When she was about four months old Sparkie caught the Parvo virus. Parvo virus is a life threatening disease that many dogs do not survive. Although she had had her first set of puppy shots, the vet later told me that they don’t acquire immunity till after the second set of shots. If adult dogs don’t get their yearly vaccinations, they also can get Parvo. The Parvo virus acts by destroying the lining of the small intestine. The first symptoms I noticed were a lack of appetite, followed by explosive vomiting and diarrhea; it was almost like a scene out of the "Exorcist" the way the vomit spewed out of her mouth. I took her to my regular vet and they couldn’t help her because they thought she had an obstruction and needed a gastro-intestinal test. I took her to an emergency vet and they checked her in and told me a day later that she had the Parvo virus. Although some breeds of dogs such as Rotweilers and Dobermans don’t survive Parvo at all, Shepherds most times can be saved, but it’s very expensive. It cost me close to a thousand dollars to pull her through, but she survived. When I got her from the vet’s, she looked like a concentration camp victim because she was painfully thin and her ribs showed though her fur. Soon she had regained her weight.
I took Sparkie out for a romp every night to a strip of land where she could socialize with other dogs and get some exercise. Her favorite playmate was Clyde, a tan Retriever. The two of them would race around and around tiring themselves out. One night as Sparkie ran ahead off her leash, I saw a man jump up on a bench. He was afraid of Sparkie. I told him she’d lick him to death before she’d ever bite him. He petted her and thereafter was happy to see her at the park.
When she was about nine months old, it was time for my biyearly cross country trip to visit my relatives in Ohio and Kentucky and Maryland. She made the trip and we both had a great time. My Aunt in Maryland had gotten Sparkie a special water dish and delighted in having a dog around. I had a couple of nice visits with my mother at her rest home. Normally my mother would get restless after a short time and I’d leave, but with Sparkie there we sat out in the front and let her roam around the quiet little street for quite awhile. My mother seemed to enjoy the interaction with Sparkie and I stayed longer for both visits than I normally had. A month after this trip my paternal grandmother died. She had been in a near vegetative state since suffering a massive stoke six years before. Although I felt sadness, I did not cry. While we were in Kentucky I had put Sparkie in a boarding kennel. While we were in Kentucky for our grandmother’s funeral, I took all three sisters to visit our mother at the rest home. That was the first time in about ten years that our mother had seen all of us together. Four months later we got the call that our mother had died. It was the end of December and in going outside for her persistent cigarettes had contracted pneumonia. Again, I felt a sadness for the loss but was unable to cry.
Every Sunday I would take my sister Paula and Sparkie from our home in Sacramento up to Auburn to visit our sister Josie at the ranch. Sparkie would romp around outside and then we would go into the house where I’d read the Sunday paper. One Sunday Sparkie took a huge dump on Josie’s carpet and was banned from the house. Josie also claimed that Sparkie had brought lowland fleas up to the foothill ranch. She seemed to forget all the years I endured her cat Pookie’s puking and fleas when we lived together in San Bruno. I didn’t think I could leave Sparkie outside since Josie’s sheep raising neighbor had already threatened to shoot any dogs on his property. Seeing no other valid choice, I stopped going to the ranch on Sundays. After months of this, our brother-in-law worked out a compromise where Sparkie could stay in the large laundry room at the ranch.
When she was a little over a year old, she had her first seizures. It was a December evening and I had the television on but I was reading the Sunday newspaper. Sparkie was sleeping on the end of my bed. All of a sudden the was an enormous shaking. Since I experienced the Earthquake of 89 while living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I immediately thought it was an earthquake although I knew Sacramento isn’t geologically active. She lost control of her bladder and I was horrified at what was happening. As she started to come back to her senses, she looked at me with terror and when she was able to get to her feet she ran up into the corner and almost crashed through the bedroom window. She then hid in the shower and when I tried to approach her she growled at me. I was stunned by this behavior and not knowing what else to do I backed out of the room closing the door. I went downstairs and called an emergency veterinarian where she had been treated for Parvo virus. They weren’t available then and when they called back an hour later Sparkie was back to her normal self. She had another seizure that night and had hooked the television stand in her jaw and yanked it a foot from the wall. She again was terrified of me until she recovered. I took her to my regular vet the next day. The receptionist sorrowfully clucked that the prognosis would probably not be good. There is medication but they build a tolerance and need increasing dosages. I also learned the medication caused other problems including shortened life spans. The vet said he didn’t want to start her on the medication until she had at least four seizures a month. He also told me how to keep her from becoming terrified of me during her recovery period. He advised me to stroke her and talk to her as she was convulsing, and using this method she was never terrified of me again. She would look at me as if I were a stranger at first but she never ran and hid or growled at me. I had her spayed since I didn’t want to pass on this genetic fault to any more pups. We settled into a routine with her having a seizure about every other week. I kept towels handy since she’d lose control of her bladder and bowels during the seizures. Most seizures happened in the night. They would startle me awake to the sound of her thrashing around. I’d jump up and make sure she wasn’t in a position to injure herself while having the seizure. Once I had to drag her out of the shower stall, so she wouldn’t break the glass shower doors. She liked to sleep in there during the summer to keep cool. She would be disoriented for about twenty minutes after each seizure. During this disorientation, she would walk into the mirrored closet doors and press her cold wet nose onto my leg numerous times.
I ran into a guy I used to see with his dogs in the little park but I hadn’t seen for awhile. When I told him about Sparkie’s condition, he drew in his breath and told me of his friend with a white Shepherd who’d had to put the dog to sleep. His dog had gone into seizure storms and had to be euthanized. I had investigated canine epilepsy and understood that dogs get to a point where they have one seizure after another and get brain damaged as a result.
After about a year of having a seizure every other week, one night Sparkie suffered four seizures within forty minutes. I took her to my vet the next day and had her put on the medication. She appeared to be doing well on the medication for five months. I took her on what was to be our last cross country trip together. My father blocked her from entering his house. He claimed that my dog had given his dog fleas and didn’t want her in his house. Since it was hot and humid outside, I put her in my 4Runner and started the engine to get the air conditioner going. I waited outside for ten minutes and my older sister came outside and we left.
A month after that trip, Sparkie had a series of three seizures one Saturday. I went to the vet and we doubled her dosage of the Phenobarbital. She was OK for another month then for two days she howled all day while I was at work and paced restlessly when I was home. A month later I came home from work and saw evidence that she’d already had at least one seizure. I gave her the medication and went to a computer class I had scheduled. During a break at class, two of my fellow students were discussing a farmer they knew who had shot a dog because it wouldn’t herd sheep like it was supposed to. I was mortified at the thought of killing an animal just because it didn’t work properly. When I came back, she seemed fine. I took her for a walk to the new big park near our house, which had just opened that day. She got to christen the new park. At eleven that night Sparkie had another seizure and thereafter had a seizure an hour. Knowing that the medication would no longer work and that the seizure storms were beginning in earnest, I knew that the humane thing to do would be to have Sparkie put to sleep. This was the most painful decision I’ve ever had to make. I called the vet and advised them of the situation and took Sparkie there. While in the waiting room with tears welling up in my eyes, a woman with a small child exclaimed what a beautiful dog Sparkie is. I mumbled a thanks.
The vet asked if I wanted to leave but I was determined to be with her till the end. I petted her as she got the lethal injection. I petted her till her head fell limp and the vet said her heart had stopped.
When I got home, I collapsed on my bed and the dam of tears broke, I cried a lifetime of tears that evening. Waves of sobbing overtook me. It soon became apparent that there would be huge gaps in my life’s routines. From getting up in the morning when she would race down the stairs ahead of me to our nightly walks, my homelife had centered around my dog. For the last three years I had devoted myself to my dog and she was devoted to me. She would be so happy to see me when I got home from work. Now, everything was different and I had lost my best friend. I was in a major depression and had become numb to everything. Shortly after Sparkie’s death my sister-in-law died and I had little reaction. My Aunt in Maryland who loved Sparkie had her leg amputated and my father had a leg amputated below the knee. Although I was concerned, it didn’t affect me through the haze like it should have.
It was a few months before I could talk about Sparkie without breaking into tears. Once I came out of the funk, I became more responsive to sorrowful events. Now when seeing a movie with sad events, the tears come freely. I think the experience of having and losing Sparkie affected me deeply. Although the loss of my dog Sparkie was a horrific event in my life, I’m still glad for the times we had together. Knowing the end result, I’d still do it all over again.