Drake BlogsMy Life As An Adopted Dog Told By My Mom and I

A couple of times a year Drake has what seems to be insomnia. Usually he goes to bed around 9 and sleeps until 1 or 2 in the morning; then he starts pacing. Since we live in Florida and have tiled floors, we are wakened with tap, tap, tap, etc. Funny, it’s one of those sounds you can easily tune out.

When the pacing doesn’t get our attention, he sits at the bedroom door starring at us and swooshing his tail. Interestingly, Max did the same thing when he wanted our attention at night. Must have something to do with being a lab. Somehow, we eventually “feel” the stare or hear the swooshing tail and one or both of us tell him to go back to bed. This goes on two or three times until one of us finally gets up and goes outside with him. If by chance the stare and swoosh don’t work, he resorts to plopping his head on the bed and yes that gets our attention.

During round one of this adventure he usually has important business to do. Round two not so much business to do. By round three or four there is no business to do, but now he wants to lay in the grass and stare at the stars. I have come to learn that if I want this little game to end, the best thing to do is a take a seat at the picnic table, put my head down and let him commune with the stars. After 20 or 30 minutes he’s ready to go back inside and sleeps for the rest of the night. That is what’s left of it.

This was our routine before the introduction of the Elizabethan collar. Since he became a cone head, this has become a nightly routine. Even though Darrell and I are beginning to feel like walking zombies, we can’t get angry with him. We can’t begin understand what he must be feeling now, so with deep breaths we get up go outside and let him workout whatever he must.

To be honest, I must give credit where credit is due. While I hear what is going on most of the time, Darrell is way ahead of me on picnic table time.

Last Monday Drake officially became a cone head and will be one for the remainder of his treatment. Not that he can tell us, but we are sure he isn’t to crazy about it. When he left in the morning he walked freely around his house. When he got home there were nothing but road blocks every which way he turned. The first couple of days when he bumped into something or his cone got caught he’d stop, look at us and then wait for one of us to release it from whatever it stuck on.  Now he just keeps moving and eventually the cone comes along.

We did have to make a couple of adjustments for him; his “Big Dog Feeding Station” is now in the porch and his water and food bowls are on the floor. For as clumsy as he is now he almost went a whole week without spilling his water. Both bowls are now inside of a larger bowl that won’t tip over. Darrell had some extra foam pads under his bed, the bed is now on the floor. The adjustments we’ve had to make; getting use to hearing the cone hit and slide against the wall every time he switches positions. He has many different positions at night.

On Monday afternoon when I picked Drake up, I final got to see how big the tumor is as they had shaved him from the base of his tail up his back about 10 inches and down his leg 5 inches. It  is the size of a large grapefruit. What Darrell originally saw was about half of the tumor, the rest was hiding under his hair. I have to admit I felt incredibility guilty for letting it get that big. I told a friend how I felt and she reminded me we had no way of knowing what was really going on. True, but we had three different warning signs and we had reasonable answers for all three. May be this is the lesson in all of this; pay attention to any warning signs and don’t be so quick to have the easy answers.

Drake is enjoying his car ride every morning. As soon as I put my shoes on he’s at the front door ready to go. He doesn’t seem to mind he’s going to ACCC and not my office. Not a whimper on the way and once he’s allowed to jump out of the car, he’s full speed ahead trying to get in the front door. His nurses Stephanie and Kim are his new best friends, i.e. they feed, walk and play with him after radiation.

Even though he enjoys everyone at the center, when the let him out in the yard Drake makes a beeline for the gate that faces the parking lot and paces back and forth looking for me.  It’s been almost five years since we adopted him and I often wonder if he fears we won’t come back and get him; just like his original owners. When I pick him up, I can hear coming long before he gets to the door. Again, he’s full speed ahead, tail is wagging and he is one a happy dog.

As far as the radiation  goes, he’s handling it great. Other than laying in the middle of the living room floor and taking a quick nap when we get home, we haven’t seen any other side effects. I asked one of his nurses towards the end of last week when we should start seeing this thing shrink. The response:

“Dr. Dominguez says we’ve just started. We may not see any reduction until we are finished.”

Fine, but I’m not know for my patience when I want something fixed. To me it looks like it is a little smaller, well at least I can hope.

With his excitement over getting to go home, Wednesday he put a big crack in the cone and nurse Kim tapped back together. Friday he spilt it into three pieces. So we are now on cone number two. Thank goodness they are only $25. I get the feeling he will have a few more. A “bull in the china shop” is a good description of Drake when he wants to get somewhere.

Drake’s cancer finally has a name “anal sac gland carcinoma.” This is a very common cancer in dogs, but most are 10 years old before it shows up. Drake will be eight on May 28th. Just like most cancers, no one has an answer why it showed up so early. As everyone has said before, he’s young, has great lungs and a strong heart all of which will play an important part in getting him healthy.

Dr. Dominguez of the Animal Cancer Care Center will be the first doctor to treat Drake. If everything goes as planned, he will be the only doctor to treat him. Dr. Dominguez is Board Certified in Medical Oncology and Board Eligible in Radiation Oncology. Two weeks ago I didn’t even know veterinarian medicine had such specialities. Thank goodness they do.

Due to tumor’s size and since it is next to numerous vital organs, Dr. Dominguez’s suggested a treatment plan of 22 daily (minus the weekends) small dose radiation treatments. By using small daily doses the surrounding vital organs that will inevitably receive some of the radiation are able to heal quickly. If they received large doses, they would not.

To keep damage to the surrounding organs to a minimum, Dr. Dominguez first needed a 3D–CT scan of the tumor area. With the scan and a computer, he maps out a plan that delivers the treatments in the most effective way and keeps any possible damage to a minimum. Drake had the 3D–CT scan on Tuesday. Speaking with Dr. Dominguez was fascinating. I just wish it wasn’t about Drake.

After hearing how they would treat the tumor, Darrell and I had several questions but the two most important were:

1. What is the success rate with this type of cancer?

Dr. Dominguez explained that when they do radiation first, the cure rate is 95%. Since radiation treatments have an accumulated effect, often within a couple of months after the treatment is finished they find that the tumor is gone and no further treatment is required.

2. What will Drake’s quality of life be after he has finished the treatments?

Once all the radiation is out of his system, he will return to his normal self. The analogy Dr. Dominguez gave us was; “if he currently is a couch potato, after treatment he will still be a couch potato.” But he doubted Drake spends much time being a “couch potato.”

Four and half years ago we made a commitment to Lab Rescue that we would provide Drake with a great home full of love and care. With all the information we received on Tuesday, we feel comfortable that we are fulfilling our promise. So on Monday, Drake begins the first of his 22 treatments.

Thanks to everyone for the love, support and prayers for Drake, Darrell and I.

As everyone had suspected Drake does have cancer. That’s the bad news, the good news is that it hasn’t spread to his lungs. The doctors are confident that with radiation, chemotherapy and surgery he will be a cancer survivor. Normally they would do surgery first, but his tumor is so large (the size of a grapefruit) the doctors are afraid that they will do other harm by trying to remove it so they want to shrink it first. The biopsy they took on Saturday is off to Colorado State University so we know exactly what kind of cancer he has.

Since last Tuesday I have learned more than I ever cared to know about cancer in animals. The biggest surprise was that no matter what kind of cancer it may be they all have the same name and make–up as they do in humans. Consequently, they are treated with the same therapies as they are in humans. If there is a good side to all of this, the chemo and radiation do not have the same effect on animals as they do humans. With that, Drake won’t be losing his hair – other than that really bad hair cut he got on Saturday, nor should he be sick.

So as we wait to hear the name of his cancer and to begin his treatment, we do so with hope and prayer that within a couple of months this will all be behind us and life gets back to normal.

While there is so much more to write about his adoption over the last five years, today we jump ahead to what his happening currently. On Monday we noticed that under Drake’s tail,  it was very swollen so the first thing Tuesday morning I took him to see Dr. Al.  The news was not good.

It was not swelling, but rather a tumor in is anal sac. Dr. Al said it was the largest one he had ever felt. After telling me over and over again that this was not good, I asked if there was anything that could be done. He said that he felt it was too big to operate, but this was out of his expertise and referred us to an animal cancer clinic. So this morning we are starting down the path of canine oncology.

Having done a great deal of research the last couple of day on anal sac cancer, I am approaching the appointment this morning with a lot of hope. This is only a bump in the road and we have will have many more years of love together.

To Drake’s friend Tony thanks for asking St. Francis for the assist.

Before Drake, I had had four other dogs in my life, two Poodles, a half Labrador and half Husky mix, and Max our full Labrador. None had a drooling problem. I use to question why anybody would have a dog that drooled. Further how do you deal with it?

At first we thought the drooling was nerve driven. We could certainly understand that. But even as life was getting back to normal after Wilma and Drake seemed like he was accepting us more and more, the drool never stopped.

The good thing about adopting a dog that is an owner surrender you usually get the vet records. So we reviewed all of the records to see if we could see any mention of the drool. Nothing. Time for our vet review the drool.

“Dr. Al” was our hero when we had to put Max down and there was no question we would be using him with Drake. After he had looked Drake over and pronounced him in great health and shape, I asked about the drool. Here’s what I said:

“He has a drooling problem. Is there some kind of surgery you can do so bring up his jowls? We think they are hanging a little low and that is causing the drooling.”

His response:

“Yes, we can sew his mouth shut and put him on a feeding tube.”

Okay, not the response we expect and did we feel like idiots!

Dr. Al then proceeded to explain that Drake was what they called a wet mouth lab. Some long lost genie down from the Mastiff and Newfoundland. Great it wasn’t going away. This little drooling “problem” wasn’t discussed in his adoption bio. Embarrassed about asking for the surgery, we left the vet with our tails between our legs and bought a large supply of hand towels from Costco.

Do you get use to the drool? Yes.

Do we have some very creative artwork on our walls, doors, cabinets, windows, etc.? Yes.

Do we wonder how the artwork got to where it is? Yes.

Are there times when we look at him and say, “only a mother and/or father could love a face like that?” Yes.

Do we love Drake more and more each day? Yes.

Does Drake grow closer and closer to us everyday? Yes.

Is pet adoption a good thing? Yes.

We adopted Drake on Friday, October 14, 2005, and on October 23, 2005, we were in the bullseye of Hurricane Wilma.

By 2005, we had three years of steady hurricane preparation training and could prepare our home in a couple of hours. The good thing from the prior years of hurricane prep was we had gotten rid of a lot the junk we no longer or ever needed. For those of you who don’t live in a hurricane zone, everything that can’t be tied down must be brought inside. For us that means the canoe, bikes, grill, plants, driveway tarps, etc., has to be brought in. Now some say our house is small somewhere around 725 sq. ft., but it fits two adults and a large dog nicely. Everything has a place and everything is in its place; except during a hurricane.

Drake was starting to settle in but he still spent most of his time hanging near the front door. He rarely wagged his tail and did much care to be hugged or petted either. It almost seemed as though he was afraid to make friends with us. Can’t say I blamed him after all he had been through in the last seven weeks. With all the other crazy things that had happened to him, suddenly we are rearranging the furniture and bringing the outside world in; which to him it probably seemed like he was now living in a box that was getting smaller and smaller. You have to wonder if he was questioning to himself whether we were nuts or not.

Once we have everything brought inside and the shutters up on the widows, I like to refer to our house as the bunker. It is dark, you can’t see outside and you try not to trip over everything. For Drake his safety spot remained by the door. Finally we gave in and moved his bed by the door.

Max had been terrified of thunder or any loud noise. On the 4th of July and New Year’s Eve we always had to drug him. During bad thunder storms he made his best effort to become a lap dog. Not an easy feat for a 110 pound dog. Having no idea what Drake’s reaction was going to be to the storm that was approaching fast, we hoped for the best. For the next several hours as we listened to the banging, clanking and wind, Drake slept through it. What a relief he did have the fear that Max did.

Once the storm was over we discovered we no longer had a fence. I mean every inch of the fence was gone. The biggest problem with adopting a pet is you don’t know what kind place and/or training they previously had. When Drake first arrived, he acted as though he never had the freedom of a yard and was just starting to enjoy ours. He never used the our yard to relieve himself, only on walks. Suddenly, now when he’s outside he’s on the leash always until we create some kind of fence for him. Another change in his short life; life on the chain gang. I think it was more like back to life on the chain gang.

We were lucky in that we were able to find large portions of our fence and quickly pieced something back together. Drake had his yard and freedom back. Within the few weeks the outside stuff had been moved out and life was returning to normal.

Better yet, Drake was starting to spend less time at the front door and we moved his bed away from the door.

For almost 3 1/2 years of his life Drake lived in Cape Coral, Florida with a nice senior couple. They had grandchildren that would come over and play with him and he was enjoying life. As far as he knew life was great. Then one day they loaded him, his bed and toys in the car, drove to a parking lot and handed him over to someone with Labrador Retriever Rescue of Florida, Inc. He never saw any of them again. While at first this sounds incredibly cruel, it turned out to an incredible act of kindness.

We have heard different stories as to why his previously owners surrendered him. Their house was too small, they were moving to a senior community that didn’t allow large dogs, they didn’t expect a Labrador to get this big, etc., etc. It doesn’t matter; his life had been turned upside down. I often wonder what he must having been thinking. But more importantly, I wonder how scared he must have been.

After the parking lot transfer, Drake was taken to a foster family in Sarasota, Florida for a six (6) week evaluation. Another home another family to bond with. With his personality, he fit into this family very well. They had a couple of smaller dogs that he got to play with and things weren’t so bad and as long as they stayed away from him when he was eating. Again, he was becoming one happy camper.

Just as he was settling in, a man showed up one day, looks him over, plays with him for a while and says, “Okay I’ll take him.” Once again everything he owns is loaded into a vehicle and he gets go on a long car ride.

When they pull into the driveway that Friday night Drake seemed incredibly happy, but not sure of what was going on. We moved all of his stuff into the house, showed him were his bed and toys were in our living room and he immediately took up residency by our front door.

Drake’s life begins with his new and permanent family.

In March of 2003 just before he turned 13, our beloved “Big Max” became very ill. One month later over the Easter weekend it became apparent that he wasn’t going make it and with much pain and love we say good-bye to him.

As Max got older and we knew our time with him was running out, we made the decision that for our next dog we would adopt one from either the local Human Society or Labrador Rescue. We are lab people, others breeds are great, but for us there’s nothing like a lab.

Once the shock wore off of putting Max down, we started searching the rescue web sites, registered with the local Human Society and told friends that our house had been empty long enough. The search proved to be much more than we expected. But then again, I’m not sure we really were ready. As cute and lovable as all of the adoptees were, no one stuck out. Then one October day, “Angel” showed up on the Labrador Rescue web site.

We were ready and he had everything we were looking for. He was a “Field Style” lab and weighed close to a 100–pounds. Yes, we like the big boys. One thing had to go – the name. No self respecting 100–pound dog is called “Angel”.

We filled out the application, had our inspection by Labrador Rescue and were approved. At this point we were finally able to speak to the foster family about Angel. They said that Angel was very sweet, got along with other dogs well and was a pleasure to have.

Angel’s foster family lived in Sarasota, Florida and we are in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Darrell (let me introduce him, he is my partner and the “we and Dad” in our story) decided that he would drive over by himself to check Angel out. Once he met him if he didn’t like him he wasn’t going to bring him home. If I was along he knew there wouldn’t be a “didn’t like” possibility. So on Friday, October 20, 2005, Darrell headed over to Sarasota to pick-up our new boy “Gus”. As I said the name Angel had to go.

Late that night Darrell called to say he was heading home with our new boy and I realized I finally had to say good-bye to Max. After a real good cry I did. Shortly thereafter, Darrell and “Drake” pulled into the driveway. Somewhere in the middle of Alligator Alley, Darrell decided he was a Drake more than a Gus.