Sunday, May 27, 2007. Mid-Morn
Brutus, my 8 yr old Brittany is at the emergency hospital. Yesterday he got all his vaccinations in the am. By mid afternoon he wasn’t quite right - a little slow. Spoke to the emergency clinic and since he was eating, drinking, peeing & pooping they thought he might just be sore.

This am he could hardly walk. He was going sideways and falling down. It was awful to watch. I took his temp 104.4 so I rushed him off to the vets.

No clue what is going on. Got tons of fluids, all bloodwork looks great, but he is still nuerologically challenged - with the jiggly brain syndrome. He isn’t holding his head funny, it is the hind end.

He will stay at the vets for the next night, perhaps two. The vets are very concerned, but are doing all they can. It is a wait & see at this point.

DH & I are very worried. Our boys mean a lot to us. Bru is a big lug, a great hunting dog and a sweetie to boot. His brother is alone in the kennel tonight - Louis looks very sad. Luckily he is fine - had all the same shots as Brutus.

Sunday Late Afternoon
The vet said that they have gotten the temp down to 100.6!!! That is great. She labeled him “stable”. When I brought him in he was “critical”.

Nuerologically he is about the same. They had to give him a mild seditive because he walked around so much he tangled his IV.

He has NO ticks, so they ruled out tick paralysis.

He does have a NASTY inner ear infection with lots of puss, apparently our vet missed that during his exam on Saturday. She just said it was dirty and gave us cleaning solution. This vet said she can not clean it now as he is still too sick. They will do IV antibiotics to really get ahold of it. Then they will clean it tomorrow afternoon.

She still thinks this is a vaccine reaction, combined with the ear infection, but is unable to say which came first and which is causing the real issue. She did not think the ear infection was bad enough to cause his rapid deterioration and since the blood work came back all normal, infection is sort of what/where/why. Too many variables.

They will keep him till Tuesday to get him steady on his feet, then we have some nursing to do. BUT she thinks he will pull through. When she first saw him, she wasn’t so sure of that.

Darn stupid animals. I have said it many times before, HOW RICH I COULD BE IF I DIDN’T HAVE ANIMALS and My heart wouldn’t be breaking so much. Oh well.

Monday, May 28th AM
The overnight vet said Brutus is a great dog. They kept him mildly sedated as he is so unbalanced they didn’t want him to be injured trying to get up.

1) He is eating - good
2) His temp is still normal - good
3) Bodily function output seems normal - good
4) No nuerological change at all - bad

They will start steriods IV today, continue with antibiotics IV & fluids. If there is no improvement they are refering him to the local board certified Nuerologist for evaluation. They hope he can come up with something.

Right now they are considering him a total mystery. The vaccinations/deworming none should have this side effect. The ear infection isn’t presenting itself like a regular ear imbalance/infection - no head tilt, etc.

Still waiting, that is all. And meanwhile, KaCHING, KaCHING

Monday Late Afternoon
The vet just updated us. Brutus has a sevree eye twitching and rolling around. The vet is quite concerned at this point.

He said IF he makes it through the night that we have to rush him to the neurologist’s first thing and they will fax all of the paperwork over. Luckily he is a partner in the hospital practice and will see him right away.

It isn’t looking good and this is such a cool dog. We really need everyones vibes/prayers, whatever. I am really scared. DH is kicking himself, Brutus was my 2nd anniversary gift and is the son of our other dog, Jacky.

Monday PM
We just left visitiing Brutus. It is soooo sad. He can’t use his back end and at this point he can’t stand at all. His nuerological signs are worsening, but he seems to be fighting.

DH & I got some good time cuddling him and the boys petted him and said hello. I hope that made him feel better that Mom & Dad haven’t abandoned him.

The vet said he isn’t in pain, so not to make rash decisions - that we are first in line at the neurologist in the AM and let them do tests and see what they find. It is soooo scarey to see your very strong dog so ill. I would be less upset if he was younger AND hadn’t just gotten his vaccinations (which is what we are all thinking is the cause of this). But nothing is making sense.

DH is taking this hard. He told the vet that if Brutus needs to be an indoor dog and can’t be hunted that is ok, that we will do everything on our side. I guess it is up to nature, God, the vets and Brutus’ will to live.

Thanks so much for the vibes and hugs. I am sure the tears will be falling for most of the evening after the boys are down. That is when it will really hit us.

Tuesday, May 29th AM
My phone rang around 3am and I knew what it meant. The vet said Brutus passed away shortly before he called.

I can’t tell you how sad and angry DH & I are. To take a perfectly healthy dog into the vets for vaccinations and 2 days later have a dead dog and a huge vet bill and no answers as to why.

And now to deal with Brutus’ littermate who has already been grieving for him. He and Louis were incredibly close, not just littermates, but played together, hunted together, etc.

Brutus was the giant of the litter of 8. He was sooooo big, but he couldn’t get up & down steps when his little brother could. We used to have to carry his big butt everywhere. Even had to put steps up to his kennel so he could get in. We celebrated the first itme he went in on his own.

On his first hunt as a youngster I was so proud that MY dog was going out. DH carried the game bag on his back. Brutus’ dad, Jacky, was the lead dog, an awesome hunter. We would tell Brutus, “hunt ‘em up, find the bird” and he would just plod along next to us, not leaving out sides. We were getting disgusted with him. Someone in the goup got a pheasant and DH put it in his pack (like a backpack, but a vest). On we go saying “hunt ‘em up Brutus, find the bird”, well Bru had his nose stuck up DH’s arse and we are chastising him to go out on the field when we realised that he DID hunt ‘em up and find the bird, but it was dead and stuck in the pack! Smart boy, used his nose, brain and not too much energy!!! Eventually he became a super bird dog with a spectacular point and great nose.

Brutus, I will miss you as will our entire family. You have brought us 8 years of laughter & love. You leave us with a hole in our hearts that just can’t be filled. Godspeed big guy.

He’d nver had a reaction before, notta, nothing.

Tuesday Mid AM
We spoke to the vet today. She got the vaccine company on the phone and they immediately asked us to do a necropsy which they will pay for 100% no matter what the results. We were flipped about having him cut up, but we will never know if we don’t - we are sooooo torn.

Decided to do the necropsy, the vet will cover the cost of pick up & delivery to the state facility & the cost of cremation afterward. If this is vaccine related, they will reimburse all of our costs - still doesn’t bring my Bru back.

The emergency room vet is cutting off some of the nice hair from Bru & putting that and his collar in an envalope for us. We will put his kennel sign up on his gravesite when his remains come home.

Thans for all the well wishes, BoogBoog is asking when he will come home from the hospital. I will wait till after school to explain Brutus is in heaven. He was very worried that Louis would be lonely last night. Sheesh.

I am empty today, just empty.

Friday June 1st, AM
I called them today to make sure they are doing a toxicity screening on Brutus. The Dr who is doing the work is a real hard-arse bitchy type. She snarls at me that the dog died from heart disease/kidney failure. Well HELLO - yes, the organs failed but WHY??? So I tell her the history, healthy dog, gets vaccinated, less than 1 hour later begining of neurologicaly sypmtoms appear, we assume he is sore, call vet who also thinks he is sore and says to wait, next AM dog can’t walk, take him to ER and in less than 48 hours he is dead. All blood work previous to shot (5 minutes before vaccine) is 100% normal and the blood work take about 24 hours later is also 100% normal. To that point NO signs of organ failure, infection, NOTHING. She doesn’t even say squat to me during the time I am going over this -

hello, are you there?
*Yeah, so what do you want me to do?
(WTF???) I want you to figure out why a healthy dog gets vaccinated and dies within 2 1/2 days. That’s what I want you to do.
*Well someone should have given me a correct history. I got a sick dog went to the ER and died.
Ok, so you couldn’t have called to ask? You called to ask why he had hoof trimmings in his stomach.
*Well, he died from organ failure.
That much I know, but given what all I just told you, why did his organs fail & why was he paralyzed?
*Well, I never got that history so I didn’t do tests for that. I just tested for why he died.
Ok, so now, go back and test for poisons, for his spinal fluid, brain, whatever. (at this point she hesitates and I think she may have already cremated him without collecting the necessary samples)
*Toxicity screening will cost thousands of dollars.
Not MY problem, that is for the vet and the vaccine company to work out, but I will get you the authorization to do it.
*So what exactly do you want me to test for?
How do I know? I am not a pathologist, that is what you do. All I know is I took in a healthy dog and he is dead shortly after getting his vaccinations.
*Well lady, this ain’t CSI. I don’t know what you want me to test for.

So that is how my conversation ended with this Doctor. I called my vet and cried and screamed at them for not making sure this idiot had all the correct information to research what happened to Brutus. My vet assures me she did give them all the informaiton. She is also willing to pay for the toxicity screenings since at this point I haven’t yelled ATTORNEY.

My beautiful boy is sliced and diced and I will get ashes (I pray they are his). If we had known they couldn’t do the job correctly we would have not allowed this to happen. Poor Louis is sad. He is just barely eating and doesn’t want to run around, but sniffs around looking for Brutus.

Saturday June 2nd Early AM
I just wanted to let you all know that we are waiting to hear from the state vet with regards to the way this has been handled. I just want to know WHY my healthy dog died after being vaccinated. What caused his organs to shut down and why did he have the weakening of the hind end which rapidly progressed to the front. No one has been able to provide me with any answers and logically the only thing that makes sense is a horrible reaction to one of the components in the vaccine he recieved 1 hour before he started displaying symptoms.

If anyone has dealt with anything similar, please let us know, please.

I apologize for mis-spelled words, my brain is not functioning fully and I am tired.