Thursday, May 14, 2009

Remembering Tabora







Tabora, our friends' 5 y/o brindle greyhound, would have turned 6 last May 9th. She was the friendliest, easiest to take care of, & smart girl I have ever met. She was bullied by other greys/dogs (from the strories that her adoptive mom told us) before she was adopted. Before husband & I got our own greys, we always looked forward to seeing her with her owners/parents/people, during one of their walks. She would always pull her owners towards our house/direction and give us lots of doggie attention. Not long after, we got our own versions of Tabora--our very own greys.

She had a good life with her people until she got sick. Vets thought she had some cervical (neck bone) problem. Lots of tests done-even exploratory laparotomy was done , nothing. Vets couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. Definitely not cancer so she was treated as a case of immune-related disease. We were optimistic she'd pull through. But she had a relapse early October 08. Her vet couldn't even determine if all these painful treatments would cure her so a painful decision was made by her parents. Tabora passed away October 18th....

Her parents consented to an autopsy and the result was vasculitis (initial symptoms she had: loss of appetite, nape pain, enlarging lymph nodes, loss of weight, enlarging spleen & fever) , inflammation of her blood vessels. She was being treated correctly based on the working diagnosis, she just got too weak and since it was so rare in greys , even her vets could not assure a good prognosis. The doctors at Cornell are optimistic that Tabora's case can help them treat dogs with similar presentation in the future.

Not sure if it is related, but incidentally, she was on Nutro.

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