We were
eagerly expecting Tina's first litter. She was bred
later than I would of liked due to her very successful
show career. On the 15 March 1992 six healthy
puppies were born by caesarean section, five boys and one
girl. One of these went on to become our little
"Guy".
My
husband Phil had his eye on Guy from the very
beginning. He was a very pretty honey coloured fawn
with a lovely deep mask and the blackest of eyes, he was
also the wildest naughtiest puppy in the litter. We also
decided to keep the only girl puppy Pixie, or Pickles as
she is known to her friends as she is literally 'pickled'
in the head!
Guy grew
and grew as a youngster, giving me no end of worry.
At one stage he was growing at a rate of one inch a
week, it was not the growth rate that worried me
but the fact that he would not eat. This was the
first Dane in my memory that would not eat. My
mother had Great Dane's since 1970 so I had pretty much
grown up with these dogs and I never could remember her
having to 'feed' a dog, but here we were having to force
feed this young dog. This was something I did not
enjoy.
We had
started to feed Guy an expensive high grade food and he
was putting on nice condition, and was starting to win in
the show ring. He was winning challenges over older
champions at such a young age and going on to win Best In
Groups and In Shows at regular intervals. Guy
finished his Championship by the time he was twelve
months old with a Best Exhibit In Group (group
one). We were so proud!
M.J Cohen
came to judge our specialty show here in July 1993, Guy
was awarded best Junior In Show in which we were very
happy to win. The night before the show we had
visitors who had come to stay and exhibit at the
show. Guy and the other dogs had been enjoying the
company and we decided to call it a night, just as
we were going to bed Phil looked down and noticed Guy's
foot was bleeding. On investigation we discovered
he had a deep slash in his foot, just the thing before a
big specialty show! Any way he went on to win at the show
, but by the end of the day he had become quiet lame.
Just
after this incident Guy developed a productive
cough. I took him to our local veterinarian who
diagnosed a mild case of tonsillitis and put him on a
course of antibiotics. The cough seemed to clear
but the force feeding continued. Guy became quiet
paranoid about meal times, I had never had a dog
who ran away and hid when the dinners were being dished
up. He would not even entertain the idea of
eating chicken or any tasty morsels I could think up for
him to eat. The other Danes thought him quiet
strange, they were always hovering around hoping
that they may score some of the 'extras'! Guy in
himself seemed healthy, he was forever playing with his
sister or chasing the cows along the fence line. He
adored his family, but hated our other male
Danes. His favourite game was to hide behind the
wall of the house, and stalk one of the boys, when
he had a clear line of vision he would fly out and scare
the life out of whichever male happend to be there!
Guy's
cough had started up again, this time it was rather
severe he was bringing up a lot of sputum. We
thought it was the old case of tonsillitis again but this
time decided to take him to see Dr Smith. Kym is a
wonderful vet. When we have had more difficult
problems with our dogs we always go to Kym he
always seems to know exactly what is wrong and is a
brilliant surgeon, he also had delivered Guy.
When Kym was examining Guy he noticed that his femoral
pulse was rather slow around sixty beats per minute and
his heart was racing. We could tell by the tone in
Kym's voice that this was not good.
He
decided to run some blood work and see what was going
on, these tests revealed that Guy's liver was
congested probably causing his lack of interest in
food. He also took Guy's heart rate and pulse again
and referred us to a Heart Specialist as he feared that
Guy may have Cardiomyopathy. My heart sank,
Phil and I refused to believe it , how could this be? Guy
had a ton of energy, just did not want to
eat. We were sure Kym for once was wrong.
We took
Guy to have a chest x ray. There was a slight
problem as Guy's chest was too big for the machine.
After hanging around the surgery all morning we had our
first results, just a big black space this was all
that could be seen, this was Guys heart. It was so
enlarged nothing else could be seen. I still was
optimistic I was sure that this was one big mistake we
had only gone to get some more antibiotics and now we
were waiting to have a ECG
Brad
Gavaghan was a lovely man, he read Guys ECG results and
X-rays and was very straight with us. The results
were not good. Guy had advanced Cardiomyopathy.
They would have to keep him in overnight to stabilise his
heart rate which by now was over two hundred and forty
beats while his pulse rate was only sixty beats.
Brad did not expect Guy to live for more than two weeks.
He was not even two years of age.
I still
could not accept this I think by this stage I was sinking
into a state of shock, Phil was devastated. I
could not believe that this dog was dying, he was running
around the garden only this morning. We were upset
that we would have to leave Guy at the surgery and I
caused a bit of a scene, he had never been away
from us in his life. I started to cry as I knew he
would not eat for these people. It was all too much
for Phil, on the way home he broke down and said,
"maybe we should just have him put to
sleep". We decided to go home and sleep on it
and see how things were in the morning.
We picked
Guy up the next day, he was so happy to see
us. The vet nurse said he had eaten like a horse
last night! Brad was very happy that he had
responded so well to the drugs given to him the night
before but still only gave him about two weeks to
live. We left with a handful of tablets and headed
home. We shed a lot of tears over the next few
weeks, I would not leave the house in case
something happend to Guy, while he continued to
chase the cows and stalk the boys. I decided to
stop force feeding him as I felt quality of life was far
more important, we just let him eat when and what he
liked.
I had
read an article in the Great Dane Reporter about CO
Enzyme Q 10 and its benefits to animals with heart
problems. Phil rang Linda Arndt as she had written
the article, who referred him to professor
Wagner. We started Guy of on sixty mg. of CO Q 10
three times a day, plus upped his intake of vitamin
C, while still taking his conventional medicine.
Guy was taking Lanoxin 250mg twice daily, one Renitec
20mg. three Lasix 40mg twice daily and Inderal 10mg
half three times a day. He had started to eat on
his own, not a lot at first but at least it was
something. He loved tinned spaghetti!
The
initial two weeks had blown out into two months and
although he had lost a fair bit of weight he still seemed
very happy in himself and was eating more and more.
If anything I would have sworn he was getting
better. Guy now had a new target to stalk,
Frank. Frank had come to live with us and be shown,
we had him in joint names with friends of ours,
Lois and Steve. This seemed to give Guy a new lease
on life, he forever seemed to be plotting ways to
open doors or to jump out and scare the living daylights
out of poor Frank. On one occasion Frank was laying
on the spare bed and Guy came storming in, He bit
poor Frank on the face and flew out of the room with the
biggest grin on his face. Phil joked that this had
given him a few extra months to go on with!
It was
now the end of July and we had been planing to drive
interstate to Sydney to show under Lowell and Arleene
Davis who had travelled out from the USA. We had
not expected Guy to still be with us so my mother and
father came to stay for the week and look after the five
remaining dogs, while we took Frank, Billie, and
Desiree with us. I left instructions a mile
long, phone numbers and had arrangements with the
vet and a neighbour if anything should happen while we
were away. Mum and Dad were great and I remember
dads words of wisdom, enjoy your trip and don't
worry about Guy. We left knowing Guy was in good
hands, his condition had not deteriorated at
all. He was a bundle of energy, eating
like a horse by himself, but was still loosing
weight.
Our
mobile telephone bill was enormous that month, I
had rung my mother about every half hour to check on Guy
who was fine and not seeming to miss us at all, the five
Danes were all sleeping on the bed with mum and dad while
I was worrying myself sick! Frank won Best of Breed
the first day under Lowell, he was judged in the
group by a local judge who awarded him a group second
which meant we had to stay for the In Show judging.
It was very late when we arrived back at Phillip's
parents house so I did not ring home until the next
morning. The dogs were fine but still I
worried. I had worked myself up so much that I
wanted to withdraw Frank from the Best of Breed Judging
the next day as I had convinced myself he was bloating!
(he just had an upset stomach from the aspirin I had
given him for a sore foot) Other exhibitors came to
my rescue and pulled me together and Frank went in the
ring to be awarded Best of Breed under Arleene
Davis. This finished his championship and we
attended a after show party with some friends and I
finally relaxed.
It was
September and Guy was still with us. He still was
full of life and was eating better than he had ever eaten
before. The only give away was his weight
loss. About this time the cough started up
again, he also was drinking gallons of water and we
noticed his belly was becoming larger. Guy always
loved a beer, if we ever had visitors over they
would have to hold onto their drinks as Guy would drink
their beer. He really gave people a hard
time, with those big black eyes of his he would bat
his eye lids and if that did not work, he would push and
shove until he was given a drink. Phil would
sometimes give him a little beer and this seemed to
reduce his belly. We knew by this stage his
medication was letting him down.
The vets
could not believe he was still going, and with such
energy. He was still chasing and stalking cows and
Frank, and his heart rate was still soaring!
Around Christmas time Guys stomach started to get rather
large, so the vet suggested we increase the
diuretic. This really did not do much but in
himself he still seemed happy, and he was eating well,
anything and everything! Guy loved to have
visitors, he loved it when Phil's sister and her
two little girls came to stay, it was now twelve
months since Guy's condition was diagnosed. After
the girls went home we noticed that Guy looked very
tired, the visit had really taken it out of him.
Guy was
spending more time resting these days although it seemed
around four in the afternoon it was playtime. He
was really eating well now and eating strange
things, he was forever stealing plugs from the
bathroom or kitchen and destroying them, this was
something he had never done before. He would snatch
food from your hand, again something he would normally
never do. His tummy was getting bigger and bigger
now and this was slowing him down more. He was also
getting up a lot at night and seemed to be having trouble
getting comfortable.
March had
now come around and Phil had a judging appointment in
Brisbane, his parents were due to arrive to stay
with us that night. When we arrived back from the
show I noticed that Guys legs were slightly swollen
mostly around his feet. The last few nights he was
very restless and having trouble getting a goodnight's
sleep. I knew things were not looking good.
Guy could not sleep at all that night, he just
stood beside the bed with his head resting on my
chest, he could not lay down. By morning the
oedema had travelled all the way up his legs and I knew
it was time.
Phil was
silent, we had prepared Guy's grave way back in
June, but when the moment had finally come around
it was not easy. Our local vet was wonderful,
I got Guy to lay on his side, he was so
tired, he gave him his release as I stroked his
head and said goodbye. We buried him in the garden
with the ashes of his old friend Wolfang who had died
back in August '93. We miss him terribly but we had
over a year of extra time with him and it was a good
quality of life he maintained right up until the
end. Rest in peace little Guy 1992-1995.
