little odin’s first thanksgiving started early and with quite a bit of drama when i awoke at 5:30 a.m. to strange sounds coming from the kitchen and found everyone’s favorite malamute, mauja, laying in a pool of urine and apparently unable to use his hindlegs! what a way to start the day!
mauja had hip surgery for severe hip dysplasia when he was 9 months old, and although he hasn’t had any problems for years, i immediately assumed he had blown out his hip. suspiciously, he was laying next to the stove which had a pan sitting on the burner; mauja had just stolen two pounds of cooked burger off the stove the night before and i could very clearly imagine him trying the same stunt again, slipping, and throwing out his hip. the hole in that theory was that he wasn’t making any noise, which was odd because he’s normally very vocal and even more so if he’s in any sort of pain; i just chalked the quietness up to doggy shock as kris and i tried to figure out how we were going to get a 110 pound injured dog down three flights of stairs.
luckily, kris’ father answered the call for help and came over quickly to lend a hand. after many unsuccessful attempts to put mauja in a blanket and carry him down the steps ( too unstable ), we found a dog crate and actually managed to wedge him inside which was no small feat considering he wasn’t such a big fan of going in the crate and his back legs weren’t working. although he was putting up a little bit of a struggle, he wasn’t howling bloody murder which is what would have normally happened if he thought he was going in a crate, non-functional hind legs or not. again, i just chalked it up to doggy shock as we struggled to carry him down the steps while he remained silent.
as we pulled into the empty parking lot, i found myself amazingly thankful that there actually was an animal emergency hospital open at 6:30 in the morning on thanksgiving. a nice woman wheeled out a gurney on which we heaved the crate as we walked in and explained the calamity. once inside we took the crate off the gurney and placed it on the floor as the vet’s assistant suggested that we open the door and see if he would walk out on his own accord.
“impossible”, i exclaimed, as i opened the crate door and watched mauja walk out! he was unsteady and acting somewhat like a drunken sailor, but he was walking nonetheless.
then slowly, all the pieces came together – laying in a pool of urine, the changed behavior, ataxia; a seizure.
as he slowly recovered, eventually regaining his mamalute voice and a fully coordinated gait, it became increasingly clear that he had almost certainly had a seizure. we know all about seizures, since we had to put down a wonderful 2 year old german short haired pointer, harper, who had severe epilepsy. it was horrible to watch a 60 pound pointer go into a grand mal and i can only imagine what it would be like to try to prevent a huge malamute from hurting himself while seizing.
it’s unlikely that the cause of mauja’s seizure was the same as harper’s. in fact, it’s possible that the protein spike from the stolen hamburger caused his seizure and he might not have another one. there are many, many different causes of siezures so all we can do is sit and wait and see if he has anymore.
despite being woken early and spending time in the animal hospital, little odin was a champ and slept through most of the experience.
after all the excitement at the animal hostpital we were running behind and needed to hurry up and get on the road so we could drive grand blanc, michigan to have thanksgiving dinner with my folks, auntie m and other family and friends.
d’oh! everyone else is trying to get out of town at the same time and apparently many off them have forgotten how to drive as there are many accidents along the way. we repeat over and over that we’re very thankful to be stuck in traffic on thanksgiving, as little odin’s lets us know from the backseat that he’s tired of the carseat and he’s hungry.
eventually we finally arrive at odin’s grandparents house and we have a great meal with all the fixings.
grandma snowdeal already had her christmas tree on display and odin slowly fell asleep in auntie m’s arms after being mezmerized by they bulbs and lights.
we had a short but fun visit and had to quickly turn right back around to make it back to kris’ parent’s for a second thanksgiving dinner. unfortunately by the time we got there odin was well past being overtired. we could certainly relate, since early morning visits to emergency animal hospitals, driving over 200 hundred miles and two thanksgiving meals was certainly enought to make us tired too; so, after another brief visit, we found ourselves thankful to head home where we all fell fast asleep.