Cloris

Little Cloris, a small shih tzu who seems elderly but has a VERY determined personality, has needed that determination to have endured all the pain she had. She was found in pretty bad shape, with bloody urine flowing everywhere – no doubt why she was tossed out. Our vet found bladder stones and very bad eyes, but in surgery we found “wait, there’s more!”. While spaying her the surgeon found huge cystic ovaries that had to have been painful; the bladder stones were removed but one was embedded in the bladder wall and had to be dug out; she also had a (fortunately) benign polyp in her bladder. In addition, a mammary tumor was removed (low grade malignancy, completely removed so hopeful prognosis) and her two remaining teeth were removed.

Cloris is another example of how important it is to spay your dog early in life – to spare them this really unnecessary pain and possibly deadly cancer!

Cloris is settling into her ODH home after all this surgery. We don’t know yet whether she will learn to go outside to relieve herself, after all this time with huge urgency due to the pain in her bladder. We surely hope so! She REALLY doesn’t want to be left outside but is getting more confident that she won’t be shut out again. She’s eating up a storm, making up for lost time, and loves being near the dogs and the people. We are treating her dry eye condition and the ophthalmologist will determine what else is going on in her eyes. We hope to save both of them but time will tell.

A lot of people are hoping Cloris can get past these challenges, she is certainly a forgiving little girl to have come this far and still like humans.

Update:  It took a while for Cloris’s body to heal, much longer for her to feel confident in her home and with her people.  When she finally became an active, assertive – really good beggar – bouncy little girl we knew a big hurdle had been crossed.    Losing her was very sad but we are so glad that she had this time to be loved, healthy, and out of her shell.