Bill Arnold's Daily Straydog Log

MONDAY JUNE 14 2004

NOON UPDATE

Whiskers died suddenly Sunday evening for no apparent reason

8:00 a.m. Report

     This was a shocker, and at this point in time we have no idea what could have caused Whiskers' death. We're waiting on a call from Dr. Morton, who will take a preliminary look at the body and will then send Whiskers' body to Texas A&M for a thorough autopsy, the results of which we may not know for a few days.

     As we've reported before, Whiskers had been recovering well from his surgery, and we had seen nothing unusual about his health. His appetite was improving every day, he enjoyed his potty walks on leash, and he was showing no signs of any illness.

     All day yesterday Whiskers had gone through his regular schedule with no indication whatsoever that there might be something wrong with him. He had a good dinner about 5:15 p.m., went out for a walk on leash with one of our caregivers, came back into his hospital kennel as usual, did not have anything more to eat, and before 5:30 p.m. Whiskers was taking his after-dinner nap. All was quiet in the hospital.

     Whiskers, Patch and Katie share the same hospital ward, and they were all three settled down and quiet when Tina left for the day at 5:30. I (Bill) was on duty in the hospital from 5:30 till 7:30 when our overnight man, Jason, arrived. During those two hours I had checked on Whiskers, Patch and Katie a few times, and they were all sleeping peacefully. I turned the responsibilities of the shelter over to Jason at 7:30, and I went to my RV (parked next to Straydog) to work on our upcoming newsletter.

     About a half hour later Jason called me on the walkie-talkie and said that as he was doing a check on everyone in the hospital, he found Whiskers just lying there in his kennel dead.

     I immediately rushed back over to the hospital trailer, and it was obvious that poor Whiskers was indeed dead. There were no signs of anything out of the ordinary having happened.

     At first you think that a situation like this is an emergency, but then you realize that after the death of a being there is no longer an emergency. It was a very strange feeling. There was no reason to panic and call a vet at his home on Sunday evening.

     From experience I knew that we must put Whiskers' body in a plastic bag and put him in the extra refrigerator in the kennel office, which we did.

     This morning at 7:00 I called Morton Small Animal Clinic and told Vicky, the receptionist, what had happened and that we wanted Dr. Morton to do an autopsy to find out what the cause of death was, and she said to bring Whiskers in and Dr. Morton would take a look at the dog when he arrived but that they would be sending the body to Texas A&M for a complete and thorough autopsy, the results of which (as we said above) we won't know for a few days.

11:40 a.m. Report - Cause of death determined to be a diaphragmatic hernia

     Dr. Morton just called after examining Whiskers' (and there will be no need to send the body on to Texas A&M). Whiskers died of a diaphragmatic hernia. When Whiskers had been hit by the automobile that had caused the broken leg that Whiskers' had had the surgery on, all of his gut organs had been forced up into his lung cavity--his stomach, his intestines, his spleen, etc. It was a wonder, Dr. Morton said, that Whiskers ever made it off the table the first time, and his condition should have been picked up earlier and should have been fixed at that time. If the diaphragmatic hernia had been caught and fixed, Whiskers most probably would have been all right today.