8/11/07

Too much excitement leads to more problems.


Now that Stella was through her surgery, we were really trying to keep her healthy. We were at Rehoboth beach in April, and after a day of obviously too much excitement, we awoke to Stella sitting at the edge of the bed, eyes half closed, breathing heavily. We were so upset - she had obviously come down with pneumonia AGAIN! We were devastated - and about 3 hours from the nearest emergency clinic to take her to.

We packed up and headed out - determined to get her the care she needed. However, before we left we gave her a steam treatment and patted her lungs - which caused her to produce a large amount of phlegm. She was breathing noticeably better over the course of the drive to the clinic, thanks to the steam treatment we assumed. When we arrived at the clinic, they immediately put her into an oxygen chamber, and told us to wait to review X-rays. About 4 hours later, the vet got to us, and amazingly informed us that her X-rays looked fine! He wanted to keep her in the clinic overnight to let the specialists run some tests on Monday morning, for the low fee of about $1500 - to which we responded no thanks, we will take our bulldog home!

Once we got her home, we kept an eye on her but it seemed we had dodged that bullet, and it seemed the steam treatment right at the onset had helped. However, we definitely NEEDED to keep her calm and prevent her from getting over excited. This proved to be nearly impossible the next trip to Rehoboth Beach, when we found ourselves with a very active pitbull running about the property full speed, with our little Stella in full pursuit.

Its easy to say "never", but its hard constantly keep a leash on her when we are places where there is no need for one. Unfortunately, Stella doesnt' know when to stop running. Thank god we found out she loves lemons.

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