[Bay-Bay]

This forum is great. I like to tell people the story of what happened to our little girl......

We were living in Missouri and found a breeder close to where we lived. My DH was driving truck and I went with him most of the time, so we called this woman, and she said she had one female that had just turned 9 weeks old. We were leaving for Arizona the next morning and decided that we would go get her. She was small, but so precious and cute. I should have been suspicious when we didn't get to see her kennel, but it was 10pm and she said she had gotten them all down for the night. So, we took our little girl, bow in hair,, home.
The first couple of days were great, we went to Arizona. She was adorable, playful, and seemed very healthy. We broke down in Albuquerque, New Mexico and got a motel room, as we were going to be there a couple of days. She was great the first day, such a delight, slept a little more than before but I thought that was to be expected since she was still a baby. On the second day, she wouldn't eat, I would get her to eat her nutrical, but we tried everything from dog food to yogurt to scrambled egg.....nothing.
We left on the second day headed back to Missouri....by the time we made it to the Oklahoma line, she was vomiting and couldn't even keep water down. I was terrified, she was so sick. At about 8:30am we rolled into Weatherford, Oklahoma and my DH saw a vet clinic and luckily there was a huge parking lot next door to it, so he pulled in. The vet had just got there and normally didn't open for business till 9am but went ahead and took a look at Mattie. She looked her over and said she had a bacterial infection, gave her something for the vomiting and a liquid antibiotic. She gave me droppers for the meds and for giving Mattie water, said to just try to get her to eat her yogurt. So, we are on the road again on our way home to Missouri. After a few hours, she seemed to be a bit better, took the water through a dropper, gave her the meds, and even got her to eat a little yogurt.
By the time we got home late that night, she was vomiting again. Around 11pm the diahrea started. We had a gas log fireplace and I took the cushions off of my couch, so I could sleep there in the floor with her next to the fireplace to keep her warm. We never slept....all night she vomited and had the diahrea. I tried to get her meds down her and water thru the dropper. I tried so hard to get her to take some nutrical....nothing. The next morning my DH loaded us up & we burst into our vet's office. They immediately took Mattie back, while examing her, my vet asked where I had gotten her. When I mentioned the woman's name, she said she had heard of her, and had had a couple of clients who had bought dogs from her that had died, including the nurse working with Mattie. Hers had died of liver shunt. They sent us to the Missouri Animal Hospital in Springfield, Missouri and said they would pray for us. They even called the hospital and told them we were on our way.
My baby was so sick and I was so helpless. I cried all the way there, just holding her close. As soon as we arrived they put in an IV, and put her to bed. They said they would keep her overnight, get some electolites into her, then run test later on in the afternoon. They said they would call with any changes. I hated leaving her, before we left, they let me take her little blankie back to her. She looked so small and so lost. Her eyes were kind of glazed over, I was scared. I said a prayer, then let my husband lead me away.
We stopped to eat, even though I had no appetite. When we got home my husband convinced me to try to get some sleep since I had been up for 30 hours. So after calling the hospital, I went to lie down. After about an hour the phone rang....my heart stopped. My baby, my precious Mattie Mae had.....died.
I was unconsolable, I had lost my mother just 3 months prior, and here I was losing another family member.
The hospital told my husband that I had done everything right, that whatever Mattie had had, she either had when she was born or had contracted before we picked her up from the breeder. That she had gotten sick way to fast for it to be something I did or something she got while with us. We only had her 3 days before she got so deathly ill. All total I had her a week before she passed away.
My husband called the breeder and told her what had happened. Her response was,"what do you want me to do, your wife must have held her too much, she was only 7 weeks old" 7 weeks old!!! Not what she had told us....then when we got out her shot record and looked at it closer, it was a photocopy! It could have been any dogs shot record.!! Devastating!!