RIP Sweet Ziva

I have been really stressed and haven't updated for a long time.  I just wanted to share this as I realize I never posted about losing my sweet little Min Pin Ziva..  We lost Ziva on November 30th.  Here's what happened, I took her to my dad/vet as she threw up like 17x in a few hours.  And was acting 'loopy'.

Written Dec 1, 2011:  My sweet little Ziva is at Rainbow Bridge now.

I took her to the vet/my dad, by the time we got there (35 minute drive) we got her temperature up from 94.8 to 97.1 (had her on a rice heating pad), she was a little staggerish on her feet.  Just the fact that she let him draw blood and place a catheter without a fight indicated that something was seriously wrong, she does not like to be worked on.  Bloodwork confirmed it was pancreatitis so we started her on IV's and gave her some medications for it, about 5-10 minutes later she collapsed and essentially went comatose.  Her heartrate was 80 which is slow for her and the breed she is, she was throwing her head back & stretching her legs out stiff showing neurological signs, then all the sudden she stopped breathing, her heart rate was over 200 bpm, and we tubed her and breathed for her for about 5 minutes before her heart stopped.  Necropsy was done, that showed an abnormal pancreas that was the worst inflammation my dad has ever seen in 40 years.  It was BRIGHT pink, it's supposed to be kind of creamish colored.  She threw a blood clot to her heart (which was enlarged)...had never heard a murmur on her before.  As well as a blood clot to her brain.  My dad/vet said that as inflammed as the pancreas was, she probably would have come down with pancreatitis regardless of whether or not she got into the turkey fat it just sped up the process by triggering it.  He said it probably would have been less than a week.  There was nothing that we could have done, even if I would have taken her to the vet as soon as she started vomiting.  He said that the enlarged heart and pancreas abnormality could have been why she was so active, and always starving, and had to eat 8% of her body weight in order to maintain weight, as well as why she was so small (barely tipped scales at 4#).

My sweet little Ziva started her life out in a puppy mill, I rescued her from my cousin who bought her at the puppy store when she was 4 months old.  She was almost 19 months old and was such a spunky, happy little girl.  I will miss her tremendously.  It has been a very very hard night.  I do know one thing though, that my next puppy will come from a Naturally Reared breeder to help give her a better start on life.  It is so hard to believe that she has gone, she was running around like her normal mad woman self yesterday afternoon, then in a matter of hours she is gone.