The longest living Dog.

On the green at Waverly.

Today is special.

My dog is alive.
Today is the one year anniversary of  Babe’s diagnosis with Histiocytic Sarcoma and she is still here.

One year ago today we had just returned from goose chasing, a twilight ritual we had tirelessly engaged in for nine months, come rain or shine.  The Goose Chasing Assignment, it was all coincidence.

Some months before, Babe had undergone massive leg restructuring and alignment after a torn ACL ligament.  I went for the works.   Babe now has a Bionic right leg, but her recovery was slow and difficult.

Babe had a titanium implant with dozens of screws which needed to graft to bone properly.  This meant she could not be moved without the utmost care, and even weeks later, stairs were out of the question.  I had assembled what I felt was an entirely appropriate substitute for lawn turf in a froggie pool. Real grass and everything.

Babe wasn’t having it.

Not gonna do it.

What the hell was I going to do?  She refused to pee.  After consulting some film friends about various gadgets and gizmos, winches, slings and rail driven elevator sidecars.   You know, like the kind you  see in classic movies about the ultra rich; Those  Matronic Mansions with carriages that glide up and down the spiral staircase with Kathren Hepburn on board?  We considered all the options.  No way could I afford a Babe elevator.  But I could rent a cherry picker.

Top floor, penthouse. Please exit to the right.

We had to knock out panels, crush a newly planted bed of petunias, and buy lots of plywood to get this thing so it could be rolled in and out of place.

Twice, sometimes thrice daily  I would remote command this concrete crushing two ton portable hydraulic ivy lift so that Babe would have a safe way to do her business.

But I diverge…

Going down...

Back to the Goose Chasing.

By the time I met the folks who managed Waverly Golf Course, Babe was now able to go on short daily walks.

One of the employees saw us as we passed a large electronic gate at the rear end where the Turf  Care Facility is located.  She eyeballed the Border collie.  ”Does she herd geese?” asked the woman.

“Geese?” I  was offended. “Can my dog Chase Geese? You’re looking at a professional.  Babe is a goose chasing instructor.” (I was lying through my teeth.  This is the truth: Once we stumbled onto the driving range and Babe got away.  She teamed up with the resident collie and mercilessly thrashed a covenant of Canada Geese who had taken command of  a swimming pool sized mud hole at the 200 yard line.)

“We’re looking for a goose chaser. Our collie is retiring.”

“I’d consider it, but Babe still needs some rehab. It could be a month or two”

“So is that is a yes?” said the woman.   I could see that Babe was already scanning the premises. Measuring the possibilities.  All those hills and dales.  I nodded.

“Ok then, come by when you can.  I’ll introduce you to the director.”

A director of lawn mowing and goose shit? These guys are serious. I knew nothing about turf care.  All the grass in my froggie pool was dead by now.

So a month later I showed up and met the Director of turf care.   He gave me the gate code, and the terms of service.  ”Arrive no earlier that one half hour before sunset, work until dusk, avoid the guests, tuck in your shirt, no jeans.  Otherwise you and the dog have complete run of the place. “

Ready to work the night shift.

It was wonderful.  We were both obese from months of no exercise.  What could be better for a Service dog than having your own private leash free country club.  Green acres.  Manicured and emerald as far as the eye can see.   A forest of trees older than God.  A lake.  And Lots and lots of grass.   Did I mention the hills and the dales?  All teeming with fast moving furry and feathered  minions to be the boss of.  And I had to keep up.

Canada Geese are a defiant bunch, especially when you get about a hundred of them together.  I would watch the turf crew chasing geese in their golf carts.  With the utmost intimidation a human might succeed in getting them to lift and move fifty feet or so, while the honkers (goose security) would shriek and charge and flap and shit.  Lots of that.  Everywhere.  Hence the term  shit like a goose. The Waverly fairways.  They were  strewn in goose shit from tee to crappy tee.  It was impossible to avoid these little green land mines, to the extent that for many members golfing has simply lost its glamour.  I knew they they must have been desperate to come to us.

But Babe had The Gift.  She seemed to know exactly what to do.  Babe choose to address the goose question by skirting them with apparent indifference.  She would figure out who the head hench-geese were, the honkers, and size them up. Usually at least two or three.   When necessary Babe used the cover of trees for reconnoissance.   She would trot nonchalantly over to the riverside rough and pee a scent line at regular intervals, still utterly ignoring the geese.  She would stop at assorted walnuts, cedars, and elms, pause and look at the sky,  as if on a squirrel inventory, looking  back at me from time to time with that Border collie stare.  ”Chill. I know what the fuck I’m doing here.”

Babe would then gain strategic elevation.

And having all of goosedom well surmised, she would trot down to meet to the gang leaders, steadily gaining until running full tilt at the biggest honker.  The entire flock would lift, and be forced over her pee line and  into the Willamette.  This she did unfailingly, without any instruction from me. We did it beginning  at one half hour before sunset until dark for nearly nine months. In every kind of weather, facing every possible goose gathering combination, with the following outcome:  Babe 32,572.   Geese Zero.

Little did I know Babe was probably saving their lives.

In charge, and stuff.

One year ago today,  Babe came home from Goose Chasing and screamed when I removed her harness.  She convulsed with pain, writhing with the slightest touch.  In emergency Babe had to be immediately sedated as as it was first suspected she had a cervical disk injury.  This can be life threatening.  Dogs can suffer permanent spinal cord damage as they struggle to ease their suffering.  But this was not a cervical disk.  The CT scan revealed a huge grapefruit sized mass lodged next to her heart.  It nearly filled an entire lobe of her lung.  It had to be removed immediately.

After the lung surgery.

At first we were hopeful that if this tumor could be removed intact, Babe’s chances were good.  To our horror the findings revealed a rare and always lethal cancer,  usually occurring only in the Berneese Mountain Dog.  Most vets never see it in a lifetime of practice.  But my dog had Malignant Histiocytic Sarcoma.  They gave Babe 2 months to live.

I researched online and found Shelly’s histio website (see link under PAGES)  where I read about a possible treatment:  CEENU and prednisone.  At that time, the longest surviving dog was a flat-coat retriever who lived nine months after diagnosis with this therapy.  Most dogs don’t make it past a couple of weeks.  If you visit Shelly’s site you will see the reality.  Dogs with MH can die horribly.  With luck it happens suddenly.  And dogs of other breeds were beginning to get it.

But why Babe?  It took some time to piece it all together.   Just months after we began our daily routine at Waverly,  Babe got a small tumor on her leg. It was removed, and she healed quickly.  Researching the causes for sudden tumor growth,  I discovered a connection between exposure to environmental toxins  and cancers among dogs across the country.  At the time  I asked about the use of chemicals on the golf course and received essentially no response, then finally on confronting the Director of Turf Care, he said, “Ok, we use chemicals.  Every golf course uses lawn chemicals. We’re careful… we have our own cocktail, depending on the season, but it’s no  worse than using Desenex.”

I will never forget that day.  The way he put his hand on my shoulder and smiled, then sauntered off to play the back nine.  I remember feeling up his old dog for skin tumors as I pet her belly, and finding none, feeling somewhat reassured.  

Then I noticed that many  trees  had giant rings of dead and dying plants around them.  The same trees Babe sniffed at regularly for the squirrel inventory phase of her goose chasing strategy.  They had been using Roundup. I would learn much more about herbicides later, after  I lost my sense of smell while on the Golf course.  My doctor was so concerned he had an MRI done and finding nothing other than what appeared to be diffuse opacities near the olfactory bulb,  assured me I wasn’t going to die of a brain tumor.  My sense of smell has never completely returned.   Neither have we.

Many months later,  after Babe got this rare cancer I revisited environmental toxins on the web.  I discovered  exposure to even minute amounts of Casoron, a common herbicide had been shown to cause specific  olfactory damage in mammals.  I learned about lots of things. About the cumulative effect of the combined use of herbicides, about the extreme range of disinformation between independent scholarly studies and the data sheets published by chemical giants like Monsanto which minimized the potential harmful effects to humans and other animals.  I learned of at least nine herbicides and turf care chemicals that have been shown to give rise to Histiocytic Sarcoma and other cancers.  Consider the odds.  One can never prove a direct cause and effect link, but consider the odds.  I was devastated with the knowledge I may have participated  in the murder of my own dog.  A dog who rescued me, from the erasure of wasting illness.  Was I an accomplice in killing a dog that saved my life?

Favorite time of day.

On this first anniversary, nobody can explain why Babe is still alive.  Nobody.

The mortality rate for Malignant Histiosarcoma is 100 per cent.  We can’t stop the chemo because this cancer can stage as the the malignant phase spontaneously, even with no clear presence of tumor growth. If there were just some viable means of determining her present state, I could stop the chemo, which over time has potentially lethal side effects as well.

Babe tolerates it for the most part, but in recent months there has been muscular weakness and other  neurological disturbance.  She has Horner’s syndrome;  damage in the optic nerve that affects the lower “third eyelid” so that it closes and forces her to look upward to see.  It’s self limiting to some degree.  She gets eye medicine.   Still, nobody can say with certainty what role the chemo is playing now.

Once again I’m faced with a situation where I could be killing the one I love.  I stop the chemo I could kill her.  I continue the chemo I could kill her.

So today is a victory of sorts,  on account of  Babe’s unexplained statistical position on a bell curve.  Sometimes she seems perfectly normal, except for the grey hairs, her rapidly aging frame.  It’s hard to accept that we still must be prepared at any time for her death. I don’t know what’s  harder.  The sudden loss of a loved one, or watching them die slowly.

I have two dogs now. Babe’s trainee, Margaret is now fully grown and ready for graduate work.   Marge is One Huge lovably cantankerous Lassie collie, learning the ropes from a master, who is slowly withering from the inside out.  I must choose my mercies, my gratitudes with a bias towards possibility, one way or another, or it  would be impossible to bear.

A nightly ritual.

~ by christopherkliks on May 25, 2009.