My beautiful dog Fred came to me in a special way. I was fostering for a group in San Jose, CA. who, I later found out, cared more about embezzling money than about the welfare of the dogs that they were "adopting out." Fred was one of my fosters (the last one that I had with the group), and I had fostered about 60 dogs before him.

I found a home for Fred, and that home ended up being with the landlord of the building where I was living. In the three days that I had Fred before I gave him to the landlord, he became immensely attached to me. I tried to keep him out of my bed at night so that we could maintain some distance (since he wasn't going to be my dog, and since my own 2 dogs that I had at the time already slept on my bed and I liked to keep the fosters separate). No matter how many times I pushed him off of the bed, he'd come right back! Eventually, I gave in since it was only for 2 nights.

When the landlord took him, he was miserable with her. He would see me through her sliding glass door, and when she refused to open it, he'd lift his leg and pee on it in his agitated state to be with me. She tried for three weeks to get him to sleep in her bed and bond with her, but it was to no avail. He had already made up his mind about the fact that I was the one who he wanted to be with.

After those three tough weeks, I took Fred back from her because she was unhappy about his inability to bond with her. I fell so crazy in love with him because of his attachment to me and his ridiculously silly mannerisms. I knew I had to keep him.

Before Injection: Chowing down on a delicious bone. But.......he will never ever be able to do this again.

Then, about a year after he became my companion, I decided to get him the ProHeart 6 injection for heartworm prevention. I honestly thought that I was doing a great thing for him because he would be covered without a doubt at all times for the following six months, which meant that I wouldn't risk the chance of him EVER getting heartworm disease from the local dog parks that we visited every day. When I took him home after he received the injection, he seemed a little bit listless, but I didn't think much of it because I figured that the strain of the vet visit had worm him out. He perked back up about 2 days later, and he seemed to be his normal self again.

A few months after he received the injection, however, he started vomiting like crazy. He's a little guy, but it looked as though a Great Dane had been throwing up due to the sheer volume of vomit. I rushed him to the emergency vet who said that it was probably nothing more than an upset stomach, and she sent him home with me after giving him some Pepcid and other meds to calm his stomach. That night, he slept on my pillow, shaking really hard, with his tail firmly planted between his legs. I couldn't sleep at all, so I watched over him, and then I saw him get up and get off of the bed. He proceeded to go out the doggie door and vomit several more times to the point that he was dry heaving and he couldn't stop. I rushed him to his regular vet, and they did a barium series of x-rays. They say something that looked like a blockage, so they said that they were going to need to do a huge exploratory surgery to remove the blockage. They were confident that it was nothing more than a piece of sock or a stuffed animal that had become lodged in his intestine, but they were wrong.

They cut him open, and they found that his pancreas was severely enlarged and had gone necrotic in several places. He was diagnosed with Acute Necrotizing Inflammatory Pancreatitis. The vets had no clue what could have caused this problem since I have had him on a VERY healthy and steady diet (Innova brand dog food and moderate amounts of very healthy treats). Furthermore, while we didn't know Fred's exact age, he looked to be about 3 years old (judging by his teeth). It is NOT normal for a three year old male dog to come down with pancreatitis, let alone pancreatitis as severe as his.

He spent the next ten days in the hospital, and it was the worst ten days of my life. There was absolutely NO food and water given to him for several days, and he was connected to an IV for fluids. I would drive him back and forth between his regular vet and a 24 hour vet (so that he could be watched all night). Eventually, they let me take him home at night, but I was to give him only very small amounts of water.

No matter what he ingested, he threw up right away. Finally, the vet told me that I had 2 choices since his condition wasn't improving at all:
1) I could either take him to the 24 hour vet (which has a bunch of specialists) to have a feeding tube inserted, or
2) I could go ahead with euthanasia
The doctor was leaning toward euthanasia.
I was hysterical. I asked the vet if there was any way that I could go home and cook some chicken and rice and bring it back to see if there was ANY possibility that he might keep that down. The doctor said yes, but he looked at me like I was a little bit crazy, and he told me not to get my hopes up because this dog wasn't going to keep anything down.

I cooked some chicken and rice, and I poured every ounce of love I had for Fred (which is immeasurable) into that chicken and rice. I brought it back and he ate a little bit.......and kept it down!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was literally a miracle. I took him home and, little by little, he was beginning to eat again.

Just starting to eat again, chicken & rice

For the rest of his life, he will be on a special diet called IVD Hi Factor, and he can't have any treats anymore. He is healthy for the time being, but no one knows how long that will last. The vets are still amazed at how this could have happened (how he could have pulled through). The head vet, who has been in practice for 30 years, told me that he has never, in his entire career, seen a dog with pancreatitis as bad as the pancreatitis that Fred had, and that he has seen many dogs with far less acute pancreatitis die before his eyes.

Fred is a trooper, but I have no doubt that ProHeart 6 caused his illness and almost killed him. What else could explain such an intensely acute case of this illness in such a young male dog?

In his new bed...... hoping it is all over with!

Katie