From 2014
Woof about one remarkable Golden survivor!
After successfully defeating heart worm disease, former shelter dog, Meg, enriched her adoptive home with eight years of experience in living and loving in September 2014.
She easily established herself as the leader of her family’s pack of three other Goldens and one cat with her intelligence, independence and nurturing ways.
“She mentored a 4-month-old, displaced Golden named Charlie to adulthood, teaching him the ‘tricks of the trade’,” explains one very amused Patty. “He was infatuated! Meg’s counter surfing had been honed to perfection, and she was a pro at ‘sleeping possum retrieval.’ Two root canals had armed Meg for her main passion: eating. She displayed equal enthusiasm for kibble, dog cookies, dog ice cream, steak and green beans, always eating as if it were her last meal.
“Our lives were worry free until 2018 brought a stealthy enemy. Meg began to regurgitate her food — dry food, then wet food, then pureed — while stomach meds failed and tests revealed nothing. Finally, a CT scan showed a donut-shaped tumor squeezing tightly around her esophagus, as if it were seeking to starve the Golden who so loved to eat.
“Luckily, Dr. Matt Oakes, a Largo veterinary surgeon, pulled off a miracle! Operating through two ribs, he removed a short section of esophagus and reconnected the remaining ends. Although the tumor was cancerous, the margins were clean and now, three years later, Meg still eats with unabashed delight.
“Her routine begins in the morning when she races to see if the cat left anything in his bowl overnight and ends after dinner when she waits expectantly for a cheese-covered thyroid pill and chewable arthritis pill. She’s 15, at a healthy weight, and just passed her senior blood work with flying colors.
“She loves chilling in her doggy pool the way we humans lounge in our hot tubs. Perhaps she lies there thinking about all of the miracles in her life. Okay, we know she’s thinking about the next cookie, but we can pretend — as we walk to the kitchen to get her one.”
