got out of the car. Babs' owner spotted
us immediately and he and his wife came over to greet us. "Oh,"
he said, "A skinny whippet!"
Babs
was happy, but she was the most reserved, dignified whippet
we've ever met. As Walt said, "Babs is no promiscuous tail-wagger."
If Babs wagged her tail for you, you had earned it. She got
excited for her meals, even jumping into the air, and she liked
to go for walks, and she played briefly with the "baby"
(a well-worn stuffed toy) she had brought from home. Looking
back, I wonder if she was so reserved because she never really
felt well. She definitely needed coddling and love and to be
treated like a princess. She got that.
about
where she had ended up. Her owners hadn't known who bred her
or the names of her previous owners. Other than her description,
we had just two facts to work with: 
It
didn't take long for us to figure out that there was no need
for a leash outside. We live on seven acres, and while we can't
let most of the whippets loose even for a minute, Babs obviously
didn't want to go anywhere and couldn't get there fast if she
did. Though she wasn't really lame, arthritis combined with
the bum leg kept her from doing much more than a very brief
brisk trot. 
In
February, I came down one morning to find her looking "off."
For all her stoicism, Babs had a most expressive face and I
could nearly always tell how she was feeling. Sure enough, when
she stood up to say good morning, she was weak. When we went
outside, she stumbled and fell. I had to sit on the steps and
cry for awhile – I remembered the agreement we'd made when
she came to us, and the money situation was no better now.