#pixie bug

My baby turned 4 years old today! According to what we were told from the foster home where she was born, July 21st is her birthday. We didn't get her until October but since I know her actual birthday I celebrate both at once. It's still hard to believe that she's already four, it still seems like I literally just got her a year or two ago.

I love how her coloring hasn't changed that much since we got her. Originally she was a family dog between my mom, my sister and myself. But now she's just my dog, since basically she loves me the most since I taught her and got up with her every night when we first got her. Also since my room for the first year of her life was her "kennel" when we were at work, she sort of just sees me as being in charge/mom. When we got her I was still dealing with self-harm and severe depression daily, but after we got her I haven't self-harmed since. I haven't wanted to. Now I still have depression but Pixie really helps me as she refuses to let me focus on it. Second I start feeling really bad, she comes over and puts her head and paw on my leg so I pay attention to her instead of the demons in my head. I could never imagine parting from her.

I don't know if I've mentioned before how we got Pixie or came across her. When my mom, sister, and I left my alcoholic father and moved into a small townhouse that was sort of falling apart with weird smells from the previous owner we decided we all needed a dog. We hadn't had any pets since I left for college and my childhood dog, Sadie, passed away. After months of applying for dog adoptions around the Twin Cities, they all were gone before we even got to the house visit. Then I found a litter that had been born out in Fairbanks, MN through a foster/rescue out there. I can't remember the name. They had rescued a Corgi from Kentucky that had been abandoned in a railroad car and later gave birth at the foster home to Pixie's litter. The day we were going to go get the pup (we were going to go look at multiple of them), I ended up having to work. So my mom and sister went to look at the puppies. We were torn between one named Susie and one named Ramona. At the adoption according to my family, Ramona had really coarse fur while Susie did not. Not that there is anything wrong with coarse fur, my mom just prefers dogs with softer fur. It took us months afterwards to name her. But ultimately we changed her name from Susie to Pixie, and later she got the nickname/middle name Bug.

This entire week I've basically been off social media as I've been solely concentrated on Pixie as she almost died this week. OR rather she could have, which is why I wanted to put my full focus on her. I'll get into what HGE is later as I kind of just want to write literally everything that happened.

Note: If you don't like reading about graphic things like vomit or diarrhea, you probably wouldn't want to read this post.

So I suppose I should start at the beginning. I can't remember if I've mentioned before Pixie is a very picky eater and will eat anything that fits into her mouth. Which leans to her have upset stomach every few weeks so her not eating a meal here or there is not uncommon. I still monitor it but she does that every now and then. Saturday night, she didn't finish her dinner but ate some of it so I figured she just wasn't that hungry after she tore up her blanket. Then Sunday rolls around and she's still eating some but not all of her food, and going to the bathroom more than usual but not an alarming amount or anything wrong with what she was doing. She was still acting normal but I was concerned at this point. Not enough that I scheduled a vet appointment but enough where I decided to pull dinner. Then Monday morning, I gave her breakfast. She had a few bites but I had to get going to work, so I left the food out so she could have it when she got hungry. That night, my roommate informed me she still wasn't touching it and was starting to have issues going to the bathroom so I scheduled an appointment for the following evening.

When I got home, she still refused to eat and didn't care that Kiki was going for her food. And normally she freaks out at Kiki for doing that. Add on her issues with going to the bathroom and I called around to other locations of her vet to see if there was anyone that could see her in the morning rather than in the evening. Locally a location close to my work was able to get her in at 7:30 AM on Tuesday instead of 5:30 PM. I also attempted to make her a bland meal to see if she would eat that. Luckily she did but she would later throw this all up.

Night came and Pixie wasn't looking too great. She wasn't playing as much but was still waging her tail and getting into trouble so I figured it was safe to wait until morning. We went to bed and a few hours later she was awake unable to get comfortable and wanting to go to the bathroom though she never actually went. She also went digging in the snow probably attempting to find some grass to nibble on. Though it was more like ice so she gave up on this quest. The hours pass on and I'm just awake with her, she's acting sluggish but not having messes or getting sick so in my mind I went: "We have an appointment in a few hours, she's not so alarming that I need to drive to the emergency vet at this point." 6:00 AM rolls around and Pixie starts throwing up foam. We were already going to be leaving in a few minutes to get to the vet, so I told myself it was fine.

We left to get to the vet and Pixie throws up in the car. Once after we got gas for the car, again just bile and once when we pulled into the parking lot. Due to the foam that was visible I didn't see the blood until after I checked her in. But at this point she wasn't really stable on her feet and didn't want to leave my side. So I felt horrible when they took her into the back for tests as I couldn't join her because she basically just needed treatment from the vets. I returned to my car and cleaned up the vomit, which is when I discovered the blood. I rushed back in to tell them she vomited blood not just bile. Not that they needed to know that as she had not even ten minutes later vomited blood again.

I left for work and called every hour or so for updates. Pixie had multiple blood tests and scans from Ultrasounds to X-Rays to CT ran to figure out why she was so violently ill at that point. All that came back was she was positive for pancreatitis and gastritis, which were just symptoms of a weird disease called hemorrhagic gastroenteritis or HGE, dogs can get where the cause is often unknown. HGE is considered an acute disorder but can be fatal. It also occurs suddenly as it did with Pixie. I mean if you consider she didn't start the bloody vomiting or diarrhea until we arrived at the vet. But other symptoms include painful abdomen, decreased appetite, lethargy (fatigue), or fever. Which she did have on Monday night when I made the vet appointment. HGE can affect any breed, age, size, or gender of dog but is more common in small dogs. Though the cause is unknown it is believed to either be caused by: stress, anxiety, hyperactivity, allergic reactions, parasites or bacteria. And dogs who experience HGE may be more prone to having it again in the future. So yeah, I might have to go through this again. And the only treatment is antibiotics and intravenous fluid therapy, which is what Pixie got. Due to the nature of this disorder, if dogs don't respond well to fluid therapy they risk dehydration that can cause disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) which is a clotting disorder. If this begins then the effects are often irreversible and may result in death. Luckily, Pixie responded well to the treatment and did not go into DIC.

After I got off from work we went to the vet to pick her up as they did not have after hours support which Pixie needed as her fluid treatment was not complete. So we picked her up from Banfield and dropped her off at the 24 hour clinic, Como Park Animal Hospital, where she was finally wagging her tail and starting to act more like herself. It just made me feel like I no longer had to worry about her. She was in good hands and getting better. Or as I kept saying much to the ignorance of my mom is "She's not good, but she's goo. Not quite good but on the way to it."

Wednesday morning I got the call that Pixie was starting to eat again and eliminating normally. And hadn't had a single episode of throwing up anymore. So she was deemed safe to be brought home. Though I decided the two of us would spend the reminder of the week at my mom's house as that's where Pixie grew up so I thought being at that house would help her a lot more than at our house. Plus then there would be three of us and my mom had Thursday and Friday off where she could watch over Pixie while I was at work.

My little baby is growing up, today is her three year old puppy that I've had since she was twelve weeks old. Pixie Bug Jackie Young is her official full name or PBJ for short. Her mother was a rescue in Tennessee that was abandoned in a railroad car where she was found to be pregnant by a rescue group. Now no one believes this, but her mother was a fawn colored Welsh Corgi. We believe her father was a Jack Russel Terrier or a Rat Terrier, hence the nickname Jackie, and her very terrier like appearance. She had six brothers and sisters that were all adopted through the same foster home where they were born. We originally were going to adopt her sister Romana, but after meeting half of her siblings ended up driving home with Susie as she was called at the time.

Her legs have grown ridiculously long and a long of her black has vanished into brown. She is still anxious about cars, storms, and loud noises. As well as army crawling while on walks and eating away from her bowl. Her favorite toys have remained relatively the same: tennis balls, green sneaky ring from Kong, antlers, bones and balls in general. She cannot have plush toys or they are destroyed in less than ten minutes.

Training Tips

And she has not been easy for training, especially when it came to learning to help her out with her anxiety and learning how to handle different situations so you get the best results. Like with loud noises and storms, the best advice I can give from my experience is just to ignore it. Pixie will disappear to find somewhere to hide and feel safe, that's somewhere close to where I am. Bringing attention to it only makes things 90% worse and she freaks out more. So just letting her find somewhere to hide and feel better is the best I can do for her. You can always get prescriptions from the doctors, but she does find enough without them as long as you completely ignore her.

Same went for barking when people came to the door or walked past the house. Now this one we don't have down 100%, but she has gone from barking for thirty minutes to barking for a minute or two. And mainly she just wants to say hi or kiss the person... that is unless her anxiety takes over then she'll nervous bark for ages. I have not figured that one out other than not having her out and about when people come over unless she's met them alone several times outside of the house.

Potty training... this one we had no issues with, she figured it out right away and didn't make messes in the house when we had to leave during the day for work. However, since moving she has started to make a few messes with pooping near the front door as she seems to have "forgotten" how to ask to go outside. This has mainly been the case when it comes to asking my roommates as she can't always wait until I get home especially on days where I'm working/out of the house for fourteen to fifteen hours.

Best thing you can do is take your dog to training school and use positive reinforcements. Pixie did fail training school both beginner and immediate level twice. Mainly because she was too scared to actually perform the actions while at the class though she knows the commands inside and out. The commands that Pixie knows by heart and will do them to hand signals without verbal command are: sit (fist moving towards you), lay down (palm moving flat towards the ground), shake/paw (hold palm face up, move to shake), sit pretty or sit up (palm moving towards you), butt down (same hand signal as lay down, this is when her front half is up but back half is high in the air), and dance (twirl finger in air). She also knows the verbal command for wait, settle, and leave it. However, she doesn't know the command for come but will come when called by name.

We tried to do crate training with Pixie, but discovered she was claustrophobia and would throw up if left in a crate. So on the third night, we gave up on trying to crate train and my bedroom became her crate. She never destroyed anything in my room other than ripping up any socks or clothe hangers left on the floor. And we never had issues after that for her freaking out about being left alone or in a closed space. Sometimes I half wish she did enjoy crates because I know that if we bring her to the pet hotel, she hates the rooms made for her size so we have to always request/pay for the larger individual rooms that have the white noise.

How We're Celebrating Pixie's Birthday

Hello everybody,

I don't think I've officially introduced my baby girl, Pixie 'Bug', to you here on my blog, though I have mentioned her and included her in several photographs. I've had this little one for two years in October. When I got her she was around 8 pounds and now she's 20 pounds, but looks like she weighs a lot more in photographs. Or so I've been told.

We got her following my return to Minnesota, I have always loved dogs and I was heartbroken when my childhood dog passed away two years prior at the age of fifteen. So I was ecstatic to be getting a new dog that was my own. After months of searching for a puppy, I finally found this little one who was in Fairbairn, MN, back then she was known as Susan. It was a lot harder than I thought because foster care facilities in the Twin Cities are very hard to get dogs from as many are gone before you've gone through the entire process of paperwork and house visits. But Pixie was different because we just had to drive down to Fairbairn, pay the adoption fee, and then our little pup was ready to come home. Her mom had been abandoned in a boxcar in Tennessee after her previous owners discovered she was pregnant. Now you won't believe this next part, absolutely no one does and I've actually seen her mom. Pixie's mom is a corgi. I know, hard to believe considering the long legs and slender figure.

I stayed up with this little one for three nights straight until I finally decided crate training was not going to work. She has claustrophobia. But that's not the only thing she's terrified of. It was just something we couldn't train her out of, no matter how inviting we made the crate or any tricks for that matter that people suggested. Pixie would not go into the crate without having a full on pain attack. After we stopped trying to push the idea of sleeping in a crate, she was completely content with sleeping with us. But what did we do when we all had to leave the house, we just stuck her in my room with all her toys. She never made a mess or destroyed anything. Potty training was also a breeze that she figured out in less than a week. Still we kept an eye on her since she loves to chew on socks and cloth hanger if they are left within reach. It also didn't help that the first winter we had her it was so harsh that we couldn't take her out on walks or exploring. This only led to her becoming a home buddy where everything basically terrified her. That was until we started taking her to doggy day camp where she came out of her shell and realized things weren't so bad. We also put a bed between on beds and the wall for when it's storming outside, she finds it to be her little oasis that protects her from the big bad thunder.

But Mae, where did she get her name? You said her name was Susan when you got her. This is true. She was named Susan. But that didn't really fit her personality as she loves to run around and jump off the flight of stairs when she's chasing after chipmunks as she believes can go between the front and backyard if she goes to the other door. Plus we loved the quote about the name as well, "If you have a tiny pup who is fast on their feet and almost seems to fly or a flighty dog with a little bit of an attitude then Pixie could be the right name for your pup! Pixie's can have the personality of Tinkerbell or simply bring a little bit of magic to your life." And she does have an attitude like she owns the place. But it's only because she does. The nickname, Bug, came about when she was growing her legs grew faster than the rest of her body or head. So the combination of big dark brown eyes and long legs made her look like a bug. Hence the hilarious nickname that's stuck with her.

If you ever want to see more of her, let me know in the comments and I'll do more blog posts.